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THE HALF SISTERS. 
 
 a Gale. 
 
 GEEALDINE ENDSOE JEWSBUEY, 
 
 AUTHOR OF *'Z0iV ET( -'- *' 
 
 CHEAP EDITION. 
 
 LONDON: 
 CHAPMAN AND HALL, 193, PICCADILLY. 
 
 1854. 
 
LONDON I 
 
 BRADBURY AND EVANS, PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS. 
 
JANE WELSH CAELTLE 
 
 AND 
 
 ELIZABETH NEWTON PATILET 
 
 THIS BOOK IS INSCRIBED, 
 BY THEIR AFFECTIONATE FRIEND, 
 
 GERALDINE ENDSOR JEWSBURY. 
 
 Green Heys, Manchester. 
 
 953*594 
 
THE HALF SISTERS. 
 
 % Eaie* 
 
 CHAPTEK L 
 
 Otf a bed, scantily hung with faded print, lay a woman 
 apparently in extreme suffering. A girl about sixteen stood over 
 the fire, carefully watching the contents of a small pan : at length 
 it seemed sufficiently prepared, and she poured it into a tea-cup, 
 and approaching the bed where the sick woman lay moaning and 
 restless, she addressed her in Italian, and endeavoured to raise 
 her up ; but the woman shook off her arms and hid her face 
 in the pillow, like a fretful child endeavouring to escape from 
 its nurse. 
 
 " Come, Mamma mia," said the girl, " I have made you some- 
 thing delicious, something you like very much, won't you eat it, 
 now I have got it ready with my own hands ? " 
 
 "No, no," said the sick woman, in a querulous tone, and 
 burying herself still more among the clothes, " I won't be teased ; 
 let me lie still, and then we will go and see him." 
 
 " See whom ? " asked the girl. 
 
 " Him whom we came to see — came from Italy to *ee, who will 
 take care of us, and never let us leave him. He will be glad to 
 see us ; it is so long, so long since we parted, and he has never 
 seen thee. I have nursed thee and kept away from him till thou 
 wert grown a beauty. I have kept away all these years to 
 surprise him at last, when thou wert grown tall and beautiful. 
 I should have died when he left me but for the hope of this ; and 
 now that I am so near him I feel frightened ; I dare not get up 
 and go to him, I should die with too much joy. All yesterday 
 I kept thinking, perhaps he will come here ; but I see he had 
 no presentiment to bring him ; I must go to him. See," she 
 
2 THE HALE SISTERS. 
 
 continued, chafing b pocket-book from nnder her pillow, "read 
 there, rend the^ I will ha^e no secrets from my child now." 
 
 •' Ls tlic-x any money in it ? " asked the girl. 
 
 u Yes, all I "have,"' replied the mother; "but no matter, he 
 has plenty, he always used to give me plenty, we shall want 
 nothing now, and we shall haye no more sorrow." 
 
 The girl looked anxiously at the contents of the pocket-book, 
 with which she had never before been intrusted ; she found some 
 old letters, a lock of light hair, an address written upon a card, and 
 about live shillings in money. 
 
 " Is this all ? asked she, anxiously. 
 
 " Yes, yes, but he has plenty; if this pain in my head would 
 only cease, I would get up ; but I cannot." 
 
 " Will you not take some of this nice arrow-root ? " said the 
 girl, coaxmgly. 
 
 " No, no, I tell you, but I will see Jiim presently." She then 
 fell off into a doze, moaning the whole time, and clutching the 
 bed-clothes with her long, thin fingers. 
 
 The little inn where they were staying was very noisy — bells 
 were ringing incessantly. There were callings for different indi- 
 viduals from the top to the bottom of the house, the tramping of 
 heavy feet along the passage, and up and down stairs. The 
 window of their room looked on to the stable-yard, and they could 
 hear the noise of the horses' feet, and the whistling of the ostlers ; 
 the smell of the stables ascended ; and an all-pervading odour of 
 tobacco and spirits made altogether an association of sound and 
 scent most irritating and oppressive. The sick woman had sunk 
 into a stupor, but still seemed obscurely sensible of the annoy- 
 ances around. 
 
 The girl first put the little room to rights, and then sat down at 
 the foot of the bed with a cup of milk and a slice of bread. She 
 had not sat long, before the doctor, who had been sent for early 
 in the morning, entered. He was a grave hard-looking man, with 
 cold indifferent manners ; and the appearance of poverty about the 
 room did not tend to give him any additional blandness. He 
 stepped at once to the bed-side, and rousing the patient, proceeded 
 to question her without much gentleness. 
 
 " How long is it since she was herself?" he asked abruptly of 
 ' the girl. She did not understand him. 
 
 " I mean," said he, " is she usually in her right senses ? " 
 
 The poor child, shocked and stunned by this horrible suspicion, 
 which entered her mind for the first time, could not reply. 
 
 " Come, come, I cannot wait here all day," said the doctor, 
 " I have other places to go to. Have you perceived your mother 
 growing childish ? because, though there is some fever, I don't see 
 that she is exactly delirious." 
 
 " She is not so sensible as she was at home ; she has seemed 
 changed since we came here — she will not get up nor be dressed. 
 I don't know what to make of her." 
 
THE HALF SISTERS. 3 
 
 " All well, young lady, it is as well you should be prepared for 
 the worst ; your mother will never be herself again, in my 
 opinion ; she seems quite weak in her intellect, and if you have 
 any friends, you had better communicate with them, for you are 
 too young to be left with such a charge. Just now she is overcome 
 with fatigue and excitement, but she is in no sort of danger. I 
 will see her again to-night, and send her a little medicine, which 
 you must give her regularly. Let her sleep as much as she will, 
 and keep her quiet. Grood morning to you.' , 
 
 As the door closed after him, the child sank on her knees beside 
 the bed, sick with fear. A horrible future had just disclosed itself 
 to her — her girlhood was strangled by this sudden fearful anxiety, 
 and the life curdled in her heart. All that had struck her as 
 strange in her mother's conduct, and which she had forborne to 
 question; attributing it to sorrow, was now revealed in its full 
 significance. All the complaints she had uttered about being 
 watched by enemies, and which had excited her daughter's 
 sympathy, now seemed a horrible confirmation of her fears ; and 
 when she recollected all her mother had that morning told her of 
 the vague motives which had brought them from home, and 
 thought of the slender means that remained to them, her heart 
 trembled and died within her. 
 
 She sat thus overwhelmed for several hours, during which she 
 became laden with as many years. At length, the heavy necessity 
 which had at first stunned her, acted as a stimulus ; besides, in 
 the deepest sorrow there is always a reaction towards hope. People 
 who are called to suffer much have always great elasticity of heart, 
 for without that it must give way and break. 
 
 " After all," thought she, " the person named in the address 
 may live near here, and may help us. Any way, he will put us 
 into the way of getting home, and once there I can work." 
 
 Her nature began to recover from the despondency in which 
 she had well nigh been overwhelmed. She began to rise to 
 the surface of her sorrow, instead of being plunged, lik/3 lead, 
 beneath it. 
 
 CHAPTEE II. 
 
 It was assize time, and the town of L was filled with 
 
 an inroad of visitors, witnesses, and barristers; every inn was 
 occupied, and more than occupied ; and very fastidious people at 
 other times were now glad to find accommodation in very second- 
 rate places. 
 
 The landlord of the " Blue Bell" was lounging at the door of 
 his small tavern, when he was accosted by a dashing-looking 
 
 b 2 
 
4 THE HALF SISTEBS. 
 
 4 
 
 youth, followed by a porter carrying a leathern portmanteau. 
 The landlord felt instinctively that he had been round the whole 
 town before coming to him, and therefore thought without dismay 
 on the one small back three-cornered chamber, which alone 
 remained untenanted. He knew it was the only one to be had in 
 the place. 
 
 " Happy to see you, sir — town very full — beds worth a guinea 
 a piece. Yes, sir, yes, by the most singular good fortune the 
 parties for whom I had orders to reserve it are unable to attend — ■ 
 only heard an hour ago, or would have been snapped up fifty 
 times. "Walk this way, sir ; a charming room, you see ! — a little 
 small or so, but a beautiful aspect." 
 
 The new-comer shrugged his shoulders. " "Well, well," said 
 he, "I suppose there will be a time when one ought to be thank- 
 ful to have a place in Purgatory. Will that window open ? " 
 
 V Yes, sir, that top pane swings back on a hinge, and will let 
 in a charming current of fresh air." 
 
 '" For Heaven's sake admit it, then, for I am half stilled. 
 Have you a sitting-room at liberty ? " 
 
 " Why no, sir, I am sorry to say they are all engaged ; still, if 
 you would not object, I think I could accommodate you. There 
 is a gentleman in the ' Sanded Parlour,' who, I am sure, will be 
 very glad to admit you to a share of it. He is a most respectable 
 man — comes here very often — I have known him for years. He 
 is the manager of a circus, and has a travelling company ; he has 
 just been to make some new engagements. He opens next in 
 Birmingham. Sometimes I've had half the troop, horses and all. 
 We would be glad of your company in the bar ; but the * Sanded 
 Parlour' is more comfortable." 
 
 The stranger yielded to his destiny, and allowed himself to be 
 conducted to the " Sanded Parlour." A man, apparently about 
 forty, a stout, coarse-looking, and rather pompous individual, in 
 a dark green cutaway coat, with a bright full stock, and showy 
 pin, stood with his back to the fire-place. 
 
 "Mr. Simpson," said the landlord, entering, "I have taken 
 the liberty to assure this gentleman that you will allow him to 
 join your company, as there is no other room at liberty." 
 
 "Certainly, sir, certainly; pray make yourself at home. 
 Assize time is like misery for making one acquainted with strange 
 bed-fellows — room -fellows, I should say — but it's all a matter of 
 no consequence." 
 
 The stranger bowed rather haughtily, and taking up a news- 
 paper which lay on the table, desired the landlord to let him have 
 a grilled fowl and tea directly. 
 
 The manager of the circus put his hands in his pocket, and 
 began to whistle to himself as he looked out of the window ; and 
 the young man sat turning over the old softened provincial news- 
 paper, whilst the sand crackled and grated under his feet every 
 time he moved, in a way to try the nerves even of people not 
 
THE HALF LISTERS. 5 
 
 particularly fastidious. He kept up a true* Englishman's silence, 
 and endeavoured to turn his share of the room into his castle, by 
 surrounding himself with an impassable moat of stiffness and 
 reserve. 
 
 The tea and grilled fowl made their appearance at last. The 
 landlord placed them on the table, but did not offer to withdraw, 
 in spite of the surprised and impatient looks of the young man. 
 
 u Mr. Simpson," said he, addressing the first occupant of the 
 room, " perhaps you will give me your opinion as to what I had 
 best do in a little matter that has just occurred. "When I went 
 out of the room just now, a young girl, who arrived here with her 
 mother three days ago, came to me in the bar, — not crying, but 
 quite pale and desperate like. She is from foreign parts, and it 
 was as much as I could do to make out what she said, though she 
 does speak English after a fashion. It seems her mother came 
 over to England in search of some relation, I suppose, but I 
 cannot just make out who or what. She had fceen in a queer 
 melancholy way, and since she came to England she has got 
 worse, and has now got a nervous fever or something ; and this 
 young thing, her daughter, came to me to tell me what I 
 suspected, namely, that their money has run short. She put 
 these gimcracks into my hands to sell, and asked me to help her 
 to some work. I could not help feeling sorry for the poor thing. 
 Her mother will never be any sort of protection to her, for the 
 doctor who was sent for to her, says she is quite childish. I feel 
 very sorry, for I had a daughter just that age myself once : but I 
 cannot keep them here when their money is all done ; a man must 
 live by the fruit of his labour, and I cannot afford to give mine 
 away. I thought, perhaps, you, sir, or this gentleman, might 
 understand her toiigue, and make out whether she has any 
 friends." 
 
 " What does she look like ? " said Mr. Simpson. 
 
 " She is rather dark-complexioned. I thought at first she 
 might have been a play-actor, for she made me understand by 
 her looks and actions I don't know how. If you happened to 
 have a place open in your company now, her fortune would be 
 made." 
 
 The younger stranger had paused from eating, and had put 
 down his paper to listen to this conversation. It was an adven- 
 ture he had not calculated upon, and he began to get stoical to 
 the gritty floor and the grinding of the table and , chairs when 
 they were moved. 
 
 " Can we see her, landlord ? " said he, " perhaps we may make 
 out something." 
 
 The landlord retired, and in a few minutes returned, leading 
 in a young girl of about sixteen, in a black silk dress, high to the 
 throat, and the folds confined with a band round the waist. She 
 had the unformed undeveloped figure of a girl, but her face was 
 full of beauty — large liquid grey eyes, that looked with an intent 
 
6 THE HALF SISTEES. 
 
 and earnest meaning beyond her years; a profusion of hair, of 
 that blueish black, so rarely seen, was twisted round her head 
 and fell in tresses over her neck ; her face was deeply flushed as 
 she entered the room, but there was a composed reserve in her 
 manner. 
 
 , " Tell these gentlemen," said the landlord, " all you have been 
 saying to me, and may be they will help you." 
 
 The young girl seemed to nerve herself by an inward effort. 
 The young stranger addressed a few words of Italian to her — 
 her eyes flashed with pleasure — poor child, it was as if she had 
 already found a friend ! She spoke quietly and slowly, and told 
 him that her mother, who had for several years been in a feeble 
 state, both of body and mind, was haunted with a desire to come 
 to England, and had hoarded up every farthing she could get ; 
 but that her uncle, with whom they lived in a small sea-port, had 
 always watched her carefully to prevent her leaving the house ; 
 that he died a few weeks back, and then her mother seemed 
 suddenly to rally her faculties and bodily strength, — disposed of 
 the property her uncle had left ; took a passage for herself and 
 daughter in a sailing vessel to England — to see a friend, she told 
 her daughter, who would provide for them both ; but that, since 
 leaving the vessel, she had become more imbecile every day, and 
 now, from fatigue and excitement, was too ill to leave her 
 bed. The child's voice slightly quivered as she said this; but 
 she recovered herself, and said she was very anxious to get some 
 work, as there would be much to pay before she could get back 
 home. ' 
 
 "What is the name of this friend of your mother's, my poor 
 
 The child handed him a soiled and crumpled card, on which 
 was written, 
 
 "Phillip Helmsby, 
 . . " Messrs. Helmsby and Co. 
 
 "Iron Masters, Newcastle." 
 
 He handed it to the landlord, who shook his head. 
 
 "Phillip Helmsby," said he, "has been dead these two years, 
 his wife and daughter have left these parts, and the Works have 
 passed into other hands." 
 - " What does he say ? " asked the girl, anxiously. • 
 
 The stranger repeated it in Italian. The child clasped her 
 hands in an agony of despair — she did not know herself how 
 much she had hoped. 
 
 "Yery good, indeed!" said the manager, "that attitude is 
 very effective. Do you know any one else ?" 
 
 She shook her head, and seemed quite stupified with what she 
 had just heard. 
 
 "Tell me what I must do?" said she, appealingly to the 
 stranger* 
 
THE HALF SISTEHS. 7, 
 
 "'Faith, that's more than I know," said he, in English, to his 
 companions. " What are we to do with the poor thing? There 
 seems nothing wrong." 
 
 The landlord, who had been considering for some time, said at 
 length, 
 
 " Well, it's a queer business, but my mind misgives me terribly. 
 When Phillip Helmsby came home from foreign parts, on the 
 death of the old gentleman, there was talk of some beautiful lady 
 he had left behind, and it was said by some he would marry her, 
 but he took the partner's daughter and a mine of money instead ; 
 that girl has a trick of Phillip Kelmsby's face, — I could not think 
 who she reminded me of. I have seen him many's the time a a he 
 passed through the town. It would not surprise me if the poor 
 thing upstairs had given them the slip at home and come to seek 
 him. Ah, Phillip was a wild one before he married, and there's 
 no saying what he had to answer for." 
 
 Whilst the landlord was piecing out his romance, Mr. Simpson 
 was coming to a resolution. Clearing his voice, he turned to the 
 stranger : 
 
 " Tell her," said he, "that I am manager of the Birmingham 
 Circus — a man well known, and, I may say, respected. I want a 
 female who can act in dumb show ; and if she will agree to come 
 with me, I will give her ten shillings a-week and teach her her 
 business beside. She shall be a regular member of my company, 
 and draw her salary weekly ; it's more than she's worth now, but 
 she will improve and be useful, and she may work it out then. I 
 don't want to be hard on her, as she will have her mother to keep. 
 She may do on ten shillings, as I shall find her in stage clothes, 
 and those Italians can live on nothing." 
 
 When the offer was repeated to the girl she could scarce find 
 words to express her gratitude, but the eloquence of her looks and 
 gestures quite satisfied the manager that he had made a good 
 bargain. 
 
 The stranger took out his purse, and counting out five sove- 
 reigns, he put them into her hand, telling her their value in 
 English money. 
 
 "By what name may I pray for you ? " said she. 
 
 " Conrad Percy," said he ; " and you, how are you called ? " 
 
 "Bianca Pazzi," replied she; "there is no danger of my 
 forgetting you," and raising his hand to her lips, and curtseying 
 to the others, she left the room. 
 
 "Give the poor thing her trinkets back, Mr. Landlord," said 
 Percy, " and tell me what her bill is likely to be." 
 
 The landlord in the warmth of his heart had the moment 
 previously been on the point of declaring he would charge her 
 nothing, but this offer from one who seemed able to afford it was 
 too great a temptation. Still he tried to keep up the appearance 
 of a virtue. 
 
 "As good deeds seem the order of the day, I will let you off 
 
8 THE HALF SISTEBS. 
 
 very easy, though, as I said before, beds, just now, are worth 
 gold, and there has been no end of running about after these 
 people — still right is right, and I can do a kind thing as well as 
 my neighbours, so we will say fifteen shillings for both board and 
 lodging. " 
 
 Conrad threw down a sovereign, and bidding the landlord give 
 her the difference, ordered his own bill, saying he should start 
 early the next morning. 
 
 When left alone with the manager he said, 
 
 ' ' I feel confident, sir, that every care will be taken of that poor 
 girl, to see she comes to no harm ; and if ever she needs a friend 
 there is my card. I assure you I feel deeply interested in her." 
 
 Conrad was very young, and there was something pleasant to 
 his sense of manliness as well as his good nature in standing 
 forward as the friend of a pretty little girl. 
 
 ( ( My good sir," replied the manager, pompously, " you are very 
 young, indeed ; almost a boy ; and at your age, men ought to be 
 all faith in the good side of human nature ; but I know the world, 
 and have left off expecting any good from it. Still the girl seems 
 a good girl enough, modest and all that, but there's no saying 
 what she may turn out, — women are such jades! Bless you, I 
 could tell you such stories, — but that's neither here nor there ; 
 the feelings you have shown do credit to your heart, and I will 
 keep my eye upon her, so that if she goes wrong it shall not be 
 for want of the best of good counsel. If ever you come to 
 Birmingham I hope you will inquire for me. I am pretty well 
 known; my company is most talented, and my stud of horses 
 wonderful. I always seek for genius wherever I can find it, and 
 do justice to it; and no doubt our young protegee will become 
 illustrious in time ; ' but it takes a deal of time to polish up a 
 reputation, and there is much to- learn, for ours is a profession, 
 sir, to which people must be born, as one may say, and yet they 
 have never done learning it." 
 
 Mr. Simpson would willingly have treated his hearer to a 
 dissertation on " High Art," but luckily for Conrad the landlord 
 entered with his bill; he was glad to escape, and, taking up a 
 bed-candle, desired he might be called in time for the early coach. 
 Mr. Simpson stretched out his hand with an elaborate friendliness, 
 and said, " Farewell, my dear sir, rely on me that our interesting 
 prot6gee shall have every justice done her. We shall see each 
 other again, and talk of this remarkable evening; good night, 
 and farewell, my very dear sir." 
 
 He looked at the card as soon as he was gone, and read — 
 " Conrad Percy, St. John's College, Cambridge." 
 
 
THE HALF SISTERS. 
 
 CHAPTEE III. 
 
 In an extremely neat sitting-room, without one particle of taste 
 visible in the arrangement of the grave substantial furniture, sat 
 the wife and daughter of the late Phillip Helmsby of Newcastle, 
 engaged on a large piece of household needlework. A bookcase, 
 filled with books of uniform size and binding, stood in a recess by 
 the fire-place ; but none were lying about. An engraving of the 
 Princess Charlotte, and another of her husband, hung against one 
 of the walls; some ornaments of oldrfashioned Dresden china, 
 little Cupids with blue scarfs, and pots of roses, stood on the 
 chimney-piece, marshalled at equal distances on each side of a 
 plain time-piece. All the chairs stood in their lawful places 
 against the wall ; none of those idle, lounging, pretty inventions 
 for being comfortable, encumbered this singularly prosaic-looking 
 room. A brisk fire in a shining black grate was the only thing 
 that did not seem subdued down to the level of the presiding 
 spirit of decorum. A blotting-book, and an inkstand upon it, 
 stood on a table in the centre of the room ; and at a small work- 
 table by the window sat the two ladies, with a large wicker 
 pannier full of " mending " between them. 
 
 The elder lady was a plump, composed, grave matron, with a 
 pair of large round black eyes, which looked on everything 
 and saw everything, but had the peculiar faculty of giving no 
 indication of what was passing within. She was dressed with 
 scrupulous exactness, in a black silk gown, and a net cap with 
 lilac ribbons ; her complexion was rather fair, and her features 
 delicate, yet it would be difficult to say whether she was good- 
 looking or not. The younger figure was a slight drooping girl 
 about fourteen ; her hair was braided under her small and 
 beautiful ears ; she was not exactly pretty, but she had soft 
 lustrous eyes, and all her features expressed delicacy and sweet- 
 ness. She appeared a docile, gentle creature ; and an expression 
 of earnest, though immature intellect, shone on her countenance. 
 On seeing the two together, the first impression was of wonder, 
 how characters so different could be mother and daughter. After 
 being for some time diligently occupied with her work, the young 
 lady exclaimed, with vivacity: " There, thank Heaven! this 
 tedious work is finished at last. I have taken the last stitch, and 
 now one can go out ; it is quite a sin to be in the house such a 
 beautiful day." 
 
 " Alice ! ' said her mother, in a dry, precise tone, " how often 
 am I to tell you that those strong expressions are highly unbe- 
 coming in a young woman ; it is extremely wrong in you to have 
 such a distaste for useful occupation. What have you to expect 
 all your life ? If you marry, and become the mistress of a family, 
 
10 THE HALF SISTEES. 
 
 you will find yourself wofully deficient; but, indeed, what 
 prudent man would ever think twice of such a fiighty young 
 woman ? I have long felt uneasy at your way of going on : 
 every day more and more neglect of your duties, more and more 
 dislike to the sober-minded condition of life in which you are 
 placed. Your life will be domestic ; you are neither to be 
 a fashionable woman nor an authoress ; therefore your excessive 
 devotion to books and accomplishments will bring no useful 
 results, but only unfit you for your duties, and fill your mind 
 with fancies. I quite looked forward to your coming home from 
 school to be a comfort and companion to me ; but I am sorry to 
 say I find you neither one nor the other." 
 
 "Dear mamma!" said Alice, with the tears springing to 
 her eyes. 
 
 " Yes, my dear, you may look, and you may say 'dear mamma,' 
 but what I tell you is true. You do all I tell you, no doubt ; 
 but then you appear to take no interest in anything ; you seem 
 to care nothing for the house, nor for my troubles with the 
 servants; you don't see after them; and though you do just 
 what plain work is wanted, you do nothing as if you liked it. 
 And as to being a companion to me, I might as well talk to a 
 stone — except, indeed, that you make a contemptuous face, and 
 look as if I, your mother, bored you to death ! And then, to see 
 how you behave to the people who come to the house. There is 
 good Mrs. Jones, for instance, you almost, insulted her only last 
 night. " 
 
 "Because," said Alice, "she is both vulgar and impertinent: 
 perhaps I could have stood that, but it put me out of all patience 
 to hear the malicious construction she put on Miss Grally's 
 marriage." 
 
 "Well," said her mother, tartly, "and what gives you the 
 right, I should like to know, of setting yourself up in judgment 
 against your elders, picking and choosing what you like, and 
 what does not meet your fancy ? By the way, I paid eightpence 
 for a letter for you this morning — who was it from ? " 
 
 "My old governess, Mrs. Hunt," replied Alice. 
 
 " It is very good of her to take so much trouble about you," 
 said her mother, in a slightly discontented tone. " Where is it ? 
 Let me see it." 
 
 Alice handed the letter to her mother, feeling, she hardly knew 
 why, that she would rather not have shown it. 
 
 " Well, it is a very nice sensible letter ; and it is all quite right 
 for Mrs. f Hunt, who keeps a school, and whose bread it is, so to 
 speak, to talk to you about improving yourself, and keeping up 
 your studies ; but I wish now that you are from under her care, 
 she would say something about your duty of attending to your 
 domestic concerns, and your useful employments. You have done 
 with your school-books now, and though I do not object to your 
 practising an hour a day — nor to keeping up your drawing, if you 
 
THE HALF SISTEES. 11 
 
 would only make it practical, and paint me some screens for my 
 drawing-room, or a cabinet for the library, or a chess-table, or 
 something that would be really useful — yet you spend all your 
 time in sketching from nature, and never making them into 
 finished drawings by mounting them on card-board — so that one 
 might have a portfolio to show one's friends ; the other night I 
 was quite ashamed to have nothing but your school drawings to 
 show the vicar's lady, and you refused to let her see what you 
 have been working at all by yourself. And then you sang, as I 
 never heard you sing before, as if we were all fools together, and 
 not good enough for you to keep company with." 
 
 Alice remained quite silent, for she felt there was some justice 
 in her mother's complaint ; in a few minutes, however, she said, 
 
 "You told me to remind you about calling on Mrs. Haslitt; 
 would not to-day be a good day, as it is so fine r " 
 
 "That is not so badly thought of," said her mother; "but 
 mind you make yourself look very nice, for you are growing quite 
 a sloven, and Mrs. Haslitt is a most particular person. I shall 
 ask her where she gets her groceries ; I shall deal no longer with 
 Bradkin, his tea is very bad." 
 
 Alice left the room, and soon returned duly arrayed to her 
 mother's satisfaction, who speedily joined her in all the dowager 
 dignity of a Chantilly veil and a velvet cloak, trimmed with, 
 sable. 
 
 CHAPTEE IV. 
 
 Phillip Helmsby, the father of both Alice and Bianca, was 
 the son of an extensive iron-master in the neighbourhood of 
 Newcastle. When quite a young man, his father sent him to 
 Genoa on business connected with the house, and whilst there, 
 he became passionately enamoured of a beautiful Italian girl, 
 the daughter of the friends in whose family he lived. He 
 endeavoured to obtain her hand in marriage, but both families 
 raised a storm of objections — his father would not hear of a Papist 
 for a daughter-in-law, nor would her father consent to her 
 marrying a heretic. Whilst the heads of each family were thus 
 contending on points of orthodoxy, the young lovers took matters 
 into their own hands. The girl, a passionate Italian, had loved 
 the young Englishman before she saw any sign of its being 
 returned, and she had wearied the Madonna with prayers that the 
 heart of him she loved might become hers. 
 
 Prayer is the great consolation of men in religion ; but it is a 
 mercy that the hearing and granting of it is placed in the hands 
 of the Highest, and quite beyond man's control, — for who can 
 look back on his past life without trembling, when he thinks on 
 
12 THE HALF SISTERS. 
 
 the mad and fatal petitions he has offered up, and reflects on what 
 must have been his destiny had they been granted ! 
 
 The prayer of the young Italian was apparently heard, — for the 
 one she loved declared his love for her, and in the wild, almost 
 fearful, joy she felt, she made offerings at all the shrines of the 
 Yirgin in Grenoa. 
 
 "When the opposition to which we have alluded was raised, she 
 hesitated not, but gave herself to her lover without the sanction 
 of either her parents or the church. She loved him with a 
 ^passionate entireness which prevented her feeling any sense of 
 shame or degradation- — she iled from her home and joined her 
 lover at Leghorn, whither his father's mandate had removed him. 
 They lived together for about a year and a half, nobody taking 
 much heed of them. She was a wild-hearted gifted creature, 
 with all good qualities except common sense — the only virtue that 
 in this world brings any sort of practical reward along with it. 
 She lost sight of herself altogether, idolising him, and all that 
 belonged to him — seeing nothing as it really happened to be, but 
 everything as it ought to have been. 
 
 "When a woman loves with an engrossing passion, and is by 
 nature entirely ungifted with coquetry, it is ten chances to one 
 but that in a very short time she becomes a great bore to the man 
 on whom she bestows it. The abandon becomes in time an 
 insupportable burden, for she throws herself on her lover with all 
 the confiding weight of helplessness. 
 
 The Italian was too much engrossed with her own affection to 
 consider the appearance and becomingness of things; — the 
 relations between men and women in this world will not stand 
 too much reality being heaped upon them. A morbid love of 
 power in the shape of cruelty lies at the bottom of every human 
 heart; and when either a man or woman is invested with 
 absolute dominion over the happiness of another, that very 
 instant, " like tares sown by the Evil One," comes the inclination 
 to tyrannise. 
 
 This young Italian had beauty, genius, generosity, and a whole 
 mine of precious things in her character, not scientifically 
 balanced, but poured out in lavish profusion on her English lover, 
 whose slower nature seemed to provoke her to still more abounding 
 love, in order to quicken him to her own intensity. She was 
 utterly unconscious of the magnitude of all the sacrifices she had 
 niade, and lived on, enwrapped in a fiery element of love and 
 ' devotedness. 
 
 At the end of about eighteen months his father died, and he 
 was re-called to England to settle the affairs of the partnership. 
 
 The parting was vehement and passionate on both sides ; he 
 left her, promising to return in a few months and carry her to 
 England and make her his wife — and he was quite in earnest at 
 the time he promised ; but, though he would not own it, yet in 
 his secret heart he had begun somewhat to weary of this 
 
THE HALF SISTEKS. 13 
 
 passionate love. He was an Englishman after all, and loved 
 (jnietness. 
 
 Arrived at home, all the complicated affairs of the partnership 
 had to he gone into. The three months were of necessity 
 lengthened into six — into twelve. The real work that now 
 devolved upon him made his Italian life seem dreamy and 
 childish ; — and after all, getting money does seem to the natural 
 man of more importance than love, however desperate. Several 
 long journeys had to he taken, and his acquaintance with the 
 continental languages devolved them upon him. 
 
 Love can only thrive in idleness, and he was overwhelmed with 
 "business from morning till night ; whilst the skill necessary for 
 carrying out extensive operations, the calculation, the foresight 
 needed, and a large number of workmen to control, all contributed 
 to blot out his Italian dream. 
 
 Then, too, he felt the incongruity there was between the smoky 
 dingy town in the neighbourhood of which he was obliged to 
 reside — the stolid, hard, all-engrossed men amongst whom he was 
 thrown ; men with no idea of literature beyond a newspaper, or 
 the monthly part of a novel, which they bought just as much 
 because it seemed a good amount for their shilling as for the tale 
 — and the beautiful country, elegant environs, and the lovely 
 creature he had left behind. Whilst he shrank from inflicting 
 such a lot upon her, he regretted that a mad passion and the 
 facility of Italian life had seduced him into entailing such an 
 embarrassing tie upon himself — then, too, she was a Catholic, a 
 word of abomination as great as that of Socialist. 
 
 The memory of his mistress became gradually divested of its 
 most winning attributes; he began to fancy her a passionate, 
 fantastic, wayward child, who would bring ridicule upon him ; in 
 short, he had already had as much love as one man can stand 
 in a lifetime, and had begun to feel the charm of getting 
 money. 
 
 She, on her part, used to write him passionate love-burning 
 letters — all her days were passed in dreams of his return, and 
 there was one secret which she kept to tell him until he wrote to 
 fix the joyful day for rejoining her. She had never brought him 
 a living child ; when he left her, she was not herself aware that 
 there was a prospect of her becoming a mother ; when she did 
 become conscious of it, she did not tell him, lest the disappoint- 
 ment which had once before been theirs should happen again ; 
 and afterwards, she determined to keep her secret till he 
 announced his return. 
 
 That announcement never came ; — before twelve months had 
 elapsed, he had grown weary and impatient of his position, and 
 determined to make an end one way or the other. He opened his 
 case to his elder partner, a kind-hearted man, much esteemed for 
 his sound judgment-iind solidity of character. 
 
 No satisfactory result ever comes of either giving or taking 
 
 kX 
 
14 THE HALF SISTERS. 
 
 advice. "What in one man would be a wise and natural mode of 
 conduct, in another, even in similar circumstances, is forced, hard, 
 and altogether unsuitable. So every man would do well to follow 
 his own sincere instinct ; that which in his inmost soul he feels it 
 right to do. When a man asks advice on a point of right or 
 wrong, there is a warp, a bias, towards which he desires to be 
 impelled, and he asks counsel for the sake of lessening his own 
 responsibility. So it was with Phillip Helmsby. 
 
 His partner was too much a man of the world to be scandalised, 
 but he thought it his duty to persuade him to give up a dangerous 
 connexion, likely in all ways to compromise his respectability ; 
 and Phillip Helmsby ended by fancying himself a victim to 
 necessity, and endeavouring to think that there was as much 
 kindness to her, as consideration for himself, in what he was 
 about to do. 
 
 He wrote, to tell her that he could not bring her to England : — 
 it was a letter just to drive the person mad to whom it was 
 addressed, whilst a third party seeing it, would have declared it 
 an excellent, kind, reasonable letter. There it is ! If there be 
 one thing more utterly insupportable than another in this world, 
 it is to receive reasonableness and kindness at the hands of one 
 from whom we expect love, given as a substitute for love. Poor 
 Theresa, not being a reasonable woman, never attempted to reply 
 to this letter. A handsome sum of money was paid to an Italian 
 banker for her use, and her brother, who resided in a small 
 Italian seaport, took her to live with him. Her child was about 
 two months old ; when the letter came, it had been named Bianca ; 
 and now her whole idea seemed to be to bring it up carefully and 
 to carry it to England to claim its father, when it should be old 
 enough. This idea kept her from destroying herself in the first 
 frenzy of her grief — but her faculties gradually declined ; the 
 memory of her desertion died away ; and the idea of taking the 
 little Bianca to its father filled her heart alone. 
 
 Phillip Helmsby knew nothing of all this; perhaps, had he 
 done so, he might have acted differently — but there is no telling. 
 
 As it was, in about six months after he had broken with the 
 Italian, he lawfully married his partner's daughter, with a large 
 fortune ; a very well conducted young lady, and one not at all 
 likely to weary him with any passionate demonstrations ; but she 
 was a clever housekeeper, and kept his establishment in excellent 
 style. 
 
 He became a patron of the arts, and filled his house with 
 pictures, statues, and objects of vertu. Although his wife was 
 proud of having her house a show-place, yet that hardly counter- 
 balanced the plague of keeping so much " ornamental furniture," 
 as she called it, in order. She was not an unkind woman, but 
 she had an intensely prosaical heart ; however, as we said, Phillip 
 Helmsbjr had had enough of passionate love, and he thought his 
 wife a very sensible woman. 
 
THE HALF SISTERS. 15 
 
 They had only one child, Alice, and in her the father's heart 
 was centred. She stood "beside him like the hest part of his life ; 
 she seemed to him the ideal of all he had ever dreamed, himself 
 M in finer clay ; " the child, a sweet endearing little thing, was 
 passionately attached to him ; and this legitimate tie kept his 
 mind from ever wandering towards poor Theresa. He did not 
 live long, , Jiowever, for he died rather suddenly, when Alice was 
 about twelve years old. 
 
 By his will, his wife and her father were constituted his 
 daughter's guardians. All his collection of books, pictures, &c, 
 were sold and dispersed, except a few of inferior value, and some 
 books which she thought might be useful as her daughter 
 grew up. 
 
 The Works, too, were disposed of, and Mrs. Helmsby and her 
 daughter went to reside in a large manufacturing town, where she 
 had some relations. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Itf spite of all that has been said about the happiness of child- 
 hood, of its being a recollection of the better world from which 
 we came forth, it is to many a most purgatorial entrance into 
 life; and to them, a return to a state of childhood would be 
 more dreaded than any Hindoo or Egyptian transmigration. 
 
 The childhood of Alice had not been a happy one. There had 
 been no positive unkindness ; but children do not understand the 
 value of what we call solid comforts ; kind words, smiling looks, 
 sympathy with their little pains and pleasures, are ail they 
 understand ; a harsh word, or chiding tone conveys more pain 
 than a grown person can understand. 
 
 Alice had always been a singular child, and her father's death 
 had thrown her altogether in the hands of persons quite unable to 
 understand or train a child of her disposition. She was not 
 clever ; never said or did any of those precocious wonderful things 
 mothers are so proud of repeating; she was always a quiet, 
 thoughtful, dreaming child ; she never desired companions of her 
 own age, but delighted in playing by herself ; she would sit for 
 hours under the shadow of a tree, watching the green light 
 stream through its branches ; she would leave any play she was 
 engaged in to creep to the window- seat in the nursery, there 
 to watch the sun set, firmly believing it was the gate of heaven ; 
 she would sit gazing at the changing light, and the large 
 stars suddenly starting into sight on the confines of the dim 
 orange -coloured mist, and the dark, clear, crystalline blue of the 
 coming night, and the moon growing gradually more clear as the 
 
16 THE HALF SISTERS. 
 
 daylight died out, till her large blue eyes dilated with awe, and 
 she grew frightened at being alone, and yet did not dare to 
 venture out of her recess, but sat with a sort of pleased terror, 
 until her nurse broke the spell by carrying her off to bed ; nor 
 would she sleep unless the blinds were all drawn up, in order that 
 when it was moonlight, she might see the quiet, mysterious light 
 pour a flood of radiance through the room, and the shadows of the 
 tall trees tossing about on the walls. 
 
 As she grew older, she was haunted by a sense of hidden 
 meaning in all she saw, and was baffled and perplexed in her 
 weak endeavours to understand more than was seen. The common 
 tasks she was set to learn, seemed to have a spirit she could not 
 seize, and this bewildered her, and kept her from attaining the 
 common cleverness of most children ; but there was a constant 
 striving after something not set down, which the lessons did not 
 express, but seemed to contain. 
 
 When she was at play, her doll-bonnets of leaves, her chains 
 of rushes, dust gardens, and pebble houses, were really clumsy 
 compared with those of her companions ; but there was a feeling, 
 a striving after some meaning she could not express, which mado 
 a difference between her work and theirs. 
 
 One fine moonlight night, her nurse coming softly into the 
 nursery, overheard her praying to the moon " to take her up 
 there, it looked so beautiful ; " and when the orthodox nurse, 
 much scandalised, told her she was worse than a heathen, she 
 said she "had always been told to pray for what she wanted, and 
 then Grod would give it her, and she wanted to live in the moon- 
 light or the sunset for ever ! " 
 
 When she grew a little older, her mother sent her to a 
 boarding-school, in the hope she would grow more like other 
 children. The regular employment and constant bustle of being 
 with twenty other young people, seemed for awhile to deaden her 
 vague dreamy fancies — the spirit of emulation was roused, and 
 she became very ambitious to excel her companions ; but when, 
 after a few years, she had worked her way to be considered the 
 first in the school, the commonness and insignificance of what she 
 had done suddenly struck her ; she felt ashamed of having been 
 so much excited in pursuit of a prize for attaining a knowledge 
 only a little less imperfect than that of her companions ; she felt 
 disgusted and dissatisfied ; a sense of baffled effort depressed and 
 distressed her ; and none of those around her could understand 
 the vague, undefined, restless aspirations that filled her heart. 
 No one could speak a word to direct her towards an object worthy 
 of her. 
 
 Her mother withdrew her from school before she was quite 
 fourteen, in order that she might learn to be useful, and not get 
 her head stuffed too full of book-learning, which never did a 
 woman any good yet. 
 
 From the specimen we have given our readers, they may judge 
 
THE HALE SISTEKS. 17 
 
 of the extremely unpromising aspect of her condition at home. 
 Indeed, whether she or her poor unknown half-sister, Bianca, 
 were in the worst position for all that regards real help and 
 training for the lifetime opening hefore each, it would be hard to 
 say. God is good and life is strong. 
 
 CHAPTEE VI. 
 
 It was not till live days after her meeting with the manager 01 
 
 the circus, that Bianca and her mother arrived in B , on the 
 
 top of the heavy stage. Her mother was quite unable to travel ; 
 and they had been detained at the inn ; till, what between the 
 doctor, and the expenses of their prolonged stay, Bianca' s reserve 
 fund of five sovereigns was reduced, when she had paid the 
 coach fare, to one. The landlord, however, gave her some 
 refreshment for the journey, and a bottle of home-made wine for 
 her mother ; and also recommended her to the care of the guard, 
 who promised to give an eye to her when they got to B . 
 
 In this world men cannot resist the temptation of making 
 money when they have an opportunity, or turning aside from a 
 bargain ; but there is a great deal of good nature for all that. 
 The landlord's conscience smote him for taking anything from the 
 poor friendless child, but it was in the way of his trade, and he 
 could not help it ; still he tried to justify himself, by giving her 
 some scraps of food for the journey, and a recommendation to the 
 ostler, a friend of his, at the inn where the coach stopped, 
 begging him to see her into honest lodgings : so, on the whole, 
 perhaps Bianca fared quite as well as if the landlord of the " Blue 
 Bell" had strained his generosity by going contrary to his habits, 
 and had let her off without further charge than the bill already 
 discharged by Conrad ; — for we all know that when we feel con- 
 strained to do a good deed rather beyond our strength, our soul 
 is, as it were, half-choked in the attempt to swallow it, and, 
 instead of feeling nourished and refreshed, and experiencing 
 that sense of satisfaction which is said to be the accompaniment 
 of good deeds, a fit of splenetic humour is generally the actual 
 result, a sort of sulky protest against our conscience, for being 
 so exigt-ante, and there is not a scrap or a remnant of good-nature 
 left for the accidental need of the occasion. So, as we said, it 
 was quite as well for Bianca, considering she was a child and 
 a stranger, and going unprotected to a large town, that the 
 landlord's generosity expanded in what was to cost no money — he 
 took some trouble and great credit for it, as it was ever after to 
 figure as one of the benevolent incidents of his life. 
 
 They arrived without accident at B , where the coach was 
 
 c 
 
18 THE HALE SISTERS* 
 
 to put up for the night. The guard put Bianca and her mother 
 inside the coach, and told them to sit there till he could attend 
 to them. 
 
 Bianca, who had entertained a vague idea that as soon as she 
 
 arrived at B all her difficulties would be at an end, felt her 
 
 heart sink at the sight of all the strange faces and the crowded 
 streets, which she contemplated from the coach windows as the 
 weary minutes passed away. Her mother had been persuaded to 
 
 come to B , by the assurance that he she sought was gone 
 
 there ; and now she was eagerly looking at every passer by, in the 
 hope of seeing him. At length a vague terror seized the hitherto 
 brave-hearted girl; she seemed suddenly to realise the forlorn, 
 desolate state she was in ; she fancied her only acquaintance, the 
 guard, had gone away and forgotten her; and what between 
 fright, fatigue, and the reaction of the excitement of the last few 
 days, she gave way, and burst into tears. Her mother did 
 not perceive it ; she was watching them light the lamps in the 
 street. 
 
 At length the guard came to the'door of the coach, saying: — 
 "Well, did you think I had forgotten you? I have been rather 
 long ; but, come, come, we must have no crying, that will never 
 do; it never helped a body — you must keep up a good heart. 
 See, this is the ostler you brought the letter to — not that he can 
 read it, but I have explained all about you, and he thinks, if 
 so be you won't mind mounting a few steps, he has a room in his 
 own house you could have. Come, wipe up your eyes, and let us 
 be walking. I'll see you safe myself before I leave you." 
 
 The guard had been refreshing himself with hot brandy- and - 
 water, and he was in a very comfortable, good-natured frame of 
 mind. There are so many more accidental things in this world 
 than premeditated ones ! He flung away the end of his cigar as 
 he spoke, and lifted Bianca out of the coach. 
 
 " So this be the young woman," said the ostler, holding his 
 lantern to her face, ' ' and that there her mother, I take it. Well, 
 I reckon, if they can make themselves content, we can take them 
 in. Where are their traps ?" 
 
 Swinging the small trunk upon his shoulder, he began to 
 stride along; Bianca, the guard, and her mother following. 
 After walking some distance, they came into an old-fashioned 
 narrow street, out of which they turned into a court, and at the 
 top of the court they stopped before a tolerably decent house ; the 
 door stood half open ; a clean, tidy-looking woman, in a blue bed- 
 gown and a check apron, was laying a cloth on a round table, 
 and a flying-pan was on the tire, steaming and spluttering 
 forth savoury odours. She seemed disconcerted at the sight of 
 so many. 
 
 "Well, missis," said the ostler, entering, "do you think as 
 how ' we can do with these here two ladies to lodge up stairs ? 
 Mr. Smith, the ' Blue Bell,' sent them to me." 
 
THE HALF SISTEES. 10 
 
 The woman looked very cross, but said : " I reckon they may, 
 if they're not too grand; but a decent single man would pay 
 better, and be only half the trouble. But lor, Mr. Simms, who 
 thought of seeing you here ? I am sure if they are friends of 
 yours, we will be happy to take them." 
 
 The good-looking guard was the ostler's grandest acquaintance, 
 and his appearance softened matters wonderfully. 
 
 <( Iam sure they can be nowhere better than with you, ma'am," 
 replied the guard. 
 
 Placing her frying-pan on the hearth, she took up the candle 
 and showed the way up stairs. The room to be let was at the top 
 of the house ; it contained a single bed with blue check curtains, 
 a couple of chairs, and a small table ; there was a fire-place, and 
 on the mantle-shelf stood, by way of ornament, two rude plaster 
 images, painted as gorgeously as Indian idols ; there was a pot of 
 flowers in the window-place, and the walls had not lost all trace 
 of whitewash; on the whole, there was an air of comfort and 
 decency about it, not common in that class of houses. 
 
 "Now, young woman," said the ostler, "I don't want you to 
 be imposed upon by no means ; if you conclude to take this here 
 room, you will pay eighteen pence a week; and if you think 
 it too much, you are free to seek another, but any way, you had 
 best stay here to-night." 
 
 " You might go further and fare worse," said the guard. 
 " You had best make a bargain; eighteen pence is not out of the 
 way." 
 
 M I want to take no advantage, it's what we get for it." 
 
 Bianca, who had great difficulty in comprehending the strong 
 Warwickshire dialect, signified she would be glad to stay there, 
 and, at the direction of the guard, paid the first week's rent 
 in advance ; on which the woman began to have a better opinion 
 of the speculation, asked her to sit by her fire down stairs, and 
 inquired what she would like to eat. A small packet of tea and 
 sugar being amongst Bianca' s stores, she made her a comfortable 
 cup of tea ; and in less than an hour Bianca and her mother had 
 taken possession of their new abode, and were both sleeping as 
 soundly as fatigue could make them. 
 
 Bianca was up betimes the next morning, and after dressing her 
 mother, and getting breakfast, she asked the woman to direct her 
 to Mr. Simpson, the manager of the circus. This did not seem to 
 augur too well to the woman, who looked very suspiciously as she 
 gave the necessary information. 
 
 Fortunately, she had not far to go, and without much difficulty, 
 she found the house where he and his wife lodged. JRVith a 
 beating heart she knocked at the door, and was admitted T0 where 
 they were at breakfast. 
 
 ""Well, my girl, so you are come at last, are you? How 
 comes it you are so long after time? It has been very incon- 
 venient this delay. I have had to keep back the new piece, and 
 
 c 2 
 
20 THE HALE SISTEHS. 
 
 if you had "been one day later, I must have filled up your place, 
 and then what would you have done ?" 
 
 Bianca explained that her mother's state of health had made it 
 impossible for her to travel sooner. 
 
 This, the manager knew was very likely ; hut he had. got so 
 much into the habit of not believing the excuses of any member of 
 his troop, that, from mere force of habit, he said : — ■ 
 
 "Well, well, no doubt you have plenty of excuses; I have 
 only to do with the fact ; you are after your time, and you 
 understand that, if I chose, I should have the right to cancel your 
 engagement ; however, you must mind better another time ; 
 recollect, always, I am punctual to a second. Nothing to be done 
 without it in our line." 
 
 He spoke in a sharp, bullying tone, not from any unkindness or 
 ill-temper, but because he had got into the habit of shouting both 
 to his people and his horses ; and he was obliged to be peremptory 
 in his business. Poor Bianca was not accustomed to hearing 
 harsh tones, and not understanding all he said, began to fear she 
 had committed some terrible crime. Her deprecating look pleased 
 Mr. Simpson, and restored him to the perception of the excellent 
 bargain he had made. 
 
 " This is the young woman I spoke of, my dear, so highly 
 recommended to my care by my distinguished friend Mr. Conrad 
 Percy, when he was my guest at Newcastle. Have you another 
 cup of tea in the pot ? I dare say it is some time since she had 
 her breakfast." 
 
 "Oli!" said Mrs. Simpson, taking no notice of her husband's 
 hint, "she is, is she? Well, you know best whether you are 
 going to have a dumb girl in all your pieces, or else you must 
 teach her to talk, for nobody can understand what she says — for 
 my part I think you have made a foolish bargain. That Duprez 
 would have done very well, if you had only managed her ; and 
 you will find out your loss ; but it is no business of mine." 
 
 Mrs. Simpson, who was one of the corps of female equestrians, 
 was a tall well-formed woman, with a hard bold face and a 
 defying pair of black eyes : she had a slight toss with her head, 
 and she looked as if she could get up a storm at a moment's notice. 
 Ever on the watch for the smallest slight, at the least provocation 
 she would burst out in words as pelting as hailstones. She was 
 fully impressed with the dignity of her position as manager's 
 wife, and did not incline with any favour towards the striking- 
 looking foreign damsel, whom her husband had picked up in a 
 way she could not, or would not, understand. 
 
 "Now, my girl," said Mr. Simpson, as he emptied his last cup 
 of tea, " it is quite time for us to be going. You will recollect," 
 turning to his wife, "that there is no rehearsal of the i Thessalian 
 Virgins' to-day, this 'Dumb Girl of California' will take all the 
 time ; but you will be in time to ride with the troop. They never 
 form as they should do except you are with them, my dear." 
 
THE HALF SISTERS. 21 
 
 "You are mighty nattering all at once," said his wife, tossing 
 her head. 
 
 As they went along, the manager tried to impress upon Bianca 
 the great favour he was conferring in giving her such an arduous 
 part for her debut. To which Bianca listened in profound silence. 
 
 Bianca did not know what a circus was ; and the sudden 
 change from bright sunlight into a close dim place, the light 
 struggling through the canvas roof and the spaces between the 
 boards, -was quite bewildering ; and the smell of the horses, the 
 lamps, the saw-dust, and the peculiar odour that pervades all 
 theatres, nearly stifled her. The greater part of the troop had 
 already assembled. 
 
 "Come now, ladies and gentlemen," said Mr. Simpson, "are 
 you all prepared to begin ? This is the young lady I have been 
 expecting, and, as she is a foreigner, who cannot speak our tongue, 
 I beg to recommend her to your good offices — she takes the part of 
 the Dumb Girl." 
 
 The business of rehearsal now began in earnest. Bianca 
 remained standing where she was, till she should know what she 
 had to do. At first she felt afraid of the horses, but as nobody 
 else seemed to have that idea, or to think such a thing possible, 
 she became gradually reconciled to their vicinity, and she kept 
 quiet, much wondering what she would have to do in all the bustle 
 that was going on. At last the manager came to her. 
 
 " Now my good girl, attend to me. That man there," pointing 
 to a dissipated-looking youth, in a ragged shirt and a plaid stock, 
 with a very scanty front, but who had an indescribable air of 
 jaunty self-complacency, "that young man there is your lover; 
 you must watch beside him when he sleeps, and defend him against 
 an assassin ; you must try to awake him, but, as you cannot speak, 
 nor scream, it is only natural you should not succeed, but you will 
 only be the more distressed. Now just think how you would feel 
 if it were a real sweetheart in such a position, and you have only 
 to do accordingly. " 
 
 Bianca, little as she knew it, had been intended by nature for 
 an actress. She got directly into the spirit of what she had to do. 
 Her ineffectual attempts to arouse her lover, who slept with a 
 most supernatural soundness, her agony and her struggle with the 
 assassin were so earnest and natural, and her attitudes so effective, 
 that Mr. Simpson was lavish of his praise. Then there was a 
 skirmish, and Bianca had again to rescue her lover, and finally 
 get killed herself, falling under the horses' feet. It was a long- 
 confused business altogether, such a tumult of shouting and 
 swearing, falling into confusion and beginning again, going over 
 the same thing a dozen times, until Bianca, who had eaten nothing 
 since early in the morning, was nearly fainting with fatigue and 
 exhaustion. However, the rehearsal came to an end at last, and 
 the manager, who was really good-natured, and in a very good 
 humour with her besides, sent out for some porter and a crust of 
 
22 THE HALF SISTERS. 
 
 "bread. Then, as the day was fine, a grand procession of the horses 
 and the troop round the town, preceded by the band, was the next 
 business. The troop, all dressed as much like natural men and 
 women as their wardrobes permitted, riding two and two, made a 
 touching tableau, emblematic of the fraternal love and amity 
 which pervaded the body. Mr. Simpson brought up the rear in 
 a lofty phaeton, drawn by four beautiful spotted horses, and 
 Bianca, smartened up to meet his notions of Italian costume, 
 was seated beside him. 
 
 Bianca was stunned, bewildered, and ashamed of her conspi- 
 cuous position, and of the wonder and notice they obtained from 
 the crowd ; but she had no sort of alternative, all those around 
 her seemed to take it as a matter of course, and before the ride 
 was over the people she was amongst seemed the realities, and 
 the people in the streets through which they passed appeared the 
 show. 
 
 At length all came to an end, and Bianca, stupified and weary, 
 was at liberty to go home, with strict charge to be very punctual 
 at rehearsal the next morning. 
 
 Bianca was not sixteen when she became one of the circus troop. 
 She had never received any direct instruction or education in her 
 life, except a little English from her mother, and a little reading 
 and writing from an old priest in the village. She was a Catholic, 
 as all Italians are; but no sort of extraneous good had been 
 instilled into her, nor artificial notions of any kind ; she had been 
 left to grow up exactly as it pleased Nature. None of her faculties 
 or feelings had developed themselves when she left Italy; she 
 seemed as closely shut up and un awakened, as a flower that is 
 still imprisoned in its calyx, and has not yet shown a trace of its 
 rich leaves to the sun ; she had come to no sort of self- conscious- 
 ness ; and the constant attendance she was in upon her mother, 
 the spectacle of her dejection and suffering, had damped all her 
 youthful spirit, and prevented her ever knowing the glee and 
 joyousness which is the normal state of childhood. She was grave 
 and still ; it was almost painful to behold the unnatural thought- 
 fulness and prudence with which she attended on her mother, and 
 kept their little household in order ; it was the spectacle of rosy 
 youth becoming colourless before its time by contact with the cares 
 of life. She loved her mother intensely ; and seeing her always 
 sad, she had felt that all gaiety was out of sympathy — and 
 children are capable of sympathy with those they love, to a 
 degree never found either in lovers or friends in after life. "With 
 the natural egotism of sorrow, her mother had kept Bianca 
 constantly with her ; it was the only solace she had, and she was 
 not aware how she was blanching the most brilliant and sunny 
 portion of her daughter's days. Her own fine intellect, which had 
 been a rich untilled field, became weaker and weaker, till, as we 
 have seen, it ended in almost childishness. The shock that came 
 on Bianca that fearful day beside her mother's bed, when the 
 
THE HALF SISTERS. 23 
 
 knowledge of her helplessness came in its Ml extent upon her, 
 quenched the last spark of youth from her heart ; henceforth, the 
 burden and anxiety of providing for the passing day came upon 
 her ; she was face to face with destitution, and with nothing but 
 her own hands to stave it off herself and her mother. A strong 
 and indomitable resolution — an energy that would shrink from 
 nothing, was then first roused ; it was the strong bass note of her 
 nature, the finer harmonies were not yet unloosed. She had no 
 idea of vanity, or of getting admiration, or of displaying herself 
 in any way ; her sole idea of the circus was, that it was the means 
 of earning a certain number of shillings, on which she might 
 support her mother ; it never occurred to her whether it was a 
 mode of life she would like or dislike. She had only the fixed 
 idea that she must do her best in all she had to do, in order that 
 this mode of subsistence might not be closed against her. 
 
 Bianca had never been at any sort of theatrical representation 
 in her life, and a few nights before her own appearance she took 
 her mother to see the performance. The preparation behind the 
 scenes was so coarse and unpleasant that Bianca had felt very 
 little curiosity to see the result produced. 
 
 But she was startled by the change she found in all things ; 
 the dark, dirty circus, lighted up with brilliant gas lights, seemed 
 to glow with bright and radiant colours : the coarseness of the 
 decorations was not perceived ; in the gorgeously and picturesquely 
 attired heroes and heroines of the scene, she could not recognise 
 the dingy, sallow, slovenly individuals whom she met at rehearsal ; 
 the horses had always been noble creatures, but now they seemed 
 only in keeping with their riders ; the effect was brilliant, and the 
 tawdriness and paltriness of the dresses and trappings did not 
 appear when seen from the proper point of view. Bianca felt a 
 glow in her heart ; and as the horses and riders disappeared one 
 after the other, dashing behind the mysterious pink satin curtain 
 which hid the exit under the stage, she could hardly believe it led 
 to nothing better than she had seen in the morning. 
 
 The idealism of her profession had struck her, and henceforth 
 it was not the unmixed drudgery it had been. 
 
 The night of her own debut came at last ; she had not felt much 
 anxiety about it, for the necessity that was upon her allowed her 
 very little alternation of hope or fear. When, however, she stood 
 for the first time before the blinding lights and the oppressive 
 presence of so many hundred human eyes, her whole being seemed 
 turned to stone ; she would have run away if she could only have 
 moved. The people applauded her, but that only frightened her 
 more. Two energetic words from Mr. Simpson broke the spell 
 that was on her, and restored her faculties ; she felt she must do 
 her work. In a few minutes she became engrossed in what she 
 had to do, and gradually forgot all about the audience. The piece 
 went off very well, and Bianca did her part admirably, with the 
 exception of a few mistakes in the business of the scene, very 
 
24 THE HALF SISTERS. 
 
 excusable in a novice. She had got over her fear of the horses, 
 and her " death" was very effective, and brought great applause ; 
 which gave her great satisfaction, because she felt her livelihood 
 was now secured. She had proved herself worth her wages. 
 
 CHAPTEE VII. 
 
 After Bianca had learned to ride, and could speak English a 
 little better, she was promoted to more important business. She 
 began to feel a fascination, even in that low grade of her profes- 
 sion, which carried her through hardships, annoyances, and 
 drudgery. There was a constant excitement and sense of adven- 
 ture ; even the dead heavy reality of her life at home was 
 surrounded by a fictitious atmosphere ; it was only one scene in 
 a drama, of which she did not yet know the denouement. A sense 
 of her own powers gradually made itself felt, and there was a 
 pleasure in the exercise of it. At first when she went to the 
 circus she had no idea beyond doing her best ; but a spirit was 
 soon roused within her, what she had to do in each piece became 
 a reality for the time, and she flung herself into it with all her 
 force. Many were the jeers she received from the rest, for giving 
 herself so much more trouble than was needed. 
 
 Accident had thrown Bianca into this line of life ; but we are 
 obliged to confess she continued in it from choice. 
 
 Within a few days of her arrival in B — she sought out a 
 Catholic priest (her mother had become exceedingly devout since 
 her desertion), and Bianca instinctively looked for her priest as 
 for a friend to whom she might go for counsel in any perplexity. 
 There was a Catholic church not far from their lodging, and the 
 priest, a benevolent looking old man, soon felt a strong interest 
 in both the mother and daughter. He was much shocked at 
 Bianca' s mode of life, and exerted himself to get her some more 
 creditable employment ; after a few weeks he succeeded in 
 obtaining the offer of a place in a shop, and a lady of the congre- 
 gation promised to supply her with as much needlework as she 
 could do. But in the first place Bianca could not sew ; and in the 
 next, unfortunately, the charm of her profession had begun to 
 work. She could not make up her mind to leave it. She felt a 
 blind instinct that obliged her to continue in her present course, 
 even at the risk of offending the good old priest, who had taken 
 so much trouble for her. The benevolent lady with her plain 
 work, turned her back at once on Bianca, and would have nothing 
 more to do with her, considering her lost to every chance of 
 respectability ; but the old priest, though sadly grieved, thought 
 she would all the more need his warnings and watchfulness, so, 
 
THE HALF S1STEES. 25 
 
 although he looked very grave, he still continued his visits to her 
 mother, and after a while, finding Bianca regular at her duty, and 
 in all respects conducting herself extremely well, if he did not 
 "become reconciled, he at least ceased to try to persuade her to 
 leave her way of life, and contented himself with watching that 
 she got into no mischief. Mr. Simpson, to do him justice, kept 
 a vigorous hand over his troop, so that nothing flagrant was 
 carried on. It certainly was not a particularly exalted school of 
 refined morality ; they all "belonged to the lower orders, and their 
 general conduct was the average of that of people of their class. 
 The respectable puhlic wlio went to see then, considered them en 
 masse as dissipated disorderly vagabonds, whom it would not have 
 been creditable to know, or altogether safe to admit to the neigh- 
 bourhood of their silver spoons. Separated from them by a 
 glittering row of gas-lights, seeing them only dressed up in 
 whimsical and tawdry costumes, the frequenters of the circus 
 hardly considered the actors as human beings ; content with being- 
 amused when they went, they did not even look for any morality 
 more exalted than that they should abstain from burglary or 
 disturbing the peace of the neighbourhood ; the actors, in their 
 turn, lived in a world of their own ; and if they were dimly 
 conscious of the degraded estimation in which they were held by 
 the respectable daylight inhabitants, they repaid it by supercilious 
 indifference ; nobody feels degraded in his own eyes by his 
 profession, be it what it may ; they were a community amongst 
 themselves, and all of much the same opinion as to the importance 
 of their business ; and on the whole felt themselves rather superior 
 to those who came to see them. 
 
 Bianca kept chiefly to herself — not from any sense of superiority, 
 but because no one in the troop attracted her. People can only 
 take in from surrounding influences what they have an affinity to 
 receive. At first her reserve was attributed to pride, and was 
 bitterly resented. Though not one in the troop, except the riding- 
 master and Mr. Simpson, cared one straw whether they exchanged 
 a word with her or not, yet they did not choose any one to set up 
 to be better than the rest, and they set themselves to punish her 
 for it in the thousand ways which a community has of making an 
 individual miserable, against whom it has a dislike. Without 
 knowing how she had incurred it, Bianca found herself the object 
 of every sort of covert malice and persecution. No one would 
 speak to her ; she saw nothing but mocking looks, sneers, and, as 
 far as they dared venture, of practical ill-treatment. One night, 
 in the ring, she was thrown from her horse, in consequence of a 
 malicious trick, and was carried, bleeding and senseless, from the 
 circle. Mr. Simpson made rigid inquiry, but the offence could 
 not be brought home to any one. This was rather a fortunate 
 incident in the end ; for Bianca showed so much real good-nature, 
 such an absence of all wish to get anyone into trouble on her 
 account, that the tide was turned in her favour. Her progress 
 
26 THE HALF SISTERS, 
 
 from a martyr to a heroine was as summary and reasonable as 
 those transformations usually are. It was owned that she had 
 never taken advantage of her favour with the manager to do any- 
 one else an ill turn. The women found she never interfered 
 with their lovers, or laid herself out to attract admiration ; hut, v 
 on the contrary, was ready to help them in manufacturing their 
 finery ; she had a natural genius for costume, and could make up 
 picturesque dresses out of the most shabby materials, which was 
 a most convenient talent. And then it was discovered that she 
 supported her insane mother, and that it was to hasten home to 
 her she had always hurried away from the circus ; and, finally, 
 as to her promotion to the best business in the pieces, it was 
 agreed on all hands that she took so much more pains and trouble 
 than anyone else was willing to do, that no one could wonder if 
 she succeeded better ; besides, there was the mollifying circum- 
 stance, that her salary was not raised in proportion, for Mr. 
 Simpson was not a generous man, and he insisted on her working 
 out the " over-payment," as he called it, which she had received 
 before she became useful. Now, all these good qualities, and all 
 these reasons for not ill-treating, had existed from the beginning, 
 but her companions were now in a humour to do her justice ; 
 their ill-nature had had its fling, and was appeased, and they 
 were now disposed to go as far in the opposite extreme. As soon 
 as she was able to reappear in the circus, Bianca found herself 
 received with enthusiasm by her companions. The man who was 
 the actual perpetrator of the trick which had so nearly proved 
 fatal, had been denounced by the rest, glad of a scapegoat, and 
 dismissed the company. Henceforth, Bianca' s path was smooth ; 
 a sort of consideration and pre-eminence was tacitly awarded her, 
 and her only difficulty was to solve the daily problem of supporting 
 herself and her mother on twelve shillings a- week ; that, and her 
 business at the circus, was more than enough to employ her, and 
 keep her clear of the innumerable cabals, intrigues, and tracasse- 
 ries going on around her. 
 
 As to Bianca herself, she had a hidden source of life and comfort 
 she would have revealed to no one, and which was the secret of 
 her singular discretion, and indifference to all the admiration that 
 offered itself: it was, the memory of the graceful, handsome 
 Conrad, who had appeared like an angel to her in her deepest 
 need. He had made, as was only natural, an indelible impression 
 on her heart. The hope of seeing him again, kept her up under 
 all her vexations, and the idea of pleasing him was at the bottom 
 of all her exertions. He was the ideal hero to whom she acted, 
 he was the type to which she referred all the qualities attributed 
 to the heroes in the pieces they acted ; and as her consciousness of 
 power in her profession increased, her only idea was, that it would 
 be something to display to him. It was with reference to him she 
 valued it. This secret sentiment grew and increased in strength 
 every day. She did not know where he was to bo found, nor in 
 
THE HALE SISTERS. 27 
 
 what condition of life he was ; but she never, for a second, 
 wavered in her firm conviction that he would find her again ; 
 about the probable when and where, she did not perplex 
 herself. 
 
 The company was not always stationed in the same town ; they 
 had a regular circuit: and though the coming or going of an 
 equestrian troop seems even less than unimportant to the town, 
 it was an essential affair to them, and their business to make it so 
 considered by as many in the town as possible. After various 
 
 removals, they at length came to M , about twelve months 
 
 after Bianca had joined the company. 
 
 CHAPTEE VIII. 
 
 To return to Alice and her mother, whom we left long since on 
 their way to call on Mrs. Haslitt. On their arrival at that worthy 
 lady's they were ushered into the drawing-room, which was rather 
 small in its dimensions, but the furniture and appointments were 
 of the most sumptuous description. The walls were covered with 
 highly- coloured and richly-gilt paper ; the window- curtains were 
 of light blue and silver brocaded satin, but carefully preserved 
 by chintz covers ; the carpet was velvet pile of the most highly 
 decorative pattern ; marble slabs, richly gilt bronze sconces, and 
 two large mirrors were dispersed about the room ; a cut glass 
 chandelier, rather too large for the size of the room, hung from 
 the ceiling ; a few splendidly bound books furnished the heavily 
 carved rosewood table ; an exquisitely designed French time-piece 
 was on the chimney-piece ; the steel grate was quite dazzling in 
 its brilliancy, and a comfortable fire was blazing in it ; nothing 
 could look handsomer or more comfortable. No one was in the 
 room when they entered, and they had full time to look round. 
 
 " Well," said Alice's mother, " Mrs. Haslitt keeps her house 
 more elegantly than any one else I know ; it is quite a show to 
 see it ! I am sure I wonder how she manages to make her house- 
 maid keep all her things so nice. Ah, Alice, I wish, instead of 
 tossing up your head at Mrs. Haslitt, you would take pattern by 
 her, it would be better for you. How proud I should feel to see 
 you mistress of such a house as this ! If any worthy young man 
 would but come and offer you such a home, I hope you would not 
 go and frighten him away with your nonsense, just because he 
 did not happen to have so many fine fancies as yourself. It is all 
 my prayer to see you happily settled before I die ; but sometimes 
 I fear you will disappoint all my hopes. If young Mr. Haslitt 
 now should happen to come in, do, pray, be chil to him, and 
 
28 THE HALF SISTERS. 
 
 don't look as if you did not know what you were saying. If you 
 only knew how ignorant it makes you look, you would not do it. 
 And, besides, what right have you to set yourself up, I should 
 like to know ? " 
 
 Her harangue was here cut short by the entrance of Mrs. Haslitt 
 herself, dressed in a rich green satin dress and Brussels lace collar, 
 fastened with a gorgeous brooch, — had it not been for these she 
 might have been mistaken for the housemaid. She was a tall, 
 homely-featured, cross-looking woman, and addressed her guests 
 in a strong provincial accent. 
 
 Alice's mother began, by hoping they had not called at an 
 unseasonable time. 
 
 " Oh dear, no, ma'am," said Mrs. Haslitt; "but I have been 
 so flurried this morning, that I fear I have made you wait. 
 Would you believe it, ma'am, my housemaid, whom I thought 
 such a treasure — I have found out in an intrigue with one of the 
 men at the Works ! She has been in the habit of letting him into 
 the kitchen when we are all in bed of a night ! " 
 
 ' ' There is no being up to the depravity of servants and such 
 people," said Alice's mother, in a sympathising tone. " How did 
 you find her out ? " 
 
 " Quite by the merest accident, ma'am ; I happened to have 
 the tooth-ache last night, after I was in bed, and I got up again, 
 as I did not like to disturb the servants, and came down stairs 
 myself for a clove of ginger. I fancied I heard voices, and walked 
 very softly right into the kitchen, and there found my lady, 
 sitting as comfortable as you please, on one side of the fire, and 
 Andrews on the other, and a jug of hot ale on the table between 
 them ! I declare you might have knocked me down with a 
 feather ! However, I soon ordered him out, and walked my 
 hussey up to her own room, and locked her in. And what do 
 you tnink she had the impudence to tell me this morning, when I 
 pointed out to her the shamefulness of her conduct ? She said 
 servants were as much flesh and blood as their mistresses ; and 
 that, if I had allowed her to receive him at proper times, she 
 would not have let him in on the sly. She pretends he is going 
 to marry her, but I don't believe a word of it. However, I turned 
 her out this morning, and she may go courting where she pleases, 
 I'll have none of it in my house. As I told her, I hire my servants 
 to do my work, and not to entertain followers. This makes the 
 third housemaid I have had in four months. I am sure I slave 
 myself to death in looking after them, and yet cannot get my 
 work done, which is rather hard, considering there are three 
 women servants, and only Mr. H., my son, and myself. But 
 they are all a set of lazy, ungrateful, deceitful sluts. I declare if 
 I leave my tea-caddy unlocked for an hour, I find it half emptied; 
 and as for bread, butter, and beer, there is no end to their waste- 
 fulness ; look after them as one will, there's no having one's eyes 
 in every place at once. I declare it's scold, scold, scold, from 
 
* THE HALE SISTERS. 29 
 
 morning till night, till I am quite worn out, and no good comes 
 of it." 
 
 The two discreet matrons now launched forth in a declamatory 
 duet on the iniquities of the race of servants in general, and their 
 own specimens of them in particular, till any stranger hearing 
 them talk would have felt as one might be supposed to do if our 
 natural eyes were suddenly gifted to discern the numerous animals 
 and unknown monsters infesting a drop of water, as seen in the 
 oxyhydrogen microscope. In the midst of their discourse the 
 son of Mrs. Haslitt came in — the same young man to whom Alice 
 had been desired to be civil. He was tall, light- complexioned, 
 heavy-looking, rather handsome. He was very hungry, and 
 wanted his dinner directly, that he might get back to the mill 
 without delay ; so he did not look remarkably pleased at the sight 
 of visitors in the drawing-room — nevertheless, he bowed and took 
 a chair beside Alice ; which her mother perceiving, redoubled her 
 eloquence to Mrs. Haslitt, in order that the young people might 
 make up as much agreeable conversation as they chose, which did 
 not however promise to be much, for Alice continued to read one 
 of the ornamental books she had taken from the table. At length, 
 catching the echo of a more than usually bitter tirade, he ventured 
 to say : 
 
 " Well now, there's my mother on her everlasting subject! I 
 declare she makes more noise and bother about managing her 
 three women, than I and my father do over four hundred men. 
 I declare I feel sorry sometimes for our servants, they seem 
 scarcely considered like human beings ; I cannot make out how it 
 is they can be so bad as she says, unless they are worried into it. 
 I tell her sometimes she is like the old woman in the fable, who 
 used to make her maids get up at cock-crowing to spin, and all 
 they thought of was circumventing her every way they could 
 think of ; — but women do not seem to have any feeling for each 
 other." 
 
 Alice looked at him with some complacency, and asked him 
 how he managed his men ; and he was about entering into all the 
 particulars of what he did for their comfort, for it was one of his 
 hobbies, when Alice's mother rose to take leave, pressing both 
 mother and son to fix a day for coming to see her. 
 
 Arrived at home, poor Alice hoped she might have a little time 
 to herself, and after dinner sat down to Sismondi's " Literature 
 du Midi," but had scarcely found her place when her mother 
 entered the room. 
 
 u Oh, Alice, what are you there at your reading again ? "Well, 
 you may keep your book for just half an hour, and then do set to 
 work to something useful. You might make Fido a collar ; I 
 have mentioned it two or three times. There now, make good 
 use of your time, it is just half-past four now, and you may read 
 away till five o'clock." 
 
 Alice was only called away twice from her book, once to look 
 
30 THE HALF SISTEES. * 
 
 for a lost key, and once to fetch some old linen from the bottom 
 of a chest at the top of the house. It cannot be denied that all 
 this was very worrying. At first Alice had endeavoured, by 
 sitting up at night after she had retired to her room, to find time 
 for her favourite employments; but her mother was a house- 
 keeper of the old school, and would not for the world have gone 
 to bed without first perambulating the house, and seeing with her 
 own eyes that every fire and candle was safely extinguished : so 
 Alice had no chance of spoiling her eyes by miclnight study. The 
 only available time she could call her own, was before her mother 
 came down to breakfast in the morning : and as if it had been 
 decreed that all the mother's good qualities should be special 
 points of annoyance to the daughter, Mrs. Helmsby was a 
 perversely early riser. And yet she was not wilfully unkind ; 
 had no intention of tormenting her daughter in all this ; she was 
 to the full as much perplexed and troubled by Alice and her 
 tastes for reading and unprofitable employments, as Alice was by 
 her mother's matter-of-fact, worrying industry, about things which 
 a servant might have done equally well. Mrs. Helmsby thought 
 it her duty to discourage her daughter's fine fancies, as she called 
 them ; and Alice, to do her justice, had very little skill or tact to 
 recommend them to her mercy. 
 
 Alice was a type of a very numerous class of English women, 
 whose fine qualities, for lack of wise guidance, evaporate amid 
 the common material details of household life, leaving them 
 ineffectual and incomplete — grown children without the grace of 
 childhood. She had a soft, flexible nature, which shrank from 
 blame rather than aspired to win praise; she had a kind of 
 morbid conscientiousness, which made her fancy herself in the 
 wrong whenever she met with a want of sympathy : and she was 
 really miserable at feeling herself so different to those around her. 
 She shrank from all outward manifestation of taste or feeling, 
 except when sanctioned by &ome one to whom she looked up. 
 Gentle, timid, unenterprising, yet with indomitable tastes, and a 
 refinement of nature almost amounting to fastidiousness, she 
 resembled a choice and graceful plant, which, for want of support, 
 trails along the ground, putting forth its delicate tendrils in all 
 directions to find something higher and stronger than itself round 
 which to cling. She every day became more restless, dreamy, 
 and melancholy, deepening at times into positive depression ; the 
 good that was in her lay rather in capacity, than in any definite 
 well- developed qualities. Under wise guidance, she might have 
 been trained into a valuable character, but wise guidance is 
 precisely the blessing that seldomest falls to a woman's lot. 
 Certainly her clever, worldly, bustling mother was not the one 
 likely to afford it. 
 
 There was one object amid all that surrounded her which alone 
 seemed in sympathy with the vague yearnings and dim aspirations 
 of her nature, and that was an old picture, which had been saved 
 
THE HALE SISTERS. 31 
 
 at the general dispersion of her father's collection. It had been 
 recently deposed from its place in the dining-room, to make 
 room for a portrait of Mrs. Helmsby, taken in the most stylish 
 tnrban and best fitting gown that Miss Higgins, chief milliner 
 
 and dressmaker to the town of , could invent for the 
 
 occasion. Alice begged to have the unhoused picture placed in 
 her own room : she had loved it from a child ; it seemed to have 
 a mysterious sympathy with the vague emotions which lay dumb 
 and oppressive at her heart ; rt was an opening through which 
 she escaped from the contact of the dull, harsh, common details 
 by which she was hemmed in on all sides. It represented a 
 Spanish convent among mountains, surrounded by dark tall trees, 
 growing out of the crags that lay piled on all sides covered with 
 long green moss ; a clear dark twilight was spread over, the 
 whole, which gave a strange and weird-like stillness to the scene. 
 Alice knew nothing about pictures, but her whole soul was athirst 
 after the ideal, and there was that in the picture which it soothed 
 her to look upon. She had the sensibility of genius without its 
 creative power ; she had not force enough to break through the 
 rough husk of her actual life and assert her inner soul ; she had 
 not the gift of utterance in any way, and the life was almost 
 choked out of her by the rank, over-fed, material prosperity 
 which surrounded her. 
 
 Society in a prosperous commercial town, is a raw material not 
 worked up into any social or conventional elegances. Some of 
 the very highest qualities are latent there, but lying quietly like 
 gold in its native vein, not recognisable even when disinterred by 
 those who are conversant only with it as it appears worked up by 
 jewellers. Labour has never yet been made to look lovely, and 
 those engaged in labour have nothing picturesque or engaging 
 in their manners. Alice had nothing of a philosopher about her, 
 and therefore saw nothing but that which was obvious, and which 
 jarred on her somewhat morbid fastidiousness. The men engaged 
 all day in business operations on a large scale, frequently with 
 several hundred workpeople to manage, were not likely to feel 
 any interest in small refinements and elegances for which there 
 was no tangible use. Consequently female society went for very 
 little. To manage the house well, and to see that the dinner was 
 punctual and well appointed ; to be very quiet, and not talk 
 nonsense, or rather to talk very little of anything ; were the 
 principal qualities desired in wives and daughters. Any attempt 
 to show off, or attract attention by a display of graceful pretti- 
 ness, would have called forth comments rather broad than deep. 
 They were tired and harassed when they came home from 
 .business, and were in no mood for anything more exalted than 
 to make themselves comfortable ; their energies were all engrossed 
 in one direction, namely, towards their business, which was the 
 object "first, last, midst, and without end" of their life; and 
 they were not irp to taking any trouble for the sake of society. 
 
32 THE HALE S1STEES. 
 
 The women being thus thrown chiefly amongst each other for 
 companionship, had not a high tone of thought ; for women never 
 elevate each other, but fall into a fraternity of petty interests and 
 trivial rivalries. They each extolled their own husband, and 
 adopted all his opinions, only with less good sense and more 
 exaggeration. The young ladies were pretty, trifling, useless 
 beings, waiting their turn to be married, and in the meanwhile, 
 doing their worsted work, and their practising, and their 
 visitings ; and were on the whole nicely dressed, quiet, well- 
 conducted young women, with as little enthusiasm as could well 
 be desired. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Alice was now about twenty. She was not at all popular 
 amongst her own set ; the young ladies declared she was 
 " insipid," and the young men pronounced her " conceited; " so 
 that her mother had the mortification to see all the " good 
 matches" in the neighbourhood " snapped up" by girls very 
 inferior, as she in her heart owned, to her Alice ; who, if we are 
 to confess the truth, had never received a single offer. The good 
 lady, though the quintessence of decorum, had entertained great 
 hopes that, by a little prudent encouragement and management, 
 young Mr. Haslitt might be induced to propose. He had indeed 
 been heard to declare that Miss Alice could make herself very 
 agreeable if she chose, and was not in the least proud when you 
 came to talk to her ; he had stood up for her on all occasions, and 
 had paid her a good deal of what is called attention, and Alice 
 disliked him less than anybody else ; but, in spite of all these 
 promising symptoms, a young Scotch girl, who had come on a 
 visit to his mother, carried off the prize before Alice's mother was 
 more than aware of her arrival. Young Mr. Haslitt had 
 proposed and been accepted ; and on her calling to invite Mrs. 
 Haslitt and her visitor to a pic-nic, she learned the tidings, 
 which dashed her castle in the air to the ground, and almost 
 deprived her of presence of mind enough to offer her congratu- 
 lations. She returned home in no very good humour, and 
 throwing herself into a large chair, began to fan herself with 
 some violence. 
 
 " How tired you seem, mamma!" said Alice, approaching to 
 remove her bonnet. 
 
 "And no wonder,' ' said her mother; "here you let me go 
 toiling and slaving myself for your good, and you neither move 
 hand nor foot yourself. Well, well! " 
 
 " Will Mrs. Haslitt come, mamma ? I have been making the 
 
THE HALF SISTEKS. 33 
 
 jelly, and it is quite brilliant. You must taste the milk-punch. 
 I think it is capital, and a glass will do you good after your 
 walk. I have finished all you left me to do, and I think you will 
 say I have succeeded pretty well." 
 
 Alice left the room, and soon returned with a pate* and a glass 
 of the milk-punch which she had prepared for the pic-nic. 
 
 "Well," said her mother, somewhat refreshed, "I must say 
 you have worked well ; hut only to think that young Haslitt is 
 engaged to he married to that young Scotch lassie ! I fancy it 
 was all made up before she came here. He met her last year 
 when he went to the moors shooting ; and I must candidly say he 
 is throwing himself away. A more dawdling, ordinary-looking 
 young person I never saw ; I wonder what it is he sees in her, 
 for my part." 
 
 " Dear mamma, now just put your feet up on the sofa till 
 dinner-time, and tell me all you have heard. You may as well 
 rest while you are talking, you know." 
 
 " Well, I don't mind if I do ; there, I am quite comfortable ; 
 now sit down yourself, and I will tell you. I had always in my 
 own mind laid out that young Haslitt for you, Alice. Well, 
 that is all passed, but I am sure he admired you. I had scarcely 
 sat down, and was just giving my invitation, when the young- 
 lady came in. ' Give me leave/ said Mrs. Haslitt, ' to introduce 
 to you Miss Mackintosh, my daughter-in-law that will be.' You 
 may think how surprised I was ! I declare I could hardly speak 
 for a minute, and then of course I said all that was proper; 
 but indeed she looks a very unfit person for him ; and then I 
 invited them both, and they will come, and young Haslitt of 
 course won't fail ; but I declare I don't care whether he does or 
 not. When people are courting, they are no company for 
 others ; we must look up some young men, or it will go oft very 
 stupidly." 
 
 " What is the Scotch lady like ? " asked Alice. 
 
 " Oh, nothing at all out of the way — she does not seem to have 
 a word to say for herself." 
 
 "Well, I hope they will be happy," said Alice ; "but upon 
 my word I always feel as if it were such a risk to run. How 
 terrible it must be, if, after you are married, you should see any 
 one you like better than your husband ! " 
 
 " My dear Alice," said her mother, turning round so suddenly 
 that her bonnet fell off the sofa and pitched on the bird of 
 Paradise plume, "my dear Alice, never let me hear such a 
 shocking speech again. What would any gentleman think who had 
 heard you ? When you are married it will be your duty to love 
 your husband more than any one else in the world; and no 
 young woman with a well-regulated mind ever thinks of doing 
 otherwise. Such an idea is quite shocking. A well-conducted 
 modest woman would no more think of any man except her 
 husband, than she would think of getting tired of her own father 
 
 D 
 
34 t THE HALE SISTEKS. 
 
 or mother, and wishing for somebody else ; she must be very 
 depraved indeed if such an idea comes into her head." 
 
 " "Well, but," said Alice gently, "a husband is not like a father 
 or mother given to one by Providence ; you take him on your 
 own judgment. If I, for instance, had married that young 
 Haslitt, as you seem to have wished, I am sure I should have 
 got very tired of him, for I could not have loved him, and should 
 only have taken him because he was a good match ; and if he 
 should have lost all his money in business, what would have 
 become of me ? " 
 
 "I don't like to hear your head running on love so much," 
 replied her mother ; " it is a thing none but silly girls talk 
 about ; and, whatever you do, never let a gentleman hear you ; 
 men don't like it ; it looks forward and impudent ; and besides, 
 my dear, I can tell you, though you may not perhaps believe me, 
 that however hot love may be at first, all that goes off fast 
 enough, and it makes no difference at the end of six months, 
 whether you married for love or not, provided always you have 
 chosen prudently, and have a respectable, steady, sensible man 
 for your husband ; whatever men may be before marriage, they 
 all fall oiit of love pretty soon afterwards j it is to your children 
 you must look, and not to your husband ; for if you expect him 
 to be in love with you, and make much of you, the sooner you 
 get rid of that idea the better ; it is a silly romantic notion only 
 found in novels." 
 
 " Then must I neither love my husband, nor any one else?" 
 replied Alice, disconsolately. 
 
 " Of course you must; don't I tell you it is your duty to love 
 him, but in a sober, rational way ; life was given for something 
 more important than loving, and such nonsense. I wish I could 
 see you more sober-minded." 
 
 " I often wonder what life was given us for," said Alice. 
 
 "La! how you talk," replied her mother; "any one to hear 
 you would think you a fool. That is the way you lose yourself. 
 This life was given you to do your duty in, of course, there is 
 no difficulty in seeing that; to fill up your time with useful 
 employments. You have very wrong and wild notions of life ; 
 it is very different to what you expect; you have an idea of 
 liking this, and not liking that, but what have you to look 
 forward to, I should like to know, but marrying some honest, 
 respectable man, who will support you decently in the sphere in 
 which you were born. You say you could not like young 
 Haslitt — what is it you expect ? a nobleman to come in a coach 
 and six to make you an offer ? I wish I could see you cured of 
 these flighty notions, and more sober-minded." 
 
 " But why must I marry at all ? " said Alice. 
 
 " For what else do women come into the world," replied her 
 mother, "but to be good wives ? Poor profitless, forlorn creatures 
 they are, when they live single and get to be old ; unkss indeed 
 
THE HALE SISTERS. 35 
 
 they are rich enough/to keep up an establishment, with a parcel 
 of dogs and cats and parrots. Depend upon it, Alice, if a young 
 woman is lucky enough to be married to a steady, respectable 
 young man, it is the best thing that can happen to her ; and then 
 she is something in the world." 
 
 Here dinner cut short the worthy matron's harangue. After- 
 wards, when they returned to the drawing-room, her mother (who 
 had talked herself into a good temper, for we all feeL good- 
 humoured when we have succeeded in giving utterance to what 
 strikes us as being very sensible) said, 
 
 " You have not prepared your dress for Mrs. Dickson's dinner- 
 party on Thursday ; when I was in town this morning I got the 
 satin ;. go and fetch it whilst there is daylight, and whilst you are 
 busy we can have a little rational conversation." 
 
 Alice fetched the dress, and began to take out the sleeves, the 
 shape of which required altering. 
 
 "I did not buy you a new dress," said her mother, "fori 
 expect there will be a soiree when the Association comes, and 
 Miss Higgins, the milliner, told me there was likely to be a great 
 change in the material of evening dresses, so I thought it would 
 be better to wait. But as I was passing the shop door, Mr. Bruce 
 stopped me to say he had received an assortment of the sweetest 
 French goods ; and though it was monstrously dear, I could not 
 resist this scarf : I thought you would admire it so much. Is 
 it not beautiful?" continued she, unfolding it. "I declare 
 that business of young Haslitt quite put it out of my head before 
 dinner." 
 
 The scarf, which was really beautiful, was duly admired and 
 thankfully received by Alice, for no woman is insensible to the 
 acquisition of a piece of finery, although comparatively few have 
 the taste and patience to pay the minute attention necessary to 
 dress well : but anybody is competent to put on a scarf or a 
 turban ; the minute finishing touches in dress, as in art, show the 
 master, and masters in no pursuit are plentiful. , 
 
 " I wonder who will be here for the soiree," said Alice ; " it is 
 such a pleasure to see distinguished men, even though one may 
 not be able to understand all they talk about." 
 
 " I don't know, but they say there is a chance that the Queen 
 will come, and I don't see why she should not come here as much 
 to see learned men, as go to the races ; — it woidd be a comfort to 
 see the real bonnet and shawl she wears ! " 
 
 "It is raining," said Alice, shortly after, "and it is lecture 
 night besides ; do you think you are prudent to go, mamma ? " 
 
 " It is a very unpleasant evening," replied her mother, "but I 
 don't like to miss, on account of the example. If we are not 
 punctual at church, how can we expect the poor people to be ? 
 But I really think the poor people about here require more good 
 examples setting them than in any other parish ; and yet they are 
 no better that I can see. I sometimes wish there were no poor 
 
 i> 2 
 
36 THE HALE SISTEBS. 
 
 people, and then one would not have so much responsibility for 
 being better off; it would be happier for them, poor things, for 
 they have little enjoyment as it is, God help them, in spite of all 
 we can do ! " 
 
 "But staying away this one wet night will do no harm," 
 said Alice, gently; "and as I shall- go, the pew will not be 
 empty." 
 
 " No, no, my dear, it is a bad thing to break through a habit ; 
 we are all so apt to be self-indulgent ; staying at home to-night 
 would only make it harder to go another time ; one excuse always 
 admits another. We will have our tea when we come back — it 
 will be something comfortable to look forward to. Wrap yourself 
 well up, and mind you put on your strongest shoes." 
 
 Mrs. Helmsby caught a bad cold at the lecture ; and the pic- 
 nic, from this cause, and a variety of other circumstances added, 
 did not come off; which she the less regretted, as she told Alice, 
 because it put her out of all patience to see that young Haslitt 
 look so soft and foolish with that Miss Mackintosh. 
 
 That failure in her matrimonial speculations was a heavy blow 
 and a great discouragement to the worthy lady — especially as she 
 was obliged candidly to own that the balance of perfection was 
 decidedly in favour of Alice. 
 
 CHAPTEE X. 
 
 The day of Mrs. Dickson's dinner-party arrived, and Mrs. 
 Helmsby was sufficiently recovered from her cold to attend it ; and 
 at the appointed hour, she and her black velvet dress and her 
 diamond ear-rings appeared in Mrs. Dickson's drawing-room; 
 Alice, dressed in pale pink satin, and without any ornaments at 
 all, was with her, looking as pretty and lady-like as possible. 
 
 Mrs. Dickson was in the habit of giving a great many dinner 
 parties ; one differing from another as Lamb or Venison happened 
 to be the presiding dish, or as it was the turn of Mr. and Mrs. 
 Haslitt, or Mr. and Mrs. and Miss Mason, to be invited ; but all 
 had a strong family likeness in being all equally sumptuous, the 
 plate equally massive, and the guests e<Jually heavy to match. 
 Alice had grown to fancy it a matter of course that all dinner 
 parties should be dull; it seemed to her as essentially an 
 unalterable etiquette, as that there should be soup and hsh. 
 
 About ten of the guests had assembled when Alice and her 
 mother arrived — all people who were in the habit of meeting ; but 
 in a few moments a stranger entered, a tall, solidly-built, middle- 
 aged man, with an extremely quiet air ; he addressed the mistress 
 
THE HALF SISTERS. 37 
 
 of the house in a remarkably gentle voice, and with a manner 
 quite different to that of any one Alice had ever seen before. He 
 had been announced as Mr. Bryant ; several gentlemen gathered 
 round him, and began to talk of the markets, the state of the 
 country, and whether the harvest was likely to be well got in, as 
 if no such beings as women were in the room. "Whilst Alice was 
 sitting watching the new comer, the mistress of the house came 
 to her and said, " Well, Miss Alice, I have got a new beau to-day, 
 you see ! He is rather old for you, to be sure : but he is a very 
 nice man, for all that ; and I want you to talk to him because he 
 is very clever, and has travelled a great deal, and you know so 
 much history and geography that I quite depend on you for 
 keeping him amused during dinner." 
 
 " Where has he been travelling ? " asked Alice. 
 
 "It is where has he not been ! My Mr. Dickson tells me that 
 he has been establishing iron works somewhere, where hardly 
 anybody has ever travelled even ; but you must ask him at 
 dinner." 
 
 Here the entrance of the remaining guests in rapid succession 
 put an end to her conversation, and dinner being shortly afterwards 
 announced, little Mr. Dickson offered his arm to Mrs. Helmsby, 
 and Alice was escorted down by a bluff, square-headed, elderly 
 gentleman, given to telling venerable jokes and stories, that with 
 a different disguise of names and places had, no doubt, figured 
 from the days of Odin ; but he chuckled over them with as much 
 glee as if they were fresh from the mint of human whimsicality. 
 
 " This way, Mr. Glenton," cried Mrs. Dickson, "let Miss 
 Alice divide you and Mr. Bryant ; I cannot do without my young- 
 favourite in my neighbourhood — I call her my princess. Mr. 
 Bryant, let me introduce you to her. We are only plain peoplo 
 here. You must not compare us with the fine ladies abroad." 
 
 Here the bustle of getting seated at table having subsided, the 
 business of dinner commenced, and put a stop to good Mrs. 
 Dickson's flow of talk. 
 
 Mr. Bryant did not appear at all disposed to test Alice's stores 
 of history or geography, for all his attention seemed given to 
 assisting Mrs. Dickson to dispense her dishes ; besides, her other 
 neighbour seemed inclined to talk for the whole table. When the 
 ladies returned to the drawing-room, Alice was placed at the piano 
 by Mrs. Dickson, and entreated to play something ; whilst the 
 elder ladies either dozed, or settled family receipts, or talked of 
 their servants ; — what young ladies there were gathered together 
 and discussed Mrs. Ellis's novel, and thought the heroine a very 
 natural character, but that it was doing a great deal, certainly, to 
 give up her fortune ; — and then another asked if any one intended 
 to go to the Chemical lectures to be delivered next week, — and 
 many things of the same sort : till coffee came, and then some of 
 the gentlemen made their appearance, and Mr. Bryant amongst 
 them ; he came and sat down by Alice at the piano, and asked her 
 
38 THE HALF SISTERS. 
 
 whether she gave up much time to music ; — then he "began to tell 
 her about some Bohemian students, with whose singing he had been 
 much struck when in Germany. He was very quiet, but Alice 
 felt him at once to be very different from all the people who 
 surrounded her, and was much more interested than she had ever 
 been before ; but still he was so quiet, she felt rather afraid of 
 him. Silent, quiet people, have a charm and mystery about them 
 which gives them a great advantage over more demonstrative 
 mortals ; — nobody knows exactly what they think, nor the 
 impression made on them by anything ; all within them has the 
 prestige of an oracle ; the extent of what they indicate is 
 unknown, and what little is uttered goes so far ! Everybody has 
 felt the charm of a kind, or even of a reasonably civil expression, 
 from one of these reserved, silent persons ; " it is not much," is 
 the common expression, but from so-and-so it means M a great 
 deal; " — it is like signing a blank check on our self-com- 
 placency. 
 
 Alice soon felt this charm, and by little and little began to feel 
 a most unusual degree of interest in both what she heard and in 
 what she herself was saying, for she was asking questions to which 
 she felt very desirous to have an answer. He told her about his 
 recent journey into Hungary, to a part which has never yet figured 
 in any handbook for travellers, and about a most singular race of 
 people flourishing there, who belong to no known nation, and 
 might pass either for the one oi the lost tribes of Israel, or as the 
 original gipsy stock, from which all the others have wandered 
 forth on the face of the earth. A race of idealised gipsies, how- 
 ever, if such they be ; living an allowed and recognised life, under 
 no fear of the magistrates, and quite free from the sins of poaching 
 and robbing hen-roosts. He had arrived at one of these villages 
 during fair time, and he gave Alice a graphic account of a 
 picturesque procession in which the handsomest girl in the tribe 
 was carried through the village crowned with flowers on the last 
 day of the fair, and of the strange dances and polkas which closed 
 the festival. Alice's imagination was completely captivated by 
 the vision of that wild and lonely country in its ulter isolation 
 from the rest of the world — surrounded by those mysterious giant 
 mountains, and that strange unknown tribe of people, with no 
 filiation amongst the other families of the earth. She could have 
 sat and listened for ever, but a general move amongst the guests 
 had commenced, and her mother amongst the rest had risen to 
 depart. Alice returned home in a dreamy reverie. The stranger, 
 with his cold passionless manner, and kind, quiet voice, and the 
 new things she had heard that night, were mingled in her dreams, 
 till she awoke with the fright of finding herself carried through 
 the air over impassable mountains, and placed where no human 
 being could approach her ! She went down stairs the next morn- 
 ing, a new creature ; the dull monotony of her life had received a 
 quickening impulse; she had found an object on which all the 
 
THE HALF SISTERS, 39 
 
 pent -up passionate affection of her unoccupied dreaming heart 
 might be poured forth ; — it required hut a touch for the lava 
 torrent of her soul to burst out, and bear down all the small 
 frozen barriers with which she had been surrounded. William 
 •Bryant became the hero of her desert ! Her cheek was flushed, 
 and her eye sparkled the next morning when she descended to 
 breakfast. People must have been ennuye* within an inch of 
 final suffocation, before they can know the blessing of something 
 to interest their faculties. Her mother hardly knew what to make 
 of it ; but as she went about her usual avocations with an energy 
 not usual, she could not find fault ; and, in fact, her maternal 
 vanity was gratified to perceive the attention her daughter had 
 received from a person of much more importance than all the 
 young Mr. Haslitts or Mr. Smiths, or Mr. Oldfields in the town, 
 put together. It was in high good-humour she sat down to her 
 daily stitching after breakfast. 
 
 i 'Well!" she said, " Alice, I must say we had a charming 
 dinner-party yesterday. I never saw anything go off better. 
 Did you remark that pretty new side-dish in the second course ? 
 I must ask Mrs. Dickson for the receipt, and it is as nice as it 
 looks ; those sweetbreads were dressed in quite a new fashion — 
 recollect, my dear, we have some our next dinner-party; — and, 
 by the way, we owe one now to a good many people. I should 
 like to have it whilst that Mr. Bryant is in town. Mrs. Dickson 
 said he was staying over the Association, and that he will read a 
 paper about something ; he seems a very nice man, quite the 
 gentleman. Do you know, Alice, he reminded me a little of your 
 poor dear father. 
 
 "Ah!" said Alice, "then that accounts for his being so very 
 agreeable." 
 
 "What were you and he talking about so fast?" asked her 
 mother. 
 
 " He was telling me all about his travels, mamma," replied Alice, 
 blushing; "he has been abroad a great deal." 
 
 " Yes, so I heard," said her mother ; "I managed to pick up a 
 good deal about him from Mrs. Dickson. She says he is very rich, 
 and has just established large ironworks in some outlandish place; 
 so far off they can hardly get to it. He is very well connected, 
 and lives somewhere in Lancashire." 
 
 Alice listened with great interest to all this gossip", and even 
 volunteered to call on Mrs. Dickson for the receipt, in order that 
 the cook might have time to practise it before the party. Mrs. 
 Helmsby nodded sagaciously to herself ; it was the first time she 
 and her daughter had ever felt any real sympathy together. Notes 
 were written and sent out. Mr. Bryant graciously accepted — 
 which was all Alice cared for. Nevertheless, she did not see 
 liim again until the soiree of the Association, for she had gone out 
 to inquire after somebody's cold or rheumatism the day Mr. Bryant 
 called on Mrs. Helmsby ! The disappointment may be imagined ; 
 
40 THE HALF SISTEES. 
 
 but still the soiree was in sight, which was to pay for all, and 
 with the prospect of the dinner-party, Alice could not he very 
 miserable. 
 
 At length the soiree arrived. Alice felt very much dissatisfied 
 with her own appearance; but her mother declared she looked 
 very nice, and for once, we are inclined to be of her mother's 
 opinion. She was dressed in white tarlatane, over white satin ; a 
 small wreath of myrtle in her hair was all the ornament she wore ; 
 and with her face a little flushed, she had all the animation of 
 look she generally wanted. 
 
 The large room in the town-hall was brilliantly lighted, and 
 thronged with elegantly-dressed women and all the respectability 
 and gentility of the town and neighbourhood. Many strangers 
 were there from all parts ; and every eye was turned on the savans, 
 who had attended the Association, and who were walking quietly 
 about, very little impressed with the effort that was made to do 
 them honour, looking, indeed, rather bored than otherwise, as 
 they blandly attempted to give intelligible replies to questions 
 (put by those lucky enough to get an introduction) which required 
 the knowledge of a life-time to be compressed into a portable 
 answer, that might be carried away like a receipt for venison 
 sauce. 
 
 Alice remained amongst the crowd of nicely-dressed young 
 ladies, with bouquets in their hands, and wreaths in their hair, 
 each with a separate personal freight of hope, vanity, and 
 importance, but all massed together in an undistinguished throng, 
 like the points in a mosaic brooch. She had one hope, that Mr. 
 Bryant would come and speak to them ; and that was all the stake 
 she had in the evening. But time wore on ; and Alice, who had 
 hitherto pertinaciously kept beside her mother, afraid to move, for 
 fear of losing the one important moment, was at last obliged to 
 leave her place. An elderly gentleman, a great friend of her~ 
 mother's, approached and ottered her his arm, to walk through 
 the rooms, promising to point out all the grand people. Her 
 mother, pulling her lace shawl over her shoulders, rose at once, 
 and Alice, with a sigh, had to follow her example. Every young- 
 lady there had far rather have had a dance, and thought it a great 
 pity such a charming band should be wasted ; walking about, and 
 looking at curiosities, or even at learned men, was in their opinion 
 a very dry substitute for their usual allowance of dancing and 
 flirtation, And many of the young men were of the same opinion ; 
 they could only hope that the mayor would let them have one little 
 dance at the end of the evening. Alice and her mother, and their 
 escort, threaded their way through the crowded rooms ; and, at 
 last, in a doorway, talking to a knot of professors of various 
 sciences, her eye discovered Mr. Bryant ; but though he recognised 
 them with a pleased bow, he did not attempt to break off his 
 conversation, and the movement of the crowd carried them away 
 in a different direction. But in about half-an-hour, whilst they 
 
THE HALF SISTEKS. 41 
 
 were in the refreshment-room, Mr. Bryant again approached ; at 
 first he did not see them, and began to eat an iee at another stand. 
 Alice pointed him out to her mother, who boldly accosted him. 
 Mr. Bryant seemed quite pleased to have been recognised — said he 
 had not perceived them, and putting down his plate, offered his 
 arm to Alice. 
 
 " How do you manage to get on with all these people?" said 
 he, after a few moments' silence. 
 
 Alice started — it was the first time she had ever heard them 
 called anything but highly sensible, respectable persons, a great 
 deal better than herself. She was too much abashed to reply 
 immediately. 
 
 "I suppose," continued he, "you would parody the words of 
 Shakspeare, and say : ' Some are born stupid, some achieve stupidity, 
 and some have stupidity thrust upon them ! ' — which latter is 
 your own case. It is when you see a great gathering like this 
 that you perceive the uncultivated state of social habits amongst 
 the English : there are, no doubt, exceptions, but social talent is 
 not indigenous amongst them; they are all incumbered with 
 themselves, and consequently, don't move well ; there is all the 
 dead material for enjoyment, but no life to set it going. How- 
 ever, I must say, I can stand anything but your superior and 
 respectable people. I have been a long time out of England, you 
 know, and that must be my excuse. I can stand dulness mi 
 naturel; I consider it as I would any other human affliction — 
 blindness, or lameness, or what not ; but, when it will arrogate 
 to itself a superiority, and claim a sort of apostolical succession 
 from the wisdom of Solomon, and set up little fancy anathemas on 
 everything, and everybody, who are not, like themselves, 
 ' measured from the standard at Cornhill,' I confess I get out of 
 all patience and all charity ! I know you to be a good listener, 
 Miss Helmsby; and some pitying Providence, or rather some 
 instinct, has led me to you, for I am just now quite savage at all 
 the nonsense I have heard to-night. So much innate vulgarity 
 and stupidity I never heard before. As men of business and 
 enterprise, Englishmen are wonderful. Do not suppose, for a 
 moment, I underrate the sterling granite qualities, the real stuff 
 that lies in them — but that does not come out in a soiree ; they 
 make no show ; they lie like gold, quietly in the mine, ready to 
 be dug out; but your provincial superior people, who have 
 attained a small reputation — oh, those are terrible ! I have just 
 
 been listening to one of them, who was speaking to C the 
 
 geologist, and propounding his ' Asses' Bridge' as if it were a new 
 
 revelation. I left him in despair; but, if C do not pick 
 
 his way through the Mosaic theory of creation, and keep his 
 chin cleverly above the waters of Noah's deluge, he will be 
 held up as a heathen man, and be attacked for his insidious 
 principles." 
 
 "Do you think the man he was talking to able, then, to hold him 
 
42 THE HALF SISTERS. 
 
 up ?" said Alice, extremely comforted by this tirade, which gave 
 utterance to her own feelings. 
 
 "'Well, true, you're right, that is his chance; it is a sort of 
 compensation for many blunders, that when a man has gained a 
 name for anything he may hide under the shadow of it, it gives 
 him a prestige and enables him to put down impertinent questions 
 
 with words. C is a great friend of mine — have you ever 
 
 seen him ? Do you know many of the distinguished visitors by 
 sight ?" 
 
 "No," said Alice, "I would give a great deal to have them 
 pointed out to me. I like to speculate on their faces." 
 
 "Well, then, if Mrs. Helmsby will trust you with me, we will 
 make a voyage autour de la chambre" 
 
 Mrs. Helmsby had reached a vacant place on a bench, and 
 readily consented to remain where she was until they returned. 
 
 Mr. Bryant pointed out to Alice everyone of any note, and 
 gave her a succinct account of what they were distinguished for. 
 Alice found herself talking quite at her ease, and speaking the 
 things that had so long been hid in her heart ; and it was a new, 
 inexpressible pleasure to be listened to, and replied to, as if there 
 were nothing either strange or reprehensible in her ideas. Her 
 companion made clear her meaning to herself, and brought so 
 much kind good sense to bear on her vague, unformed, floating 
 notions, that it is no wonder if Alice, charmed with his gentle 
 voice and manner, felt all her vague aspirations more than 
 realised, and destined from this evening to wear the shape and 
 aspect of Mr. Bryant! True, he was a good deal older than 
 herself, but she fancied that half the charm. 
 
 " I fear," said Mrs. Helmsby, the next morning, as they sat 
 over their work as usual, i ' that Mr. Bryant is not too sound in 
 his religious views ; I fear, from something I heard, that he is by 
 no means a regular churchgoer ; indeed, Mrs. Dickson told me he 
 had been heard to say that he required a rest on Sunday, and 
 could not stand going to church twice a day ! You did not 
 happen to ask him whether he was a member of the Church of 
 England, did you, Alice?" 
 
 "No," replied Alice, quietly, "I never thought about it. I 
 should not suppose he would ever be likely to do anything that 
 was not right." 
 
 "I don't know that," replied her mother; "he has been 
 abroad a long time, and there young men are either apt to be led 
 astray, by popish delusions and soul-destroying heresies, as 
 Mr. Wright calls them, or else to fall into the fatal snare of 
 infidelity and human reason ; but I shall not rest till I have asked 
 him." 
 
 "My dear," resumed Mrs. Helmsby, after a pause, during 
 which she had been carefully adjusting a petticoat body — "my 
 clear, have you got that receipt from Mrs. Dickson? I should 
 like to have it for our party — we must bcpin to arrange what we 
 
THE HALF SISTERS. 43 
 
 will have ; there are only four days till the twenty-third." Then 
 she wandered off into the regions of the land of Goshen, settling 
 her roast and boiled, her fishes and fowls ; having determined in 
 her own mind to give the very most elegant dinner that had ever 
 
 been seen in IS" . To her surprise she had a most zealous 
 
 adjutant in Alice, who seemed as anxious as herself that the 
 dinner should be perfect. She could not make it out. "Ah! 
 Alice," said she, half reproachfully, "there would be some 
 pleasure in giving dinners, if you would always support me in 
 this way." 
 
 The dinner-time arrived, the guests came, and everything 
 went off* as well as possible ; but Alice little suspected that 
 Mr. Bryant left their house fully convinced that Alice was 
 exactly the woman he wanted for a wife ! He was not in love 
 with her, but he thought her a charming lady-like young 
 creature, with plenty of sense, if she were taught to use it ; in 
 short, his judgment was quite convinced he might look a long 
 time before he found any one else so suitable; that was the 
 grand point with a man like him, and there was no doubt 
 but that he would fall in love afterwards quite as much as was 
 necessary. 
 
 In the mean time, Alice and her mother were to go to Matlock 
 the following week, and he had to break his purpose to his 
 only sister, and to arrange his affairs so as to be able to take a 
 holiday. 
 
 But an offer of marriage is far too important a thing to 
 introduce at the end of a chapter. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 Those who have read that delicious old book, Amory's "Life 
 of John Buncle," will know that the north of England once was 
 full of unexplored wildernesses, impassable mountains, mysterious 
 caverns, leading to the bowels of the earth ; and, difficult as it 
 may be to believe, yielding adventures second to nothing in the 
 "Arabian Nights." It is not very much more than a century 
 since he lived, and all his wonderful journeys and romantic 
 discoveries have been explored in their length and breadth, by 
 turnpike commissioners, if not by railway surveyors, and the 
 mysteries have been subdued by statistics, till one knows where 
 every road leads, and we are allowed to entertain no doubt 
 about the turnings of the longest lane ; every foot of ground is 
 known, and there is no hope left of being able to lose oneself; — - 
 and that, as everybody must have felt, is a dreadful drawback on 
 
44 THE HALF SISTEUS. 
 
 the pleasure and excitement of finding oneself in a wild romantic 
 looking country. It is wild and unknown to us alone, and our 
 ignorance is going to be speedily enlightened by guide-books, 
 teaching us all the walks, and drives, "and points of view." 
 The convenience and the cultivation, the civilisation and all that, 
 is, of course, a wonderful improvement, and shows the progress of 
 the species in a way that ought to rejoice one's philanthropy ; for, 
 "as man is no longer an individual, but a species," as Fanny 
 Wright tells us, we all have an infinitesimal investment in the 
 rise of human perfection. Still all the hope is taken out of 
 travelling now. We know, beforehand, all we are going to see ; 
 and we, for our parts, cannot help wishing it were possible to set 
 out like the heroes of old to seek our fortune, and walk to the end 
 of the world, without knowing the history and geography of 
 what we were going to find. 
 
 Derbyshire, in spite of its wonders being written down in the 
 chronicles of guide-books, has still a look of mystery, with its 
 peak and its caverns, and its Druidical remains ; it seems as if it 
 really had been, at no distant time, the abode of gnomes and 
 spirits, who are even yet scarcely dispossessed of their ancient 
 holdings. Men and women seem intruders living in the ruined 
 abodes of a different order of beings. Good Mrs. Helmsby had no 
 speculations of this kind, as she and Alice journeyed en route to 
 Matlock, one fine afternoon, about ten days after the dinner-party. 
 
 "I hope, Alice, we shall find Saxton'8 a comfortable house, 
 and that the beds will be well aired : that is the great drawback 
 in travelling ; one can never feel quite safe. — Well, I must say, 
 that really is very pretty, indeed. Look, Alice, at those white 
 houses, upon those rocks, nearly hidden with the trees." 
 
 But Alice was silent. She was drinking in the sight — feeling, 
 for the first time in the presence of the power of nature, crushed 
 down before the mute aspect of superhuman beauty and majesty, 
 which made all human utterance irreverent ; taking her, for the 
 moment, out of herself, away from her own hopes, and fears, and 
 personalities, to feel overwhelmed before the grand inorganic 
 majesty around her. The first sight of any scene that strikes us 
 as really grand, touches our ideal ; stuns all the small personali- 
 ties within us ; and bows us before the grandeur of a power which 
 stands revealed before us impassive, incommunicable, pressing on 
 our senses, but utterly unmindful of us, separated from us by a 
 gulf of everlasting silence — for there is neither sound nor language 
 which we may interpret, or by which we may draw nigh to it. All 
 we have ever hoped, or feared, or desired for ourselves, seems then 
 so pitiful and worthless, that our impulse is to fling ourselves down 
 before the vast dumb aspect of nature, leaving time and chance to 
 happen as .they may. Alice felt choked with emotions she could 
 not have expressed ; but she leaned out of the chaise window to 
 conceal from her mother the tears that coursed each other down 
 her cheeks. 
 
THE HALF SISTEES. * 45 
 
 They arrived, at length, at Saxton's hotel, at Matlock, as all the 
 village lay bathed in the golden lightning of the descending sun. 
 The dinner-hour was passed ; hut an early tea, and a chicken, in 
 their own room, was a not unpleasant substitute. When they joined 
 the company at supper, Mrs. Helmsby recognised, in a comfort- 
 able, portly, well-dressed woman, an old schoolfellow, with whom 
 she had once sworn everlasting friendship, which, however, had 
 not survived the wear and tear of the first twelve months after 
 leaving school. Circumstances separated them, and absence had 
 almost made them forget each other, until this unexpected meeting 
 at a table d'hote stimulated their dormant sensibilities. It was a 
 very pleasant meeting on both sides ; they had not met for more 
 than twenty years, and in that time they had married, and were 
 now both of them widows ; both had got wonderfully well over 
 their loss, and both were very comfortably jointured. 
 
 Alice had the most reason to rejoice in this encounter, for it not 
 only put her mother in an excellent How of spirits, but she had so 
 much to tell, and to hear, and to talk about, that Alice was left to 
 follow her own devices, and ramble and explore as much as she 
 pleased ; added to which, Mrs. Fernly (her mother's new-found 
 friend) was an active, comfortable woman, with a great notion of 
 enjoying herself, and seeing everything that was to be seen ; and, 
 as she had learned the best rides and drives, she was proud to take 
 her friends about ; and a little pony chaise belonging to the house 
 was put into daily requisition. She won Alice's heart altogether, 
 by allowing her to read out her subscription to the circulating 
 library, whilst she was talking over old times with her mother. 
 
 One d^ay Alice had taken her book — it was a volume of 
 "Corinne," which she was reading for the first time — and had 
 clambered up to the spot called the " Romantic Rocks" in guide- 
 book parlance ; they resemble an immense mountain shivered into 
 a fantastic skeleton, and covered with a tanglement of shrubs, and 
 creeping plants. Seated in a cleft of rock, so narrow that she 
 could scarce see the sky above her for the ivy that hung across, 
 she was quite unconscious how the time flew by. The first 
 reading of " Corinne" is an epoch a woman never forgets, and Alice 
 never lifted her head till she had come to the last line in the last J 
 page of the volume, and then it struck her she had been away a 
 long time ; on looking at her watch she found, with dismay, it 
 was long past the dinner hour. She is not the first whom that 
 book has beguiled into a breach of punctuality : but that would 
 have been no comfort, even had the thought occurred. She 
 started up and began to hasten to the inn, with a fear lest the 
 scolding in- store for her might be coupled with a prohibition 
 of any more books from the library. It is very provoking to be 
 brought back to such disagreeable realities ; but one is never so 
 sure to meet with a jar, as when one has been absorbed in a very 
 highly- wrought novel. She was crossing the fields with a rapid 
 step, and lifting her head to see how she should best clamber over 
 
46 * THE HALF SISTERS. 
 
 a somewlmt awkward stile, when her eyes encountered, certainly 
 the last person she expected to see — Mr. Bryant. He sprang over 
 the stile with great eagerness. " You little know," said he, 
 smiling, " the excitement your absence has caused ; your mother 
 and her friend have ordered the pony carriage to scour the 
 country in search of you. Dinner has been over these two 
 hours." 
 
 Alice was too much embarrassed to give a very definite answer, 
 but murmured something about her book, and not knowing it was 
 so late. " Is mamma very angry ?" asked she. 
 
 M Well, I hardly know," replied he, smiling ; " she had become 
 uneasy, and perhaps when she finds you safe and sound, and that 
 you have been in no sort of danger, she may be indignant at your 
 having excited so much needless sensibility. If you were to sprain 
 your ancle, now, she would quite forgive you." 
 
 But poor Alice looked confused and distressed, and so evidently 
 thought she had been guilty of a grievous breach of decorum, that 
 Mr. Bryant ceased to rally her, but walked silently beside her for 
 some time. Her embarrassment seemed to communicate itself to 
 him. He had come to Matlock with every intention of proposing 
 to her, and this was as fair an opportunity as he was ever likely 
 to have. He had certainly intended to prepare the way a little, 
 but then the thought of saving her from the scolding she evidently 
 dreadecf, was the small incident that determined him to risk his 
 declaration at once. He had not any great fear of a refusal, but 
 still " making an offer " is always a nervous thing ; it is throwing 
 everything oji the "hazard of the die." He made one or two 
 efforts to speak, but no sound passed his lips. They at length 
 reached a place where the pathway branched off, one path leading 
 to the inn, and the other through a small grove of trees, to the 
 river side. Three more steps, and she would have turned to the 
 right, and three minutes more would have ended their walk at the 
 inn door. He made a desperate effort, and said, in a husky voice, 
 "Alice — Miss Helmsby, I mean — will you play the truant a few 
 minutes longer — there is something I must say to you, will you 
 hear me now P" He took her hand, and gently drew it through 
 his arm, which she was too much agitated to resist, and led ,her 
 down the other footpath. Alice felt the arm she was leaning on 
 tremble. 
 
 " I fear," said he, after another pause, " that I am premature ; 
 if I am, forgive me. I came to this place only to see you ; I have 
 no other business here, and unless you bid me stay, I shall depart 
 again to-morrow morning. I am come to put my fate in your 
 hands, Alice. Do you think you can ever like me well enough to 
 marry me?" He took the little hand that hung upon his arm ; it 
 trembled, but was not withdrawn. ' ' Will you not speak to mo 
 one word, Alice ? Will you tell me that you will try to like me ? 
 you have not seen much of me yet ; but from the first moment I 
 saw von, vou have been to me what no woman ever was before. 
 
THE HALE SISTEES. 47 
 
 Tell me — may I remain in Matlock, or mnst I go away to-morrow ? 
 I do not ask you to say you will have me now ; I will have as 
 much patience as you can wish: but will you think of what I 
 have said ?" 
 
 Alice's tears were falling abundantly, and she could not have 
 spoken had her life depended upon it ? but Mr. Bryant seemed to 
 be able to interpret her emotion ; he pressed the hand he held to 
 his lips, and said, in a whisper, " God bless you, Alice, you have 
 made me very happy." 
 
 He did not now attempt to prolong their walk. On reaching 
 the inn, Alice disengaged her arm, and passed rapidly to her own 
 room, altogether stunned and bewildered. She was sensible 
 of no feeling but the desire to be alone. Luckily her mother 
 had not returned, and she was not interrupted till tea-time. 
 
 CHAPTEE XII. 
 
 u Alice ! M said Mrs. Helmsby, entering her daughter's room, 
 " I very much dislike your passion for locking yourself up in your 
 bed-room during the daytime ; it looks affected, to say the least 
 of it ; and now, pray, may I hear why you were absent from the 
 dinner-table, where had you gone, and what were you doing ? " 
 
 " I am very sorry, mamma," replied Alice ; ■" I had taken out a 
 book when I went to walk, as the day was so fine, and I sat 
 down to read amongst the rocks, without observing how the time 
 passed." 
 
 " Yery romantic, indeed ! " said her mother ; " but if there be 
 one thing I dislike to see in a young woman more than another, it 
 is love of singularity ; indeed, it is the only impropriety a well- 
 brought-up young woman has it in her power to commit, but it 
 paves the way for everything that is wrong. If a. young woman 
 allows herself to be different to other people, she throws herself 
 out of the path marked by propriety, and has no guide but her 
 own giddy head ; so no wonder if she, sooner or later, goes wrong ; 
 it does not even surprise people. i We expected no better,' is the 
 cry. It is no mark of superiority, Alice, whatever you may think ; 
 it only exposes your ignorance in the eyes of sensible people, and 
 let me tell you, that, of all things, gentlemen dislike all approaches 
 to eccentricity or singularity in a young woman's conduct ; they 
 may be very polite to your face, for they find their amusement 
 in it, but no gentleman would marry a girl who set up to be 
 remarkable." 
 
 Alice made a very pretty but rather scornful mouth at this 
 climax. 
 
48 THE HALF SISTEK3. 
 
 " Ay, you may look as saucy as you please, Alice, but what I 
 tell you is quite true ; with, all your airs you have not received a 
 single offer of marriage, and that is the criterion of whether the 
 men admire you. It is true you are very young, and have plenty 
 of time before you, but the day may come when you will wish 
 you had listened to me. Suppose any gentleman had seen you 
 sitting reading by yourself amongst those rocks, he would have 
 thought you just wished to be remarked." 
 
 All the delicious reveries in which Alice had been steeping her 
 heart were rudely destroyed by the coarse prosaic reality of her 
 mother's discourse, like the rosy and golden clouds of sunset which 
 thicken into leaden vaporous masses of darkness, without the 
 majesty of night. 
 
 "I have something to tell you, mamma," said she at length, 
 feeling the desperate necessity there was that her mother should 
 be made acquainted with the occurrence of the morning, although 
 it seemed almost sacrilege to mention it after such an exordium. 
 
 " Well, what is it?" said her mother, after waiting in silence 
 about a quarter of a minute, — " Make haste, or the tea bell will 
 ring, and you are not dressed yet ! Will it not keep until bed- 
 time?" 
 
 If the reader can recall the time when he, a small child at 
 school, was called upon for a barely-learned lesson — how he went 
 slowly up to the master with eyes lingering to the last moment 
 on the task which hovered on the brink of his comprehension — ■ 
 when the sudden jerk with which his book was taken, scared 
 away all that was so nearly entering in, leaving him blank and 
 stammering ! — he can then sympathise with Alice when so com- 
 pendiously desired " to make haste." 
 
 " Mr. Bryant joined me as I was coming home," said she, in a 
 faltering voice. 
 
 " Mr. Bryant!" interrupted her mother, "what can have 
 brought him here ! Did he tell you ? " 
 
 " Yes," said Alice, with some difficulty, forcing herself to 
 speak; " he told me — he asked me — in short, he made me an 
 offer." 
 
 " My dear Alice ! " cried her astonished mother, as soon as she 
 could take breath after such an announcement, ' ' my dear Alice, 
 why did you not tell me this at once, instead of letting me find 
 fault with you for half an hour, when you had such a piece of 
 news as this ! Let me hear all about it, — what did you say to 
 him, and how did it all come about ? I declare I had no suspicion 
 of such a thing, though in general I have a tolerable insight into 
 such matters. But first I will order tea to be brought up to us 
 here, and you shall lie down whilst you tell me." 
 
 Mrs. Helmsby rang the bell, drew the sofa and a large arm- 
 chair to a comfortable proximity, and settled herself down for a 
 regular gossip. 
 
 " ]N~ow, my dearest Alice," said she, at last, when the tea-tray 
 
TILE HALF SISTERS. 49 
 
 had been brought and the waiter had retired, " tell me all about 
 it, and do not miss any thing. I declare it makes me feel quite 
 young again. Ah, Alice ! when you have a grown-up daughter 
 you will know how proud it is to feel she is admired as she should 
 be ! None but a mother ever really cares for her girl's success ; — ■ 
 but now begin — tell me first is your tea sweet enough ? " 
 
 " Quite so, thank you, mamma," replied Alice — rather worried, 
 if the truth must be told. Her mother's gossiping tone jarred 
 on her feelings ; however, thus adjured, she spoke, and gave a 
 circumstantial narration of the events of the morning ; but her 
 own heart, her own thoughts, she could not lay bare ; they were 
 tender blossoms which contracted and almost withered beneath 
 her mother's coarse version of maternal affection. 
 
 " Well, my dear Alice, I must say you have behaved very 
 properly indeed, and shown great discretion, and I am very much 
 pleased with you ; — of course, Mr. Bryant is a very good match 
 for you, perfectly unexceptionable in every respect, but I shall 
 not let him think he is to have you for the asking ; it will not do 
 to seem too keen about him ; men are all quite set up enough in 
 their own esteem ; and of all things a young woman must never 
 let her real sentiments appear ; — the best of men are not to be 
 trusted — they are our natural enemies, and always ready to take 
 advantage of any thing they see in their favour ; — so, my dearest 
 love, just let me give you a hint never to allow him to feel too 
 sure of your partiality. You are going to marry him, and that, 
 as Dr. Gregory says, is quite a sufficient mark of preference. A 
 little reserve and coldness makes a man's love burn all the more 
 briskly ; they never care for that of which they are certain." 
 
 " I am sure," said Alice,, warmly, " that Mr. Bryant is a very 
 different sort of man ; I am confident that no one ever repented of 
 trusting him." 
 
 " "Well, well," replied her mother, kissing her and patting her 
 cheek, " it is all quite right that you should think so." 
 
 At this moment the waiter appeared, bringing in a note for 
 Mrs. Helmsby. She read it, and handed it to Alice. It was from 
 Biyant, begging the favour of an interview with Mrs. Helmsby, 
 at any time she would name in the course of the evening. 
 
 " Shall I say in half an hour, Alice ? " 
 
 " Yes, mamma, whenever you think best." 
 
 Mrs. Helmsby and Mr. Bryant had finally an interview that 
 evening, which concluded to their mutual satisfaction. Mrs. 
 Helmsby had the supremest self-complacency in the manner in 
 which she had acquitted herself. When she came to consider the 
 matter, she was convinced that she had conducted it with the 
 most sagacious diplomacy ; she had concluded by telling Bryant 
 that " she would never force her daughter's inclination, but that 
 if he could succeed in winning the affections of Alice, she had 
 never seen the man to whom she would so willingly commit her 
 happiness, though it would cost a great pang to part with such a 
 
50 THE HALE STSTEES. 
 
 dear companion," &c. &c. All which Bryant perfectly under- 
 stood, and made the requisite assurances about "honour and 
 happiness." He, of course, obtained permission to plead his 
 cause with Alice, and the result was that when a few clays 
 , afterwards they quitted Matlock, she was the affianced wife of 
 Bryant. 
 
 CHAPTEE XIII. 
 
 Alice found her position at home materially changed for the 
 better ; she had become a person of importance, her desires and 
 opinions were humoured in every way. Bryant, by sanctioning 
 them, gave them quite a diiferent aspect in her mother's eyes, 
 who became suddenly enlightened on her daughter's merits, and 
 began to fancy that they had never been duly appreciated by the 
 circle of her acquaintance. She even began to suspect that she 
 was superior to all the young ladies whom she had so perse - 
 veringly held up to her as models — to be sure, she was going to 
 make a much better match than they had any of them achieved 
 for themselves. It was not her mother alone, the whole 
 neighbourhood began to regard her with deference, as the future 
 mistress of a handsome establishment, and the dispenser of 
 dinner-parties and dances. 
 
 It is unfortunate, but it generally happens, that people become 
 sensible of our merits at the precise time when it is most a 
 matter of indifference whether they do or not : possibly, to teach 
 us that what we really are is the only essential point ; whilst, 
 whether we are admired, is of very little consequence at all. It 
 is difficult to become indifferent to the sympathy of those around 
 us ; it seems like the response of an oracle to sanction what we 
 do ; but, after all, sympathy is a luxury, and not a necessity ; 
 the natural craving Ave have for it had need to be carefully 
 watched, lest it should degenerate into a sentimental vanity. 
 "We must all of us learn to lead our own life, according to the 
 best of our ideas, and the best manner in which we can realise 
 it, whether we have to encounter good report, or evil report. 
 "The favour of man bringeth a snare," as wise King Solomon 
 declared, long ago. The intense yearning after sympathy, and 
 the habit of fancying all to be wrong which did not come with 
 the sanction of other people's opinion, was the weak part of 
 Alice's character, although the source of much in her that was 
 delicate and graceful ; it gave that confiding, clinging, beautiful 
 helplessness, which was the fascination of her manner: but 
 still it is strength,, and not graceful weakness, that is to be 
 desired : defects of character have often a beautiful aspect, and 
 
THE HALF SISTERS. 51 
 
 virtues present, in some points of view, the defects of their 
 qualities. 
 
 Alice, however, had, for the present, found all that her soul 
 had thirsted for so long. Bryant was several years older than 
 herself, and whatever opinion he expressed came to her with the 
 weight of authority. Everybody who spoke of him seemed to 
 regard him as a man of superior sagacity in all matters of 
 business ; she heard men quote his opinion to give weight to 
 their own ; his character stood high on all sides, so that she had 
 no misgivings about his worth. The quiet impassiveness of his 
 manner, mingled as it was towards her with a tenderness and 
 gentleness that had a touch of the paternal in it, possessed a 
 peculiar charm for her more demonstrative and passionate nature. 
 There was a certain mystery about it — so much more was 
 implied by his calm speech than the words expressed, and every 
 word of affection seemed an inlet through which she discerned 
 an infinite world of love lying beyond. 
 
 Under this new order of things she bloomed into fresh life and 
 vigour ; her faculties for the first time dared to assert themselves, 
 and expand to their natural growth. She had an affinity with 
 all that was beautiful and refined : without knowing what was 
 meant by an ideal, she had unconsciously lived in aspirations 
 after it. It seemed to her that the new life now opening to her 
 would realise all her vague dreams. 
 
 Bryant was really become most sincerely attached to her ; he 
 listened with ready and admiring interest, as with a confiding 
 shyness she poured out to him all the hoarded aspirations of her 
 soul ; he thought her very charmingly romantic, and he told her 
 histories of his travels and of the incidents of his past life, to 
 which she listened with Desdemona-like avidity, whilst he 
 thought that when she grew older, and had seen more of the 
 world, she would gain common sense, and " become more like 
 other people." Most fortunate was it for the safety of poor Alice's 
 dreams that he never gave this hope words ! 
 
 Alice was terribly annoyed by being told on all sides that "she 
 was going to make an excellent match." Had Bryant been the 
 most insignificant of his own clerks, on a salary of a hundred a 
 year, she would have rejoiced in the opportunity of proving to 
 him that she married him for his own sake, and she was much 
 afraid lest some of these speeches should come to his ears, and 
 that he should take a disgust to so much worldliness. Her 
 mother especially, showed a disposition to drive in all things as 
 good a bargain as possible. But Bryant perfectly understood the 
 disposition of both mother and daughter, and whilst he behaved 
 with the most profound civility to Mrs. Helmsby, and acceded 
 to all her propositions, he registered a mental vow that there 
 should be as little intercourse as possible with his dear mother- 
 in-law when he vas once fairly married ! 
 
 He used all his influence to bring matters to a conclusion as 
 
k)'l THE HALE SISTERS. 
 
 speedily as possible-; and at length, that grand marriage prelimi- 
 nary, " making the wedding clothes," was put in hand. 
 
 Mrs. Helmshy had determined in her heart that her daughter 
 should have the most splendid outfit that any bride on record 
 had carried out of the town, and as many sempstresses and 
 mantua-makers were set to work as would have sufficed to fit out 
 all the heroes of the " Mebelungen Lied." She who had 
 objected to letting Alice take drawing lessons on the score of 
 extravagance, cheerfully spent thirty guineas on a Brussels lace 
 veil, and felt no economical pang when she ordered a sumptuous 
 sky-blue velvet dress, saying, " It would be so serviceable." 
 
 We are not going to give a list of Alice's " wedding clothes ; " 
 there is no precedent for it except in the case of Harriet Byron, 
 who married Sir Charles Grandison ; but we beg our readers to 
 believe that it was a superb trousseau. All being prepared, the 
 last flounce finished, and the last seal affixed to the settlements, 
 the wedding itself was allowed to take place. Alice looked very 
 lovely in her veil and wreath of orange flowers ; the wedding 
 breakfast comprised "all the delicacies of the season," and Alice 
 and Bryant set off for a short tour through France and 
 Switzerland. 
 
 Mrs. Helmsby was very much affected at parting with her 
 daughter ; but the necessity there was to clear away in safety 
 all the additional glass and china, and to count up the silver 
 spoons, proved a salutary distraction to her mind ; whilst the 
 proud anticipation of seeing Alice "sit for her company," 
 prevented the present moment feeling gloomy. 
 
 In London a slight disappointment awaited Alice, to temper 
 the almost excessive flow of her happiness. Bryant found there 
 letters awaiting him, the contents of which rendered his presence 
 at home necessary, and put a stop to their projected tour ; but he 
 promised Alice that if he could snatch time in the spring, she 
 should still see Mont Blanc. 
 
 Alice, in the meanwhile, was very well contented, after a few 
 days in London, to accompany her husband to the mining 
 districts of Wales, whither his business called him, and to have 
 a brief sojourn amid the minor grandeurs of Snowdon. 
 
 Bryant had an only sister, who for some years had kept 
 house for him, until she married a wealthy man, with the finest 
 house, the most extensive grounds, and the largest hothouses and 
 conservatories in the county. This sister had not been able to 
 grace the marriage breakfast, as she was out of England at the 
 time, but she had now returned, and a letter, which, after 
 travelling for some days after Bryant, at length reached him, 
 expressed her earnest desire that he and Alice should pay her a 
 visit, as soon as they could arrange it. Bryant earnestly desired 
 that his sister and Alice should like each other ; and, as there 
 was yet a fortnight before their " at home" fell due, he thought 
 they might as well spend it at his sister's house, which being 
 
TILE HALF SISTEES. 53 
 
 only seven miles on the other side of his Works, would allow him 
 to come to and fro without difficulty. Alice was rather dismayed 
 at the prospect of encountering this sister, of whose elegance 
 and importance she had heard so much ; but Bryant wished it, 
 and it never occurred to her to object. Accordingly, Bryant 
 wrote, accepting the invitation, and fixing the day for their 
 arrival at Matching Park. 
 
 Mrs. Lauriston, Bryant's sister, was a woman of about six- 
 and-thirty. Her figure had precisely that carriage and en bon 
 point which people think essential to the reputation of being 
 " a fine woman." She dressed always remarkably well, and 
 might be called handsome, although her features were not 
 regular ; her manners had a glossy suavity, which at a little 
 distance, looked very like kind-heartedness, whilst her voice had 
 a tone of good-humoured cajolery, which was rather pleasant 
 than otherwise. She was, moreover, very well bred, and could 
 have edited a manual on the abstruse points of etiquette. 
 
 She met her brother and Alice on their arrival at the head of 
 the staircase. A glance at the graceful drooping figure of the 
 latter, as she clung to her husband's arm, satisfied her, and she 
 embraced her with a sufficient effusion of sensibility. 
 
 " My dear new sister, welcome to this house ! — My dear John," 
 continued she, giving a hand to her brother, though without 
 abandoning Alice, ' ' how happy you have made me ! How I 
 rejoice to see you both under this roof! " 
 
 "God bless you, my dear Margaret," said he, in a faltering 
 voice. "May you and Alice ever be sisters ! " 
 
 " That is my dearest wish," replied she, as she glided into her 
 superb drawing-room. 
 
 Alice was bewildered with her emotions ; she could not look 
 round her ; still she thought her sister-in-law very beautiful, add" 
 felt sure she should love her extremely. 
 
 Mrs. Lauriston narrowly scrutinised" every movement of Alice, 
 though she affected not to notice her shyness. 
 
 " Well, my dear, and what do you feel the most disposed to do ? " 
 said she, in a tone of friendly vivacity ; "will you rest a little 
 here, and take a little refreshment, or will you at once proceed to 
 your dressing-room ? We dine at seven ; there will only be 
 ourselves ; I thought we should be happier alone ; we have all our 
 friendship to make ; though I do not expect to find much ice to 
 break," concluded she, taking the hand of Alice with a smile, 
 which displayed a row of the smallest and whitest teeth in the 
 world. 
 
 Alice preferred going at once to her room. 
 
 "Well, then, my dear Bryant, you must excuse us awhile," 
 said his sister, drawing the hand of Alice through her arm as she 
 led her away. 
 
 Alice was conducted to the bed-room she was to occupy ; it was 
 sumptuously furnished with everything that could be needed or 
 
04* THE HALE SISTERS. 
 
 dreamed of for use or luxury. It opened into a small boudoir 
 dressing-room, fitted up en suite, and abounding in fanciful 
 chairs, tables, and chefs cVwuvres of the art of upholstery : it 
 commanded a lovely view of the park, and there was an opening, 
 through which some hills were seen in the distance, which 
 relieved the level richness of the ground near the house ; a stand 
 of choice plants, and a book-case full of elegant-looking volumes, 
 completed Alice's delight. 
 
 " What charming rooms ! " she exclaimed. " I never saw any 
 so pretty, it is like reading a novel to come into them ! " 
 
 ' ' I am delighted, if you are pleased, my dear Alice ; I hope 
 you will find everything you need ; I wish you to consider your- 
 self at home." 
 
 This was a very kind speech and pronounced in a very sweet 
 voice ; but Mrs. Lauriston had an absent look in her clear gray 
 eyes, which were wandering over the flower-stand, and Alice felt 
 the warm impulse to express her thanks suddenly checked — she 
 hardly knew how. 
 
 " I will ring for your maid, my dear," continued she ; " but do 
 not make a state toilet, we shall be alone — and besides you- are so 
 pretty, that dress will be wasted. You will find me in the 
 drawing-room; I will go now and keep poor Bryant company 
 until you return to us." 
 
 Before her maid arrived, Alice amused herself with inspecting 
 her apartments more nearly; she seemed to breathe more freely 
 in the atmosphere of refinement that surrounded her ; her love of 
 beauty eagerly caught at all that was in affinity with it. The 
 exquisite taste which presided in the arrangement of the rooms, 
 had subdued the richness of the decorations ; the sense of their 
 expensiveness was lost, and no thought of the upholsterer's bill 
 was suggested by them. 
 
 Alice's mother had always been in the habit of spending a 
 handsome income, — the chintzes, damasks, and furniture, were 
 all the richest that could be got for money ; still they conveyed 
 no more meaning than when they were in their native warehouse 
 - — a dull, uninteresting mediocre look pervaded the whole house ; 
 the result was very inadequate to the money expended upon it. 
 Here, on the contrary, a gay fete-like aspect glowed everywhere, 
 combined with an air of elegant comfort, which made Alice fancy 
 she had fallen upon the sort of home she had yearned after. 
 
 In the midst of all this, her maid appeared, and the business of 
 dressing commenced. 
 
 u Well, Simmonds," said Alice, " and what do you think of 
 this place ? Have they made you comfortable down-stairs ?" 
 
 " Oh, yes, ma'am, thank you. I am very happy indeed ; this is 
 just the pleasantest and beautifullest place I was ever at in all 
 my life, everything is so cheerful and pleasant — it is quite a 
 comfort to be amongst it ; my room is fit for a duchess, and the 
 servants seem all very agreeable ; and I am sure Mrs. Lauriston 
 
THE HALF SISTERS. 55 
 
 is every inch a lady, and so pleasant spoken ! I met her as she 
 was going to the drawing-room, she smiled, and hoped I wonlcl 
 do all I could to make you feel comfortable and at home. I am 
 sure I hope our house will be half as nice." 
 
 Alice listened to this tattle, and fell into a reverie wondering 
 what her own home would be like. A sense of her own import- 
 ance dawned on her for the first time, as she thought that she, 
 too, was going to be the mistress of a handsome establishment, 
 and would have as much money as she chose, to do whatever she 
 pleased with it. 
 
 "When Alice re-entered the drawing-room, it wanted but a 
 quarter of an hour to dinner-time. Mrs. Lauriston was dressed, 
 and looked, as Alice thought, like a duchess, in her rich black 
 satin and Brussels lace. 
 
 " Come and sit here, my sweet Alice," cried she ; " how lovely 
 you have made yourself ! really I think Bryant may feel very 
 proud of his wife, at least I do of such a sister ! We must be 
 great friends, Alice. I shall not feel satisfied unless you love me 
 very much." 
 
 Again the sweetness of this honey speech was marred by the 
 expression of the speaker's eyes, which were critically inspecting 
 the make of Alice's dress. Alice timidly pressed her white 
 dimpled hand, and thanked her for her kindness. The French 
 clock struck seven, and Mr. Lauriston entered as it ceased. He 
 was a grave, reserved-looking -man, with a bald head, and a lean 
 stooping figure ; he wore a gold double eye-glass round his neck, 
 and was dressed in a full suit of black ; a white and beautifully 
 plaited cambric frill peeped under his waistcoat, and joined his 
 equally white cravat. » 
 
 " My dear Mr. Lauriston, let me make you acquainted with 
 our new sister-in-law," said his wife, presenting Alice as she 
 spoke. " You know how often I have sighed for a sister, and 
 now you see Heaven has heard my prayer. — Alice, my love, this 
 is Mr. Lauriston, my husband, and your brother." 
 
 Mr. Lauriston made a low bow, shook hands with Alice — said 
 he was very glad to see her, and proud of such an acquisition to 
 their family — congratulated Bryant, who entered at that moment, 
 on his wonderful good fortune in securing such a wife — and then, 
 with the air of a man who has acquitted himself towards his 
 creditors, he inquired from his wife whether the dinner were not 
 behind-hand. The sound of the gong luckily obviated a reply, 
 and, presenting his arm to Alice, he led her to the dining-room. 
 
 The dinner-table and the dinner were in equally good taste 
 with all that Alice had yet seen. She was interested in watching 
 the arrangements, and taking a lesson from all she saw, against 
 the time when she would have to preside over her own table. 
 This occupied her attention, and prevented her feeling the element 
 of heavy silence which Mr. Lauriston had introduced. He paid 
 her all the requisite courtesies of the dinner-table : but he had 
 
56 THE HALE SISTERS. 
 
 the air of being always on his guard, and there was a weight of 
 reserve and caution in every line of his face, which made his 
 taciturnity quite portentous. It was impossible to utter a 
 sentence under this influence, of which you could not feel certain 
 whether it were dulness or wisdom ; and it caused a mysterious 
 sense of oppression in those subjected to it — an uneasy speculation 
 as to what his thoughts were like — a point on which he was never 
 known to enlighten any one. Even the bland emjjressemeM of 
 his lady fell dulled and "stagnant, like a stone into the Dead Sea, 
 without causing a ripple. 
 
 It was the custom at Matching Park to retire to rest early. 
 They had a short sojourn in the drawing-room after coffee ; and 
 then the wine and water and bed-candles made their appearance. 
 Mrs. Lauriston accompanied Alice to her room, told her she was 
 sure she was a prodigious favourite with her husband, and that 
 she must not mind his being so silent, as it was constitutional ; 
 and after hoping that the next day would be fine, and that Alice 
 would find her room comfortable, she embraced her once more and 
 glided out of the room. 
 
 OHAPTEE XIV. 
 
 The next day Alice was duly taken over all that was to be seen 
 in the house and grounds. There is always a freemasonry amongst 
 women about the mysteries of housekeeping and servants, and in 
 recounting their several experiences. Alice naturally enough had 
 none to impart, but she was a reverent listener to the household 
 wisdom that fell from Mrs. Lauriston' s lips ; and her naively 
 expressed admiration for all she saw gratified that lady extremely, 
 who was well pleased to find that her pretty sister-in-law was not 
 stiffened into notions of her own dignity, and evidently never 
 dreamed of setting up any rivalry with Matching Park. With all 
 her suavity Mrs. Lauriston had a pitiless insight into the short- 
 comings of others; her bright gray eyes could penetrate, like 
 those of a cat, into the darkest corners ; and she was not without 
 the velvet paws, armed with sharp claws, to drag all she saw into 
 the light, whilst she tossed and patted and tormented her victims 
 with an air of such irresistible graciousness, that even they were 
 in doubt whether she really meant to be disagreeable. But 
 somehow it always happened that whenever any one, seduced by 
 the tempting softness of her manner, reposed any of their dis- 
 tresses in her gentle bosom, they invariably-repented of having 
 done so before the day was done — not that she made any 
 particularly mischievous use of confidences, but there was an 
 
 I 
 
THE HALF SISTEKS. 57 
 
 unfathomable reserve underneath her friendliness, and her eye, 
 looked absently into space with a sweet smile at the very crisis 
 of the communication. "With all her empressement of manners 
 she had not a grain of enthusiasm ; she was covered all over with 
 a sort of moral glass-case, which kept her precious emotions 
 fresh to the eye, whilst it protected them from all contact with 
 trying realities. 
 
 " I really feel quite nervous as to how I shall get on with my 
 housekeeping," said- Alice, when they were seated at their work- 
 table, " and the idea of sitting for company has something terrible 
 in it. I do not like to see people I do not care about." 
 
 " If they are good acquaintances you need think of nothing 
 further; very little liking will answer every purpose," replied 
 Mrs. Lauriston; " but you are such a dear, sweet, enthusiastic 
 creature, that you will quite wear yourself out if you insist on 
 liking all the people you know." 
 
 \ \ Ah ! but I know the annoyance of living always amongst 
 people who do not care for any of the things I do. I feel so happy 
 now that I have some one to look up to and trust in, and to whom 
 I may come for counsel whenever I am in doubt. Bryant will 
 guide me in all I ought to do. Do you know that feeling of 
 always wishing to do right, and yet somehow feeling that you are 
 always doing wrong ? " 
 
 "How enthusiastic you are !" replied Mrs. Lauriston, with a 
 vague smile. 
 
 " It is so delightful to belong to one who is wiser than oneself," 
 said Alice, "one has such a sense of safety." 
 
 " My sweet Alice ! you are talking like a girl in love ! You 
 will never manage your husband if you let him think he is wiser 
 than you are ! You will make yourself a slaA 7 e directly ; and if 
 once you put such a notion of your submissiveness into his head, 
 you will never be able to eradicate it. Husbands are always quite 
 ready enough to believe themselves wise." 
 
 "But," replied Alice, " surely one's husband is always one's 
 best friend ?" 
 
 "My dear Alice!" cried Mrs. Lauriston, with vivacity, "a 
 man can never in any relation be really the friend of a woman, 
 and there is no good in trying to make a friend out of any of 
 them ; the best of them will take advantage of whatever you say 
 or do. A woman must never trust a man : she may seem to do so 
 as much as she likes, but woe to her ! the instant she really lets 
 him see or know anything about her, except just as it suits her 
 that it should be seen and known. Luckily, men always believe 
 just what a woman tells them : they have no sense to see anything 
 for themselves, and they understand nothing but what is made 
 visible to them." 
 
 " But," said Alice, " surely to one's husband one may think 
 aloud ; of course a married woman would never dream of making 
 a friend of any other man." 
 
58 THE HALE SISTERS. 
 
 " Well, my dear, try it, and see the sort of life you will lead 
 for your pains. My dear Alice, you have married my brother, 
 and what I am saying is quite as much with a view to his 
 happiness as to your own. I have been married a long time, and 
 I give you this piece of experience, never tell your husband, in 
 an impulse of confidence anything which there is a chance he may 
 not admire ; if at the moment he happens to be in a good temper, 
 he may seem to stand it pretty well, but depend upon it he will 
 recollect it against you on the first acces of ill- humour. Of course, 
 I do not mean that you are to deceive your husband ; I only mean 
 to tell you, that as men only see things in the light they are put 
 to them, you must be very careful always to present your facts on 
 the right side. How should I live with Mr. Lauriston, who is 
 reserved, suspicious, and miserly, to the last degree, unless I used 
 great judgment with him ? My brother is a different sort of man 
 altogether ; but if you pour out to him any of your romantic 
 notions about love and friendship, it will make him think you 
 childish, and he will never feel any respect for your judgment." 
 
 " But all this sounds very painfully," cried Alice; "am I to 
 have no friend ?" 
 
 " A woman ought never to make intimate friendships out of her 
 own family," replied Mrs. Lauriston ; "there are always family 
 secrets which ooze out to one's 'dear friends ; ' they are confided 
 in affection, and recollected in revenge, because, sooner or later, 
 the best friends always quarrel ; it is very silly to make confi- 
 dences, for our ' intimate friends ' always have it in their power 
 to say the bitterest things against us. If you are afflicted with 
 an epanchement du cceur, it is. not safe to indulge it, except to a 
 mother, or a sister. I am talking frankly to you, because I can 
 read your character ; you will not make a bad use of it ; and 
 besides, I am endeavouring to save you, as I would endeavour to 
 catch hold of a person whom I saw about to walk into a pond — if 
 I could do it without risk to myself." 
 
 "I almost wish you had allowed me to fall into the '< pond' in 
 peace," said Alice, " you have made me feel as if I had eaten of 
 the 'tree of knowledge' and committed sin." 
 
 ' < Bah ! my dear, you are a child. Men made their own laws ; 
 it is not our fault that they are suspicious, ungenerous, and 
 selfish ; if they choose to be such, we are obliged to take them as 
 we find them, and make the best of them. But come, let us have 
 a drive in the park, and do not allow your sweet face to look so 
 perplexed ; when you have lived in the world a little longer, you 
 will find realities, ' things as they are ' to be, of more importance 
 than dreams of love and friendship. By the way, talking of love, 
 what dress do you intend to wear, when you receive your 
 company ? If you have it here, I should like to see it. Mais 
 allons" 
 
 The painful impression produced by the foregoing conversation 
 long depressed the spirits of Alice, and produced a sense of 
 
THE HALE SISTERS. 59 
 
 guiltiness, as if she had become partaker in some vague undefined 
 evil. The purity of her soul had been desecrated. She detested 
 all she had heard ; but she could not regain the happy, trusting 
 unconsciousness, with which she had arisen in the morning. 
 During their drive she was silent, and the admiration she expressed 
 for the really lovely country was cold and flat. She was ill at 
 ease with herself, and Mrs. Lauriston half repented the candour 
 which had rendered her so uninteresting. 
 
 "When Bryant returned, the first impulse of Alice was to tell 
 him all that had passed between Mrs. Lauriston and herself, but 
 she checked it instantly ; she had no right to exhibit his sister in 
 a disadvantageous light. She rejoiced in her reticence, when 
 Bryant, breaking the silence her deliberation had caused, said : 
 
 ' ' My dear Alice, I am delighted to see that you and my sister 
 get on so well together. She is a most superior woman, and has 
 an excellent judgment : there is no one to whose opinion I would 
 sooner listen upon all matters within her reach. She has had a good 
 deal of experience in society, and I think that, until you become 
 accustomed to your new position, you had better go to her in any 
 perplexity which may arise ; in all matters of housekeeping, and 
 household arrangements, I never saw her equal ; in the midst of 
 apparent profusion she is not without an elegant thrift. " 
 
 His speech caused Alice a strange annoyance, which she could 
 not have explained to herself, much less to her husband. After a 
 pause, she replied — 
 
 1 ' I hope I shall always do what pleases you in all things ; but 
 do you not think Mrs. Lauriston is rather worldly in some of her 
 notions ? " 
 
 "What do you mean by WDrldly, my Alice? My sister 
 Lauriston knows the value of outward things, and the goods of 
 fortune ; she puts a just appreciation upon appearances ; she is 
 not romantic, certainly, which is fortunate for her own happiness, 
 but she has an excellent heart : and you must agree with me, that 
 a woman like Alice Bryant would have been wasted on a man like 
 Mr. Lauriston." 
 
 Alice smiled, and was comforted by this compliment. 
 
 Bryant continued. " Her husband is not the man I would have 
 chosen for her ; it was a disappointment to me when she married 
 him ; but she was always ambitious, and marrying for love would 
 not have satisfied her. I do not think she sees his defects so 
 clearly as others do ; any way, she fills her station with great 
 propriety, and seems perfectly contented with it." 
 
 At this juncture the dressing bell rang, and there was no time 
 for further conversation. 
 
 Alice was left to reconcile this new knowledge to her soul as 
 well as she could. They remained a little more than a fortnight 
 at the Park, in which time Alice had not succeeded in being able 
 to love her sister-in-law. The elegance and refinement which at 
 first had struck her so forcibly, came in the end to seem as 
 
60 THE HALE SISTEKS. 
 
 circumscribed in their significance as her old environments at her 
 mother's house. 
 
 An atmosphere of self pervaded all the details of Mrs. 
 Lauriston's life, making all things vulgar. Alice even began to 
 sigh for her old familiar homeliness amid the cold elegance of 
 Matching Park. She was uneasy at finding nothing in sympathy 
 with the hidden world of her own heart, to meet no sort of 
 recognition of those sentiments and aspirations which haunted her 
 like gleams of a former existence. She felt chilled to the soul, in 
 the midst of all that wealth and unbounded indulgence could 
 procure of external enjoyment. She rejoiced in the prospect of 
 going to her own home, where, at least, she hoped to be able to 
 break through this circle of ice, and live with Bryant according to 
 the dream of her own heart. At length the day of their 
 departure came. It had been arranged that Mrs. Lauriston should 
 return with them, to give Alice the support of her presence, 
 through the trying ordeal of "sitting for company;" and also, 
 to afford her judgment and advice on the arrangement of her 
 visiting list, she being well acquainted with the various claims 
 to consideration possessed by all the families in the neighbour- 
 hood. 
 
 Alice was, on the whole, rather glad of this. Nervously afraid 
 of doing wrong, with confidence in every one's judgment rather 
 than her own, she felt thankful to Mrs. Lauriston for undertaking 
 the responsibilities of her social debut. 
 
 The bridal party made their first appearance at church, to the 
 great satisfaction of the whole congregation, who had been 
 anxiously expecting their advent. The elegance and beauty of 
 the bride, her superb Brussels veil, and the stylish dignity of 
 Mrs. Lauriston, earned unqualified approbation. Some who v/ere 
 disposed to raise objections observed, that Mr. Bryant was older 
 than they deemed advisable for the husband of so young a 
 creature ; but that was not a point which could be rectified, so 
 they considerately added the saving clause, that there was no 
 accounting for tastes, and that elderly men generally made 
 indulgent husbands. On the whole, the gossip that went on 
 concerning them that day was marked by strong approbation. 
 
 Then followed that mysterious purgatory which is de rigueur in 
 all civilised English marriages, " sitting for company." All went ' 
 off extremely well ; crowds of well-dressed people came in their 
 carriages to the bridal levee, to look at Alice, to look at the house, 
 to drink chocolate, to depart and criticise. . 
 
 "Well!" said Alice, at the close of the second day, "white 
 kid gloves and bride cake will seem to me like a bad dream 
 realised, from henceforth. Oh, my dear Bryant, why can they not 
 let people marry in peace, and be happy, without chaining it to 
 such a leaden weight of obligation! What shall we do this 
 evening to celebrate the conclusion of our toils ? " 
 
 " The most advisable step would be, to eat our dinner in the first 
 
THE HALF SISTERS. 61 
 
 place," said Bryant, "and then I fear I mnst leave yon for an 
 hour. I have some business that is indispensable." 
 
 " Well, at least, I will never look bride-cake in the face again," 
 said Alice ; " and recollect, this business is only to take you away 
 for an hour — not one moment longer ! " 
 
 " Is she not a sweet natural creature, Margaret?" said Bryant, 
 looking after his wife as she left the room. 
 
 " Indeed she is," replied his sister ; "I quite adore her for her 
 freshness ; but she is not yet alive to all the advantages of her 
 position in the world as your wife." 
 
 CHAPTEE XV. 
 
 Conrad Percy, and a college friend of his, were lounging down 
 the principal street gf M , on a dusty, sultry afternoon in June. 
 
 "My dear Conrad!" cried his friend, "must we actually 
 remain in this cursed place till to-morrow ? "We don't know a 
 soul, and are poisoned with the smoke. I vow I have not seen one 
 decent man or woman since we arrived ; everybody is walking as 
 if on life and death — there is nothing to look at, and we have 
 nothing to do. I cannot make out what you are stopping for ; — • 
 why cannot we go on to the lakes to-night ? " 
 
 " My good fellow," replied Conrad, " don't be so disconsolate — 
 it makes me quite melancholy to hear you. I have told you at 
 least a dozen times, that we must stay till to-morrow, because we 
 got in after the bank was closed (it is one of their confounded 
 holidays), and neither you nor I have money enough in our purse 
 to pay our coach fare ; — does that satisfy you ? " 
 
 " Somebody could surely be found who would cash your check." 
 
 "My dear fellow, these people of business would only see two 
 plausible swindlers in dashing fellows like you and me. I don't 
 know a soul in the town, and can give no reference — so just be 
 peaceable, and don't grumble : it is of no use to rebel against 
 destiny." 
 
 " Well," said the other, after a pause, " as people do live here, 
 there must be something to live upon — I do not mean bread and 
 cheese, but some sort of amusement — something to keep the soul 
 from stagnating, or drying to brick- dust. Bah ! do let us get out 
 of this smoke ; see ! if we cross over the road it will pass over our 
 heads — it is dreadful! " 
 
 " "We certainly do not breathe 
 
 f An ampler ether, a diviner air,' " 
 said Conrad; "but this smoke does something, streaming from 
 
62 THE HALF SISTERS. 
 
 that tall chimney. What do you say to seeing a factory ? — it will 
 help to pass the time." 
 
 " Well," replied the other, " be it so ; but if the outside be so 
 villainous, what will the interior be ? " 
 
 They proceeded a few steps with this intention, when they were 
 overtaken by a procession of equestrians from the circus, exercising 
 their horses, and showing themselves. The band, in gaudy 
 liveries, and sitting in a sort of open omnibus, were playing to 
 the great delectation of a crowd of women and children, who came 
 running out of every street. The two friends turned to gaze also, 
 glad of any event to break their ennui. The cortege was brought 
 up by a radiant-looking phaeton, and Conrad was startled by 
 receiving an elaborate bow from the very magnificently-attired 
 individual sitting in it, and who, at the same moment, ordered the 
 whole procession, in a voice of thunder, to "halt ! " 
 
 " By Heaven, Conrad!" said his friend, " you have found an 
 acquaintance at last. Who is it ? " 
 
 " The devil knows," replied Conrad, in an annoyed tone ; " let 
 us move on." 
 
 " Oh, no ! " said the other, " politeness for fcver ! We must not 
 turn our backs on this Magnus Apollo, who has stopped his course 
 and descended from his chariot to seek us." 
 
 Mr. Simpson, for it was none other, had by this time reached 
 the two friends. 
 
 "My very dear sir," said he, offering to Conrad his dirty but 
 dazzling hand, all covered with Birmingham rings, * \ permit me 
 to rejoice in this unexpected meeting. I knew you instantly. I 
 never forget a face I have once seen, and yours is not one to be 
 forgotten, even without the interesting occasion of our first 
 meeting. Your protegee has done you credit — she has real genius. 
 She is not with the troop to-day ; but you will honour us in front 
 to-night. All the officers patronise us with their presence to- 
 night ; you are come at a fortunate time. Your protegee will be 
 enchanted. She has often asked whether we should go to where 
 you live. She is a wonderful girl." 
 
 In the course of this voluble discourse Conrad had recollected 
 without difficulty the hero of the " sanded parlour." 
 
 " Ah ! " said he, with as good a grace as he could assume, though 
 sorely annoyed at the publicity of the thing, ' ' I hope the little 
 Italian is well. Is she still a dumb girl, or have you taught her 
 to speak English ? Is her mother alive still ? " 
 
 "My dear sir, she is a genius. Most astonishing talent, and 
 has kept herself perfectly respectable. I told you I would keep 
 my eye upon her, and I have done so. But you will come and 
 see us to-night. If you will tell me your hotel, I will have the 
 honour of sending you half a dozen tickets, and will keep places 
 in the reserve box." 
 
 A crowd had gathered by this time, to see what was going on, 
 and to hear how circus people talked. 
 
THE HALF SISTERS. 63 
 
 "Yes, yes," said Conrad, impatiently, and moving away, "I 
 will not fail to come. But you need not take the trouble to 
 send." 
 
 Conrad's friend, who wanted to plague him, said, quite loud 
 enough to be heard, " Thank you, Mr. Simpson ; send them to the 
 Royal Hotel." 
 
 " You may rely upon me, my dear sir," cried Mr. Simpson, as 
 he sprang upon his lofty seat, and gave the word to proceed, 
 just as a policeman was crossing the road, and bid them 
 " "move on." 
 
 "Well, Conrad, and who is this Italian miracle ? Faith, this 
 delay has been more lucky than one could have hoped. I am 
 dying to see what she is like." 
 
 " She was a young Italian girl," said Conrad, annoyed at his 
 companion's tone, "whom I met with at an inn in the North, 
 twelve months ago. She was in great trouble. Her mother, who 
 was mad, had fallen ill ; and somebody they had come to England 
 to seek, turned out to be dead ; so you may fancy she was badly 
 off. I helped the poor thing with a trifle of money, and made a 
 bargain for her with this man, who also happened to be there. It 
 was one way of gaining a living. She was little more than a 
 child then — not fifteen ; I wonder what she is like now. She was 
 very interesting and modest-looking then ; but she will have lost 
 all that, I suppose." 
 
 "We will go and see," replied his companion. " Now let us go 
 back to dinner, I am hungry ; and now we have an object to look 
 forward to, I don't feel half so bored as I did. How very little 
 one wants in this world, and we do not get it ! " 
 
 When Bianca learned the rencontre of the morning, she was, as 
 we all are when we unexpectedly come upon our dearest wish, not 
 half so glad as she expected ; it threw her into a tumult of feelings 
 she could neither express nor understand, amounting almost to 
 physical pain. At last, the true woman's instinct made itself felt ; - 
 a woman's first impulse is always to dress for her lover, and out of 
 the chaos of new sensations that bewildered her, one made itself 
 speedily articulate, a determination to get a new dress out of the 
 manager. There was not much time to manufacture it, but she 
 was clever at inventing costumes, and very quick in a rough 
 effective manner of realising them. 
 
 Mr. Simpson was in a capital humour, and very desirous that 
 his protegee should appear to advantage, so she found him in 
 an unusually liberal mood, and obtained without difficulty an 
 unlimited supply of white spotted muslins, silver tinsel, with 
 some sky-blue ribbon, and a new pair of Greek sandals of a 
 similar colour. Out of these materials, she achieved a costume 
 that surprised even herself; she did not know what it was that 
 had inspired her with a refinement and delicacy she had not * 
 dreamed of before ; all that had hitherto contented her, now 
 seemed mean and coarse, when brought into actual contact with 
 
64i THE HALE SISTERS. 
 
 one moving in snch a different sphere. She felt for the first time 
 to measure the distance between them, and her dress was contrived 
 to meet what she fancied would be his , taste ; she looked forward 
 with a sort of pleased dread, to showing him what she could do, 
 and determined to excel herself. 
 
 Dressed in her fresh pure-looking costume, her magnificent 
 black hair arranged so as to exhibit all its beauty, her cheeks too 
 flushed with anxiety to stand in need of rouge, she made her 
 entrance on the scene. Her eyes soon found out Conrad and his 
 friend, when all her powers seemed suddenly to forsake her ; she 
 felt dreadfully frightened, and her impulse was to rush off the 
 stage ; though that was not possible, and, in a few moments, the 
 effect of habit resumed its sway, yet she did not recover so far as 
 to act so well as usual ; she was constrained and embarrassed, and 
 had not the abandon and earnestness which was her great charm ; 
 all she was saying and doing suddenly seemed to become so foolish 
 and stupid, now that she fancied him listening to it. Mr. Simpson 
 was provoked, but as saying so would have made her worse, he 
 prudently held his tongue. 
 
 The occasion which Bianca had so long looked forward to was 
 now come ; but instead of the delight and happiness she expected, 
 she felt more wretched and depressed than she had ever done in 
 her life, and would gladly have sat down and cried. 
 
 After the first piece on the stage, came the scenes in the circle, 
 in which she had a good deal of pantomime to do. Relieved from 
 the insipid mawkish stuff she had been obliged to utter, her spirits 
 began to rise, and she did herself more justice. Conrad and his 
 friend were both startled by the power she showed. It was the 
 sight of Conrad's face that restored her energy; she heard his 
 applause as she passed round, and was up to the mark instantly. 
 
 " Upon my honour that girl has real talent," said Conrad ; " she 
 will do something one of these days if she goes on." 
 
 He flung a moss-rose to her, as she passed beneath where he sat ; 
 she made an effort, and recovered it, before it fell to the ground. 
 The audience fancied it a tour de force, and applauded mightily, 
 and other flowers were dropped by aspiring youths ; but Bianca 
 had already disappeared behind the pink satin curtain. 
 
 " A glorious girl, in faith," said Conrad's companion; "let us 
 go behind and speak to her." 
 
 It was a scene even more motley by night than by day. But 
 Bianca was not there ; she had left the circus immediately on 
 quitting the ring. Mr. Simpson, however, in a dress something 
 between that of a footman and a field-marshal, came up to them, 
 expressing regrets, and hopes, and fears, enough to have furnished 
 a whole generation of the human race in times of ordinary vicis- 
 situdes ; winding up with — 
 
 "Well, my dear sir, and what is your opinion of our protegee ? 
 She was not in force to-night in the earlier part — she seemed 
 frightened — the first time I ever knew her so. I think the idea of 
 
THE HALF SISTERS. 65 
 
 appearing before you embarrassed her. But slie pulled up towards 
 the last, I thought." 
 
 Conrad and his friend paid all the expected compliments, not 
 only to Bianca, but to the whole establishment. 
 
 "Yes, sir," replied Mr. Simpson, with complacent gravity, 
 " every man has some model he proposes to himself — Buonaparte 
 is mine. I never accept excuses. I never allow my people to 
 fail: and by expecting nothing less than perfection, I secure 
 excellence, at least. He was a wonderful man, sir, Buonaparte ! 
 I am generally supposed to resemble him in person, as it is my 
 ambitionto do in mind." 
 
 "It is equally striking in both," said Conrad, with perfect 
 gravity; "but I should like to see Ma'mselle Bianca. Do you 
 know where she lives ? and at what time I should be most likely 
 to find her to-morrow ? " 
 
 The manager felt an undefined fear, that an interview between 
 Conrad and his protegee would end either in his losing her services 
 altogether, or in being obliged to pay a higher rate lor them ; so 
 he tried to evade the question. But Conrad persisted, and at last 
 got the requisite information, with which he took his leave. 
 
 The next morning Conrad repaired early to the address he had 
 received, — he went alone, as he did not choose his travelling 
 companion to go with him. 
 
 As Bianca's salary had not been raised beyond the original 
 twelve shillings a week, the lodging she and her mother now 
 occupied was in no respect superior to the one we formerly 
 described; in fact, poverty had made inroads even on the few 
 comforts they then possessed. It is no easy matter to keep two 
 persons in food, clothes, and lodging, on twelve shillings a week ; 
 her few trinkets had gradually been disposed of, to supply 
 accidental deficiencies as they arose, — and her salary had been 
 anticipated for several weeks. Poor Bianca was suffering under 
 that most wearing of all human ills — anxiety about money ; that 
 worst fruit of the tree of knowledge — the utmost value of a 
 shilling ! It was about nine o'clock when Conrad went to visit 
 her, and she was preparing breakfast. A cup of chocolate for her 
 mother ; a little milk and water, with a slice of bread, for herself. 
 Their small apartment was already swept and straightened for the 
 day. Her mother, wrapt in a large shawl, sat in a rocking-chair 
 beside the fire, still retaining traces of the beauty she had formerly 
 possessed. Bianca was much grown since Conrad had last seen 
 her ; but he was shocked to perceive, by daylight, that she looked 
 gaunt and thin, as if she had not sufficient food. She was dressed 
 in a pink gingham gown, high to the throat ; and a black apron, 
 pinned to a point in front, showed her round slender waist. 
 
 She started so violently when Conrad, having knocked, entered, 
 that she upset the whole of her breakfast ; the blood rushed to her 
 heart, which felt as if it would never beat again; and this girl, 
 inured to appearing nightly before hundreds of spectators, stood 
 
 F 
 
GG THE HALF SISTEES. 
 
 with trembling limbs and downcast eyes before Conrad, unable to 
 speak, unable to move a step. 
 
 " I could not leave tbe town, without informing myself of your 
 welfare, mademoiselle," said Conrad, with a respect which sur- 
 prised himself, " and I hope I have not come at an unseasonable 
 hour. I am obliged to continue my journey in an hour, which 
 must be my excuse." 
 
 All which Bianca had thought, felt, pictured to herself that she 
 would say, when the opportunity of seeing Conrad should come, 
 faded from her memory now ; she could only stammer an invitation 
 to be seated ; the one glance, as she lifted her eyes to his face, and 
 suddenly withdrew them, perhaps supplied Conrad with the true 
 meaning of her abrupt and broken words, for he sat down quietly, 
 and gave her time to recover herself. He addressed her mother 
 (who looked uneasily at him) in Italian, and told her he had the 
 honour to be an old acquaintance of her daughter's. She at first 
 brightened a little at the sound of her native tongue, but her 
 attention soon wandered, and she began again to rock herself. 
 Bianca now found her voice, and expressed all the gratitude she 
 felt for the services he had rendered her. 
 
 M I have long desired," said she, quietly, " for the opportunity 
 of telling you this, and now that it has occurred, you see how 
 awkward I am at expressing it ; but there is not a day in which I 
 have forgotten you." 
 
 Conrad could not reply by any common compliment ; he felt too 
 strongly interested in his protegee. 
 
 "Tell me how I can serve you further," said he; "by this 
 time you must obtain a good salary, as you seem the principal 
 actress and equestrian." 
 
 Bianca told him frankly how she was situated with the 
 manager; that she had received more advantageous offers from 
 other quarters, but that being in debt to Mr. Simpson she could 
 not get free. 
 
 Conrad was extremely indignant. Every moment he felt a 
 stronger interest in the young girl so strangely thrown on his 
 humanity. He told her how much he had been pleased with her 
 acting, and asked if she had no desire to take a higher walk in 
 her profession. 
 
 It is the peculiarity of strong characters to know their own 
 wishes. Bianca's embarrassment left her, as she candidly and 
 frankly spoke to her friend of her position. She relied on him 
 instinctively. 
 
 " I feel," said she, " capable of doing better things. I love 
 the profession, but I would like to have better things to say, not 
 be condemned to utter the trash of last night ; but I have no 
 books, no means of getting instruction ; I desire beyond all things 
 to enter a regular theatre, no matter in how humble a capacity. 
 I would work upwards. I can speak English now, and I feel I 
 could make my way." • 
 
THE HALF SISTERS. 67 
 
 " I thank you," said Conrad, " for speaking to me as a friend, 
 for thinking of me as one ; I will try to merit your confidence. I 
 am obliged to go on northward to-day, but I shall return this way 
 in a month, when I will see you again. I will in the meanwhile 
 write to a friend about you. I will not lose sight of you till some- 
 thing is settled. You shall hear from me soon. Clear off all your 
 scores with Simpson, and give him notice, but make no fresh 
 engagement till you have seen me." 
 
 Conrad was about to give her a sufficient sum to allow her to 
 work up her arrears of salary ; but suddenly recollecting that he 
 had not yet paid a visit to the bank, he was obliged to stop his 
 speech in some confusion. He shortly after took his leave ; but in 
 less than an hour after his departure Bianca received a parcel, 
 containing a copy of Shakespeare in one large volume, and a note 
 enclosing 51, The note was as follows : — 
 
 " Dear Bianca, 
 
 " I send you a trifle to free you from Simpson; the book 
 you must study, for my sake, and tell me about it when I return : 
 till then, think of me as your sincere friend, 
 
 "Conrad Percy." 
 
 CHAPTEE XVI. 
 
 There are moments in the experience of most people, which 
 come unthought of, unlooked for, bringing a gush of deep joy that 
 is like pain in its intensity — it is almost a pang of ecstasy. Such 
 a moment was it to Bianca, when she opened Conrad's parcel and 
 read the note it contained. What now to her was hunger or 
 privation? she had received a talisman against all evil, that it 
 , should not come nigh her. The whole day passed in a feverish 
 delight ; and if, when with so little human prospect of meeting 
 him, she had been devoted to the idea of Conrad, it may be judged 
 whether she were not now confirmed in her allegiance to it for life 
 and death ! She expected no return, she thought of none, her own 
 sentiment was so engrossing, so all-absorbing, that it left no room 
 for considering whether Conrad returned her love or not. With 
 the deep humility of a true passion, she did not venture to aspire 
 to being beloved as she herself loved. He was a bright particular 
 star, so far above her. She only desired to be allowed to worship 
 him without repulse. 
 
 At the end of the week she signified to Mr. Simpson that she 
 intended to quit his company. The worthy copier of Buonaparte 
 was put into a royally Buonapartean rage, and found some difficulty 
 
 * 2 
 
68 THE HALS' SISTERS. 
 
 in expressing himself adequately to his ideas of his character, and 
 the occasion. At first he turned a glance he intended for annihi- 
 lation, upon her ; and then, folding his arms, he desired her, with 
 a sarcastic tone, to repeat what she had just "been saying. 
 
 " I said," replied Bianca, " that Mr. Percy has promised to get 
 me an engagement at a regular theatre, and that I wish to leave 
 your company so soon as I shall have worked out the money you 
 have advanced to me." 
 
 " So ! it's all well, very well," said Mr. Simpson ; " you cannot 
 suppose you are necessary to me in any way, "because you are not, 
 the least in the world. It is for yourself I speak : to he near me, 
 to learn maxims of your art, to hear what I say on the profession, 
 was a great advantage to a young beginner like you, and I did 
 think you appreciated it. I had better hopes of you, Bianca ; but 
 now to leave me in this shabby way for a regular theatre is what 
 I did not expect : but all are alike — it is interest, and not art, 
 that moves men : for the sake of a pitiful increase of salary, you 
 can leave me, when you might go down to posterity as my 
 favourite pupil!" 
 
 "But then posterity might say you half starved me, and took 
 advantage of my necessities to drive the hardest bargains : so it is 
 as well for your fame that I should go whilst there is life in me. 
 How much have you advanced me?" 
 
 After a few further expressions of majestic displeasure, Mr. 
 Simpson descended to business. Mr. Simpson was not a dishonest 
 man, at least he would not have allowed that he was ; but he 
 piqued himself on being a sharp " man of business," and driving 
 a " keen bargain." Under the extenuating name of " business," 
 there lies a debateable ground between honesty and roguery, 
 amenable to its own laws of morality, and understanding no 
 other. 
 
 After much grumbling at the shabbiness of Mr. Percy, in 
 stealing away one of his troop, Mr. Simpson, with the sulky look 
 of a much-injured man, agreed to give Bianca a written release 
 for that day five weeks, which was just a fortnight longer than 
 he had any real claim to her services for the money he had 
 advanced. 
 
 Bianca was too happy in her own mind to raise objections to 
 anything. On her way home she invested a shilling of her small 
 capital in paper, pens, ink, and sealing-wax, and was far more 
 particular in the choice of them than if they had been articles of 
 dress. Her first care was to arrange their small room, to make it 
 look its best ; then she dressed herself with as much recherche as 
 her means allowed, and that was not much ; but it was a woman's 
 instinct to make herself look as well as possible, for the presence 
 of her lover, and she felt as if she were going to approach Conrad. 
 Her mother was knitting placidly in her arm-chair, beside the fire. 
 Her past was erased from her memory ; and she had forgotten all 
 the burning passionate love of her youth, with all the evil it had 
 
THE HALF SISTEBS. 69 
 
 wrought her, and was utterly unconscious that her child was even 
 now, for the first time, setting- her foot on that enchanted ground, 
 there to wander in wildernesses that have no way, and without a 
 hand to guide her ! Though a complete wreck from what she had 
 heen, Bianca's mother still retained traces of loveliness — her figure 
 was noble and commanding ; but her imbecility had given an 
 expression of aged childhood to her faded face ; her magnificent 
 eyes had lost their speculation, and gazed around with a stupid 
 vacillating look, seeming to take note of nothing. She was dressed 
 in a black stuff gown, with a white handkerchief round her throat ; 
 her hair, which was quite grey, was confined under a muslin head- 
 dress, which Bianca had great skill in fashioning. 
 
 Bianca sat at the table under the window, her face buried in 
 her hands ; all the burning emotions, with which her heart was 
 full, were unable to furnish her with a form of expression ; and 
 she w T as, besides, in such an intoxication of feeling, that she was 
 carried away in dreamy beatitude, and could make no adequate 
 effort to rouse herself even to the task in hand. Every word 
 Conrad had spoken, every look and tone recurred to her, and the 
 thrill of emotion when he had touched her hand to say farewell, 
 all came back again, and again ; her whole nature was unlocked, 
 and all the imaginative passionateness of her age and nature, was i 
 loosened from the torpid unconsciousness of girlhood, like a torrent 
 which had been frozen at its -fountain by the blaze of the summer 
 sun. There sat her mother, like a presence from the world of 
 passion, to warn her against the perilous adventure towards which 
 she was turning ; but what availed it ? "What power had Bianca 
 to profit by the monition ? She had already come under the 
 influence of the Enchanted Land, and must follow her fate. She 
 had no longer the power to guide herself, if she had even retained 
 the wish to return. At last she lifted her head, and dipping one 
 of the pens in ink, began to write ; but here a most mortifying 
 difficulty presented itself; she had forgotten till now that she 
 could hardly write a word, and all her exaltation of feeling Avas 
 about to end in the pitiful production of a few cramped, straggling, 
 and almost illegible lines. Under any circumstance the letter 
 would have been difficult ; now it was all but impossible. How- 
 ever, Bianca was not one to give up anything so near her heart ; 
 and, after spoiling four of her sheets of gilt-edged paper, she 
 contrived, by dint of printing the letters she found difficulty in 
 writing, and looking out for the words she had to spell in her 
 Shakespeare, at last to produce, if not a finished specimen of 
 caligraphy, a reasonably legible and entirely original-looking 
 letter. It was very brief ; she was surprised to find how little 
 she really had to say ; and when she had thanked him for his 
 presents, and told him her arrangement with Mr. Simpson, she 
 found all the rest must of its nature remain unutterable for her ; 
 so, out of all patience with what had cost her so much pains and 
 • labour, and which bore no likeness to the glowing thoughts which 
 
70 THE HALE SISTERS. 
 
 filled lier heart when she sat down to write, she folded her letter 
 with tolerable neatness, and having directed and sealed it to the 
 best of her ability, she pnt on her bonnet and took it to the post, 
 and returned home full of anxiety, lest amongst the many hundred 
 other letters, her precious venture should happen to be precisely 
 the one overlooked, or lost, or mis-sent. Then she tormented 
 herself as to whether she had addressed it rightly, — and finally, 
 her memory, to comfort her, suggested all the rumours she had 
 ever heard of mails being overturned, and post-bags lost or stolen. 
 However, it duly arrived, and was placed on Conrad's breakfast- 
 table the next morning. " Upon my honour I did not think the 
 girl could write so well ; that is not at all a vulgar letter, is it ?" 
 said he, tossing it to his companion. 
 
 M Ah, from your young prot6g6e ! I say, Conrad, don't turn 
 her head, poor little thing ; and, if I might turn Mentor, I should 
 say, don't play the fool yourself. These sort of adventures are 
 the devil for seducing one into mischief one never intended." 
 
 " No fear of that," replied Conrad, gravely ; " and besides, my 
 governor will have to recommend her — he has some theatrical 
 connexion, and I shall turn the matter over to him. I must 
 write to the old boy to-day, and it will be something to fill up my 
 letter ; he dearly loves what he calls the romance of real life." 
 
 Conrad did write, and the result was, that before her engage- 
 ment with Mr. Simpson terminated, Bianca received another letter 
 from Conrad, enclosing a few lines, recommending her to the 
 notice of the manager of the Theatre Royal in a neighbouring 
 town. But, alas ! nothing of the same kind is twice perfect. 
 
 Conrad's letter told her he could not return through M , and 
 
 that he did not know when he should see her again ; but he gave 
 his address, and told her to write freely to him whenever she 
 needed anything. Bianca wept bitterly ; she had been counting 
 the days in the hope of his return, and she felt a chill disappoint- 
 ment at his speaking so calmly of the uncertainty of ever seeing 
 her again. However, she wiped her eyes, and comforted herself 
 with thinking of all the improvement she would have made when 
 next they met. 
 
 She made a journey and carried her letter to the manager, and 
 found him a cold, hard, dry man of business, without the least 
 enthusiasm for the profession, but a keen judge of what was likely 
 to take with an audience ; a quick eye for the capabilities of his 
 actors, but with no more feeling for them, no more sympathy 
 either with their personal needs, or any aspirations they might 
 happen to have for perfecting themselves in their art, than any of 
 the stage properties or decorations might have had. If an actor 
 showed available talent, and worked well, he retained him — so 
 long as he was useful. He paid well where he was obliged, and 
 screwed down every one who was not in a position to compel 
 better terms. He had, moreover, the character of being very 
 profligate in his conduct towards women ; and several very bad 
 
THE HALF SISTERS. 11 
 
 stories were whispered about his heartless conduct towards young- 
 women who had belonged to his company. Such was the worthy 
 master to whom Bianca was recommended. 
 
 She knocked at the door of his room with a trembling hand, 
 and was bid to come in, by a tall, portly, rather good-looking 
 man, who was swinging back in a chair, before which stood a 
 table covered with green baize, and strewn with letters and 
 papers. As Bianca advanced he looked at her with an air of 
 deliberate insolent criticism, like a man who considered himself a 
 connoisseur in female charms. 
 
 Bianca, without speaking, presented her letter. 
 
 "So!" said he, tossing it down after he had read it, " you 
 desire to enter a regular theatre, it seems. How long have you 
 been with Mr. Simpson, and what sort of business have you been 
 accustomed to ? " 
 
 Bianca replied in as few words as possible, for she felt exces- 
 sively annoyed at the impertinent familiarity of his look and 
 manner. , 
 
 " Can you recite anything to give me an idea of your talent ? 
 Can you repeat one of Calista's speeches, for example ? " 
 
 Bianca was obliged to confess she could not. 
 
 " Well, then, is there no passage in some of the plays you have 
 acted ?» 
 
 " They are such trash, at the best," said Bianca, " that any 
 passage separated from the scene would sound sheer nonsense ; but 
 I think I could repeat some bits out of Shakespeare." 
 
 " That will serve excellently well. Begin anywhere you like, 
 for I have not much time to spare." 
 
 Bianca, with some trepidation, and a feeling of shame, as if she 
 were revealing her heart's secret, began to repeat the soliloquy of 
 Helena, in " All's well that ends well." It was the only passage 
 she could think of at the moment, and the manager was impatient. 
 
 She repeated it with so much delicacy and tenderness that the 
 manager was taken by surprise. 
 
 " Come," said he, when she had finished, " if you do as well as 
 that always, you will be sure to get on ; but you have a great 
 • deal to learn, and nearly all the women's places are filled up ; but, 
 as you come recommended by an old friend, I don't like to refuse 
 you. I cannot natter you that you are worth much at present ; 
 but, however, if you like to agree for eighteen shillings a week, 
 to act in anything you may be put to, why I will see if I can find 
 something for you to do. But, remember, there is to be no 
 picking and choosing, or grumbling ; you are to act anything you 
 may be wanted for, and you must not expect to be put into 
 leading parts at first." 
 
 Bianca expressed her willingness to accede to this arrangement ; 
 and, after a few tether remarks, the manager dismissed her, 
 with an intimation that he would send her a part to study, and 
 let her know when the piece was called for rehearsal. 
 
72 THE HALE SISTERS. 
 
 Bianca had now obtained her wish; she was engaged at a 
 regular theatre, but she did not feel so elated as she had antici- 
 pated ; in her dreams she had overlooked all the wide desert of 
 subordinate drudgery she would have to traverse ; she had grown 
 accustomed to being the first person in Mr. Simpson's company, 
 and she felt a discouraging chill, for a short time, at finding 
 herself at the very bottom of the ladder, and feeling herself 
 dwarfed, as it were, to nothingness, standing beside the immense 
 task her ambition had prompted. But her spirit soon rallied ; 
 and she made a solemn resolution that no difficulty should present 
 itself, to which she would not oppose at least as much resolution 
 and patience as should be necessary to combat it ; that she would 
 turn aside from no drudgery, take offence at no professional 
 humiliation, but keep her eye steadily fixed on her own purpose ; 
 and that purpose was to rise to a leading rank in her profession. 
 
 "When it came to the point, she was very sorry to leave Mr. 
 Simpson, who, in the main, was a reasonably worthy man, though 
 he had so pitilessly screwed her down in the article of salary ; 
 still she might have been with many worse people. He was sorry 
 to part with her, for he had a regard for her, quite independent 
 of her usefulness to him. 
 
 "Well, good-bye, Bianca," said he, when she took leave of 
 him. "I wish you well; and if this theatre scheme does not 
 answer, remember, you can come back to us. You are high- 
 minded, like all young people ; but if you get a fall, and wish to 
 come back, you can." 
 
 Bianca thanked him, and they parted on cordial terms. 
 
 CHAPTEE XVII. 
 
 "The Prince of Darkness is a gentleman," and therefore we 
 do not believe he ever made the noted saying attributed to him, 
 that it is " better to reign in hell than serve in heaven." No 
 gentleman would have thought such a thing; only some poor, 
 tenacious, low-bred individual, who feared to have the shine of 
 his own little rushlight eclipsed, if he ventured into better lighted 
 society, and therefore cultivated the dusk, pour se /aire valoir. 
 Satan has been slandered ; he never adorned himself with such a 
 piece of pinchbeck sublimity. Still we are free to confess, that 
 it is trying to human vanity to emerge from a scene of small 
 triumphs, from the village where one may have been Caesar, to 
 take a place in the awkward squad of raw recruits, and submit 
 to be drilled, and caned, and disciplined, with hope of making 
 oneself a regular soldier — of becoming, not a commander-in-chief, 
 
THE HALE SISTEES. 73 
 
 but only one in a regiment where there* are a thousand as good as 
 ourselves — and being able to believe, that, though we may not be 
 distinguishable to the naked eye of indifference, still we have 
 been made partakers of a better order of things. A person who 
 can submit thus to efface himself, must have something really 
 valuable in him, and the probability is he will come to shine on 
 his own account some clay; but that is the accident, not the 
 element, of his aspirations. To become better, to become excel- 
 lent, is what he seeks — the rest is as God pleases. 
 
 Bianca had the strength to be capable of this. She had long 
 been the first person in Mr. Simpson's company, and now she had 
 to find herself less than insignificant. No one taking the smallest 
 interest in her, all the good places filled up, she was reduced to 
 being a brick in a wall— just preventing an unsightly gap, that 
 any one else could have filled just as well. The first part sent to 
 her was that of a pert chambermaid in a little after-piece ; it did 
 not consist of more than two dozen lines, and for sense and 
 meaning it fell far below any of her circus parts. However, she 
 learned it, and determined to make the best of it. 
 
 But when she went to rehearsal, she found herself like a child 
 in a strange school. Nobody condescended to take any notice of 
 her. Some of the performers looked at her with supercilious 
 contempt; the women whispered and tittered together, and 
 laughed maliciously at her mistakes in the stage business. The 
 man with whom she had her scene, swore at her for spoiling one 
 of his points, by looking the wrong way at a curtain. None had 
 the good nature to give her any available directions. Some of the 
 men looked boldly and insolently at her, and in a manner that 
 made Bianca strongly disposed to resent it on the instant. She 
 felt degraded and insulted, and thought with regret of good 
 Mr. Simpson, and the rough good- will of her old companions ; 
 and she missed the beautiful horses dreadfully; none of the 
 people about her seemed half such Christians! She went home 
 miserable enough from this her first rehearsal in a regular 
 theatre, and a Theatre Royal into the bargain. Men are naturally, 
 and from instinct, in a state of mutual war with each other ; go 
 into what society one will, we shall find the ranks serried against 
 us, unless we take with us influence to cause a place to open for 
 us, or strength to force one for ourselves: for it is the latent 
 power that lies within us, to obtain what we desire by force, if 
 need be— the being able to fight for ourselves — which alone gets 
 us any respect in the world. No mildness, nor amiability, nor 
 goodness will stand us in any stead, unless the power to make 
 ourselves felt and feared in an extremity, makes itself apparent 
 through all the beautiful sky-blue haze of amiable qualities. 
 Bianca had no place as yet ; but she intended to make one. 
 
 At night, however, she met with a glorious compensation, 
 which made all the annoyance of the morning as dust in the 
 balance. The leading actor of the day, the head of the profession, 
 
?4i THE HALF SISTEES. 
 
 was then fulfilling an engagement in the theatre ; this happened 
 to be one of his nights. The play was "King Lear." Bianca 
 stationed herself at one of the sides. She had never seen real 
 acting before. If she had felt a love for her profession when she 
 had only a vague instinct of its capabilities, what wonder that she 
 became passionate when she beheld it in one of its most superb 
 manifestations! She stood like one entranced, leaning against 
 one of the side scenes ; she felt a new life awakened within her ; 
 but all feeling about herself, all thought of herself, was absorbed 
 in the awe and reverence with which she regarded this revelation 
 of the invisible powers of art. It was a glimpse of the super- 
 natural ; she was baffled in her attempt to comprehend it ; her 
 powers of body and mind gave way under the intense excitement ; 
 she sank on the ground and leaned her head against one of the 
 scenes, half-drowned in a flood of passionate tears that welled up 
 from the deepest depths of her soul — such as can be only called 
 from their source by the Divine soul shining into our hearts, and 
 giving us a glimpse of ineffable things that no man may utter. 
 An ocean, cloven to its depths, seemed revealed for an instant 
 before her eyes, and she sank like a weed upon the brink of what 
 she dared not gaze on. Her tears brought her back to her 
 mortality, and relieved her from the oppressed and overwrought 
 state which, if it had continued^ must have brought on serious 
 illness. We are girt round with weakness, and this very weak- 
 ness is the refuge and defence of humanity, as well as its 
 limitation. 
 
 The actor, who had been the means of thus rousing her, had to 
 pass in one scene close beside her, and he was startled at the 
 expression of her countenance ; a priestess listening to an oracle 
 would have had a similar look. He addressed her, but she could 
 not reply. He had the soul of an artist, and could recognise the 
 spirit that was stirring within her. He was obliged to leave her, 
 to enter on the scene. But this man, who dedicated his whole 
 life to the art, felt that, in the dumb admiration of this young, 
 unformed girl, he had received the highest homage that had ever 
 been paid him ; and he felt, too, that to have had the privilege 
 of kindling that young spirit, by revealing to her the first glimpse 
 of excellence, was a transcendant reward for the life-long toil he 
 had dedicated to his art. 
 
 After the curtain fell, he looked to see if she were still there ; 
 and going up to her, laid his hand on her shoulder, and said, 
 gently:— 
 
 " You, too, have greatness in your heart ; let nothing discourage 
 you in your course." 
 
 Bianca did not attempt to reply, but she seized a corner of his 
 dress, and raised it reverently to her lips, and withdrew. 
 
 "Who is that striking-looking girl?" he inquired of the man 
 who had played Edgar, and who just then came by. 
 
 "I don't know; somebody St. Leger picked up in the circus, 
 
THE HALF SISTEES. 75 
 
 I heard ; he has always an eye for good-looking subs. I never 
 saw her before to-day, so I suppose she is a fresh importation. " 
 
 "He has shown his judgment," said the other coldly; "she 
 will make a noise in the world some of these days, or I am much 
 mistaken." 
 
 "Whenever our feelings have been at all exalted for a little 
 while, we are sure to be thrown down to earth again with a rude 
 shock; we have dreamed that we were flying, and we awake 
 falling. Bianca had to dress for her part in the farce ; the 
 emotions of the last few hours had completely driven it from her 
 memory, she was in a sort of waking sleep, and until she found 
 herself" before the curtain, she never discovered that she could not 
 say one word ! 
 
 " I have forgotten all I" said she, in a voice of dismay to the 
 man who was acting the part of a fine gentleman's gentleman. 
 
 " Confound you, for a fool!" replied the man ; u you will spoil 
 my point. You were to coquet me ; your first word is that it is a 
 long time since you saw me." 
 
 "Oh-h!" said Bianca, making a desperate effort, and a dim 
 glimmering of her part came to her. In the circus she had often 
 been obliged to improvise dialogues, of which the situation only 
 had been indicated, and this stood her in good stead now ; luckily, 
 she recollected her companion's point, and gave him besides an 
 opportunity of making another, so that his alarmed dignity was 
 composed. 
 
 " You got out of that devilish well, let me tell you," said he, 
 when they came off; "but I would not advise you to play any 
 more of those tricks — they won't answer." 
 
 The next night there was no great play, Bianca had not her 
 attention distracted from her own business, and she found one 
 place was more like another than she had imagined. But evening 
 after evening, so long as his engagement lasted, she stood in her 
 old place, drinking in every word, and look, and movement of the 
 great actor, until her whole soul was filled and saturated with 
 noble conceptions. 
 
 The last evening that he acted, after the curtain dropped, he 
 went up to Bianca, and said kindly: "My good young lady, I 
 should much like to befriend you; you have that about you I 
 like to see in young beginners, and you will be heard of some of 
 these days if you persevere. But you have a great deal to do, 
 and much to learn, and many bad habits to unlearn. It will take 
 you at least five years before you have mastered the mechanical 
 part of your art, and all your life long you will find work before 
 you; but for at least ^lyg years you must drudge — you have 
 strength and patience, and let no difficulties make you distrust 
 your aspirations — they are the voice of God, you must have faith, 
 in them. When you are fit to be removed, you shall find a 
 friend in me. I am old enough to be your father, therefore let 
 me give you one caution — on no pretence entangle yourself with 
 
76 THE HALF SISTEBS. 
 
 obligations to the manager ; endure any hardships, but accept no 
 benefits from him. Will you promise me this ?" 
 
 " Indeed I will," said Bianca, gratefully, "and without 
 asking why you say so." 
 
 " There's a good girl," said the actor ; "it will be some months 
 before I am here again, and now let me see what progress you 
 will have made." He shook hands with her kindly and cordially, 
 and Bianca went home feeling so strong and proud, that difficulties 
 were things she could not believe in — she felt sure of achieving 
 all things ! 
 
 CHAPTEE XYIII. 
 
 When" Alice and Bryant had returned all their visits, and 
 attended the requisite dinner-parties and evening-parties, the 
 time at length arrived when they might sit down in peace in 
 their own house, as Alice hoped, and lead the life she had so 
 often sighed for, beside a being older, wiser, and better than 
 herself, who would love her as much as her heart desired, and be 
 her guide in all things. 
 
 The home of which Alice had now become mistress, was a 
 large, handsome, old-fashioned, country house, situated in a fine 
 park-like enclosure, about a mile and half from the nearest town, 
 but not a trace of its smoke could be seen under the shade of 
 the fine old trees, which were thickly planted around. The 
 entrance to the house was up a wide carriage-drive, planted on 
 each ^ide with chesnut-trees. The house itself was picturesque- 
 looking, of dark red brick with stone copings, presenting a long 
 facade of gable ends, nearly covered by a luxuriant growth of 
 ivy ; it had once upon a time been moated, but that unwholesome 
 piece of feudal state had long since been filled up and converted 
 into flower-beds. Within, the house still retained its old- 
 fashioned rambling aspect, long galleries, odd passages, and 
 rooms stuck in all manner of bewildering places ; but whilst the 
 distinctive character of the house had been retained, all the 
 innovations of modern comfort had been carefully and judiciously 
 introduced under the auspices of Mrs. Lauriston ; .the contrast 
 between the close-fitting windows, the patent grates, and com- 
 modious furniture, with the wild, rambling look of the building, 
 was quaint and pleasant. Beautiful hot-houses, and a conservatory, 
 filled with choice plants, had been erected by Bryant to please his 
 sister ; and although the establishment was on a much more 
 unpretending footing than Matching Park, still Raven Hall (as 
 Bryant's place was called), had a remarkably pleasing and 
 auspicious aspect, 
 
THE HALF SISTERS. 77 
 
 To outward eyes Alice had not a care or a sorrow, and she 
 __ herself fancied that she was going to be perfectly happy. 
 Bryant was deeply attached to his young wife, hut he was not 
 a demonstrative man ; his sister had never cared for any 
 expressions of attachment, and therefore, he had not acquired 
 the habit of using them: but Alice had a gentle and loving 
 nature ; to her, kind words from those she loved, were of far 
 more value than kind deeds, an idiosyncrasy common amongst 
 women and children. 
 
 Bryant had weighty business concerns on his mind; the 
 temporary interruption caused by his marriage, had induced an 
 accumulation of urgent affairs, which now occupied a more than 
 ordinary share of his time and attention, so that when they 
 subsided into the ordinary routine of domestic life, Alice was 
 left very much to herself; the daily guidance and sympathy, 
 from which she had anticipated so much comfort, by no means 
 occurred to Bryant as either necessary or desirable : he had never 
 been used to anything but the decided, unwavering manners of 
 his sister, and would almost as soon have thought of regulating 
 the amount of her food, as of giving Alice any sort of counsel 
 about the employment of her time. He desired that she should 
 be happy, and enjoy herself, provided the latter did not imply 
 that he* should be expected to visit a great deal, or to see people 
 who were not connected with his business ; otherwise, she might 
 do what she liked, go where she liked, and spend as much 
 money as ever she pleased. But what Alice asked was sympathy 
 and guidance ; she did not care for indulgence. 
 
 One of her earliest fears in her married life, was lest she should 
 not acquit herself well in her housekeeping. She was haunted 
 with the dread that she should not make Bryant so comfortable 
 as his sister had done, and also, lest she should spend more 
 money than had sufficed during the dynasty of her sister- 
 in-law. 
 
 "My dear Bryant," said Alice, one morning, in a deprecating 
 tone, as Bryant, with his letters in hand was preparing to depart, 
 "have you five minutes to look over my housekeeping-book for 
 the last month ? I am afraid you will think I have spent a 
 great deal, but I could not manage better." 
 
 "Why need I look at the book?" replied Bryant. "I am 
 very busy this morning. Can you not add up a simple row of 
 figures, and tell me how much money you want ? " 
 
 " But I should like to know whether you approve of what I 
 have done ; and to be sure that you do not think me more 
 extravagant than your sister used to be." 
 
 "My darling! do not be fantastic. "What does it signify 
 whether you spend a pound more or less in the week, if you are 
 comfortable ? I have never refused you money yet ; why, there- 
 fore, do you persist in quoting my sister, as if she had been a first 
 wife ? It is childish, all this. I have plenty of book-keeping 
 
78 THE HALE SISTEKS, 
 
 at the works, and do not wish to have the house-hook on my 
 hands besides. How much do you want, that I may hring it at 
 dinner time ? "Will fifty pounds do ? " 
 
 " Oh yes, the half of that. But tell me, have I vexed you ? " 
 
 " Oh dear, no. How can you think so ? " 
 
 " But do you love me?" persisted Alice, half crying. 
 
 " Why Alice, what is the matter? What can I have done to 
 make you doubt it ? Are you ill ? " said he anxiously. M Come, 
 tell me, what is the matter : is it because I refused to add up 
 your sums for you ? Come, do not be a baby — give me the book 
 and let me see." He good-humouredly resumed his seat, and 
 drew to the table. " Why you keep your accounts beautifully, 
 Alice ! and they are added right to a fraction ; there is no need 
 for me to go over them. Now let me make a memorandum of 
 how much you want." 
 
 M But have I spent more than Margaret used to do ? " 
 
 " You know best, my love ; but I really cannot stay to enter 
 on the chapter of Margaret's economy : my time is too precious, 
 and too short. I shall be in to dinner as usual. You had better 
 take a drive this fine morning." 
 
 He once more took up his hat, gave Alice a hasty kiss, and 
 mounted his horse, which had been waiting for ten minutes. He 
 put it to the gallop, and was out of sight almost directly/ Alice 
 looked after him with tearful eyes. " He never turned his 
 head," sighed she. " It is the first time he ever Omitted to look 
 back at me. What can I have done ?" 
 
 She sat down listlessly to practise some new music ; but the 
 thought of Bryant's coldness recurred again to her mind, and 
 she finally burst into tears. She had the comfort of shedding 
 them all without remonstrance ; and after she had made herself 
 sufficiently miserable, by thinking over every possible and 
 impossible cause of annoyance which she might have given, she 
 became more calm. But she was destined to endure a real 
 disappointment. A short note was brought to her from Bryant, 
 telling her not to wait dinner, as he should not be home, having 
 missed some parties on business by a few minutes, whom he had 
 now to meet elsewhere. Alice felt a twinge of conscience, to 
 think that the ten minutes she had detained him in the morning, 
 had been the cause of this contretems. 
 
 She remained alone until late in the evening, and when Bryant 
 at length arrived, he looked harassed and weary. Alice placed 
 his slippers, and made the tea, which had been brought in an 
 hour before. 
 
 " Why, Alice, how could you be so foolish as to wait for me so 
 long?" said he ; " another time, always dine or drink tea, as 
 the case may be, without waiting for me. I am very uncertain, 
 and am often detained when I least expect it. You will have 
 your house completely upset if you depend on my return at 
 stated hours." 
 
THE HALF SISTERS. 79 
 
 "I should prefer going without dinner and tea altogether, to 
 having them without you," said Alice. 
 
 " That is talking nonsense," replied Bryant : " it is only foolish 
 people who do not conform to necessary circumstances." 
 
 He relapsed into silence, and regarded the fire with an air of 
 gloomy thought. 
 
 " You are very silent," said Alice, at length, trying to speak 
 cheerfully ; " have you nothing to tell me ? " 
 
 " No, nothing at all — I have been seeing people and talking all 
 day, until I am quite weary," 
 
 After another long pause, during which he seemed to have 
 become utterly unconscious of her presence, he suddenly said : 
 
 i ' Alice, you are looking very pale ; you had better go to bed ; 
 I must sit up for some hours yet. I have brought home some 
 accounts that must be gone into to-night." 
 
 "And you so wearied ! " cried Alice, sympathetically. " Cannot 
 I help you at all, write down from your dictation ? Let me at 
 least sit beside you ; I will not speak a word." 
 
 " JN"o, love, no, I must be alone ; good night." 
 
 He lighted her candle, and opened the door for her ; and almost 
 before it closed he had become absorbed in a heap of perplexed- 
 looking papers. The next morning he was up early, and ready to 
 depart before Alice was dressed ; he called to wish her good-bye, 
 but before she could reach the hall- door, he was almost out of 
 sight. 
 
 Alice was perplexed and miserable for the whole day, and could 
 not get rid of the fancy that he was displeased with her for 
 detaining him on the previous morning. Bryant returned to dinner, 
 but his presence brought little comfort to Alice ; he continued 
 silent and reserved ; never speaking, except to reply to a question, 
 and then evidently with unwillingness. Poor Alice had three 
 days of silence, perplexity, and tears ; which last, however, she 
 had the good taste to keep entirely for her own private solace ; 
 but she was beginning to look pale and very miserable, when on 
 the fourth day Bryant came home a different man ! He was 
 lively, talkative, cheerful, and it seemed as if a heavy cloud had 
 been dispersed from his aspect. He observed for the first time, on 
 looking at Alice during dinner, how changed she seemed. 
 
 " My dear Alice," said he, when they were alone, "has any- 
 thing distressed you ? Have you heard any bad news ? Tell me 
 what is the matter," continued he, tenderly. 
 
 " There is nothing the matter now, clear Bryant," said Alice, 
 trying in vain to restrain her tears; "but you have been so 
 gloomy and silent of late, that I feared you were displeased with 
 me, and did not love me as formerly." 
 
 " My dear child, why will you take up with such fancies ! You 
 have had a narrow escape from something that would have been 
 really distressing ! For the last few days I have felt great 
 anxiety about some accounts which had arrived from our Iron 
 
80 THE HALF SISTERS. 
 
 Works in Silesia, and I feared my presence there would have been 
 required. It would have been impossible to take you along with 
 me, and I must have left you for, perhaps,, some months. Happily, 
 this morning we have received fresh advices, and all may be 
 arranged without me. Whenever you see me silent, as I have 
 been, you must not think me unkind. Be sure that I always 
 love you. "Whenever you vex me (which I do not believe is in 
 your power), I will tell you. Trust me, Alice ; and never doubt 
 my affection, because I do not make a demonstration of ft. I 
 have many things to harass me ; I am very sorry anything dis- 
 agreeable should result to you from them, but you love me well 
 enough to bear with me ; and will you not do so without making 
 yourself miserable, and me also ? for it is very distressing to me 
 to think I have given you pain." 
 
 " But I wish you would tell me what annoys you, and let me 
 share it," replied Alice ; " any anxiety would be preferable to the 
 fear I have suffered the last few days, lest I had displeased you." 
 
 " My darling ! you could not share the worries of business with 
 me. I cannot speak of matters at the time they are pressing on 
 my mind ; — no, my love, there is nothing for it but your kind for- 
 bearance. I know it must annoy you ; but I feel very grateful 
 for your sympathy, though I may not seem to notice it. Now, 
 kiss me, and promise that you will never needlessly torment your- 
 self again." 
 
 Alice gave the kiss and the promise ; but it was beyond her 
 power to keep it. Although this explanation seemed, at the time, 
 as if it must comprehend in itself all future misapprehensions that 
 could possibly arise, still, on every succeeding period of gloom or 
 reserve there seemed a speciality, which prevented the self-tor- 
 menting Alice from deriving any comfort from this compendious 
 assurance. 
 
 CHAPTEE XIX. 
 
 Mrs. Helmsby had never been to visit her daughter, although 
 . Alice had now been married more than six months. Alice had 
 divined Bryant's dislike to his mother-in-law, although he had 
 carefully abstained from saying anything disrespectful. However, 
 it was a duty that could not in decency be deferred any longer ; 
 accordingly Bryant told Alice that he thought she ought to write 
 and invite her mother to spend a month with them, now that the 
 country was looking so beautiful. The letter was accordingly 
 written, and a gracious acceptance returned,, Mrs. Helmsby was 
 to arrive early in the following week, and Bryant had arranged to 
 leave home to transact some indispensable business. It was earlier 
 
THE HALE SISTEES. 81 
 
 than he had intended to go ; but he would thereby shorten his own 
 maternal penance, and avoid leaving Alice alone. Alice was 
 rather glad of this arrangement, as it relieved her from the embar- 
 rassment she always felt when her mother and her husband were 
 in presence; and, much as she was disposed to think Bryant 
 always in the right, she rejoiced extremely at the prospect of 
 seeing her mother, and receiving her in her own house. Nothing 
 in this world ever occurs exactly as we plan it. Mrs. Helmsby 
 caught a severe cold, by imprudently going out to do some shop- 
 ping on an . extremely wet and cold day ; and on the day she 
 ought to have set off for Raven Hall she was confined to her bed. 
 She grew so much worse, that Alice was sent for. Bryant accom- 
 panied her, and for three weeks she remained beside her mother, 
 uncertain whether she would live or die. At length a slight 
 change for the better took place, and Bryant insisted on her 
 coming home with Alice. She never completely rallied, but 
 lingered on until the beginning of winter, and then died. 
 
 Her death caused a blank in the existence of Alice, which could 
 hardly have been expected from the uncongenial nature of their 
 characters. But it was the loss of a daily solicitude, an object 
 which employed her whole time, and took her thoughts away from 
 herself and her own sensations. After the first natural grief had 
 subsided, a weight of depression fell on Alice, which no effort 
 could shake off. Her husband was at this time necessarily much 
 absent, and did not remark it ; he was, besides, so much accus- 
 tomed to his wife's " fancifulness," as he called it, that he had 
 come to consider it as a tax, which he had to pay for her many 
 excellent and charming qualities. He was essentially a practical 
 matter-of-fact man, and had no conception of the morbid sinking 
 of heart and deadly sadness which so easily beset imaginative 
 temperaments, whose owners are not subject to the stern tonioof 
 the necessity to work. Alice sank under the weight of a golden 
 leisure, which she had not the energy adequately to employ. 
 Worldly prosperity is a much greater drain upon our energies 
 than the most severe adversity ; there is no spring, no elasticity ; 
 it is like walking through life upon a Turkey carpet. Large and 
 noble faculties are required to make a wise use of worldly 
 prosperity ; there is little stimulus in, and no excitement beyond, 
 what the individual can furnish for himself ; his days are rounded 
 with security, and softly cushioned against all the harsh realities 
 of life. 
 
 To the outward eye the contrast between the lot of the half 
 sisters is painfully glaring. The one, surrounded with all that 
 makes life pleasing, and the precious possession of a strong 
 enduring affection to give a value to all things. 
 
 The other, struggling with poverty, leading a life of hard 
 labour, with the prospect of the workhouse if sickness or accident 
 should disable her ; suffering all this for no fault of her own, but 
 inheriting it in consequence of the wayward, impetuous, ungoverned 
 
82 THE HALF SISTEE3. 
 
 conduct of her parents, who had rushed upon responsibilities 
 which they were not prepared to fulfil ; with no one's affection to 
 feed and stimulate her with words and looks of sympathy ; alone 
 with her own lot, to wrestle with it as she may ; a helpless mother 
 dependent upon her exertions, none to guide or counsel — none to 
 care whether she should stand or fall. 
 
 But "a man's life does not consist in the abundance of things 
 which he possesses." We could none of us live, if we had not 
 some hope, into which we may open the actual present. If our 
 life were really no more than there is made manifest in the passing 
 day — in the things that occur, the small details by which one day 
 is carried into the next — it would be such a poor mean affair, that 
 no one would have courage to live out half his days. But the 
 most prosaic amongst us unconsciously idealise it. " The things 
 which are seen, are not made from those which do appear,"- — and 
 although nothing may distil from the unseen well of life within 
 us, except commonplace days filled with ordinary business — still 
 we instinctively feel that they are not our life : there is an ideal 
 possibility of some latent power within them, which gives them a 
 value beyond what they actually achieve. Every action we do, 
 means more than it says : — it is the symbol of some thought, some 
 .hope, some effort. If we were built up in our daily life, and all 
 glazed over to the smooth compactness of surface into which our 
 actions are set each in its own place — meaning neither more nor 
 less than the mechanical result of the concurrence of certain 
 pitiful necessities — the spirit of life would be stifled out of us ; — ■ 
 we should become dead jars of clay, instead of aspiring, palpitating, 
 living human souls. No matter how mean or trivial may be the 
 occupations which are appointed to us, — we can work at them with 
 courage and perseverance, so long as we do not feel condemned to 
 them as the "be all and the end all," the realisation of our life, 
 — so long as there is a side on which we may escape from #iat 
 which is seen and definite, into that which is unseen and infinite. 
 It is the being condemned to live with those who lead mechanical 
 lives — lives without significance — who see in the daily routine of 
 household business, in the daily occupation of going to the mill, 
 the counting-house, and the different works of life, nothing but 
 modes of filling up days and weeks, called in the aggregate life, — ■ 
 without an idea of looking round — much less beyond, — it is this 
 which drives passionate souls mad ; but if there be one opening 
 through which the air from the everlasting universe of things may 
 breathe upon us, we can feel strong and cheerful — no matter how 
 bare of material comforts our lot may be. 
 
 This was Bianca's supreme blessing, which rendered all the 
 hardships of her lot as dust on the balance. Alice, on the contrary, 
 was hemmed in by people who cared for none of these things. 
 She had not confidence enough in her own yearnings to make a 
 way for herself; she did not sufficiently believe in her own 
 aspirations to incur the comment, and censure, and want of 
 
THE HALF SISTERS. 83 
 
 sympathy of those around her; she endeavoured, instead, to 
 make herself like to them, to feel satisfied with what satisfied 
 them ; she was haunted by a dull sense of self-reproach, she was 
 divided against herself, weak, helpless, and dissatisfied. She was 
 naturally religious, — had a deep sentiment of reverence and 
 dependence, and might therefore have taken refuge in religion; 
 but even that had been rendered so mechanical, that she saw no 
 beauty in it that she should desire it ; — she believed as she had 
 been taught, because she was too timid to doubt the penalties 
 which she had been told attached to disbelief; but her heart 
 obstinately refused its sympathy, it remained cold and unimpressed. 
 The mysteries of religion, as made visible in books of theology, 
 are rendered frigid and mechanical ; men are forbidden to believe 
 anything, or to hope anything, but what is already written. The 
 future life is mapped out as definitely as the life which now is ; 
 orthodox monotony has attempted to strip even death of its 
 mystery, by dogmatising on the realities which are to succeed it. 
 The mephitic atmosphere of scepticism, is a relief from this ; — we 
 at least breathe more freely. We rush out into the wilderness, to 
 obtain at least the liberty of wandering without meeting on every 
 hand straight narrow paths, hedged in by sharply asserted limits ; 
 to feel ourselves free to indulge in our own hopes and fears without 
 dictation. 
 
 Why do men so earnestly seek after pleasure, as it is called ? 
 It is because they, for the time, get into a certain idealised 
 element. They go to dinners, balls, soirees, dramatic entertain- 
 ments, with a certain hope ; they know not for a certainty who or 
 what they will meet with. A preparation — an incantation has 
 been made to bring them together, and they go to seek they know 
 not what, 
 
 CHAPTEB XX. 
 
 Time passed on, without any remarkable occurrence. Bianca 
 continued her humble course; small parts were cast to her 
 in everything that chanced to be played, — ; tragedy, comedy, 
 farce, melodrame ; she did the best she could with them, and had 
 even begun to attract the approbation of the regular habitues of 
 the theatre, who marked her as a painstaking, promising young 
 actress. Her companions took little notice of her ; she was not 
 popular ; for the women could not disguise the fact that she was 
 strikingly handsome, and they could find no handle against her 
 character, so that their malicious feelings were in a state of very 
 painful suppression. Bianca was not nearly so comfortable as in 
 the circus. True, old Simpson was violent in his temper, and 
 
 g 2 
 
84 THE HALE SISTEES. 
 
 very hard and mean in all his money matters ; but then he took 
 a cordial interest in every individual of his troop; he rejoiced 
 when they got any applause, and felt so much real sympathy 
 with all they did, that it was quite a comfort to act under his 
 eye. He took a real pride in their success, and, except where 
 money was in question, he showed much consideration and kind- 
 heartedness for them. He was a real artist in his line, and no 
 attempt at excellence was unappreciated by him. In the theatre, 
 on the contrary, all was dull and in routine ; any sort of 
 enthusiasm for the profession was unknown, and would have 
 been laughed at, had any one shown it. None of the actors 
 had any ambition, nor any desire for excellence : they acted with 
 a certain business-like completeness, and were content to be 
 thought not worse than average provincial actors. The manager 
 seldom was seen ; he never addressed a word of encouragement to 
 any of them ; he looked to getting as much out of them as he 
 could, and the actors looked to giving as little as it was possible. 
 Neither party considered their profession as an art to be reve- 
 rently cultivated, — only a means of getting a livelihood. No 
 wonder that Bianca felt it an ungenial atmosphere ! 
 
 One night she acted the part of a young madcap page with much 
 grace and spirit, and gained great applause. As she was passing 
 up to the dressing-room, she met the manager, who was staring 
 at one of the side scenes. 
 
 " I tell you what," said he, catching hold of her hand, "you 
 have acted devilish well to-night ; you are a deucedly clever girl, 
 and worth all the company put together. I'll see you put into 
 better business soon." 
 
 Some one came up at that moment, and he dropped her hand 
 suddenly, and appeared as if he were giving her some common, 
 directions. 
 
 Bianca went up stairs, wondering whether she was dreaming, 
 or what such a sudden insight into her merits might portend. 
 From that day the manager contrived to be constantly in her 
 way, as she was either leaving the theatre after rehearsal, or 
 going home after the performance in the evening ; and always 
 addressed some nattery to her. She found herself in the enjoy- 
 ment of many little privileges which, however, did not seem to be 
 known by the rest of the company ; the treasurer alone seemed 
 in the secret, for he told her one day mysteriously, " that she 
 had only to ask the manager for what she liked, and she would 
 be sure to get it, she was such a favourite, though he could not 
 show his partiality openly." This speech rather perplexed 
 Bianca, who, without too well knowing why, had taken a great 
 antipathy to Mr. St. Leger, which was the name in which the 
 manager was pleased to rejoice. The young creature, who filled 
 a place a step above Bianca in the company, and who had 
 hitherto treated her with supercilious contempt, suddenly began 
 to make advances to her acquaintance; but it was evidently 
 
THE HALF SISTERS. 85 
 
 against the grain, and much suppressed bitterness and dislike 
 were apparent through the veil of cordiality she assumed. Many- 
 hints and half speeches reached Bianca' s ears, which she could 
 not comprehend, and she could get no reply when she requested 
 an explanation beyond a contemptuous smile, and an ' ' Oh, every 
 body can see what you are about." It was like lighting with 
 shadows; there was evidently a mystery going on, and Bianca 
 found her position materially altered without her being able to 
 say in what it consisted. Everybody seemed to have become 
 afraid of vexing her, and yet there was an undefined insolence 
 and maliciousness, which she felt, though she could not have 
 made any tangible accusation against any one. This was worse 
 than being overlooked as a nobody : but Bianca was too full of 
 her own projects, and too much engrossed in her endeavours to 
 study and improve herself, to have much attention to waste on 
 green-room politics. She was as completely a being apart from 
 the other actors, as if she had lived in another world ; there was 
 nothing in common between her and them, except belonging to 
 the same company. There had been a continuance of dreadfully 
 wet and stormy weather, and Bianca not being very warmly clad, 
 had caught a terrible cold and influenza, which was the more 
 provoking, as it came at a time when she was studying the best 
 part that had yet been cast for her, in a new play which was to 
 be brought out the following week. She had dragged herself 
 one morning to rehearsal, and when there she fainted from exhaus- 
 tion. Mr. St. Leger, who was in his own room, soon heard of 
 what had happened, and came in a fuss of humanity to insist on 
 her going home immediately ; he made her swallow a glass of 
 the particular Madeira which he kept in his own room, and told 
 her not to think of coming to the theatre again till she was 
 quite well. 
 
 Bianca was astonished at so much, consideration ; but as, at 
 the present moment, she was quite unequal to going through the 
 rehearsal, she followed his injunction and went home, very much 
 troubled to know what she was to do for her week's salary, which 
 she knew she could not earn, and what would become of her if 
 she were fined for missing the rehearsals ; and, above all, anxious 
 about her appearance the following Monday in her new part. 
 She was so little beforehand with the world, that a week's illness 
 would, in her present circumstances, embarrass her seriously. 
 She had always enjoyed such robust health, that this was her 
 first serious indisposition, and, like all people to whom illness is 
 strange, she fancied herself worse than she even was. But 
 whilst, depressed by gloomy forebodings, she was sitting, in the 
 afternoon, over her small fire, a note Was brought in from the 
 treasurer, saying, that Mr. St. Leger had directed him to tell 
 her that her attendance at the theatre, either for rehearsal or 
 performance, was dispensed with till Monday night, when it was 
 hoped, she would have recovered her strength, and be well up in 
 
86 THE HALF SISTEBS. 
 
 her new part ; that she need not be uneasy ah out her illness, as 
 her salary would be paid as usual. This note was the best 
 medicine Bianca could have received, and she began to think 
 Mr. St. Leger must be a much better man than she had taken 
 him for. On Monday night she was nearly well, and quite able 
 to act. She was surprised to find an elegant new dress prepared 
 for her part ; for though the piece had been announced with 
 " entirely new dresses and decorations," yet she did not expect 
 to find them descending to her own share. But no woman is 
 ever displeased at a piece of finery ; and even Bianca, with all 
 her high aspirations, dressed herself with the satisfaction that 
 might be fancied in a peacock finding his new tail in all its glory, 
 after a dreary moulting. She was in capital spirits, and acted 
 extremely well ; the house was full, and she had a success 
 which reminded her of the old times at the circus. She went 
 home highly elated, and began to fancy she was already on the 
 way to rise. 
 
 She was crossing a bridge that lay between the theatre and her 
 lodgings, when she perceived a female leaning over, and looking 
 intently into the river. It was the young actress we have men- 
 tioned, as cultivating her acquaintance. 
 
 "Why, Miss Douglas!" cried Bianca, "what are you doing 
 here, at this time of night, and in this pouring rain ?" 
 
 " What is that to you?" said the other, sharply. " Go about 
 your own business ; it is my turn to be here to-night — perhaps it 
 will be yours before long ;" and she turned away, and leaned 
 again over the low wall. 
 
 " But, Harriet, I am sure there is something wrong with you ; 
 nobody who could help it would be standing here to-night. If ' 
 you are in any trouble, let me help you." 
 
 "You!" cried the other, impatiently; "no, I hate the sight 
 of you ; the only comfort is, that you will be as miserable as I am 
 before long — your triumph won't be long. Now go your ways, 
 for I want neither you, nor anything you can do. I hate you. 
 That's plain enough, is it not? and you are the cause of my 
 being here." 
 
 Bianca thought she was going out of her mind ; she again 
 attempted to soothe her and persuade her to go home ; but she 
 remained sullenly silent. At length she said, passionately — 
 
 " I thought the street was free at any rate, but it seems I am 
 to be tormented everywhere. I have no home ; I was turned out 
 of my lodging this morning, and dismissed from the theatre on 
 Saturday. I went to St. Leger to-night, to beg for money to buy 
 a piece of bread — I have not eaten all day — and he refused, and 
 ordered me to leave the place. As I was stealing off I saw you, 
 in your new dress, going on the scene, and I heard them applaud 
 you. Do you wonder now that I hate you ? I came here.' I did 
 not know whether to go on the street, or fling myself in here. But 
 now you may tell that man, when he is poisoning you with his 
 
THE HALF SISTERS. 87 
 
 kisses, and his flattery, that you saw the last of me. These are 
 my last words in this world ! 
 
 She made a sudden spring, and would have plunged over, had 
 not Bianca caught hold of her, and held her firmly. 
 
 "You will come home with me to-night, Harriet," said she, 
 quietly, but resolutely, " and to-morrow we will consider what is 
 to be done ; but come along with me now." 
 
 The excitement which had nerved the poor girl gave way, and 
 she burst into a fit of tears. Bianca did not loose her hold till 
 they were at the door of her lodgings. 
 
 u My mother will be asleep, so we must not awaken her," said 
 she, as they went up stairs. There Was a small but bright fire 
 shining in the grate, and a table with a loaf of bread, a jug of 
 milk, and some oatmeal stood before it. 
 
 "Oh, how comfortable you are !" cried Harriet, shivering with 
 wet and cold. 
 
 " It is better than being out of doors," replied Bianca. " But 
 now take off your wet things, and wrap yourself in this old cloak, 
 whilst I make the milk hot. There, come close to the fire, and 
 try to get a little warm." 
 
 Bianca busied herself over the supper, whilst her companion 
 crouched over the blaze, and looked with curious gaze round the 
 room. 
 
 " It is like a palace," said she, enviously. " How do you make 
 it so comfortable ?" 
 
 " There is nothing in it," said Bianca, cheerfully. " But now 
 eat this before you talk any more," at the same time handing by 
 far the larger share of the steaming milk porridge. They both 
 eat their portion heartily. 
 
 Miss Douglas, indeed, had tasted nothing but a glass of gin 
 that day. 
 
 When they had finished, Bianca said, " Now, Harriet, tell me 
 the meaning of all you were saying on the bridge. How have I 
 injured you ? " 
 
 " I do not hate you now," replied Harriet, " but you had better 
 have left me where you found me. I am comfortable now, but I 
 shall be as badly oft' as ever to-morrow, and all would have been 
 over by this time. My curse on that villain, for he is one ! " 
 
 " Come, come," said Bianca, " we are not in the last act yet — 
 something will turn up for you." 
 
 " It does not matter much," replied the other, gloomily, " he 
 has ruined me, body and soul ; but if I live I will be revenged on 
 him. It's no good telling you a long story, which has nothing 
 new in it ; take care of yourself, Bianca, for he has his eye on 
 you, and he is a heartless scoundrel, with no more feeling or 
 honour than that shoe. All his kindness to you is a mere 
 pretence ; don't let yourself be taken in by it ; he is a villain, 
 and the worst of villains, and I wish I had died before I had seen 
 him." 
 
88 THE HALE SISTERS. 
 
 Bianca tried to soothe her, but she shook her head, and said, 
 "It is no* good your trying to put me in spirits ; I try to stand it 
 out to myself ; but sitting here beside you I feel, and know, I am 
 degraded ; I have no pleasure in thinking of myself," and she 
 again began to weep bitterly. 
 
 She was a very handsome girl, with large blue eyes, which had 
 a bold, enticing look, and a fine lazy-looking figure. Her fair 
 hair fell dishevelled over her face and heck ; altogether, there was 
 a desolate abandon about her, as she leaned over the fire, which 
 contrasted singularly with the severe retenue and composure of 
 Bianca's appearance. "Come," said she, "let us come to bed 
 now, and to-morrow, I think, I have a scheme that will answer ; 
 but we must be careful not to disturb my mother. You must be 
 content with part of a bed for to-night ; to-morrow we will make 
 some arrangement." 
 
 The next morning Bianca was, as usual, up betimes, and had 
 the room in order before either her guest or her mother awoke. 
 After breakfast she said, " Now, I will tell you my plan. I think 
 my old circus manager, Simpson, would engage you — he is in 
 town. I will go with you before rehearsal, and there is an attic 
 in this house you might have very cheap, and you might come and 
 sit here by our fire, whenever you like." 
 
 " Well, I don't know but that might suit me very well ; but do 
 you really mean that I may come and sit in your clean bright 
 room ? Well, you are a good soul, and deserve all the luck you 
 will get." 
 
 They found Mr. Simpson in all his glory, meditating on a 
 " Roman Triumph," which he intended to bring out in a style of 
 surpassing splendour. He was very glad to see Bianca, and 
 listened very graciously to her proposal about her companion. 
 
 " I would rather have you back," said he ; " but it will sound 
 well in the bills to say, i From the Theatre Royal, at great 
 expense,' though I shall only give her ten shillings a week all the 
 same." 
 
 This business settled, Bianca had to hurry to rehearsal. She 
 was in a state of pleasant excitement at her success, and felt no 
 sort of misgiving about herself, or anything else under the sun. 
 
 After rehearsal was over, a message was brought that Mr. St. 
 Leger desired to see her in his private room. A significant laugh 
 went round amongst those who were within hearing. Bianca took 
 no notice, but obeyed the message, and found herself face to face 
 with the manager, who was sitting at a table, on which stood a 
 decanter of wine and some glasses. He had dressed himself 
 with elaborate care ; his hair was curled and perfumed ; a large 
 diamond- stud glittered in his glossy, black satin stock ; he had 
 altogether a flashy supercilious rou6 look, as of a man accustomed 
 to look on all women only as so many speculations for a bonne 
 fortune, and to decide on their claims to personal charms as he 
 would have done on the points of a horse. 
 
THE HALE SISTERS. 89 
 
 Bianca felt excessively annoyed at the impertinent scrutiny of 
 his half- closed eye as she entered ; but she stood silent till he 
 spoke and expressed a hope that she was quite recovered. 
 
 " You look pale still," continued he, " and your complexion is 
 not so brilliantly transparent as it was ; but a little rest will 
 bring all round. I cannot afford you to lose any of your charms. 
 I shall not let you exert yourself till you are quite right again." 
 
 This might be all very friendly, but Bianca did not feel it to be 
 so ; her face crimsoned at his impertinence, and she haughtily 
 replied : 
 
 " I was told you wished to speak to me on business." 
 
 " So I do ; so I do ; but sit down, sit down," and he drew a 
 chair into line a few paces from his own. 
 
 Bianca moved it so as to face him, and sat down opposite. He 
 poured out a glass of wine, and handed it to her. 
 
 " I never take wine, thank you," said she ; " and shall be glad 
 to hear why you sent for me, as I wish to go home." 
 
 Mr. Montague St. Leger was rather disconcerted at this straight- 
 forward manner of keeping to a point. He began to natter her on 
 her capabilities as an actress, and to expatiate on his good will 
 towards her, and his desire to push her on in the profession, and 
 to hint that he had great things in view for her ; but all the while 
 there seemed something behind, which he was wishing to say ; he 
 had endeavoured to edge his chair nearer to her, but she had 
 removed in the same proportion, and seemed to wait so impassively 
 till he should declare the purpose for which he had summoned her, 
 that he was constrained, contrary to all his tactics, to be explicit. 
 He offered her the business of the principal actress in the company, 
 who was about to retire, and a salary of three pounds a week ; 
 but coupled with conditions, insinuated, rather than distinctly 
 expressed, which roused Bianca to a pitch of indignation that 
 deprived hgr of all powers of speech. She rose, and, with a look 
 of scorn and loathing, the most intense, flashing from her face, 
 darted from the room, leaving Mr. Montague St. Leger singularly 
 mortified and crest-fallen at the issue of his King Ahasuerus-like 
 designs ; but the sorest point was the unmistakeable expression of 
 Bianca's look. He had been accustomed to consider himself irre- 
 sistible, and Bianca's look of detestation galled him to the quick. 
 He swore to be revenged. 
 
 " Confound the jade !" said he to his confidant, the treasurer, 
 who entered shortly after ; ' ' her virtue shall cost her something. 
 She shall find what it is to insult me. I trust to you to make her 
 know herself ; torment her life out, do anything — short of actually 
 driving her from the theatre." 
 
 " You may trust it to me," replied the other. ll I have a few 
 scores of my own to settle with her ladyship." 
 
90 THE XEALF SISTEES, 
 
 CHAPTEE XXL 
 
 Afteii that occurrence, Bianca found her position become 
 almost intolerable. 
 
 That same evening, when she went to performance, she found 
 some strange rumour had got afloat concerning her. Every one 
 looked strange at her ; the women whispered together, and refused 
 to speak to her ; the men made insolent jests within her hearing, 
 evidently intended to apply to her. She was treated like one 
 lying under an interdict. 
 
 The malice of her companions was not confined to behind the 
 scenes. In the stage business, every little act of malice that could 
 tend to baffle her play, and throw her into confusion, was pitilessly 
 committed ; nothing was omitted that could make her appear to 
 disadvantage. The most malicious reports were circulated about 
 her, with an industry which, considering her humble position in 
 the company, was rather surprising. No one, except the lame old 
 prompter, ever said a kind word to her, but all professed to believe 
 her an abandoned character. 
 
 Bianca armed herself with a proud patience. She did not need 
 to be told who was the enemy who had done all this. She made 
 no complaint or remark, but gave up going into the green-room, 
 and stood at the sides to await her turn of going on. 
 
 One evening, as she stood shivering in the cold draught that 
 swept from all sides, in a low thin dress, waiting for the beginning 
 of a scene with her stage "lover," the old prompter passed. He 
 stopped a moment, looking compasionately at her, and said in a 
 low, hurried voice: "Keep up a good spirit of your own, and 
 don't let yourself be worried into doing wrong, and you will have 
 the best of it yet. Go on as you have begun, and you will rise 
 over their heads before long ; the folks here are malicious, bat 
 they are not fools, and not one of them believes all that is said of 
 you ; only you have vexed somebody, and they think to please 
 him by tormenting you." 
 
 People must be drowning before they know the value of a straw, 
 and none who have not been in Bianca's position can know the 
 strength and comfort she found in those few words. To discover 
 that she did not stand alone in this systematic, petty persecution, 
 but that one person, at least, felt sympathy with her, gave her all 
 the courage she needed, and she felt herself able to endure cheer- 
 fully, as well as proudly. 
 
 But something of more practical importance was in store for 
 her. On the Saturday following her interview with the manager, 
 when she went to draw her salary, she was told, to her great 
 dismay, that she was fined for her unexplained absences the 
 previous week ! In vain she pleaded the note she had received ; 
 the treasurer declared that no partiality could be shown, that he 
 
THE HALF SISTEE3. 91 
 
 had written without sufficient authority, and that she might 
 appeal to the manager if she chose ; but, in the meanwhile, must 
 submit to the forfeit she had incurred. 
 
 Bianca retired in silence ; she would not give the curious and 
 malignant bystanders the satisfaction of seeing her complain ; but 
 she was none the less in despair as to how she was to wear through 
 the ensuing week. Her heart turned sick at the horrible con- 
 sciousness thus forced upon her, that if, from any accident, she 
 were to be unable to wrestle with the iron necessities of each 
 never-failing day as it arose, she and her mother must be crushed 
 under their heavy, steady, unslackening steps. She stood with 
 nothing but her own hands between herself and starvation, and 
 they seemed very feeble to ward it off. A feeling of fright and 
 despair, such as she had never known, seized on her. But her 
 soul was too indomitable for such a mood to last long ; she felt, 
 instinctively, that she had no choice but to go on, looking neither 
 to the right hand, nor the left ; and she had an innate conviction, 
 that in one way or other, she should not be mastered by her 
 difficulties. She had no idea that there was anything heroic in 
 this calm bravery ; it seemed to her the simplest necessity laid 
 upon her — she could not have told how or why — but a necessity 
 from which there was no appeal, to do the thing that seemed 
 right, and trust courageously for the consequences. She had a 
 childlike indifference to the future. It never occurred to her that 
 it was " prudent,"* or "well," or " expedient," to do a question- 
 able action to-day, because it might prove to be convenient to- 
 morrow. She had no idea of secondary motives, and therefore 
 never got bewildered in the haze and mist that streams up from 
 the small details of every day as it arises and passes away. She 
 was eminently single-minded in all her ways, without the least 
 consciousness that there was anything excellent in it. There is a 
 species of stupidity in real greatness which can neither see nor 
 comprehend the subtleties and prudent foresight of worldly 
 cleverness. 
 
 Something good generally arises for us at a time we most need 
 it, and least expect it, and to Bianca it came in the guise of a 
 letter from Conrad. This would have sufficed to carry her 
 through much heavier troubles than those she was fighting 
 with. 
 
 It was before the days of the penny-post had dawned — but 
 Conrad had been thoughtful enough to pay the postage. It was 
 only a few lines of inquiry and encouragement, and telling her, 
 that he had met her friend the actor, the previous evening, who 
 was speaking of a very promising young actress he had met with 
 
 at the theatre ; and, on inquiry, it had proved to be his 
 
 protegee, Bianca. Conrad expressed great satisfaction at hearing 
 such a good account of her, and desired her to apply to him in any 
 difficulty or need. 
 
 The letter was kindly and delicately worded, and Bianca was in 
 
92 THE HALF SISTEES. 
 
 a maze of happiness and tremulous emotion. She went to the 
 theatre that night fenced ronnd with a deep sense of joy that no 
 stranger conld mar ; she acted with the precions letter lying like 
 a talisman on her heart— she looked almost superhnmanly lovely. 
 Her complexion suffused with a radiant glow that made rouge 
 needless, and her lustrous eyes seemed to shine through a soft 
 atmosphere of joy. It is certain that nothing makes a woman 
 look so beautiful as the internal consciousness that her love 
 matters are going on happily ; and, on the other hand, nothing 
 brings worn, haggard looks so quickly as an annoyance from the 
 one she loves. 
 
 Mr. Montague St. Leger passed Bianca as she was waiting to go 
 on — he was quite startled at her looks. It was no longer with 
 him a lazy inclination to obtain possession of her, but a fierce 
 cruel determination, to let nothing stop him. "It must be 
 ambition and hunger to bring her to terms," said he to himself; 
 " she has no friends, as far as I can learn — she will never hold 
 out long." Bianca caught sight of him, and shuddered with 
 disgust, as if a toad had touched her. It seemed to her to be 
 sacrilege against Conrad even to have met his looks. 
 
 It never crossed her mind to tell Conrad her trials and difficulties, 
 but she addressed herself to him as to her guardian angel — the 
 one who had been sent to stand beside her in her deepest need. 
 "If I ever achieve anything in my profession," she wrote, "it 
 will be my faith in you that has strengthened me, and the desire 
 not to be unworthy of your goodness, that will have kept me 
 from all evil. Wicked things are said and done in the world, and 
 we must endure them as we can — but believe always that I would 
 sooner die than become anything I should not be, or do anything 
 unbecoming one whom you have befriended." 
 
 After she had written and sent her letter, she felt tranquil. 
 The only point in which the malicious reports afloat about her in 
 the green-room affected her was, the fear lest through some of the 
 " stars " who were constantly coming down, they should reach the 
 ears of either Conrad or her friend the actor ; and now it seemed 
 to her she had provided against that ; she had told him that she 
 would not prove unworthy, and she felt as if he must believe her. 
 For would not she have believed his word, even though an angel 
 from Heaven had testified to the contrary ! 
 
 Time passed on, and the season of the theatre came to a 
 
 close ; the company were, however, to remove to a neighbouring 
 town, until the period for re-opening their own theatre returned. 
 
 Bianca' s mother had been gradually failing, though nothing 
 beyond great debility and increased helplessness seemed to ail 
 her, and Bianca hoped that the change of air would do her good. 
 As soon as they reached the town, her first care was to find an 
 airy lodging somewhat out of the town, although it gave her a 
 long walk to the theatre; but her mother did not derive the 
 benefit she had hoped ; she became weaker every day, and Bianca 
 
THE HALF SISTERS, 93 
 
 had difficulty in leaving her even for her necessary attendance at 
 the theatre. Her mother seemed uneasy when any stranger came 
 near her, and could not bear Bianca to leave her sight ; so that 
 although she hired a nurse, it did little towards relieving her anxiety 
 or her toil, for she was obliged to get up many times in the night 
 to give her mother drink and medicine ; her own rest was com- 
 pletely broken, and she had scarcely strength for her daily 
 business. One morning, about a week after entering the town, 
 Bianca ventured to request permission to absent herself from the 
 next day's rehearsal, mentioning at the same time the state in 
 which her' mother was ; she did not like doing this, but she had 
 no alternative. She received the required permission, and an 
 intimation that she had only her own obstinacy to thank that she 
 did not obtain more indulgences. 
 
 At the end of the week she was discharged from the theatre ! 
 She had no appeal, for her engagement only ran from week to 
 week. 
 
 Stunned and in despair she turned away ; there seemed now no 
 outlet through which she might escape. Arrived at home she 
 Hung herself on her knees, but no words came from her lips. She 
 was conscious of only one hope, and that was that her mother 
 might die, before things came to the worst. 
 
 That same evening after dinner, as Mr. St. Leger and his friend 
 the treasurer were sitting over their wine, he said, 
 
 " So you gave Bianca her dismissal"; how did she take it ? " 
 
 " Oh, seemed very cut, I promise you, in spite of her pride. I 
 don't know what in the name of fortune she will do now," 
 
 "Ah! ah!" replied the other, with a low chuckling laugh, 
 " I fancy she will be more tractable in a day or two ; but we must 
 leave her alone, and let it work awhile. If the old woman is so 
 bad, she will do for her what she would not to save herself from 
 starving ; her spirit will not help her here." 
 
 CHAPTEE XXII. 
 
 " TnE"E had better go to the door ; there is Alice Bryant in 
 her carriage. May be she does not want to alight this wet 
 day." 
 
 ^ This was said by Mr. Hodgson, the principal chemist and drug- 
 gist of , and whose speech betrayed him a Quaker. 
 
 " So thy mother is no better," said he, turning to a tall, pale 
 young woman, and taking an empty medicine bottle from her 
 hand. " Well, I tell thee she should live well, or else my medicine 
 will do little good. There, give her arrowroot whenever she will 
 
94 THE HALE SISTEBS. 
 
 take it, and tlie bark as "before. I have no time to take thy 
 money to-day, so we will never mind it. — Good morning to thee, 
 Alice Bryant ; this is not a day for a delicate plant like thee to 
 venture out." 
 
 The girl who had been speaking to Mr* Hodgson sighed and 
 looked at the rich satin mantle, lined with fur, of the new comer, 
 and at the carriage waiting for her, and then took up the packet 
 of arrowroot which the good-natured Quaker had given her. 
 
 ¥ Thou wilt come and say if thy mother is worse to-night," 
 said he, as she was leaving the shop. 
 
 " I thank you much," replied the girl, in a voice of singular 
 sweetness. 
 
 Alice looked up, and was struck with the noble expression of 
 her face, though it was then thin and pale, and it seemed as if 
 care had eaten all the youthfulness of it away. 
 
 H Who is that remarkable looking girl ? " asked she. 
 
 " I wish I could get anyone to be interested in her," replied 
 Mr. Hodgson, ' ' for 1 believe her to be a good and deserving girl ; 
 but she is an actress out of work, and somehow all the ladies I 
 have mentioned her to seem to think she is not good enough to be 
 helped. I wish thee would do something for her, for her mother 
 is dying, and she is just worn out with care and nursing, besides 
 being hungered, as thee may see by her face." 
 
 " Poor thing ! "'said Alice ; " I will certainly do something for 
 her. I could do more if she were any thing else, but Mr. Bryant 
 has a great objection to that sort of people. She is starving, you 
 say. How came she to lose her situation in the theatre ? " 
 
 " She could not nurse her mother and do play-acting both. 
 Pleasure hardens the heart, and the theatre manager turned her 
 away, to starve or do worse." 
 
 " What is her name, and where does she live ? I will visit her 
 myself before I go home." 
 
 " She is called 'Biakca;' rather a curious name, but she has 
 no other as far as I can learn ; and she lives at Shaw's Fold, nearly 
 half a mile from here." 
 
 Alice, having made her purchases, and regained her carriage, 
 ordered it to drive to " Shaw's Fold." On the way she began to 
 feel rather nervous at the strong step she was taking in going to 
 see an actkess ; and to reassure herself, repeated, a dozen times, 
 that Mr. Hodgson, a Quaker, would not have recommended her, 
 had she not been a deserving object. But then he had also owned, 
 that no other ladies to whom he had mentioned her had interested 
 themselves, and this rang in her ears. She would have given the 
 world for a precedent, to have quoted to her husband, and to 
 herself ! She would have been thankful for the presence of her 
 sister-in-law, either to have encouraged her, or to have turned 
 the balance effectually against her undertaking. The excessive 
 dread of blame, which was the leading feature in her character, 
 destroyed all unity or comfort in her own mind ; it made all her 
 
THE HALF SISTERS. 95 
 
 actions timid and limping, and paralysed all energy and spon- 
 taneity. Once assured by an authority she deemed competent 
 that a course was right, she could have gone to martyrdom for it ; 
 but she could do nothing without a sanction. This gave, 
 perhaps a delicacy, and what is called a feminineness to her 
 character, but it made her negative and useless ; which, how- 
 ever, most men seem to regard as the peculiar type of womanly 
 perfection. 
 
 Her reveries and misgivings were, however, interrupted by 
 the stopping of the carriage, and the footman, who touched his 
 hat at the window, saying, "This is Shaw's Fold, ma'am; who 
 shall I ask for?" 
 
 "Ask for a young person called Bianca, who has a sick 
 mother." 
 
 Shaw's Fold was a row of cottages, standing a little off the 
 road, with strips of somewhat dilapidated gardens before them. 
 The palings were broken, and the gates mostly off their hinges. 
 A crowd of children came running from all directions to stare at 
 the " grand lady ; " and several untidy looking women, some with 
 babies, and some with their arms rolled in their aprons, came to 
 their doors to hear what was wanted. 
 
 Alice did not at all like the sensation she was making, and was 
 half tempted to give up her errand and return home, when the 
 footman returned with intelligence, that the young woman did 
 not live anywhere there ; but that a young woman, who worked 
 in the theatre, and had a sick mother, lived at the " Little Fold," 
 the first lane past the turnpike. Thither Alice ordered them to 
 proceed. The road down the lane was very bad ; evidently used 
 only by carts, which had left deep ruts in the stiff clay, which 
 threatened an overturn every moment to the carriage. However, 
 no such catastrophe occurred ; and it stopped in safety before a 
 small whitewashed cottage, where Bianca actually lived. 
 
 A fat, coarse, but good-natured-looking woman, was standing 
 within, over a washing tub, her hair in loose strings falling from 
 under a cap, and her red shining elbows splashed with soap-suds ; 
 the place was filled with the steam, and Alice nearly fell over 
 a large black pan, which had just been lifted off the fire. She 
 ceased her work and dropped a curtsey as Alice entered. 
 * 'Indeed, ma'am," said she, in reply to her inquiry, "I am 
 main glad any lady is good enough to come to see after the poor 
 creature; she is just the quietest, most industrious, pleasant- 
 spoken lass I would wish to see ; she tends that old lady night 
 and day, and fairly pines herself with hunger to get things for 
 her. I am sure I am pitiful to see her. I'll go first to show you 
 the way. Here be a good lady come to see you," said she, 
 pushing open the door of a small room at the head of the steep, 
 creaking stairs; "take care, ma'am, that is just an awkward 
 spot." 
 
 Alice entered the room and saw Bianca on her knees, trying to 
 
96 THE HALE SISTEBS. 
 
 support lier mother, who was suffering from a distressing cough 
 and difficulty of breathing. 
 
 "Here," said the woman, kindly, " let me help you, my arms 
 are stronger than yours," and she lifted the sick woman and 
 placed the pillow to prop her up. " Ah, well a-day, the poor old 
 lady sinks fast; I fear you won't have her long," continued she, 
 in a condoling tone. Women of that class are like children ; they 
 love to say anything to make an impression. 
 
 Bianca looked still more pale arid emaciated than when Alice 
 had seen her in the shop ; her eyes were flat and haggard, and 
 sunk in her head, and all 'her features sharp and pinched. Alice 
 was little in the habit of paying that sort of visits, and felt some 
 confusion in accounting for her presence. 
 
 " Mr. Hodgson told me your mother was ill, and I came to ask 
 if she needed anything," said she. 
 
 " You are very good," said Bianca. " I need nothing myself, 
 but if I had only some wine for my mother — Mr. Hodgson says 
 she must live well, and I have not the means to get everything." 
 
 It was the same deep, soft voice, which had before struck 
 Alice. 
 
 "You shall have it," replied she, "and anything else you 
 require." 
 
 Alice had the heart of a true gentlewoman ; her manner to 
 Bianca was precisely that in which she would have addressed the 
 grandest lady of her acquaintance ; she did not feel that conferring 
 a benefit gave her a right to be either patronising, or to ask 
 impertinent questions. 
 
 " I will come again and see you to-morrow, if you will allow 
 me," said she. 
 
 " God sent you to me at my worst need," replied Bianca, whose 
 heart bounded at the refined and gentle tone of kindness of her 
 unknown sister. We are unable to say whether it was the force 
 du sang which influenced them, but certainly those two women 
 felt drawn to each other more strongly than actual circumstances 
 could explain. Alice did not remain longer ; but when she reached 
 the kitchen, she inquired of the woman what she thought her 
 lodgers most needed. 
 
 " Well then, ma'am, if you ask me I must say that it is just 
 everything ; for the poor things are fairly lost ; they have pawned 
 everything, and when the lass goes out, I have to lend her my 
 bonnet and shawl, for it is weeks since she had her own. She 
 does a little sewing when she can get it, but it is earning a dead 
 penny." 
 
 Alice gave a trifle to the woman, recommended her lodgers to 
 her kindness, and drove home full of benevolent schemes. She 
 had got something to interest her and occupy her, and, in spite 
 of her sympathy, felt in better spirits than she had done for 
 weeks ; for the time being she was delivered from the black cloud 
 of ennui which had weighed upon her like a fog. Arrived at 
 
THE HALE SISTEBS. 97 
 
 home, she looked out from her store-room a lavish supply of those 
 things she deemed most acceptable, and with the assistance of the ' 
 housekeeper, packed a large basket with nourishing delicacies and 
 more substantial food — wine was not forgotten. From her own 
 wardrobe Alice supplied a warm cloak, and everything she could 
 imagine needful in the way of clothing; she took a childish 
 delight in making her present as complete as possible ; she had 
 not experienced so much pleasure for a long time, and was quite 
 impatient till the servants' dinner was over, that she might des- 
 patch the footman on horseback with the important basket. Alice 
 was very rich and very charitable ; she gave a great deal away 
 to the poor, but was too fastidious to have any taste for beggars 
 and common-place poor people ; all her sympathies, however, were 
 excited for the poetical-looking Bianca, and for her deep need 
 borne with so much austere dignity — c'gtait /aire au meme terns 
 le bien public et prive. That which made for Alice a morning's 
 distraction and an agreeable excitement, was to Bianca life from 
 the dead. 
 
 CHAPTEE XXIII. 
 
 The acquaintance, thus begun, did not cease ; not a day passed 
 in which Alice did not either visit her protegee, or send an ample 
 supply of all she could imagine useful or acceptable. In her 
 conversations with Bianca she became conscious that she found a 
 sympathy with all that was lying hidden in her own heart ; an 
 echo, as it were, of her own early dreams and aspirations, but 
 which had been froisse and trodden down under the common-place 
 wisdom and heavy trivialities with which, from her cradle, she 
 had been surrounded. There was a calm, clear judgment in 
 Bianca, a broad, practical way of viewing things and stripping 
 them of the atmosphere which distorted them ; and Alice, with the 
 gentle docility of heart which made her so interesting, began to 
 cling to the young actress, and lean upon her with that keen 
 appreciation of what was good and strong, which a consciousness of 
 her own vacillation and timidity made instinctive in her nature. 
 The frank humility with which she recognised it, made her inex- 
 pressibly touching and graceful. 
 
 Bianca was precisely the friend Alice needed, and Bianca was 
 fascinated by the feminine grace and gentleness which her own 
 mode of life had completely prevented her either seeing or 
 cultivating. 
 
 The pleasure Alice felt in this intercourse, gave her courage 
 to bear the sarcastic amazement of her sister-in-law, at her 
 enthusiasm for a strolling actress. Alice had written to her 
 
98 THE HALF SISTERS. 
 
 husband an account of Bianca and her mother, hut in the calm, 
 guarded manner which was necessary to meet his taste ; and when 
 he gave her his sanction, " to see that the poor things wanted 
 nothing, " he was far from suspecting the degree of intercourse 
 springing up between his wife and the poor actress. Mrs. Lauriston 
 wrote him a sensible letter, to warn him of the mischief; but as 
 he happened to dislike the tone of it, he contented himself with 
 desiring Alice, in his next letter, to recollect she was in a con- 
 spicuous position, and to be careful not to be imposed on by 
 unworthy objects, as any ridicule she incurred would fall on him. 
 Alice, with the keen sensitiveness of a sister-in-law, directly 
 suspected what had happened, and was only the more determined 
 to justify herself in taking her own way. 
 
 Bianca's mother grew everjr day worse, and weaker. She 
 hardly seemed conscious of her daughter's presence, and sank 
 gradually and gently from the life-in-death, which had so long 
 been her lot, into the entire unbroken insensibility of Death. 
 
 Her departure was not perceptible. Bianca, who stood beside 
 her bed, administering some nourishment, did not perceive when 
 she drew her last breath ; she was startled by one strange flash 
 of intelligence in her eyes, and then it seemed as if she fell off 
 to sleep. 
 
 Bianca fell beside the bed. The mistress of the house fortu- 
 nately entered, and she was removed to the other room, but she 
 remained many hours in a most distressing state ; all her strength 
 had been overstretched, and all her nerves were unstrung. Calm, 
 self-governed, as she generally was, she had lost all control of 
 herself, and a violent nervous crisis was the result. A messenger, 
 who had been despatched to Alice, now returned, accompanied by 
 her, and everything that kindness could suggest was done. Alice 
 stood over her like a pitying angel, and did not leave her the 
 whole day ; but it was not a sorrow any sympathy could mitigate. 
 The death of her mother broke the only tie that bound her to the 
 world — she no longer belonged to any one. In the intervals of 
 that terrible day, when she was able to think calmly for a moment, 
 a horrible fright seized on her soul as she felt herself standing 
 utterly detached both from the world on which she stood, and the 
 unknown world whence she came "forth. To her disordered fancy 
 it seemed as if a breath of wind would carry her away from the 
 face of the earth, and whirl her she knew not whither. A ^sense 
 of the vast loneliness in which she stood, terrified her. She felt 
 like a child whom its companions leave alone in a strange place ; 
 and she filled the air with screams. 
 
 Alice, in great distress, sent for her own medical man, who by 
 large doses of laudanum succeeded in stupifying her, but gave 
 orders that she should not be left alone for an instant ; and Alice 
 sent one of her servants to sit up with her, and also gave orders 
 for the funeral. 
 
 For several days Bianca remained in alternations of stupor and 
 
THE HALF SISTEES. 99 
 
 violent excitement. She was not allowed to go into the room 
 where her mother lay ; but on the morning of the funeral, her ear 
 caught the sound made in removing the coffin. She sprang out 
 of bed, and, flinging herself on her knees, began to recite the 
 prayers for the dead ; then, rising reverently, kissed the coffin, 
 and was removed in a state of insensibility to her bed. She had 
 no more violent convulsions, but it was many days before she was 
 able to leave her room. 
 
 Alice was an angel of kindness during Bianca's illness, and as 
 soon as she was able to move, brought her to her own house for 
 change of scene ; which was a piece of real heroism, all things 
 considered. 
 
 " You shall stay here with me, dear Bianca," said Alice, " and 
 feel quite at home till we find some plan for you. These two 
 rooms are your own ; they open out of each other, and I have 
 amused myself by trying to make them comfortable for you." 
 
 Bianca felt very grateful; but the feeling that it was all 
 voluntary kindness, and that she had no hold on the love of any 
 human being, made the sense of her loneliness feel heavy on her 
 heart. Her eye was caught by a portrait over the mantel -piece. 
 
 " Tell me who is that ? " she said eagerly. 
 
 " That is an old portrait of my father when he was a very 
 young man," replied Alice : " it is very badly painted, though it 
 was done in Italy, where he resided some time." 
 
 " How very strange ! " said Bianca, going up to look at it more 
 closely, " what was your father's name ? " 
 
 " Helmsby — Philip Helmsby," replied Alice, rather surprised. 
 
 Bianca recognised its likeness to a small miniature her mother 
 had always worn in her bosom, and which she knew was the 
 portrait of her father ; at this moment of utter desolation she was 
 not alone in the world ; her first impulse was to fling her arms 
 round the neck of Alice and call her M sister," but the door 
 opened and the footman announced that " Mrs. Burrel was in her 
 carriage at the door, and requested to speak to Mrs. Bryant for 
 an instant, as she had no time to alight." 
 
 Alice flew down stairs without noticing Bianca' s agitation. 
 Whilst she was away, Bianca took time to reflect. She felt 
 instinctively that Alice, with all her amiability, all the kindness 
 she had shown her, would be embarrassed if she knew their 
 relationship. Bianca knew the timid conscientious character of 
 Alice, and she knew that she would struggle to be all she ought, 
 whilst the gene of finding a relation in such a questionable social 
 position would destroy all the comfort of their relationship ; she 
 had pity on her sister's weakness, and though her whole soul was 
 overflowing with love and tenderness, she resolutely determined 
 to quell the mighty " hunger of her heart" for natural affection, 
 and to keep the secret to herself for the present at least. 
 
 She stood gazing at the portrait, her heart filled with ineffable 
 
 VP.n.viTi-no* • +T»a fpnrs ft+rpnrnprl rlnwn Viat* t.Tiin nTinplre n« sTia +Timio , lrf: 
 
100 THE HALF SISTEES. 
 
 of the desolate abandonment to which she had been consigned, 
 one phase of her existence blotted out before she had seen the day. 
 Both men and women embark in love or friendship, as if it 
 were all pleasure — an agreeable exercise of the emotions. They 
 use eloquent and passionate persuasion to obtain the influence 
 and affection they desire, but hardly one has an idea of the solemn 
 covenant they take upon themselves. When their vanity and 
 self are gratified by success, they grow weary, and the love they 
 have gained becomes a charge to them. A real affection is a 
 heavy responsibility to accept ; it is a solemn trust, and one that 
 neither man nor woman can lightly undertake. That one who 
 dares to say to another, " Give me thy heart" ought to prepare 
 himself, not by yielding headlong to passionate emotions, but by 
 self-government and self-devotion, by stability and constancy of 
 heart, to become strong enough to bear the weight of another 
 existence attached to his own, and to take without shrinking all 
 the consequences of his engagement : either man or woman who 
 embarks in " an enterprise of passion," without counting the 
 cost, may escape human judgment, which does not legislate for 
 such things, but they commit the most grievous sin of which the 
 soul of man is capable. The most precious things are desecrated 
 and degraded to pleasures, with a cowardly sensualism that 
 enervates the heart. Till men can recognise the responsibilities 
 of the affection they accept, there will be no honour, nor strength, 
 nor stability in them. Love and friendship are not amusements, 
 they are solemn covenants ; and woe to those who seek to extract 
 the pleasure whilst they ignore the duties. 
 
 Bianca was still gazing on the face of her father's portrait when 
 Alice returned. " What has happened, dear Bianca, that has so 
 moved you ? " she asked. 
 
 1 ' I was thinking how very happy you are to have known a father ; 
 it must be like an incarnation of the love of God, revealed to 
 yourself with a sweet individuality in which none other can 
 partake." 
 
 " But do not you remember your father ? " said Alice. 
 
 " No, no," said Bianca, bitterly ; " I know not whether he was 
 ever aware of my existence. I am an illegitimate child ; he had 
 forsaken my mother before I was born. She had never loved but 
 him, and became the wreck you knew her — all her passion was 
 thrown back upon her soul, and her whole life was laid waste by 
 the overflowing flood. I am thrown solitary on the world, below 
 the mark of shame, to be saved or lost, as it may chance. Oh, 
 you are very happy to have known a father ! " 
 
 Alice was rather scandalised at this frank avowal, and only 
 hoped it would never be known either to her husband or her 
 sister-in-law, as it would make it still more difficult for her to 
 justify the choice of a proteyee. Mrs. Lauriston being a perfect 
 dragon of virtue, she would not, had it depended on her, have 
 allowed the bearers of a bar-sinister to come within the pale of 
 
THE HALF SISTSIIS. . > 101 
 
 Christian salvation ; — they seemed in her eyes a species of monster 
 which ought hardly to be admitted iota* thf wovlcl', and 1 certainly 
 never allowed to rise higher than Scullions -or servants of all work 
 to those legitimately born ! 
 
 In less than a week Bianca had reason to rejoice in her resolu- 
 tion. One evening a letter was brought, that had been forwarded 
 from her old lodgings ; it was from Mr. Montague St. Leger him- 
 self, and written in a most elaborately respectful style, stating 
 that a great actor from London was to appear the following 
 evening, and that his principal actress was suddenly taken ill, 
 and that unless Bianca would consent to supply her place at this 
 short warning, he must close his theatre and forfeit his expensive 
 
 engagement with Mr. . " Will you," he said, in conclusion, 
 
 "be at rehearsal to-morrow morning at eleven o'clock, and can 
 you be up in the part of Mrs. Haller by night ? In case you have 
 entered into no other arrangements, I shall be glad to offer you 
 an engagement for the next month, to take the leading female 
 parts, at a salary of two pounds a week ; the first week to be paid 
 in advance, and to begin from to-day." 
 
 Like the sound of a trumpet to a war-horse, was this letter 
 to Bianca ; all trace of the languor of indisposition vanished 
 instantly. She started up to find Alice, who just then entered 
 the room. 
 
 " What good news have you heard, that you look so radiant ? " 
 she asked. 
 
 " Head there," replied Bianca ; •" and yet, though it is good in 
 one sense, it has a strong alloy, you see. I must leave you 
 suddenly." 
 
 " Oh, Bianca ! " cried Alice, " surely, surely you will not return 
 to that dreadful way of life ! I was in hopes you had forsaken it 
 for ever. I had all sorts of plans for you. I wrote to a friend of 
 mine, telling her about you ; and here is a letter I have just 
 received, offering to take you as her nursery governess, at twenty 
 pounds a year, and then I could always have seen you, and you 
 could have spent all your holidays with me!" 
 
 "Dear, kind friend!" said Bianca, taking her hand, caress- 
 ingly ; " you have been my guardian angel ; without you I must 
 have been either dead or mad by this time. I owe you an im- 
 mensity of obligation, which I can only pay by loving you with 
 all my heart and soul. Any ftossible desire you expressed about 
 me, I would kill myself to perform ; but you cannot change my 
 nature, I must be what I am. The stage is to me a passion, as 
 well as a profession ; I can work in no other direction ; I should 
 become worthless and miserable ; all my faculties would prey upon 
 myself, and I should even be wicked and mischievous, and God 
 knows how bad, if I were placed in any other position. You 
 don't know what it is to be devoted to an art ; it possesses one 
 like a demon ; it is a sacred necessity laid upon me, which I 
 cannot help obeying. Do not think me obstinate or ungrateful. 
 
102 THF, HALF SISTERS, 
 
 Besides, what else am I fit for ? . The place of a nursery governess 
 WO&cE not salt oie ; and even if your friend were generous enough 
 to try me, she would not bo able to persist in the questionable 
 course of keeping an ex-actress about her young children. No, 
 no, I must realise myself in my own way, or not at all. I am 
 already fietrie in the eyes of all the quiet, gentle, still-life people 
 amongst whom you dwell." 
 
 " But," said Alice, impatiently, " I cannot let you go so soon — 
 I care for you, as I never cared for any one — you do me so much 
 good — I feel a better person since I knew you. Why need you 
 leave me?" 
 
 "Dear Alice (let me call you so), be assured that I love you 
 more than I dare express ; none but a sister conld feel for you as 
 I do. When I have raised myself in my profession, and have 
 made myself a place in society, I will come back to you ; then, 
 perhaps, our intercourse may be renewed ; but at present, there is 
 a gulf between us ; situated as vou are, you cannot continue to 
 see me, and I do not wish it. if I succeed, be assured you shall 
 hear of my success ; meanwhile, let me continue to love you, and 
 whatever blame or questioning your kindness to me may subject 
 you to from your own circle, be strong enough not to regret it. 
 You have acted most generously by me, and I will never disgrace 
 you." 
 
 " And when must you go ? " said Alice, wiping her eyes, though 
 in spite of herself, she was rather relieved from an indescribable 
 embarrassment, by the calm decided manner in which Bianca broke 
 their future intercourse. 
 
 " I must be at rehearsal to-morrow by eleven, so I shall leave 
 you directly after breakfast, that I may have time to iix myself in 
 some sort of lodgings: I should not like to go straight to the 
 theatre from here." 
 
 " John, the coachman, lets two rooms in his house ; I know if 
 you went there, I should hear of you constantly, and see you, too, 
 sometimes, and you would not seem to be gone quite away from 
 me," said Alice. 
 
 "That would suit me well, if it could be arranged," replied 
 Bianca ; " and you will come and see me act, will you not ? " con- 
 tinued she, coaxingly. " I want you to see what I can do. This 
 is the first chance I ever had ; luckily, I know my part for to- 
 morrow ; but I will send you word when to come. I should like 
 you to see me in a good part." 
 
 The next morning, Bianca engaged the two rooms in John the 
 coachman's house, and Alice undertook to have all her things 
 removed, and arranged, whilst she was at rehearsal. She spent 
 the whole morning in contriving to surprise Bianca ; and when 
 the latter returned, she found a stand of beautiful ilowers in the 
 window, pictures on the walls, books in a small bookcase from 
 Alice's own bedroom, and every corner showing traces of the 
 labour of love, that had been so minutely at work, Alice was 
 
THE HALE SISTERS. 103 
 
 waiting to receive her. " I could not let you come to a solitary 
 home," said she. " Now come and look how you like what I have 
 done. I shall come and see you very often, remember." 
 
 " As often as you are allowed," said Bianca, mournfully ; " for 
 you are not a free woman : but absent, or present, I shall love you 
 equally. It is a new chapter in my life that is commencing, and 
 you have helped me over the roughest part of my way. God will 
 bless you for it." 
 
 CHAPTEE XXIV. 
 
 The morning after Bianca' s departure, Alice received a letter 
 from her husband, to say that he would be at home that same 
 day for an early dinner, and that he would be accompanied by 
 Mr. Conrad Percy, the son of his old friend. 
 
 Alice's first thoughts was, to rejoice that Bianca was safely 
 out of the way, for she felt in an instant, the dislike her 
 husband would have to coming in contact with such a question- 
 able style of acquaintance. Alice was good, kind, affectionate, 
 and devoted in an eminent degree, but she was utterly destitute 
 of moral courage. She had an intense horror of being blamed. 
 Her husband's approaching return made her think of Bianca 
 with fear, and she almost wished her whole acquaintance and 
 connexion with her could be blotted out. Not that her own 
 feelings were changed, but she had begun to look on the matter 
 with his eyes. Then she began to think anxiously on what she 
 should order for dinner ; and whether her house and household 
 would suit the fastidious taste of a Londoner. She had always 
 heard Bryant speak with great respect of Mr. Percy, senior, and 
 incidentally of the style in which he lived and the perfect order 
 of his household. Alice fancied that Mr. Conrad Percy, Ms son, 
 would be a milder emanation of the same perfections. 
 
 Conrad's father was a distinguished barrister, in great practice, 
 with a handsome private fortune of his own ; he was a hard, 
 rigid, tyrannical man; he talked a great deal about justice and 
 mercy, " and love to his species," but he never gave any of the 
 " species" within his reach any peace, unless they conformed in 
 all things to his will ; he preferred giving assistance to those who 
 needed it, in words, rather than any thing else ; but his worst 
 enemies were obliged to admit, that he always uttered very 
 beautiful sentiments, in a very beautiful tone of voice. His 
 wife had been many years dead, and Conrad Avas an only , child. 
 After leaving college, his father had him at home to live with 
 him ; to be his companion, he said, when liberated from business ;. 
 
101 THE HALE SISTERS. 
 
 but, in reality, not to let hiin go from under his immediate 
 influence. 
 
 His son was his born subject, and could not give notice, like 
 his servants, when they could stand being worried no longer. 
 He gave him a handsome allowance, but kept him strictly 
 dependent upon him. Conrad was studying for the bar (after a 
 fashion), but he had no genius for hard work, and having the 
 prospect of an ample fortune, there was not the spur of necessity 
 upon him, which seems the only condition under which men can 
 achieve any study in this world. He had become a refined, 
 dreamy, imaginative young man ; his health was not strong, so 
 that he did not feel his situation so irksome as it would have 
 been to many others ; he had a passionate desire to travel, which, 
 however his father would by no means indulge. It was a severe 
 attack of illness, threatening consumption, that induced his 
 father to consent to his going into the country along with his 
 friend Bryant. The physicians had recommended Naples, but he 
 would hear of nothing out of England. 
 
 There is something absolutely intoxicating in the sight of the 
 country, to one who has been confined to a sick room in a town ; 
 there is no pleasure in existence equal to it ; it is worth being ill 
 to enjoy it. Conrad felt the freedom of getting completely away 
 from his father's control, and gave himself up to a dreamy luxurious 
 stillness of enjoyment. There was a mysterious beauty in the 
 thick leafy trees, the rich green of the leaves and meadows, the 
 soft freshness of the air, and the little gleams of scenery standing 
 here and there, like pictures, out of the wild landscape. Nothing 
 like passionate emotion had ever been aroused in his nature ; but 
 it was slumbering, nigh to awakening, in dreams, vague aspira- 
 tions, and sentiments without shape or object. He was in the 
 calm that precedes the breaking up of the elements. Bryant 
 talked little, he was thinking of his business, and their journey 
 was performed almost in silence. They , arrived about four 
 o'clock ; Alice was at the door to welcome them almost before the 
 footman had opened it. She was too glad to see her husband, to 
 have much thought for Conrad, though she certainly felt relieved, 
 when she saw an elegant gentle-looking young man, who, in 
 spite of an air of fashion, did not seem as if he would be very 
 critical on her housekeeping, or perceive how inferior she was to 
 her sister-in-law. 
 
 Dinner was ready when they arrived, and after a hasty toilet, 
 the travellers sat down. There was much for Alice to hear and 
 tell, and she was glad of the presence of another to shelter her 
 whilst she told the history of her protegee, and where she had 
 installed her. 
 
 " Well, my dear," said Bryant, when she had finished, "you 
 know I never object to your amusing yourself, but another time 
 I wish you would pick up your protegees in a less questionable 
 line of life. I have an intense dislike to actresses, and all that 
 
THE HALF SISTEltS. 105 
 
 sort of thing, and should not wish you to become a lady- 
 patroness of them. I don't blame you for what you have done, 
 my love," added he, seeing Alice blush painfully. " This Miss, 
 whatever is her name, seems an inoffensive young woman of her 
 class, and you can take a box for her benefit and all that, but 
 now she is gone back to her old way of life, let her gently 
 down — that is all I mean, and now let us talk of something 
 else. You must amuse my friend here as well as you can, for I 
 shall be full of business for some days. You had better take 
 a drive to my sister's, and show him the place, and then perhaps 
 she will suggest some plan for to-morrow." 
 
 At this moment the head manager of the works was announced. 
 Alice finished the grapes on her plate, and then rose from 
 table. She felt hurt and discomposed; what her husband had 
 said about Bianca had jarred upon her feelings, and his reference 
 to his sister was enough to ruffle any woman — it was such an 
 instinctive preference of her opinion to his wife's. He did not 
 intend to worry her the least in the world, but men are very 
 clumsy and obtuse in aril the complicated and delicate matters of 
 female jealousy. 
 
 Whilst she was chewing the cud of her discontent, Bryant 
 entered, followed by Conrad. 
 
 "Here, my dear! " he cried, " I come to instal Conrad under 
 your care, for I must be off to the Works with Blick. I. have 
 brought something for you too, which I had better give you whilst 
 I think of it." 
 
 He left the room, and shortly returned with a superb India 
 shawl. 
 
 " There ! " said he, flinging it gallantly over her shoulders, " I 
 hope you will like it. You once said you wished for one ; this 
 was the handsomest I could find. I cannot say I think it pretty, 
 but perhaps you will see more beauty in it than I do." 
 
 " Oh, how superb ! " exclaimed Alice, " and how good of you 
 to recollect what I said so long ago ; but I wish you admired it, I 
 should wear it with so much more pleasure then." 
 
 " Nonsense ! " replied her husband, " do not be so childish ; if 
 you like it that is quite enough ; and see, when you go to my 
 sister take her this scarf, it will not do to kill her with envy of 
 your Cashmere all at once. Now, good-bye, Blick is waiting 
 ior me." 
 
 " You will be home to tea ? " said Alice. 
 
 " No, indeed, I shall not; I shall be engaged in the counting- 
 house till late, so do not even sit up for me — I shall be so 
 uncertain." 
 
 Poor Alice ! even the possession of a real Cashmere shawd did not 
 comfort her for being left by her husband, and so immediately 
 after a long absence, to plunge into business. She began to tor- 
 ment herself to discover a reason ; first fancied that she had 
 displeased him about Bianca — and then, that he had become 
 
103 THE HALF SISTEES. 
 
 indifferent to her. If she had been alone she would have indulged 
 herself in a peaceable lit of crying ; but as Conrad was there, she 
 was obliged to postpone it till another time. 
 
 Conrad began to find the atmosphere of the house very 
 oppressive, and to wonder what on earth he should do with 
 himself. Alice, by way of conversation, began to express an 
 interest in his health, and to hope it would improve in their fine 
 air, but Conrad had no taste for settling either his own ailment or 
 other people's, and he asked her to give him some music. Alice 
 immediately opened the piano, and played a few slight airs with 
 much delicacy and feeling, bat without any pretension to being a 
 fine performer. 
 
 " I wish I might invite Bianca," she exclaimed at last, " she 
 sings so beautifully, not like any one else I ever heard." 
 
 "Bianca!" cried Conrad, who was lounging at the window; 
 " what Bianca is that ? " 
 
 " The young actress I was speaking of at dinner." 
 
 " Oh, I did not catch the name, and am ashamed to say I was 
 not attending, but tell me about her now'; if she be the person I 
 mean, she has a mad mother whom she supports." 
 
 u She is the same," replied Alice ; " and is she not charming ? 
 I am so glad to find somebody who feels an interest in her, and to 
 whom I can talk about her. Mr. Bryant has such a prejudice 
 against professional people ; they seem so unsubstantial to men of 
 business." 
 
 "Tell me all about her," said Conrad, seating himself beside 
 her work-table, " and I will wind this silk for you the while." 
 
 Alice soon told him all she knew about Bianca.' 
 
 "Will you take me to see her to-morrow?" said he. 
 
 "Why," said Alice, "you see I don't know whether Mr. 
 Bryant would like me to go ; but I will ask him." And then 
 Alice began to wonder what any of her acquaintance would think, 
 if they should call and find her tete-a-tete with a handsome young 
 man ; and the bare thought of all they might say, made her feel 
 very uncomfortable. 
 
 "What an intensely disagreeable woman!" thought Conrad, 
 wondering at the sudden stiffness of her manner : * ' but it is 
 impossible to get on with these provincial people." 
 
 "I should like to go to see her act to-night," said he, aloud, 
 " if it will not interfere with your hours." 
 
 "Oh, not in the least," replied Alice. "I will order tea 
 directly, as I shall be very glad to hear from you how she 
 succeeds. Poor thing, what a deplorable way of life for her ? Is 
 it not ? Do not you think it degrading for a woman?" 
 
 Conrad thought anything would be better than the decent 
 stagnation in which she seemed to live. He did not say so ; but 
 made his escape as soon as possible from a tete-a-tete, which he 
 felt insupportable. 
 
 
THE HALE SISTERS, - 107 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 Bianca Lad often figured to herself the possibility of Conrad's 
 coming unexpectedly into the theatre, and appearing- before her, 
 as he had done on that memorable night at the circus ; in fact, 
 she lived in the vague hope of seeing him any day : but, on this 
 particular night, she had no fancy or presentiment of what was 
 actually taking place ; which shows, that in spite of animal 
 magnetism, everything befals us when we least expect it. The 
 play was Romeo and Juliet; it was a character with which she 
 could identify herself completely; it was a fine conception, 
 perfectly worked out, for it was not acting, it was her own heart 
 and life she was embodying, and it was to Conrad that all the 
 passionate burning love was dedicated. He was the only Romeo 
 she saw — the actor on the stage was only the masque, the lay- 
 figure of him whom she addressed. Conrad, all the time, entirely 
 unconscious of this, was sitting, wonderstruck with her genius 
 and beauty. He had become madly in love with her before the 
 end of the first act ; and, by the time the curtain fell, he felt 
 almost in despair of ever inducing such a being to listen to him. 
 He was intensely jealous of every man in the theatre, fancying 
 <that any one of them might be a favoured lover ; in particular, 
 he felt as if he must dash out the brains of a young officer with 
 moustaches, in the same box with him, who was most vigorous in 
 his applause ; and who, he fancied, interchanged intelligent 
 glances with her at some of the most tender passages. It was 
 with the utmost difficulty he refrained from insulting him, when 
 he heard him turn to his companion, and say, " Faith, I'd have 
 no objection to be Romeo to that girl ! " 
 
 Conrad did not dare, much as he wished, to send a message to 
 her dressing-room, but went home like a man walking in his 
 sleep. He could scarcely answer Alice's questions on his return ; 
 but replied, in the most absent manner, at complete cross-purposes, 
 refused all refreshment, and very soon requested permission to 
 retire to his own room. 
 
 Alice fancied she must have offended him in some way, and 
 began to examine all she had either said or done ; but the only 
 conclusion she could come to, was that he was a very strange 
 young man, and that Londoners were always so conceited, and 
 found nothing good enough for them when they came into the 
 country. 
 
 "Well, Conrad, how were you pleased last night? What do 
 you intend to do with yourself to day P" asked Bryant, the next 
 morning at breakfast. " I hope you slept well, and found all 
 comfortable." 
 
 Conrad coloured and started ; he thought there was a hidden 
 sarcasm in Bryant's speech, for he had not slept at all, but been 
 
108 THE HALF SISTERS. 
 
 walking up and down his room nearly the whole night, and he 
 feared his steps must have heen heard. Bryant was reading his 
 letters, and did not look up. Alice was pouring out the coffee, 
 and thinking that the new footman did not clean the silver so 
 well as his predecessor. Conrad eat nothing, and thought 
 Bryant would never go. At length, having ascertained that he 
 had finished his third cup, he put his letters together, inquired at 
 what hour dinner would be ready, and told Conrad that if he 
 chose to ride, there was a horse at his service, unless he preferred 
 going with Alice to call on his sister; and then kissing his wife's 
 forehead, with the air of a man not thinking of what he was 
 doing, he left the room. Shortly afterwards he passed by the 
 window where Alice had stationed herself to watch him, but he 
 did not look up. Alice turned away with tears in her soft 
 eyes — she felt very lonely, and as if she were of no value to 
 anybody. 
 
 Conrad sat pinching the ears ot Alice's Italian greyhound, to 
 cover his want of confidence to propose that they should go and 
 see Bianca. 
 
 " We had better set out soon, as we have some distance to go," 
 said Alice at length. 
 
 " Yes," said Conrad eagerly, "or we shall not find her before 
 she goes to rehearsal." 
 
 "Whom? My sister-in-law ? " said Alice. " I was speaking 
 of her ; Bianca lives close by, but I fear Mr. Bryant would 
 hardly like our calling. He seemed quite impatient this morning 
 when I began to mention her." 
 
 Conrad was in despair. " You forget," said he, "that I am an 
 old friend, and have a right to congratulate her, and perhaps she 
 would not like to receive me if I went alone." 
 
 " I don't know what to say," began Alioe. 
 
 " My dear Mrs. Bryant," interrupted Conrad, nearly twisting 
 the dog's ear off as he spoke, which shrieked dismally and ran to 
 his mistress ; "I must see Bianca. It is only common courtesy 
 in me to call. If you do not like to accompany me, tell me where 
 she lives, and I will go alone, and you can call for me on your 
 way to Mr. Bryant's sister." He spoke quickly, and almost 
 angrily. 
 
 " But there is plenty of time," said Alice, somewhat surprised, 
 " I will write her a little note if you will wait a few moments; 
 and there is a book I want to send her, perhaps you will 
 take it." 
 
 Conrad felt ashamed of his warmth, muttered something about 
 the uncertainty of his stay, and whilst Alice went to her writing- 
 table, lounged about the room, took up some of the books from a 
 book society, read the names of the members pasted at the 
 beginning, pulled about the ornaments on the chimney-piece, and 
 thought she would never have done. 
 
 " Here is the London newspaper," said Alice. Conrad took it, 
 
THE HALE SISTERS. 109 
 
 and read it, wrong side upwards, for a few moments, and then 
 put it down. 
 
 At last Alice finished writing her note ; then she read it over, 
 putting in all the stops and the dots that had been omitted ; 
 folded, directed, and sealed it. Conrad watched each process 
 with a sort of patient desperation. At length, when he felt 
 that another moment would drive him mad, she gave him the 
 note and the book, but was again going to delay to wrap it in 
 paper. 
 
 " Oh, pray let me have it as it is," cried poor Conrad; "I 
 cannot bear to carry things muffled up in paper." 
 
 He had still to listen to minute directions for finding his way, 
 and at last narrowly escaped having the footman sent to show 
 him the house. At length he was free. Until he was fairly out 
 of sight, he walked like one pursued ; but, as he drew near to 
 where Bianca lived, his steps slackened. His heart beat so 
 violently he could scarcely breathe ; his veins seemed filled with 
 lead; he walked several times past the house before he could 
 summon courage to knock ; and he was only driven to it at last, 
 by the thought that, if she had to go to rehearsal, he should lose 
 the opportunity altogether. 
 
 Bianca was sitting in her neat room, occupied in mantua- 
 niaking a dress for Lady Macbeth, which she had to play that 
 same evening. A set of zinc ornaments, and a glaring diadem for 
 the queen's costume, were on the table ; a stage mantle of crimson 
 velvet, trimmed with gold tinsel, hung on the wall beside the 
 window. Had she known, she would have almost foregone seeing 
 Conrad at all, sooner than have been found by him with these 
 environments. No one could have a keener perception than 
 herself of the tinsel tawdry reality of all stage effects, and no one 
 could loathe the details of her profession more than she did. It 
 required all her imagination and enthusiasm for her art, to carry 
 her through the coarse, gaudy, glaring accessories. Her own 
 appearance was in singular contrast. She was dressed in a white 
 morning robe, which crossed over the bust, and a purple merino 
 apron marked her round and slender waist (both were the gift ol 
 Alice) ; her luxuriant hair was all gathered in a large knot at the 
 back of her head. She was standing before a glass and trying on 
 the head-dress, when the woman of the house opened the door to 
 say that " a gentleman was inquiring for her." She had barely 
 time to take it off when Conrad stood before her ! He began at 
 least three sentences without finishing one ; his voice died in his 
 throat, and he literally had lost the power to speak intelligibly. 
 Bianca, on her side, was equally discomposed ; her face and neck 
 were suffused with crimson — the veins in her neck and temples 
 throbbed almost to bursting, the room swam before her eyes, and 
 she grasped the back of a chair that stood near to keep hersell 
 from falling. At length, by a violent effort, she composed herself, 
 and desired, him to be seated j and busied herself in sweeping 
 
110 THE HALF SISTERS. 
 
 away the work winch was encumbering the table into a large 
 work-basket. 
 
 " I have brought this note, madam, from Mrs. Bryant ; I would 
 not have ventured to intrude without her sanction," said Conrad, 
 at length, hardly knowing what he was saying, and speaking 
 from the very extremity of his embarrassment in the most formal 
 manner. 
 
 Bianca felt a sharp pang of disappointment. " Oh, she sent 
 you! " said she, haughtily. 
 
 "Yes — no — I requested — I did not know whether I might 
 venture — " stammered Conrad, " in short, how could I dare 
 expect that you would receive me — but you are displeased — I 
 wished — I thought — " 
 
 " Oh ! not displeased," said Bianca ; " but I felt pained that — " 
 
 She hesitated, in her turn. 
 
 " Bianca ! " cried Conrad, madly, " are you glad to see me, or 
 have you quite forgotten me ? I could not help coming to you ; 
 tell me, have I done wrong — will you not speak to me — are you 
 angry ? " 
 
 " Kb," said Bianca, and tears she could not control, fell from 
 her eyes, through the long fringes that covered them. 
 
 Conrad, hardly conscious of what he did, left his chair, and 
 knelt beside her. The same thought and feeling were in the 
 heart of both; the barrier between them melted like ice; they 
 themselves hardly knew the words that passed between them ; but 
 they knew that their hearts and souls were fused into one ; they 
 were both wrapped in one intense feeling of content and happiness. 
 
 How long they were together, neither knew, until they were 
 interrupted by the arrival of Bryant's servant, who came to 
 inquire whether Mr. Conrad Percy was there, as his master was 
 waiting dinner for him. Both started in dismay, when they 
 heard his voice. 
 
 " Heavens ! " cried Conrad, " I have kept Mrs. Bryant waiting 
 all the morning to take me to pay a visit. I was to be back in 
 half an hour. What am I to say to her ? " 
 
 " And Heavens! " cried Bianca, " what is to become of me ? 
 I have missed rehearsal, and not a bit of my dress is ready for 
 to-night!" 
 
 But instead of seeming distressed at their lapse from all pro- 
 priety, they both laughed ; for they felt themselves armed against 
 any sort of evil that could befal them, either now or ever. 
 
THE HALF SISTEBS. Ill 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 Foil a whole month, Conrad and Bianca Were undisturbed hi 
 
 their dream of happiness ; no cloud or shadow rose between them. 
 They saw each other every day ; sometimes they walked together ; 
 sometimes he sat with her in her lodgings; till the country 
 people, and the people of the house, and the people at the theatre, 
 all had their own version of the phenomenon. Bryant and Alico 
 were the only two persons in the neighbourhood who had not 
 heard of the scandal, • except the parties most nearly concerned, 
 Conrad and Bianca themselves. But if ' ' thrice is he armed who 
 hath his quarrel just," seven times are those armed against 
 scandal who have no idea they are giving rise to it. To both 
 Bianca and Conrad, it seemed the most natural thing in the world 
 to be together every instant of time they could command ; the 
 only strange thing was to separate at all. Luckily for Bianca, 
 yhe was now so indispensable at the theatre, that neither manager, 
 treasurer, nor underlings, dared to say anything likely to vex her. 
 She was treated outwardly with the most profound respect. 
 
 "It is a comfort," said Mr. Montague St. Leger one day, " to 
 see that the ' icicle of Dian's temple ' has melted at last, like 
 other mortal frost-work, — and what airs the minx used to give 
 herself!" 
 
 " Well," rejoined his companion (Bianca' s old enemy, the 
 treasurer) 
 
 '"It soothes the awkward squad of the rejected 
 To find how very badly she's selected.' 
 
 14 If she had tried she could not have found a more insignificant, 
 ordinary fellow than this young puppy*" 
 
 " I wonder if he intends to many her," said Mr. St. Leger. 
 
 u . She is quite capable of trying to take him in," replied the 
 other. " Who is he at all, do you know ? it would be only right 
 to give his friends a hint of what he is after." 
 
 "So it would," rejoined Mr. Montague, setting his stock. 
 ' ' Find out about him, and let us send a letter ' from an unknown 
 friend,' to spoil my lady's ambitious game." 
 
 " Oh, I'll soon find out all about him, never fear. — Ah, my 
 dear girl, how late you are ! " said he, suddenly, breaking off, 
 and addressing Bianca who just then entered, in the most coaxing 
 tone. " We are all waiting for you, but you are quite a sultana, 
 and have your own way completely." 
 
 Bianca gave a contemptuous shrug, and without deigning a 
 reply, began her business. 
 
 Two days after the above conversation, old Mr. Percy found 
 amongst his letters one couched in most ominous language, 
 warning him to lose no time in saving his son from the snares of 
 
112 THE HALE SISTEBS, 
 
 an artful woman of loose reputation, an actress, with whom he 
 was completely infatuated, and who was seducing him into every 
 species of vice and extravagance. 
 
 Everybody professes not 'to pay any attention to anonymous 
 letters, but notwithstanding they always infuse an unpleasant 
 degree of suspicion. The old gentleman first poohed and pshawed, 
 and declared that writers of anonymous letters ought to be ducked 
 in a pond and horsewhipped — declared to himself that he did not 
 believe a word of it ; but in the course of the morning he found 
 himself thinking that he would be all the better for a little country 
 air, and that as he should have to write to Bryant, about a certain 
 case that Bryant had put into his hands, he had much better see 
 him : it would save writing, and be more satisfactory. The result 
 was, that the next day the old gentleman made his appearance at 
 Bryant's house, about an hour before dinner. 
 
 Fathers should never risk their welcome by going unexpectedly 
 to see their children who are out on a visit. It is ten chances to 
 one but that their dutiful offspring have fallen into some sort of 
 pleasant mischief, and don't care to be disturbed ; and this, with- 
 out any imputation on their filial piety — it is merely a sense of 
 incongruity. Things that, at the moment before, looked quite 
 right and natural, assume a quite other aspect in the paternal 
 atmosphere. The most innocent, respectable life in the world, 
 takes, as everybody knows, a very questionable, shabby-virtuous 
 air, when recorded in a court of justice ; — much like the aspect of 
 articles in a pawn-shop, which, no matter how good they may be, 
 always lose the halo of respectability which made them shine in 
 their original sphere. 
 
 Alice was alone when Mr. Percy arrived. He seemed to her a 
 very nice, mild old gentleman, far more agreeable than his son, 
 and she soon found herself talking away to him with great interest. 
 In the midst of all manner of compliments and honied speeches 
 the old gentleman had, without seeming to question her, drawn 
 from Alice a great deal more than Alice knew she was com- 
 municating ; indeed, a great deal more than Alice knew herself. 
 But knowledge is not knowledge, except to those who can use 
 it ; it is a dead stone, unless they have the secret to strike fire 
 from it. 
 
 "He goes out fishing, and walks a great deal," said Alice. 
 " He says his physicians ordered him to take a great deal of 
 exercise. And then he discovered some old college companion 
 in the neighbourhood, and has been there a good deal. We do 
 not see much of him in the house. I fear he has had rather a 
 stupid visit on the whole. The theatre seems the only amusement 
 he cares much for." 
 
 "Have you a good company here?" asked Mr. Percy, 
 negligently. 
 
 "I don't know, we so seldom go. There is one young actress, 
 whom Conrad thinks very clever. She is a very respectable 
 
THE HALE SISTERS. 113 
 
 young* woman, and he made us go, a large party, to see her one 
 night. — Are actresses ever received in society in London ? " asked 
 Alice, innocently ; but she received no reply, for Bryant, at thajb 
 moment, came in; and shortly afterwards, Conrad returned, 
 punctual for once, to dinner. His heart misgave him when he 
 found his father had arrived. All his castles m the air — all his 
 dreams of happiness, from being bright rose-coloured clouds, 
 became thick, dark, and portentous 01 nothing but storm and 
 tempest. The instant he saw his father's face he felt instinctively 
 that he had been making a great fool of himself, and that his 
 father would have no sympathy or mercy on him. Nevertheless, 
 nothing could be more a model of paternal manners to a grown-up 
 son, than the candid honhommie with which the old gentleman 
 greeted him ; though, to be sure, he did not know that at that 
 very moment there was a letter lying for him at home, which had 
 passed him on the road, to request his sanction to this " dear son" 
 Conrad's marrying Bianca, and bringing her home to keep house 
 for them, — or it would have ruined his temper, politic as he was. 
 
 During dinner, Conrad talked a great deal, meditating all the_ 
 while how he should make his escape to Bianca. He dwelt much 
 on the old college friend whom he had discovered — whom, by the 
 way, he had seen once for a quarter of an hour, and who had all 
 the credit of having his company during his frequent absence and 
 unpunctual returns. It was a great relief to him when, after 
 Alice had withdrawn, his father began to engage Bryant in a 
 professional discussion of the Chancery suit ; he was stealing off, 
 when he was called back. 
 
 "What do you intend to do with yourself to-night? Bryant 
 and I will soon have finished our business, and I want some talk 
 with you." 
 
 "I thought of going to the theatre, sir," said Conrad, biting 
 his lip. 
 
 " well, I don't mind if I go with you, and perhaps our lovely 
 hostess will honour us with her presence ; but do not go out of the 
 way, for I want you." 
 
 Conrad flew to Bianca with much the sort of feeling that a bird 
 might return to its nest, knowing it had been marked by a mis- 
 chievous school-boy. However, as his father must see Bianca 
 some time, it was as well he should see her to the best advantage. 
 
 The old man easily contrived to learn all the particulars about 
 Bianca from Alice. He was really charmed with her acting ; and, 
 on the whole, thought that his son might have done a more 
 wonderful thing than fall in love with her. The next morning 
 he brought matters to a crisis, by requesting his son to take a 
 walk with him. They proceeded in silence for some time; at 
 length, looking at him sideways, he said, abruptly, 
 
 " Well, what have you got to say to me?" 
 
 Conrad felt as if a pistol had been discharged in his ear, but 
 after a minute he replied, 
 
 I 
 
114 THE HALF SISTEES. 
 
 M I wrote you a letter, sir, yesterday." 
 
 H Ah, well, I shall find it when I get home. Tell me what was 
 in it." 
 
 Who is there that, when a child at school, has not known what 
 it is to go up with a carefully conned lesson barely balanced in 
 the memory, and have it all driven away by the abrupt jerk with 
 which the book has been taken ! Poor Conrad could not say one 
 word. 
 
 u Yv r ell?" said his father; " come, come, out with it; a bird 
 in the air whispered to me about some little actress down here ; 
 what is it all ? You have made a fool of yourself, I suppose, and 
 want me to help you out." 
 
 Relieved by the tone in which his father spoke, and finding the 
 ground already broken, Conrad, as briefly as he could related the 
 whole history of his acquaintance with Bianca, from the time of 
 his first meeting up to the present, and concluded by expressing 
 his determination to marry her. 
 
 His father listened patiently enough; it was an interesting 
 story, he had quite made up his own mind what to do, and so 
 there was no need of going into a passion ; and the game was in 
 his own hands, for his son had no money. 
 
 11 Well," said he, when Conrad was silent, "I do not reproach 
 you ; young men will be young men, and must all sow their wild 
 oats. I wish my son to look on me as a friend," continued he, 
 sentimentally; "I shall prove myself such. You have done all 
 that can be expected ; you have asked my sanction to marry this 
 girl, which of course I shall not give, so she must be content with 
 your honourable intentions. Hark you, Conrad, marriage is a 
 young man's great card in life, and I am not going to let you 
 throw your chance away. You will be in love with a dozen 
 women yet, and as you are not a Turk, you cannot marry them 
 all ; so don't want to be a romantic fool and mortgage your liberty 
 for the first that comes in your way. I will forgive you any folly 
 but a foolish marriage. I am not going to have the family 
 disgraced. If you are so desperate, persuade her to go abroad 
 with you, get your folly over, and come back in your senses. 
 But I give you fair warning, that if you marry her, you shall 
 never see my face again, nor have one farthing to keep you from 
 starving ; and you know," added he, in a sharp distinct whisper, 
 and his small keen eyes gleaming as he spoke, " that what I say, 
 I shall not fail to do." 
 
 Conrad knew perfectly well that his father could not forgive an 
 offence if he would; that his smiling, oily, pleasant-looking, 
 deadly malice, was never to be extirpated when it had once taken 
 root ; but though young men are great fools, yet they have a sort 
 of loyalty that prevents their understanding the possibility of 
 deliberate villany. He dropped his father's arm, and drawing 
 himself up to his full height, he said in a tone as determined as 
 his father's had been. 
 
THE HALF SISTEKS. 115 
 
 "I will not ask Bianca to be my mistress; it is more than I 
 deserve if she consents to be my wife. If you turn me out of 
 doors, I will seek some means of earning a livelihood, and will 
 ask Bianca to wait till I can support her ; and now you have my 
 decision. I am your own eon, and you know that I shall keep 
 my word, as you will yours." 
 
 The young man was not nearly so cool as his father ; hisx face 
 was flushed, his eyes sparkled, and he concluded with an indignant 
 snort as he strode away. The old man looked after him, shrugged 
 his shoulders, and, putting his hands behind him, walked quietly 
 on. His whole desire in life was, that his son should make a 
 noble alliance, and he was not going to be thwarted in his only 
 wish by the headstrong Quixotism of a youth. At the end of 
 about a quarter of an hour, he retraced his steps towards the 
 house. The wily old man had determined on what he would do. 
 He first ascertained that his son was not with Bianca, and then he 
 despatched his own servant with the following billet : 
 
 " The father of Conrad requests Mademoiselle Bianca to give 
 him a private interview. It is necessary that it should be quite 
 unknown to his son, as it nearly concerns his interest. " 
 
 Poor Bianca was thrown into a state of dreadful perturbation 
 by this portentous note ; but returned a verbal answer, and in 
 less than a quarter of an hour Conrad's redoubted father stood 
 before her. 
 
 At first Bianca was struck with the smiling blandness of his 
 appearance, which looked, at first sight, like the finest bene- 
 volence. To her, Conrad's father was the epitome of all that was 
 grand and heroic. 
 
 The old man, accustomed to read faces, saw at once the sort of 
 line he must take. His favourite maxim was, that it is the 
 height of ability to induce people to do right things from wrong 
 motives ; but when it suited him, he was equally apt in taking 
 advantage of their best qualities. 
 
 He took her hand in the most paternal manner, and gently 
 seating her beside him on the sofa, began a long speech with 
 il My dear young lady," and went on, with many compliments to 
 her superior understanding and so forth, to tell her that if his son 
 Conrad married her, he would cut him off with a shilling and his 
 malediction ! he made a great fuss about his gray hairs ; and 
 concluded by appealing to her generosity not to take advantage 
 of his son's rashness and inexperience, but to refuse him, which 
 she would find more to her own advantage. It was a very well 
 put together speech, and must have been very moving, for at the 
 conclusion of it, poor Bianca was crying bitterly, whether at its 
 eloquence or at the prospect of giving up Conrad, the reader 
 must judge. The old gentleman also went on to say, with much 
 delicacy and circumlocution, that though there was a prejudice 
 in favour of legal marriage when there were estates, and titles, 
 and noble families concerned, — the absolute necessity of it was 
 
 i 2 
 
116 THE HALF SISTERS. 
 
 lessened when (as in Bianca's case) there was no one but herself 
 in question. This of course could only have been done to try 
 her : such a paternal, excellent old gentleman could never have 
 contemplated his son taking a mistress to keep him out of other 
 mischief, till such time as he had a suitable marriage ready for 
 him. Of course, it was only to see what her principles were like 
 when he hinted that, in his son's peculiar circumstances, she 
 might generously become his companion, and trust to his honour, 
 disinterestedness, delicacy, and a great many more cardinal 
 virtues ; though we are bound to say that he did hesitate a little 
 in this last proposal, because he fancied she might get too much 
 influence over him, and he did not feel it would be quite safe to 
 trust his son with her at all. There were advantages and there 
 were disadvantages, and the cautious old gentleman was fairly 
 balanced between them. Meanwhile, poor Bianca, with her face 
 buried in the sofa cushion, was sobbing bitterly. At last she 
 raised her head, and said in a tolerably steady voice, 
 
 M I will not be the ruin of one who has been my saviour. 
 I owe everything to your son. I will not marry him against 
 your consent, if he asks and entreats ever so much, or if I die 
 for it." 
 
 " There is a brave young woman!" said the old man. "I 
 thank you for your words. You promise me this ? You shall 
 have no cause to regret it, or to find me ungrateful. You are 
 very prudent, and you shall find me your friend. I will retire 
 now, relying on your promise ." 
 
 " You may," replied Bianca, almost contemptuously. 
 
 After his departure Bianca endeavoured to collect her thoughts, 
 to determine on the course she should take. Whilst she loathed 
 the old man for the selfishness and grossness — the heartlessness 
 with which he would have tempted her to sacrifice herself and 
 her good fame — she still felt that he had a right to object to his 
 son's throwing away all his prospects for the sake of an obscure 
 country actress, without even a name or a relation. She felt 
 keenly the distance of social position between herself and Conrad. 
 Whilst she was bitterly musing, Conrad entered. For some 
 moments they neither of them spoke ; at last Conrad, maddened 
 by the sight of Bianca's tears, began in the most pathetic and 
 earnest manner to entreat her there and then to unite her destiny 
 with his and marry him, to prevent the possibility of his father 
 separating them. He told her all that had passed between them 
 in the morning, and concluded by again passionately conjuring 
 her to marry him at once, and run the risk of all that his father 
 could or would do. 
 
 Bianca recovered all her firmness whilst Conrad was speaking ; 
 she had loved Conrad when it seemed altogether hopeless that 
 she would ever see him again in this world ; he had not only 
 come back, but had loved her as devotedly and passionately as 
 even her heart could desire. To a true woman, the being loved 
 
THE HALE SISTERS. 117 
 
 by the object she has chosen, is the one matter of importance, all 
 other things are secondary considerations ; and Bianca having 
 conquered what to her was as the kingdom of Heaven, was not 
 likely to doubt that all other difficulties would be smoothed in 
 due time ; she was so happy and satisfied with being beloved, 
 that even the impending separation could not altogether depress 
 her. Her love was too much a part of her own soul to depend on 
 the accidents of sight, and presence ; and besides, he was with 
 her now, and she felt very courageous. 
 
 " Conrad," said she, putting one arm round his neck as he 
 knelt before her, i i you must be ruled in this by me. For the 
 present you must yield to your father's will and go abroad. You 
 have always desired to travel. I am not your equal. Your 
 father has every right to object to your making such a match ; a 
 sixth-rate actress in a provincial town, a girl without friends, 
 whom nobody knows, almost without a country. I am not fit to 
 be your wife ; every one would say the same ; he has a right to 
 refuse his consent to such a match; I am of his opinion, and 
 I refuse mine also. I will not marry you. Hear me to the end," 
 said she, as he made an impetuous movement to dash away from 
 her, ' ' hear me to the end, my Conrad ; travel for three years, 
 and then come back to me ; by that time I shall have worked my 
 way in my profession, and in the world's eye have become more 
 your equal. Then I shall at least have proved myself worthy of 
 you. I believe that Grod has given me what is called genius. 
 I have power in me to become all I desire ; I must prove it and 
 work it out. To you my whole soul is given — you have been the 
 guiding star of my life — you will be its crown and glory. To 
 you I dedicate my life ; I am yours whenever you claim me. 
 i our father will then have no right to withhold his consent ; but 
 go now, dear Conrad, we must both earn our blessedness. I am 
 yours ; you are my god, my religion, my whole life is yours. 
 You have been the one thought of my heart since the day I first 
 saw you ; and it is not likely I shall change, now that I possess 
 the priceless treasure of your love." 
 
 Bianca spoke firmly and passionately, and she looked like an 
 inspired sybil. Her eyes were full of ineffable tenderness ; she 
 was so filled with hope and conscious power, that she did not see 
 the gulf of separation that was beneath her feet. Conrad could 
 perceive nothing else. He raved, and wept, and reproached ; all 
 that the most distracted and passionate love could urge, in the way 
 of persuasion, to make her change her resolution, and marry him 
 in despite of his father, the devil, and all hindrance, were quite 
 in vain. 
 
 ' ' Three years, Conrad — I ask only three years ; come back 
 and claim me then, and I will have made myself worthy of being 
 your wife, and the world shall not say you are flinging yourself 
 away." 
 
 " Three years, Bianca!" said Conrad, bitterly. "You know 
 
118 THE HALE SISTERS. 
 
 not what you are saying ; in three years we shall not be what we 
 are now. I have a presentiment of evil. Marry me now, and 
 bind me to you, body and soul, for life. I will work for you, 
 starve for you, love you to all eternity — my whole being is 
 filled with love for you. Bianea, do not send me away into 
 the wilderness. I cannot answer for the chances and changes 
 that may come upon either of us ; — this is a crisis in my life. 
 Bianea, let me stay with you — let me live or die with you. "We 
 know not how we may both change, if separated." 
 
 He knelt to her, kissed her feet, and used every passionate 
 entreaty ; but to Bianea, when she once saw that a certain course 
 was riff Jit, it became a moral necessity to pursue it ; she did not 
 feel to have the option of leaving it ; — as he became more despe- 
 rate, she grew more calm. 
 
 4 'Hear me, Conrad," said she, at last; "I swear to you 
 solemnly, that I will consider myself as your betrothed wife, 
 before Heaven, and nothing but your own will can dissolve my 
 oath." 
 
 " You promise," said Conrad, " that you will never give me 
 up, till , I give you up, and that will never be till the elements fall 
 asunder ; " and then, taking a signet ring from his finger, he put 
 it upon her hand. " Promise me, too, that you will always wear 
 this, and never use it, except to me ; — and now give me something 
 of yours." 
 
 " I have not an ornament in the world," said Bianea, " except 
 stage trumpery." 
 
 " Give me this, then," said he, untying a little blue hand- 
 kerchief she wore round her throat — he kissed it, and put 
 it next his heart. Whilst he was in this somewhat calmer 
 mood, Bianea persuaded him to depart. They settled that 
 they were to see each other once more, to take a last leave ; 
 but Conrad's father was much too wily to lose the advantage he 
 had gained. 
 
 He saw by his son's look of despair and misery, that Bianea had 
 kept her promise ; he resolved not to risk the failure of her courage 
 in a last interview. He pretended a sudden call home, and that 
 very night, without well knowing how it had happened, Conrad 
 found himself travelling with his father towards London. In 
 three days he was on his way to Italy. Bianea remained at home, 
 stunned, and suffering all the reaction of her firmness and 
 courage ; but still she had a secret happiness, a source of life 
 hidden in her soul, which prevented her from being overwhelmed 
 even with the dead desolate feeling of absence. Conrad loved her, 
 and she belonged to him ; and so long as she possessed that 
 consciousness, nothing could make her very miserable, and even her 
 suffering was better than any happiness she had formerly known ; 
 then she had the consciousness of her purpose to employ all her 
 energy ; she was working now for Conrad's sake. She wrote to 
 him constantly, and had an ever-flowing stream of letters from 
 
THE HALF SISTERS. 119 
 
 him, so full of burning love that it is some wonder they did not 
 set fire to the post bag. 
 
 About a fortnight after Conrad's departure, Bianca's friend the 
 old actor came down, to play a series of his best characters, 
 previous to taking a farewell of the stage. He was as much her 
 friend as ever, and was wonderstruck at the progress she had 
 made. For Bianca, his coming was about the best thing that 
 could have happened, for it roused her energies and stimulated 
 her intellect, and thus prevented her falling into a state of dreamy 
 emotion. 
 
 As to Alice, she often sent Bianca kind presents of anything 
 she fancied would be useful, and once or twice called to see her ; 
 but she was too afraid of vexing her husband to keep up much 
 intercourse with her, and Bianca had too much tact to embarrass 
 her by putting herself in her sister's way. 
 
 CHAPTEE XXVII. 
 
 The engagement of Bianca's friend, the actor, came to a close. 
 He had been much pleased with her. At first he felt almost 
 tempted to take her with him to London, and obtain an engage- 
 ment for her there at once ; but a little consideration induced him 
 to change his mind. Bianca was so patient, so unconscious of the 
 extent of her own powers, so earnest in her endeavours to learn, 
 without any idea of showing off herself in anything she did ; in 
 short, possessed so many sterling qualities, which enhanced the 
 value of her genius (qualities, indeed, without which genius 
 cannot "have its perfect work"), that he determined to leave 
 her to mature her powers in obscurity a little while longer. " She 
 will learn all the better," muttered he, " for not being hampered 
 with the expectations which a promising first appearance always 
 entails ; and she will not get warped or mystified by dwelling in 
 the heated atmosphere of her own reputation. She will take all 
 the more permanent rank, and take it at once, when she does 
 appear." Thus thinking, and thus saying, he still determined to 
 place her more pleasantly, and not to leave her to the tender 
 mercies of Mr. Montague St. Leger. He was on the point of 
 proceeding to Bath, and a few lines from him produced a reply 
 from the manager, offering a very eligible engagement for Bianca. 
 
 The letter came the last morning of his stay in , and putting 
 
 it in his pocket, he walked towards the theatre to meet Bianca, on 
 her return from rehearsal. 
 
 "You must invite me to walk home with you, my dear young 
 lady," said lie, as he met her ; " for I want to have a long talk 
 
120 THE HALF SISTERS. 
 
 with you about a great many things. You can spare me an hour, 
 can you not?" 
 
 Bianca was almost overcome by this honour, as she considered 
 it, and could hardly find confidence to say how glad she felt. 
 
 They walked in silence till they reached the small house where 
 Bianca lodged. It was not her poor little room, that she felt 
 ashamed of showing him, for she would have experienced just the 
 same awe and reverence had it been a palace. The benevolent 
 old actor, who felt towards her as if she were a daughter of his 
 own, was much pleased as he glanced round the room at the 
 modesty and propriety of the arrangements ; it was what he had 
 hoped, what he had expected to find. 
 
 " Ah, ah, you are beginning your library betimes; what books 
 have we here ?" said he, going up to a set of mahogany shelves 
 (Conrad's present), which hung against the wall. " Shakespeare, 
 of course, — and a good edition ; and some of our old dramatists ; 
 Hazlitt's Essays ; Schlegel's Lectures. How did you get hold of 
 those German translations from Schiller and Gothe ? Your friend 
 has a good judgment," said he, glancing on the fly leaf of a 
 volume he had taken down, and which opened at " Conrad to 
 Bianca." He fixed his eye upon her face, and in a second he had 
 a clue to all that had surprised him in her conduct. He took her 
 hand kindly, and said, " You must consider me as if I were your 
 father ; tell me, are you engaged to that young man ? " 
 
 "Yes," replied Bianca, steadily. 
 
 " Come, tell me about it. You will not prosper the worse for 
 my knowing, and you may trust my discretion," added he, smiling 
 kindly ; " tell me your history from the beginning. I feel curious 
 to know the elements that have made you what you are." 
 
 " I will tell you anything you wish to hear, replied Bianca ; 
 1 i but there is nothing to interest any one but myself, and only 
 that, because it is to myself it has occurred." 
 
 "There, there, that will do for a nice little prologue: now 
 begin, for the coach goes at three o'clock, and I must not miss it ; 
 so begin, like a good girl." 
 
 With a little hesitation at first, but gaining confidence as she 
 proceeded, Bianca in a quiet, straight-forward way, gave her 
 friend the history of her life since coming to England, concealing 
 nothing, not even her belief that she had discovered her half- 
 sister, and her reasons for not claiming her relationship. Of 
 Conrad, she spoke modestly and naturally ; she was proud of 
 belonging to him, and did not feel that there was any shame in 
 avowing it ; it was the strong rock and safeguard of her whole 
 life ; she had dwelt under the shadow of it, and it had kept her 
 from all evil ; it was the only life of which she had to tell, and she 
 felt a pleasure in speaking of it. 
 
 If all women were not brought up in such unnatural traditions 
 of what is "feminine" and "maiden like," and "sensitively 
 delicate," they would not feel it a bounden obligation to tell lies, 
 
THE HALF SISTERS. 121 
 
 and deny an honest lawful affection for a lover. But they are 
 crushed down under so many generations of arbitrary rules for 
 the regulation of their manners and conversation ; they are from 
 their cradle embedded in such a composite of fictitiously-tinted 
 virtues, and artificial qualities, that even the best and strongest 
 amongst them are not conscious that the physiology of their 
 minds is as warped by the traditions of feminine decorum, as 
 that of their persons is by the stiff corsets which, until very 
 recently, were de rigueur for preventing them \ l growing out of 
 shape." Bianca had been left to nature and chance, and nobody 
 had ever taught her propriety; and that is the only apology 
 we can make to those who consider her candour rather too 
 strong. 
 
 " Well, you are a very good girl, and a brave girl, and I come 
 back to all my prophecies about you. — You will be a great woman 
 yet, whether I live to see it or not. I like you for trusting me 
 with all the truth, instead of shuffling, and trying to mystify me 
 with modesty. You have given me a real respect for you, and 
 now," continued the actor, taking a pinch of snuff out of a superb 
 gold box, "let us settle a little what you are to do. I could 
 take you with me to London, and get you an engagement there 
 fast^enough, and you would make noise there, but I do not think 
 it would be a good thing for you to be embarrassed with the care 
 of a reputation before you are come to the full perfection and 
 maturity of your powers. You must consider your genius as a 
 sacred deposit intrusted to you, to devote to the manifestation of 
 your art, and not for the glorification of yourself ; it is of much 
 more importance that you should become perfected, than that all 
 the theatres of the world should see and applaud you as a tenth 
 muse. You are strong and patient, and can afford to wait. Your 
 work is with you, and the reward before you ; but the work is 
 of infinitely more importance than the reward — let that follow in 
 its own season. I look to you with a hopefulness I cannot express 
 in words. You have a higher task before you than merely to 
 make a reputation for yourself. You must not only take the head 
 of your profession, but you must make that profession what it has 
 never been made yet. There are wonderful and glorious resources 
 in our art, and they have never been recognised nor developed ; 
 it has never risen to be considered more than an amusement. In 
 mechanical and industrial ages, all the fine arts are apt to be 
 looked on as merely amusing, or at best ornamental. But our art 
 has never, in any age, been made honourable. This actor, and 
 the other actor, have been i ornaments to their profession/ and all 
 that ; but none have ever loved it for its own sake, and dedicated 
 their lives and powers to its honour, instead of to their own. 
 The stage has had glorious actors, but the art has had no priests ; 
 all have wanted to be better than their profession, instead of 
 reverencing it beyond all earthly things. How then should it 
 ever become more than a toy, a vanity ? I believe you have it in 
 
122 THE HALF SISTERS. 
 
 you to raise it from its meretricious degraded state. 
 be purified from the sensualism that has defaced it, 
 
 It needs to 
 j before it can 
 assume its legitimate rank. This is the idea I would have you 
 keep before your eyes — it is worth dedicating a life for — any one 
 can work from a personal motive, but few have faith enough in 
 an idea to give themsevlves for it." 
 
 " I hardly understand you," said Bianca; "I can conceive no 
 higher motive, or more ennobling, than the desire to become 
 worthy of one we love. I love my profession ; I would grudge no 
 labour to perfect myself in it, I would change it for no other in 
 the world. But if there had been no one to whom, in my soul, I 
 might dedicate my efforts, for whose approval I strained every 
 nerve, I could not have worked. I could not work from a mere 
 personal motive — it needed something to take me out of myself to 
 induce me to aspire to excellence. I do not desire success for my 
 own sake : but the motive you set before me, does not touch me — 
 does not inspire me ; I do not e\eiifeel what you mean." 
 
 The actor shook his head and signed. 
 
 "Well," said he, " we must have patience ; go on from any 
 motive you will, it will grow higher and nobler in time ; your 
 soul will need a stronger support ere long than the approbation or 
 even the love of any human being. The time will come when* you 
 will think on my words. "When you discover (as you surely will) 
 that you yourself are of a nature infinitely higher and worthier 
 than him on whom you are lavishing all the passionate treasures 
 of your strong noble soul ; — when you discover that the one object 
 to whom you have dedicated yourself — in whom you desired to 
 lose yourself — whom you have made your god upon earth — shrinks 
 in cowardly fear from your entire and perfect devotion, and dare 
 not accept your offering, but reels and staggers under the burden 
 of your perfect love — is wearied and frightened at the very eirtire- 
 ness with which you give up your whole soul to him — and you are 
 left lying, fallen, and crushed under the ruin of your hopes ; — 
 then in your desolation will arise a conviction of a nobler and 
 purer motive. You will cease to seek the vain stimulant of 
 passionate emotion ; you will feel a higher spirit aroused within 
 you. Art will reveal itself to you in all its wonderful majesty, 
 and you will be nobly consoled. You will see that it alone is 
 worthy of the dedication of a life-time ; you will give yourself to 
 it in spirit and in truth ; you will feel the glory .of being its 
 priestess, and interpreter of its mysteries ; you will feel then that 
 the responsibility of genius was not laid on you that you might 
 lavish it on an individual, for the gratification of your own 
 emotions, any more than that you might spend it on your own 
 glorification, to make yourself a name upon the earth. You are 
 consecrated to act a certain part, and must give yourself with 
 your whole soul to the work appointed you. In vain will you 
 make idols, and try to give yourself to them ; they will break 
 when you trust to them in your need. But alas ! alas ! through 
 
THE HALF SISTEES. 123 
 
 how much suffering will you not have to pass, before you believe 
 this ! I had hoped you would be led by an easier path ; but 
 excellence can be perfected by suffering alone. " 
 
 He paused. Bianca, awed by his tone of solemn adjuration, 
 remained silent awhile ; at length she said, timidly, 
 
 " Oh, if you only knew the strength and the comfort the spirit 
 of love gives to a woman ; it is that alone which can move her. 
 It has been my own salvation ; what but that has kept me from 
 evil ? It is that alone which has led me on, which has given me 
 any sort of worth I possess. " 
 
 " It will not lead you to the end" replied the other ; " you are 
 trying to compress the god within you, to place it in a shrine of 
 clay, and you will be broken up by it. But, meanwhile, go on as 
 well as you can ; I do not desire to make you suffer before your 
 time. My words sound ominous and fearful now ; the day will 
 come when you will find strong consolation in them. However, I 
 have not settled the immediate business I came for ; read this 
 letter, and tell me are you disposed to close with the offer ?" 
 
 " Oh ! how am I to thank you sufficiently ! " said Bianca, grate- 
 fully, " this is so exactly the thing suited to me. I feel what you 
 say of London, and I would not desire an engagement there if I 
 could obtain one. I care for perfecting myself in my art more 
 than for any praise or credit. Oh ! to be able to realise the idea 
 of which yon gave me a glimpse when I beheld you acting for the 
 first time ! to enter into that world, which, as it were, lies unseen 
 around us, and bring out thence the thoughts and conceptions 
 that are hidden there, and force them into a visible shape, a 
 bodily expression, I would consent to dwell in darkness my whole 
 life. Let me be nothing for ever, if I may only once give shape 
 to those unutterable mysteries which at times seem as if they 
 would cleave my very soul asunder, with their dumb ineffectual 
 strivings to become manifest. There are moments, when it seems 
 as if I must become mad, I feel so incapable to give them shape 
 and utterance ; as if it needed that I, myself, should be broken to 
 pieces like a jar of clay, that all which is blindly stirring within 
 me may find way. I feel so weak, and my desires so indefinite ; 
 what I want to realise I can nowhere see or grasp, and yet it lies 
 around me like a strong spirit, in whose presence I stand, though 
 I see it not, and I sink down baffled, and weak, and paralysed. I 
 can grasp nothing ; I can do nothing, — that which I clutch at so 
 blindly is ' high, and I cannot attain unto it ! ' At those times it 
 seems as if there were nothing but death for me. Oh ! " cried 
 she, springing wildly from her chair, and tossing her arms, " why 
 do you speak to me as if I could do any thing ; why do you speak 
 vain words ! I do nothing, I can do nothing ; I grind my life out, 
 but it will not take the shapes that haunt me : weakness lies like 
 lead upon my soul. Oh, if you knew ! if you knew ! " said she, 
 sinking on her seat once more, and covering her face, whilst the 
 tears poured like rain through her fingers. 
 
124 THE HALE SISTEES. 
 
 " Ah. \V said the actor, deeply moved, " who that has striven, 
 does not know these things ? It is out of struggles like these that 
 any achievement must come, conquered and carried captive from 
 the realms of madness and darkness. We must take our reason 
 as well as our life in our hand, and he ready to lose hoth, if we 
 would desire to attain to that which is invisible . Does the thought 
 of Conrad give you strength at such times as these ?" 
 
 " No," replied Bianca, " I never think of him then, and I have 
 never felt inclined to talk to him of these things ; — it is in all my 
 human difficulties that the thought of him strengthens me." 
 
 " Well," said the actor, rising, "love him as long as you can, 
 and as well as you can. Love is the first strong impulse that moves 
 the soul to aught that is good or great, hy taking us out of our- 
 selves ; — but it is not the * be all and the end all ; ' — however, I say 
 to you go on ; you are of the right order. Do not let yourself be 
 wearied or discouraged ; I shall be seeing you again soon, and we 
 will speak more of these things ; — it strengthens and comforts me 
 to know you thus. Do not forget to write by to-night's post — 
 I shall quite look forward to acting with you. Now, farewell." 
 
 He kissed her broad forehead, and she heard his footsteps 
 descending the stairs, before she was conscious that he had 
 departed, and then it seemed to her as if she had been cold and 
 thankless in her acknowledgments, and she felt blank and lonely 
 — she felt as if she had been suddenly thrown down to the earth 
 after enjoying the converse of an angel, and for the remainder of 
 the day all around her seemed coarse and cold. However, she did 
 as he had desired, and closed with the offer from the Bath theatre, 
 and arranged to join the company after the following week. She 
 also addressed a few lines to her friend the actor, and felt happier 
 after she had expressed the feelings with which his kindness had 
 filled her heart. 
 
 Mr. Montague St. Leger was bitterly chagrined to find that his 
 intended victim was not only escaping from him, but making 
 a move upwards in the world ; he would have given much to 
 find a pretext for preventing her departure ; but her engage- 
 ment was closed. He did not venture to see her ; she drew the 
 remainder of her salary, and lost sight of Mr. Montague St. Leger 
 for ever ! 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIIL 
 
 Bianca remained nearly the whole of the ensuing three years 
 a regular member of the Bath company ; when the theatre was 
 closed she obtained engagements in other towns ; her reputation 
 gradually extended, and she became a great favourite. Her old 
 friend had given her one or two introductions, but she made 
 
THE HALE SISTERS. 125 
 
 valuable friends for herself, and was received into very respectable 
 society. These were the most important years of her life ; she was 
 laying the firm foundation of her future fame ; so that when the 
 season of her great success arrived, it was not a sudden and 
 wonderful stroke of good luck, but the legitimate harvest of 
 patient toil. She might possibly have become too self-reliant, too 
 much self- concentrated, had not her efforts been consecrated to a 
 purpose out of herself ; it was not fame for herself, it was not 
 success for her own sake, that she sought ; it was to make herself 
 worthy of Conrad ; all her worldly aims centered in him ; and this 
 kept her free from any morbid anxiety about her own reputation. 
 She continued what she had been in more obscure circumstances, 
 calm, steady-purposed, and single-minded. When she first 
 entered Mr. Simpson's establishment she had only a blind instinct 
 of doing her best, and this had grown into a second nature ; she 
 did not recognise it as a principle, for she had never been taught 
 to articulate her morality in portable aphorisms, like so many 
 moral cordials, to be administered to her virtues when they seemed 
 drooping. "The world's foundations deep" are cast on the im- 
 perishable granite rocks ; but they lie down far out of sight — it is 
 always very poor land where the granite comes to the surface. 
 People who are constantly thinking of their principles, and making 
 an audible appeal to them in all they do, lead generally very 
 barren lives : they seldom possess a rich organisation, or a powerful 
 vitality. 
 
 Bianca never did less than her best ; and that was her one rule 
 of action. She had a strong purpose, which filled her whole life, 
 even to her lightest thoughts and most casual actions. 
 
 As to Conrad, the account of him is less satisfactory ; for the 
 first six months, he wrote regularly to Bianca, the most desperate 
 and passionate epistles that ever were written since the days of 
 Abelard and Eloise. By imperceptible degrees they became less 
 frequent, more reasonable, and less ardent ; but Bianca loved too 
 intensely, and was too much engrossed by her own passion, to 
 perceive this change. 
 
 "Had he not sworn his love a thousand times ?" was the 
 thought that stilled all misgivings : besides, the idea of blaming 
 him never once occurred to her ; whatever he said or did became 
 right in her eyes, because it came from him. She loved him with 
 all the passionate concentratedness of her nature. Not one human 
 being in a thousand can bear the weight of the entire and perfect 
 love of another. At first it is very flattering to all the finest 
 vanities of humanity ; but after a very little time the burden 
 becomes intolerable, and there is an aggravating sense of respon- 
 sibility under which the spontaneity of the weaker affection is 
 crushed down. The consecration of an entire existence can be 
 sustained only at the expense of an entire existence, surrendered 
 in return : if the return be in anywise less perfect and complete, 
 the heart staggers and bends under the priceless burden ; and in 
 
126 THE HALF SISTERS. 
 
 the end, by a mere impulse of self-preservation, the object on 
 whom it has been bestowed casts it down, to be trodden under 
 foot or perish by the way, so that he at least may be relieved 
 from it. 
 
 In general, both men and women are too much inclined to 
 consider love as a mere amusement ; to take it up lightly, under 
 the impression that gratified feeling will be sufficient to carry them 
 to the end ; but it is far otherwise. Whoever accepts the gift of 
 an entire and true affection contracts a weighty responsibility. 
 
 When Conrad left England he felt little inclination to visit 
 great cities, or to enter much into society. For some months he 
 travelled through the Tyrol, Switzerland, and the north of Italy, 
 making long excursions on foot, and writing to Bianca glowing 
 and poetical descriptions of all he saw and felt. After he had 
 been absent about six months he came to Milan, and he chanced 
 to go to the opera the first night of his arrival. A young singer 
 made her debut that same evening in one of the minor parts, and 
 he was struck by her real or fancied likeness to Bianca ; she was 
 very beautiful, and soon had crowds of adorers; Conrad could 
 not long flatter himself that he was only taken by her resemblance 
 to another ; he fell in love with her on her own account, and 
 succeeded in making her his mistress. He still cared for Bianca 
 more than for any one else in the world, but she had ceased to be 
 his sole object ; he continued to write to her, but more rarely, and 
 assumed irf his letters a mysterious tone of melancholy. In order 
 to engage her sympathy and prevent complaints of his neglect, he 
 talked a great deal of the weight and misery of separation, and 
 the small chance there was of their being reunited for long years ; 
 all which, to poor Bianca, who did not know the real state of 
 matters, sounded very moving, and she exerted herself to comfort 
 and reassure him ; above all, she filled her letters with the most 
 touching assurances of her own unchangeable affection. 
 
 After awhile Conrad made the mortifying discovery that his 
 Italian was by no means faithful to him — that she had, in fact, a 
 noble army oi' martyrs to her charms, to whom from time to time 
 she showed much mercy. He peremptorily broke off the con- 
 nection in disgust ; he contrived also just at that time to fall ill 
 of a fever, and he had a long and tedious convalescence. His old 
 tenderness for Bianca revived, and he wrote to her in his old 
 strain, entreating her never to doubt him, but to bear with his 
 moods, and reassuring her against all his apparent coldness, past 
 or future. 
 
 Bianca never had doubted him ; and with this letter to refer to, 
 no future conduct of his could cause her misgivings. 
 
 Conrad's father had determined to keep him at a distance until 
 he was quite cured of his infatuation, and therefore turned a deaf 
 ear to all his entreaties to be recalled to England, on the plea of 
 illness ; he suggested to his son that as he had taken a disgust to 
 the law, and given up all idea of reading for it, he should enter 
 
THE HALF SISTEBS. 127 
 
 the Austrian service for a few years. This suited Conrad's fancy, 
 and a commission was obtained for him. He had a vague hope 
 that thereby he might become independent, and obtain Bianca, 
 without waiting for the celebrity by which she was to earn the 
 problematical consent of his father. Had he been as firm of 
 purpose as Bianca, this would have been quite practicable ; but 
 his affection had already ceased to be perfect and entire. Then, 
 too, he fell into all the irregularities and dissipations that beset 
 unoccupied young men with a handsome allowance. In proportion 
 as be became more worldly and blase, his ideas about women 
 became coarser and more rigid ; and after the fashion of that style 
 of men, he expected them to do all the virtue going in the world, 
 in spite of their own individual efforts to thwart it in all the 
 women they came near. His experience of continental theatres 
 and their coulisses gave him a great disgust to everything con- 
 nected with the stage. He did not actually break off his engage- 
 • ment with Bianca, but he allowed it gradually to fall into 
 abeyance. He expected that, in the course of nature, Bianca 
 would receive other offers, and that, tired of waiting for an 
 uncertainty, weaned by time and absence from her attachment to 
 him, she would dispose of herself, and save a formal rupture ; he 
 even wrote to give her a delicate hint, that, much as it might cost 
 him to renounce his right to her love, still his own prospects were 
 ■ so precarious, his father so obdurate, &c, &c, &c.,that, although 
 he loved her more than ever, still, if she could find any one who 
 would make her happy, he would stifle all selfish feelings, and 
 love her as a brother ; and concluded his letter by a touching 
 picture of the solitary life of exile he was leading for her sake. 
 
 Bianca did not at all understand this kind of generosity ; the 
 very idea that it was possible for any power on earth to dissolve 
 her connexion with Conrad, was too terrible to think upon. She 
 wept bitterly ; the picture of his loneliness and exile touched her 
 kind heart to the quick, and prevented any suspicion of his 
 estrangement. She set all down to his generous delicacy, in not 
 wishing to bind her to an indefinite engagement, and returned a 
 passionate refusal to accept her liberation ; at which he shrugged 
 his shoulders, as he read it over a cigar. 
 
 This was the state of affairs, when one day Bianca was 
 surprised by a visit from her old friend the actor, who, journeying 
 southward, had made a detour of some distance, to see how his 
 protegee went on. 
 
 " I am come to Bath for no other earthly reason but to see you 
 act to-night ! Do not I love you very much f — and could any 
 lover of five -and- twenty do more?" cried he, gaily, as he 
 entered. 
 
 M You do not take me at all by surprise," cried she, springing 
 up to meet him. " Nothing you could do in the way of kindness 
 would astonish me," 
 
 " Well, and how do they treat you here, eh ? " said he, seating 
 
128 THE HALF SISTERS. 
 
 himself; " and do you feel strong enough, to take a first-class 
 rank in London ? but I shall see that to-night, so there is no need 
 to ask you now. How does Conrad go on ? " 
 
 " His father continues as much opposed as ever ; all my hopes 
 depend on my success in obtaining an engagement at one of the 
 great theatres in London — he has not been in England since I saw 
 you." 
 
 Her old friend looked at her steadily for a moment, then took a 
 pinch of snuff. l ' You have been a good girl, and a patient one, 
 and you will have your reward. You have lost nothing; you 
 have played for the great game, and that does not bring a quick 
 return, but a lasting one." 
 
 " I can still wait," replied Bianca, " a little longer now will be 
 nothing — one can always go on ; it is the beginning that needs 
 resolution." 
 
 " Well, well, I shall see to-night, and now you are to come 
 back and dine with me. I ordered a nice little dinner to be 
 ready early ; and you must tell me all that has happened since we 
 parted." 
 
 At night, after the play, the old man took her hand, and said, 
 
 ' ' You are up to the mark ; we must get you an engagement in 
 London. You have made good use of your time, and I am quite 
 satisfied with you. I have a piece of news to tell you to-morrow. 
 Good night, now." 
 
 Bianca went home very happy; she seemed to have come 
 suddenly in sight of the realisation of all her hopes. 
 
 The next morning early, her good genius arrived ; he had a 
 letter in his hand. 
 
 " There," said he, " write at once to , of Covent Garden, 
 
 state what you want him to do, and enclose this letter ^from me. 
 I think it will help your business. Now, what will you give me 
 for my news ? " 
 
 " Tell me first, and perhaps— but we shall see." 
 
 "Well then, the father of your friend Conrad is seriously ill. 
 It is very unlikely that at his age he should recover, so I do not 
 suppose he will stand in your way much longer. And what is 
 more, his medical man told me that he had ordered his son to be 
 sent for from Germany, or wherever he might be." 
 
 " How long is this ago ? " said Bianca, eagerly ; " he has never 
 written me word." 
 
 "Perhaps not," replied the other, drily; "he is such an 
 affectionate son that he can think of nothing else — but I should 
 say that he had been in England for the last fortnight." 
 
 " I do not believe it — I will not believe it ! " said Bianca. 
 
 "Well, my dear, you know best. I have given you my 
 authority, and I have given you my conclusions from the same. 
 My advice to you, is, that you keep yourself quiet, and let the 
 first thing he hears of you be an immense triumph ; do not let 
 him find you where he left you. I take quite as much interest in 
 
THE HALF SISTERS. 129 
 
 your success, as if you were a child of my own ; but you must 
 let yourself be guided by me. When you women get hold of a love 
 affair, you make that your business, and the most important 
 things which concern your real interest^ou make your play ; but 
 you are all alike." 
 
 " What would you have me do ? " said Bianca, impatiently. 
 
 " Just this, — make no attempt to communicate with him, press 
 on your business in London, and do not see him till after you have 
 made your debut. You will need all your energies, and if he 
 comes in your way I know how it will be ; you will be taken up 
 with him, and let everything else go to the devil." 
 
 After a few more words, Bianca promised to follow his advice, 
 and he left her clinging with intense eagerness to the idea that 
 her success in London would dissipate the last obstacle between 
 herself and Conrad, and concentrating all her energies to bring it 
 to pass. 
 
 The information given to Bianca was quite correct. Conrad 
 actually was in England. He had not written to Bianca, though, 
 to do him justice, it had several times struck him that he ought to 
 do so ; but, on his arrival, he found his father extremely ill, and 
 he had quite enough to occupy him, and keep him from doing 
 anything he had no particular inclination for. About a fortnight 
 after his return, his father died ; and then he pacified his con- 
 science by thinking that after he had arranged his affairs a little, 
 he would go down to Bath, and take Bianca by surprise. 
 
 Bianca all this while was in a suppressed fever with anxiety. 
 
 Her worldly affairs, however, went on smoothly enough. 
 
 The manager sent a prompt and polite answer to her application, 
 offering to give her at once an opportunity of making her debut, 
 and an engagement to the end of the season if she succeeded. So 
 far, all was well, and having, with some difficulty, induced her 
 present manager to release -her from the remainder of her engage- 
 ment with him, Bianca started for London, to throw all her hopes 
 upon the cast. 
 
 There was a great deal of preliminary worry to be gone through, 
 and several vexatious delays, before everything was fairly en train 
 for her appearance. She nad chosen Juliet for^her first appear- 
 ance, chieliy, if we are to tell the truth, because she believed it 
 was a play of good omen to her. It was in that part Conrad had 
 seen her, four years ago. 
 
 Her old friend was indefatigable. He made her rehearse with 
 him in her own lodgings; gave her every instruction that his 
 genius or judgment could suggest ; he had set his heart on her 
 success, and was living his own career over again in her. 
 
 Bianca exaggerated to herself the audience before whom she 
 was to appear, and, as the night drew near, felt great trepidation. 
 
 " My dear child," said her friend, " you have been a very good 
 girl, indeed ; very docile in listening to instruction ; and now I 
 tell you, that you exceed every thing I had conceived of the part 
 
 k ' 
 
130 THE HALF SISTERS. 
 
 i — you are the woman for whom the stage has long waited ; whom 
 I desired, but never hoped to see ; and now I shall die satisfied. 
 Only be true to yonrself ; have no,fear, for that is beneath yon." 
 
 The eventful night at length actually arrived, and Bianca's 
 anxieties centred in one thought — " Would Conrad be in the 
 theatre ? " If he were in London he could not be ignorant of her 
 presence, for her appearance had been underlined, in immense 
 letters of every colour, all over London ; those who ran could not 
 avoid reading of the M immense attraction," held forth that night 
 by the theatre of Covent Garden ! 
 
 The curtain drew up ! the play began. She was received with 
 immense applause, and called before the curtain at the end of the 
 first act. The enthusiasm went on increasing to the end, when it 
 seemed to exceed all bounds ; bouquets, bracelets, wreaths, every 
 possible missile of admiration were Hung at her in profusion. Her 
 old friend met her at the side as she came off trembling, ex- 
 hausted, and sick at heart. 
 
 M My dear girl," said he, warmly, " let me thank you for the 
 happiness you have given me this night ! " 
 
 " Let me go home," was all the reply he received. 
 
 " But, my darling child, you will change your dress first?" 
 
 " No, no, no ; for pity's sake let me go home — I cannot remain 
 here," said she, vehemently. 
 
 Tenderly, as if she had been a child, he lifted her into his own 
 carriage, which was waiting. He had no difficulty in divining 
 the cause of her suffering — Conrad had not been present! He 
 did not speak to her during their course, nor did he attempt to 
 enter the house with her. He pressed her hand affectionately, 
 saying, " I shiik look in upon you some time to-morrow. — Poor 
 girl, poor girj^' muttered -he, as he drove away, " I see how it is 
 going to be ! Why will women give in to a grande passion, and 
 make themselves miserable ; if they did but know it, there is not 
 a man amongst us all who deserves it ! " 
 
 CHAPTEE XXIX. 
 
 When Bianca's maid entered the bed-room she was startled to 
 see her mistress extended at full length on the floor. Her excla- 
 mation roused Bianca, who immediately arose and in a quiet voice 
 desired her to take away those bouquets, and then to undress her. 
 
 " I shall just go and put them into water, Miss Bianca, for I 
 never saw such beauties ; they are all hot-house flowers, and will 
 set off the drawing-room beautifully." 
 
 M Do what you like with them, only do not let me see them 
 
TIIE HALE 8ISTEES 131 
 
 again ; tlirow tliem down anywhere, and attend to me ; I am 
 not going to wait all night till you have attended to your own 
 fancies." 
 
 The attendant knew Bianca' s humour, and began without reply 
 to disencumber her of "her stage dress. Bianca did not mean to 
 be unkind when she spoke thus hastily, but the great strain on 
 her energies, day after day, made her irritable ; she was often 
 harsh in her manner, and required much patient forbearance ; but 
 the woman really loved Bianca, and supported these spurts of 
 temper in silende, never attempting to justify herself; and this 
 patience won more on Bianca than if she had received a signal 
 service. Gentleness and forbearance are never wasted except on 
 cold and egoiste natures, who receive all things as their due, and 
 never give but what is of scrupulous measure and temperament, 
 looking with a stony composure to ascertain "what ought to be 
 expected ; " who carefully watch their sensibilities to prevent 
 their boiling over, and who shrink from acting on an impulse 
 because they " know not to what it might lead them." Surely, 
 people might as well go to the devil in a fit of enthusiasm as stand 
 petrified into a pillar of salt, for him to come and fetch them, to 
 the great deliverance of the place they have kept in barrenness. 
 People like Bianca love those who bear with them ; and to those 
 who love, much is forgiven. People in general are. ready to 
 pardon any sin that does not seem as if it arose from want of 
 feeling. 
 
 The next morning Bianca' s maid entered laden with newspapers 
 and letters of congratulation. Bianca appeared asleep, but opened 
 her eyes as the light streamed through the curtains. 
 
 " Well, Margaret, what letters?" 
 
 " Oh, a great plenty, Miss Bianca, and I hope they will please 
 you," said the woman, drawing aside the window-blind. 
 
 Bianca looked hastily over the outside of the letters, but none 
 were directed in his hand. She then seized a newspaper, not to 
 look at the notice of her own appearance, but in the vague hope 
 of seeing something about him. In the account of fashionable 
 occurrences she found amongst many other equally choice pieces 
 of information, that Yiscount Melton had been * ' entertaining a 
 select party of guests at his seat in Staffordshire ; " and in the 
 next paragraph she saw it recorded that Conrad Percy, Esq., 
 returned the day before from Melton Hall, where he had been 
 staying on a visit to Lord Melton. 
 
 When people are in an uncertainty about a friend's affection, 
 they catch eagerly at any straw, and try to believe it a firm rock. 
 When those we love have grieved us, or given cause to doubt 
 them, we seize thankfully on the shadow of an excuse, for laying 
 the blame on ourselves. The more we love them, the more 
 passionately do we feel the need to forgive them. 
 
 Bianca began immediately to fancy shfe had been unjust to 
 Conrad, and she was so glad to find lie had not been in town that 
 
 K 2 
 
132 THE HALF SISTERS. 
 
 she forgot to reflect how emphatically her own appearance had 
 been announced in all the journals. 
 
 There seem to be two separate individuals in our own single 
 embodiment, and sometimes it would be laughable, if it were not 
 sad, to see the pains that one half takes to' persuade the other, of 
 something which it desires to find true ; but the infidel half is 
 always stronger than the believing one ; and we are made very 
 miserable and uneasy by this inner contention. 
 
 The day passed slowly over ; Conrad did not come, and, fevered 
 and weary, she went to the theatre in the evening. 
 
 At the end of the first act, she returned to her dressing-room. 
 A note had just arrived ; it contained but one line, 
 
 " May I see you after the play ? I will be waiting for you. 
 
 "COXRAD." 
 
 Bianca went through the remainder of the play as if she had 
 been inspired. He was present, and it was at his feet she was 
 laying her success. She had worked for long years in the hope of 
 making herself worthy of him before all the world. And this 
 night was, to her, the dedication of herself and her work to him, 
 for whom she had toiled. She rejoiced now, that he had not seen 
 her whilst any doubt hung over her success ; it was not an 
 attemjjt she wished to offer to him, but an approved and perfected 
 work. She had been stamped with public success, and now she 
 felt greedy of applause, that she might have her triumph so much 
 the more splendid to fling at his feet. She recollected that night 
 at the circus, when he first witnessed her efforts ; she was then. 
 only anxious about what he would think of her ; but now she had 
 become a finished artist ; she knew her art, and was conscious of 
 her own mastery over it ; she did not now feel anxious for his 
 praise or admiration for what she was doing, she only desired him 
 to sit like a god above her, that she might lay her gifts upon his 
 altar. 
 
 When the curtain fell, she flew up stairs to her dressing-room ; 
 but her agitation was so violent, that she could hardly support 
 herself whilst Margaret changed her dress. She trembled so 
 much, that she nearly fell in attempting to descend the stairs. 
 
 Good God! men suffer more on the threshold of a long desired 
 happiness, than if they were entering a torture- chamber. 
 
 At the stage door Conrad was standing negligently, and looking 
 with a mixture of contempt and curiosity at all that was passing ; 
 his head was turned, and he did not perceive Bianca till she was 
 close beside him. He saw she was agitated, and, without speaking 
 a word, lifted her into the carriage, and followed her himself. 
 He, too, was moved at the sight of one he had once so much 
 loved ; but he was not prepared for the passionate emotion with 
 which Bianca, suffocated with sobs, flung herself on his breast. 
 He was embarrassed, #nd almost frightened at the sight of such 
 strong emotion ; he had nothing within his own soul to meet it, 
 
THE HALF SISTEKS. 133 
 
 and he was oppressed with it. Still he caressed her tenderly; hut 
 he felt awkward, and feared lest she should discover how much 
 less fervent his feelings were than hers. But his vanity was 
 soothed, and that enabled him to go through a scene which, on its 
 own merits, was verv wearisome. " Half the men in London 
 would envy me, if they saw me;" — and this reflection gave a 
 fictitious value to his position. When a man has once got over 
 his passion for a woman, he finds her demonstrations of attachment 
 very irksome ; if they proceeded from the most indifferent woman 
 in the world they would please him better, because there would 
 be at least something open — he is not sure, beforehand, that she 
 may not prove the yet unseen queen of his soul : but a woman 
 whom he has once passionately loved and forgotten, has neither 
 hope nor mystery remaining for him ; she is a discovered enigma. 
 No matter what noble or precious qualities lie within her — he has 
 explored them, and found they cannot enrich him; there is no 
 more to hope, or expect, or discover. Bianca had just one chance 
 of regaining Conrad, and but one, and that she flung away within 
 the first hour of their meeting. Her position was so changed, her 
 whole nature was so matured and developed, within the four 
 years of their separation, that she was, in fact, a new creature. 
 Had there been the least uncertainty, the least difficulty, the least 
 appearance of indifference, Conrad might have been stimulated 
 into a desire to regain his empire over this brilliant creature ; but 
 when she flung herself upon him, and let him see so clearly that 
 she was still the same Bianca as of old, that same Bianca of whom 
 he had become weary, and that her affection was as glowing and 
 overpowering as ever, the faint spark was quenched which might 
 have become a flame, and he felt something like displeasure at 
 her, for being more constant than himself. However, he began to 
 express all the admiration he felt for her acting, and to foretell 
 all sorts of glories for her. ' ' You surpassed all my expectations, 
 Bianca, and realised all that could be embodied in a dramatic 
 Muse. What other actresses may have been in their generation I 
 know not — but you make all who behold you very thankful that 
 they live in this." 
 
 1 'Oh!" cried Bianca, impatiently, " do not praise me, you — • 
 other people can say all they think about my genius, it is for you 
 I have laboured,- — it is for you I have endeavoured to make myself 
 of some value, to make myself worthy of you. Of what worth is 
 my genius to me except that! Only tell me that you do not 
 despise it, that you love me as you did when last we parted, that 
 is all I care to know. The praise I get from others is for you to 
 put your feet upon — it kills me to be praised by you." 
 
 Conrad never liked to give pain. He could do cruel things 
 when his own comfort or inclination were at stake, but he had 
 not nerve enough to give pain before his own eyes ; he had, to do 
 him justice, a fund of good-nature. He felt worried to see people 
 suffer, and therefore he did his best now, to say and do all that 
 
134 THE HALF SISTEIIS. 
 
 was expected from him. If she had only shown one tithe of the 
 passion she manifested, it would have been a much easier task ; 
 but now he felt all enterprise or enthusiasm choked out of him by 
 her vehemence. Men are beasts of prey in their souls; they 
 desire or value nothing but what they conquer with difficulty, or 
 some sort of violence ; and they require to find an antagonising 
 resistance. 
 
 When they arrived at Bianca's residence he entered along with 
 her. She had become calmer, and they got on more pleasantly 
 together. There was much to hear and to tell on both sides — he 
 felt really interested in her progress, for it was in some sort the 
 wqrk of his own hands. She gave the history of her life since 
 they parted with great spirit, and it amused him much more than 
 her love. He also had to tell her about himself, and his own 
 doings ; but, as might be expected, with great modifications. He 
 entered warmly into all her plans and prospects, and expressed 
 the most zealous anxiety to serve her — in which he was quite 
 sincere ; and they talked with all the intimacy of earlier days, 
 but still her eyes hung restlessly and inquiringly upon him. She 
 was thirsting for some definite expression of love, and there was 
 an innate honesty, or perverseness, or devilry in him, which 
 hindered him spealung the desired word. He would really have 
 been very glad to pacify her, but he could not find it in his heart. 
 At half-past eleven he rose to go, saying it would not be right to 
 let her keep him longer; but promised she should either see or 
 hear from him on the morrow. 
 
 When the door closed behind him it jarred on Bianca's inmost 
 soul. She felt baffled and disappointed, though the charm of 
 Conrad's presence still lingered round her like a perfume, making 
 her believe, even in spite of herself, that she ?mist be happy ; she 
 sat for some moments stupified, and gazed with a bewildered look 
 round the room, as if it were impossible this strange blank could 
 remain. " Nothing, nothing, is it all nothing?" she cried, at 
 last, in a tone of such desolation, that it must have wrung the 
 heart if any had heard it. She leaned her head on the table, and 
 a gush of tears, heavy and passionate as a tropical shower, relieved 
 her oppressed heart. Her sobbings gradually subsided, and she 
 arose calm, and even hopeful. " He does not love me as I would 
 have him," said she to herself, " but, surely, now that I have 
 made myself worthy of him, it will not be difficult to win him. 
 Men cannot stand absence like women — he is not to blame." 
 
THE HALE SISTEH3. 135 
 
 CHA.PTEB XXX. 
 
 Biaxca's popularity kept at its high tide — every phase that 
 worldly prosperity could assume seemed presented to her; a 
 magnificent engagement, praise in prose and verse, until the very 
 flowers of speech drooped and faded under the warmth of flattery. 
 Lovers of every grade presented themselves in squadrons, and she 
 had more invitations to halls, soirees, dinners, dejeunes, and 
 reunions, of every kind, than she could have attended in a dozen 
 years ; for no sooner was it satisfactorily asserted that not the 
 shadow of a shade rested on her "perfect respectability," than 
 people began without fear to do their share towards rewarding so 
 much virtue, by lighting it up with their " countenance." Her 
 personal manners, and extreme agreeableness in conversation, 
 kept up the prepossession in her favour, and gave her a succes, as 
 marked in its way, as that she had achieved in her profession ; 
 she remained to the end of the season, a lion of the first 
 magnitude. 
 
 All this, if it did not revive Conrad's passion, at least stimu- 
 lated his vanity, and effectually checked any thought he might 
 have entertained about breaking off their engagement. She was 
 so beautiful, and so devoted to him, that he could not help 
 feeling a sort of tenderness for her. 
 
 It was really very flattering to find a woman like that, keeping 
 up her attachment to him, through years of absence, much 
 neglect, and (although she never suspected it) infidelities of 
 every kind. Still, Love is too grand in its own nature — too 
 divine, no matter how it may be debased, to be kept alive entirely 
 by gratified vanity : it will neither be bribed nor compelled. 
 
 Conrad's ideas of the female character had become much 
 changed during his residence abroad, and Bianca was no longer 
 the kind of woman who captivated his imagination. He had 
 become thoroughly disgusted with all that was theatrical, or had 
 a tinge of display in women. He had lived both in Vienna and 
 Paris, and had seen the " French-novel style of women," as he 
 called them, in every phase and variety, till he was. thoroughly 
 wearied, and took up extremely strict ideas of the simplicity, 
 timid innocence, and shrinking delicacy, that ought to be found 
 in women ; he had a dove-like ideal, which, he thought perfection, 
 and the only woman who would have had a chance of touching 
 his heart, would have been some white-robed vestal whom he 
 should only have been allowed to see at a distance, and who 
 would have had the grace to shrink back with alarmed modesty, 
 had he attempted a nearer approach. The nearest realisation he 
 had ever seen of his present ideas of womanhood, was at a flower- 
 show, a few days after he saw Bianca. A young Quakeress was 
 walking with a stout and stupid-looking old gentleman, who 
 
136 TIIE HALP SISTERS. 
 
 seemed to be her father ; any other relationship would have 
 disgusted Conrad's fastidious taste, for he had a notion that 
 women ought only to appear in public with their fathers or their 
 husbands — and this lovely creature, in her delicate bonnet, and 
 shadow-coloured gown, with her complexion of the softest and 
 faintest red and white, and her large timid blue eyes, which sank 
 under his ardent gaze, was decidedly with her father. She had, 
 also, a sweet voice, like the whisper of a breeze ; although the 
 only words he caught were " My father, let us go home." And 
 the stout old gentleman, roused from his abstraction, perceived, 
 and cast a furious glance at the dashing-looking Conrad, who 
 had not then sacrificed his Austrian moustaches, and hastily carried 
 off his daughter to a sober chocolate-coloured chariot, drawn by 
 a single fat black horse, which drove gently off, leaving Conrad 
 perfectly entranced with admiration at the modesty of English 
 women, and the prudent guard kept over them by English 
 fathers. "Ah," said he, to his friend Lord Melton, who just 
 t then rejoined him, "if women did but know how much men 
 v admire the delicate timidity which makes them look like a half- 
 opened rose, they surely would never give in to that audacious 
 confidence which can meet a man's eye without blushing." 
 
 " And all women are positively to be made after the likeness 
 of your fancy — to please you! well, I call that modest and 
 reasonable. 
 
 * Concluding in my hours of glee, 
 This world was only made for me.' 
 
 I went to see Bianca last night ; now she seems to me much 
 more like an ideal woman than any little undeveloped girl 
 blushing amid her lilies and roses. " What a noble look and 
 presence has Bianca ! something in her voice and manner 
 announces reality. What she utters seems only the shadowing 
 forth of what lies within in greater perfection. I would give 
 the world to be presented to her." 
 
 1 ' If you will come along with me now, I am going to see her, 
 and will introduce you; but I thought you had always kept 
 clear of actresses." 
 
 " I have a great dislike to all green-room associates ; I dislike 
 intensely what you call i actress women ; ' but when I see strong 
 genius bearing that indescribable impress of being a genuine 
 utterance from within, and not a mere artistic display for the 
 sake of personal honour and glory, I can honour it, even though 
 it takes the guise of an actress exercising her profession. But 
 how do you come to know her ? you are the first man I have 
 asked who pretends to claim any sort of acquaintance ; she 
 might have dropped from the skies for what any one seems to 
 know about her." 
 
 "I got acquainted with her by a singular accident many years 
 ago, and knew her well before I went abroad ; all the people who 
 
THE HALF SISTEES. 137 
 
 are now applauding her as the last eighth wonder that has 
 come to pass, are only coming- round to what I thought of her 
 when she was in a fifth-rate position at a provincial theatre ; 
 she is a very wonderful woman, and I have the highest respect 
 for her." 
 
 "lam half afraid of destroying the impression she has pro- 
 duced already, by seeing her more nearly." 
 
 " You need not be," said Conrad ; " you will admire her more 
 in private than on the stage, and you may take it as a compliment 
 that I offer to present you, for I feel as jealous what men come 
 near her as if she were my — sister." 
 
 Lord Melton and Conrad had become acquainted abroad, and 
 had renewed their intimacy since his return ; he was about thirty, 
 and had only recently come to his title ; he was extremely hand- 
 some, large dark blue eyes, and a remarkably sweet expression of 
 countenance, in spite of a shade of hauteur in his manners which 
 at first sight seemed to contradict it. He was a man of very fine 
 character, and a thorough gentleman, which is the highest praise 
 that can be given to a man, for it takes the perfection of many 
 excellencies to make one. He had great reverence for women, 
 and was never heard in his life to say a harsh or a cox comical 
 thing about them ; he was a keen j iidge both of men and things, 
 and quite as fastidious in his notions as Conrad, though much 
 more candid and charitable in his opinions. 
 
 Bianca was alone when they entered ; the flash of pleasure that 
 passed over her face and kindled her eyes, as she saw Conrad, did 
 not escape Lord Melton, and did not strike him in the sisterly 
 light which she had been represented in by Conrad. She received 
 him with frank cordiality, and Conrad felt flattered by the im- 
 pression she evidently produced on his friend, for whose judgment 
 he had a great respect. It had a good result for Bianca, it 
 increased her value in his eyes, and for several days after he 
 treated her with some return of his old manners. If Bianca had 
 possessed a spark of coquetry she would have got on much better, 
 for men are so soon wearied of anything like tenderness — and of 
 all men Conrad could the least stand being too well treated ; he 
 had that perverted love of power which takes the shape of cruelty ; 
 he liked to tyrannise over Bianca, to make her suffer ; he liked to 
 feel that whilst other men were worshipping and flattering her, 
 he could make her days dark or bright by the alternations of his 
 humour; and he likeorto enjoy this power in secret, for he was 
 careful never to compromise himself in the eyes of the world by 
 his attendance on her. Though there were a dozen reports flying 
 about that she was engaged to one person or another, Conrad was 
 never talked about ; any superior intimacy was all set down to 
 the score of his being an old friend who had helped her in her 
 career many years before. What his ultimate intentions were 
 perhaps he did not know exactly himself; he was extremely 
 jealous of every man who came near her, and was as arbitrary in 
 
138 THE HALF SISTERS. 
 
 the behaviour he exacted from her towards all aspirants to her 
 favour as if he had been her most ardeot lover. Like all men 
 who have been lax in their own conduct, he had most rigid ideas 
 of what women ought to be ; and Bianca, who had taken care of 
 herself all her life, and had a frank decided manner of bear- 
 ing herself and* expressing her own opinions, was constantly 
 warring against the ideal female standard which he was constantly 
 preaching up to her — being most unreasonably dissatisfied because 
 she continued to be — herself! 
 
 Her friend the old actor frequently came to her, but it so 
 happened that he always missed Conrad, although he had a great 
 desire to see him. Perhaps Bianca had some share in this, for 
 she did not like any other visitor when Conrad was with her ; he, 
 on his side, was extremely glad whenever any one came in to 
 break the tete-a-tete. However, one day, soon after Lord Melton's 
 visit, the actor and Conrad met at Bianca' s house, and took an 
 intense antipathy to each other. Conrad professed to have an 
 engagement, shortened his visit, and went away with a look 
 Bianca well knew when he was displeased — leaving Bianca very 
 distrait and miserable. 
 
 "My dear Bianca," said the old man, kindly but gravely, 
 ' ' that man will break your heart ; it is of no use your trying to 
 make a hero of him, for he is not one, and never will be one, and 
 you will only break yourself against the iceberg of his self-love ; 
 he has no idea of anything higher than himself ; he has no notion 
 of any excellence but what pleases him ; self with him, is * the 
 first, last, midst, and without end ' of earthly things, and as you 
 are not conformed to his image, you will have no comfort with 
 him. I do nob deny that he has been of great service to you, that 
 he has in some things behaved very well — but you must have the 
 courage to break with him, or he will work you ill. He does not 
 love you, and he is capable of holding you on and on to an 
 indefinite engagement, and leaving you at last when it suits him. 
 It has been my profession always to read indications of character, 
 and I tell you that unless you assert yourself, you will be broken 
 in pieces and trodden under foot by that man ; you are standing 
 in a false position with him." 
 
 " Oh, indeed you are judging him harshly — you do not know 
 him," cried Bianca ; " I am too exigeante — I know I am not what 
 he requires a woman to be ; but that is my fault for coming short, 
 not his for having a high standard, and he tries to serve me in all 
 practical things. Oh, he is very good ; — it is you who do not 
 know him." 
 
 "Bah!" said her friend — "I suppose women came into the 
 world under an engagement to talk a certain amount of nonsense 
 before they die. You are just as great a fool as any woman I 
 ever knew ; I will never talk to you again ; you must take your 
 own way ; — but come ! if you are going to the theatre I will take 
 you." 
 
THE HALE SISTEES. 139 
 
 The next time Bianca saw Conrad, the first words he uttered 
 were — "My dear Bianca, I wish you to get rid of that actor 
 friend of yours — I dislike hirn extremely ; and, considering my 
 objection to being mixed up with your stage people, I think you 
 might keep him at a distance. If my wishes have any weight, 
 you will cease to receive him." 
 
 "But, Conrad, consider how much I owe to him — what a friend 
 he is to me. I am sorry you do not like him, but I shall not give 
 him up ; you are unreasonable to ask such a thing." 
 
 1 i Unreasonable to ask you to cease to receive a man who annoys 
 me ! but I see, my opinion has little influence when opposed to 
 your own headstrong ideas. I say no more, except that I do not 
 choose to be exposed to meeting this actor whenever I come." 
 
 Other visitors came in, and put a stop to further words. Conrad 
 did not recover his temper, and Bianca was for once thoroughly 
 provoked at the arrogant and overbearing tone he had assumed ; 
 she was far too much attached to her old friend to think of even 
 appearing to yield to Conrad's demand, and she did not condescend 
 to make the least concession, but left him to recover his temper at 
 his leisure. After about a week's sulkiness he came round to his 
 normal state; and finding that there really were some limits to 
 his power, he behaved rather better to Bianca till the end of the 
 season. 
 
 CHAPTEE XXXI. 
 
 The season in London had come to an end. Bianca, and every 
 body, went their several ways to follow their private devices. — ■ 
 Bianca went down into the country to fulfil several provincial engage- 
 ments. Conrad, as his father's executor, had still much business 
 on hand. Amongst other things he had to see Mr. Bryant ; with 
 whom, in later years, his father had become associated in many 
 speculations. "What an odd coincidence," thought he, "that 
 almost the first visit I have to pay, after meeting Bianca again, 
 should be to the very place where I first fell in love with her ; and 
 the very last place in the world I would willingly revisit. My 
 recollection of those Bryants is unmitigated stupidity." v Never- 
 theless, he wrote a highly polite letter to Bryant, to tell him that 
 he would come to him for a couple of days. Alice and Bryant 
 were at breakfast when the letters <?ame in. Alice had only a few 
 casual correspondents, and felt little interest in the post-bag. 
 
 " There, Alice!" said Bryant, handing her one of his letters — • 
 " it is from young Percy, who was here a few years ago. You 
 cannot have forgotten him, for he fell in love, or some mischief, 
 with that actress protegee of yours. He will be wiser by this 
 
140 TILE HALF SISTEES. 
 
 time, it is to be hoped. You see he talks of coining down for a 
 couple of days, and we must he civil to him." 
 
 " Dear ! how very tiresome," said Alice, " I wanted to go for a 
 fortnight to the sea- side. Your sister will he quite vexed if I 
 disappoint her." 
 
 "Well, my dear, it cannot he helped," replied her husband; 
 ? ' he is coming on business, but, if he feels inclined to stay for a 
 little shooting, we must invite him ; and, once for all, I wish you 
 to be civil to him." 
 
 " I don't think he will care much for that," said Alice. " I 
 think he was, without exception, the most disagreeable young 
 man I ever remember to have seen ; he used hardly to speak to 
 me ; and then, he always seemed to think nothing was good 
 enough for him. I think I will invite Mrs. Frank Grreville and 
 her daughter for two or three days. She is a young lady who 
 finds no young man a bore, and then the civility will have been 
 paid, and I shall be glad to have it over. Two disagreeable 
 things transacted together." 
 
 " Just as you please, my dear," said Bryant, who was now 
 deep in a letter from St. Petersburg, about iron rails ; ' ' only it 
 is a pity you seem to find everything disagreeable you have to do. 
 I wish you could take an interest in something. I think it must 
 be because you do not employ yourself enough — you should walk 
 out more. But I must be off,'" continued he, gathering up his 
 letters. "I have an appointment at ten o'clock. What time do 
 you dine ? But no matter, do not wait for me. I know I cannot 
 spare the time to come to dinner." 
 
 "But," said Alice, discontentedly, as he was leaving the 
 room,*" am not I to see you all day ?" 
 
 "I fear not; I am so harassed with business — if there were 
 thirty- six hours to the day I should have too little time for the 
 engagements I must complete." 
 
 When Alice was left alone, the tears filled her eyes : she had 
 learned not to let her husband see them, but not to restrain them. 
 "I am nothing to him," said she, bitterly; " nothing compared 
 to his business. If I were dead to-morrow he would never miss 
 me, except perhaps when he had a dinner-party. I am of use to 
 no one, and not a creature cares for me. Bryant could make me 
 so happy if he cared for me ever so little, or if I could do anything 
 that would please him." 
 
 After indulging herself in these meditations a little, she began 
 to water her plants, and then walked round her drawing-room, 
 to see that all the ornaments and bijouterie were rightly arranged ; 
 then she had an interview with her housekeeper, and gave her 
 orders, and regulated her accounts ; after that she wrote a note, 
 in a beautiful delicate hand, on perfumed paper, to her sister- 
 in-law, to tell her that a dreadfully disagreeable visitor was 
 coming, which would prevent her joining them at Blackpool ; 
 after which, she wrote another note to Mrs. Greville, inviting her 
 
THE HALF SISTEBS. 141 
 
 and lier daughter to come and stay a few days, adding that they 
 were expecting to see " a friend of her husband's, a young officer 
 in the Austrian service." This she knew would secure them 
 both, and she began to be in better heart about the next week's 
 prospect. After she had despatched her letters to the post, as 
 the day was wet, and she could not go out of doors, and no visitor 
 could be expected, she sat down to work at a large ottoman, 
 which had been long on hand; then she practised for a little 
 while some music she had just received, and read Ernest 
 Maltravers, then recently published, and thought that she was 
 much in the situation of Valerie de St. Ventadour, although her 
 husband bore not the smallest resemblance. She was interrupted 
 during its progress by the unexpected arrival of Bryant, who had 
 been suddenly called to Liverpool on business, which would 
 possibly detain him for two days. After the excitement of 
 preparing his portmanteau, giving him a hasty luncheon, and 
 seeing him depart, had subsided, she had nothing further to 
 break the monotony of her day. She finished her novel, and, 
 wearied in heart and depressed in spirit, she retired to rest. 
 
 Such was the average manner in which Alice passed her days. 
 Her husband lived in a world apart ; he loved her more than 
 anything else in the world ; but he was engrossed in arduous 
 business undertakings, which tasked all his energies ; — he had no 
 leisure to be a companion to his wife, or to provide her either 
 with occupation or amusement. Anything she might express a 
 desire to have, he would procure without regard to trouble or 
 expense ; but he would never think of it himself. When they 
 were together, he was invariably kind and affectionate, but 
 often abstracted and silent ; — the quiet, calm manners, which had 
 at first attracted Alice towards him, became, at length, myste- 
 rious and repellent to her ; she grew afraid of him, and timid in 
 the expression of her affection ; she desired only to discover in 
 what she might please him, whilst he was only anxious that she 
 should amuse herself, and make herself happy her own way. 
 Constantly occupied himself with affairs of deep importance, he 
 had no idea of the weight of ennui which was eating out the life 
 of Alice. He was not in the least insensible to Alice's demon- 
 strations of affection, although it was not in his nature to be 
 demonstrative himself ; and he sometimes wished his wife to be 
 a little less sensitive and romantic. Above all, if he had been in 
 the least practically aware of the intense mischief of idleness, he 
 would hardly have taken the questionable step of inviting a 
 dashing, unoccupied young man, very little younger than his 
 wife, to come and spend even two days under his roof. 
 
 If Alice had fallen into the hands of a man who could have 
 attended to her, or if she had possessed a friend who could have 
 obtained a salutary influence over her, she might have become an 
 exquisite character. She had that peculiar quality in women, to 
 receive in perfection the impression designed for them by a mind 
 
142 THE HALF SISTERS. 
 
 superior to their own. She would have become all that a 
 superior man could have desired for a companion; she would 
 have reproduced his thoughts and aspirations with a grace beyond 
 his imaginings; she would have been himself, "in finer clay." 
 Depending upon him, taking her whole being from him, she 
 would have loved him with a devotedness, the graceful clinging 
 tenderness of which would have prevented any shade of 
 passionateness or sense of violence. She had not it in her to 
 stand alone. She was destitute of the strong internal energy 
 which might have supplied the absence of external support, — and 
 she drooped like a delicate plant, weighed down under a treasure 
 of precious fruit, which, for want of due tending, might never 
 come to perfection, but would fall away in unripened promise. 
 Although she had so little active energy, yet she had an immense 
 power of passive resistance to all influences that did not come in 
 the guise of something superior to herself. Nothing coarse, 
 sordid, or vulgaf , could touch the indestructible refinement which 
 was the leading quality in her character. As to her principles, 
 she had been all her life educated, and thrown amongst highly 
 moral and respectable people ; but no motive lit to actuate a 
 rational being had ever been presented to her. She had a vague, 
 poetical sense of religion, but no notion of any practical influence 
 from it. What she heard preached in church was too vague and 
 too prosaic to take any sort of hold on her daily life. She had 
 never dreamed of transgressing any of the conventional rules of 
 society, which, to her, were synonymous with virtue and pro- 
 priety ; — the idea of questioning them had never occurred to her. 
 She had a morbid conscientiousness, which made her painfully 
 anxious to do right, without ever feeling satisfied with any of her 
 own actions ; but she had not a single strong abiding principle 
 of right or wrong to govern her as by a moral necessity, from 
 which there could be no appeal. She had the instinct of looking 
 to those around her, to know what she ought to do — to her 
 husband especially, who constantly gave her the baffling reply — ■ 
 M Do just whatever you think best ! " Such was the aspect of her 
 life and character, at the time circumstances brought Conrad on 
 his second visit. 
 
 It was splendid weather, towards the latter end of the month 
 of September, when Mrs. Greville and her daughter drove up the 
 avenue to M liaven Hall," and were received in the hall by Alice 
 with much cordiality. 
 
 Mrs. Greville was quite the finest lady of Alice's acquaintance, 
 who had, therefore, invited her as the fittest pendant to the 
 very fine gentleman she fancied Conrad to be ; indeed, she was 
 very thankful to have any one whom she thought Mrs. Greville 
 might feel an interest in meeting, for Mrs. Greville had an 
 inordinate desire to know people who moved in rather better 
 circles than she did herself ; in short, to rise in society was her 
 wiling passion. She was the wife of the proprietor of extensive 
 
THE HALF SISTEES. 143 
 
 glass-works, about ten miles from Alice's neighbourhood ; and 
 they lived in great style at an ancient family seat, which had 
 formerly belonged to a noble family, but had been bought some 
 years previously by Mr. Greville, along with a good deal of the 
 adjoining land. Mrs. Greville was in great hopes that now they 
 had bought an estate, they would come to be received amongst 
 the county families, with whom she cherished an acquaintance, 
 which was somewhat languishing, in spite of her zeal. She was 
 many years older than Alice, cold and repulsive in her general 
 manners, extremely haughty, and not at all handsome ; but she 
 dressed with great taste, was well informed, and decidedly clever, 
 and could be very agreeable indeed when she thought it worth 
 her while ; she was insatiable after amusement, and everything 
 or person that could in any way contribute to it was unscrupu- 
 lously placed in requisition, and cultivated just so far as either 
 chanced to promote it ; but none could ever natter themselves 
 that they obtained the smallest hold on her sympathies. She 
 rather considered it a condescension to visit Alice ; but then she 
 lived in a beautiful house, and it was a nice place to bring her 
 friends to when they came to visit her, and Alice was so very 
 elegant-looking, that it gave a good impression of her general 
 acquaintances, when she produced her at her most select dinner 
 parties. Her daughter, Miss Rosina, was a pretty, stylish-look- 
 ing girl, who had been fashionably educated and finished at a 
 Parisian school, which entitled her to be a leader amongst her 
 own set. Her mother intended her to marry extremely well, by 
 which she understood some one above her in rank, for she always 
 said she " thought family of so much more importance in these 
 days than fortune, which she supposed everybody possessed who 
 chose." 
 
 These ladies arrived and were consigned to their dressing-rooms, 
 some time before Conrad made his appearance; he had grown 
 much handsomer and more manly-looking than when Alice had 
 last seen him. Also, he wore a magnificent pair of moustaches, 
 and he had a firm self-possessed suavity of manner which was 
 extremely prepossessing ; he addressed Alice with a frank and yet 
 respectful friendliness, which at once dissipated all her prejudices 
 against him. 
 
 Alice always appeared to the greatest advantage when at the 
 head of her table, which is just the position that tries a woman's 
 manners more than any other. Conrad was extremely struck by 
 the grace with which she presided, and the taste which was 
 evident in all her arrangements. Her unpretentious, quiet 
 manner, also struck him forcibly, contrasted as it was with the 
 elaborate self-consequence of the other two ladies ; Mrs. Greville 
 he disliked intensely the first instant he saw her, and the young 
 lady was far too self-confident, too dashing, and too much disposed 
 to flirt, to meet his viewsK)f what was becoming in women : how- 
 ever, she thought him extremely charming, and was very well 
 
144 THE HALF SISTEES. 
 
 pleased to find no otlier young ladies present ; for she naturally- 
 considered that her mother and Mrs. Bryant counted for nothing, 
 and took to him as her lawful prey : there were one or two other 
 gentlemen present, but she did not consider them worth her 
 attention. " What an exquisite creature ! " said Conrad to him- 
 self, gazing after Alice, as she quitted the dining-room, "she 
 looks like a swan amongst crows." 
 
 There was a party in the evening, which went off rather heavily. 
 Mrs. Greville did not consider any of them quite entitled to be 
 treated with her agreeable phase, and therefore sat in what she 
 considered aristocratic dignity and indifference, seasoned occa- 
 sionally with a little impertinence. Her daughter flirted in the 
 most prononce manner with Conrad, proud of having such a stylish 
 cavalier attached to her side ; but Conrad chose to consider himself 
 as in the service of his hostess, and exerted himself most zealously 
 to aid Alice to amuse a set of people, who had no notion of amusing 
 themselves. There was a little music, and some singing; Miss 
 Greville favoured the company with an elaborate specimen of 
 brilliant fingering and execution, and she sang too, on request, 
 with the air of a person who had earned a reputation. All this 
 was very wearying to Conrad; but he was repaid by the pleasure 
 of watching the quiet grace with which Alice moved through 
 these unelastic and unstimulating elements. " She realises my 
 idea of an English lady," said he, as he lay down that night. 
 
 The next day, they were to go to a dinner-party, and in the 
 morning they were to drive to see some ruins ; it certainly was, in 
 itself, a very stupid visit ; but Conrad felt it a gleam from Eden, 
 and he thanked Bryant many times, for allowing him to see" 
 thoroughly English life, and expressed himself so warmly that 
 Bryant cordially invited him to come to see them whenever he 
 liked, and to consider that there would be always a bed at his 
 service. 
 
 Bryant had been much pleased with the young man, — in the 
 executor business between them Conrad had shown great business 
 talent, and so much deference to Bryant, that his good opinion 
 might be a little bribed ; but there had been a great friendship 
 between himself and the father, which he felt quite disposed to 
 continue to the son. 
 
 CHAPTEE XXXII. 
 
 The first news Bianca heard, when she came up to town to 
 fulfil her engagement for the ensuing season, was the death of 
 her old friend, the actor, who had expired after a short illness at 
 the house of a friend, with whom he was on a visit. It was a 
 
THE HALE SISTEES. 145 
 
 great sorrow to Bianca, who regarded him almost as a father. 
 He left her, by his will, his furnished house at Brompton, and a 
 considerable legacy in money. All the goods of this life seemed 
 to be showered on Bianca at once ; and the one thing she once 
 hoped they would be the means of obtaining for her, seemed 
 further off than ever. 
 
 When Conrad came up to London, she was struck with the 
 change in his behaviour : he seemed to have taken an intense 
 dislike to everything she did ; he found fault with her attachment 
 to her profession ; found fault with her for conversing in company ; 
 objected to her manners, as independent and unfeminine ; in short, 
 was as harsh and disagreeable as the terms on which he stood with 
 her gave him the right to be. One day, when she complained of 
 his want of common politeness, he replied, ' ' My dear Bianca, I 
 speak to you, as if you were my wife ; there are no grounds of 
 mere politeness between us ; what I say to you is for your good, 
 and you would do more wisely to profit by it, than to carp at the 
 mere manner." Above all, he was jealous and annoyed at the 
 legacy which had been left her; that the old actor was dead, 
 and would never offend him more, was hardly sufficient 
 atonement ; he quarrelled bitterly with Bianca, because she took 
 up her abode in the pleasant house that had become her own. 
 " Fancy Alice Haunting in a legacy left her by an actor! " he 
 ejaculated to himself. "What a difference between the two 
 women!" 
 
 Lord Melton became Bianca' s constant visitor; every day he 
 grew more and more attracted towards her; he was somewhat 
 puzzled as to the terms on which Conrad stood with her, for the 
 latter had not mentioned his engagement to him ; but he never 
 for one moment surmised aught derogatory to her honour : he saw 
 several things he could not explain, but he had firm confidence 
 that she had a satisfactory reason for all she did. Each time that 
 he was in her presence, strengthened the empire she had acquired 
 over him. She, on her side, admired hk extremely; she had a 
 profound respect for his judgment and opinion ; his gentle delicate 
 kindness, which was shown in a thousand unobtrusive ways, won 
 greatly upon her, and she felt him a refuge from Conrad's harsh- 
 ness and caprice : but with all that, she never dreamed of loving 
 him, or thought that he cared for her, except as a companionable 
 friend, but went on rejoicing in his society, without thinking of 
 the pain she was preparing for him. One day he came to her, 
 grave, pre-occupied, and evidently out of spirits; after various 
 attempts to cheer him, she said, " What is the matter with you? 
 you are grown like Conrad to-day— do not grow moody— but tell 
 me what is vexing you ? " 
 
 "lam very miserable," said he, "and that always renders 
 people disagreeable ; will you let me ask you one question, and 
 not think me impertinent— so much of my happiness depends on 
 your answer. Will you tell me the terms you are on with Conrad r 
 
 L 
 
146 THE HALE SISTERS. 
 
 what right has he to be as disagreeable as I have made myself this 
 morning ? Are you engaged to him ? " 
 
 "Oh! " said Bianca, with an expression of pain, " do not try 
 to change the position in which you and I are together ; you are 
 the friend I most value in the world. I cannot tell you the source 
 of comfort your friendship and society are to me. You may, 
 perhaps, not think it a compliment, but indeed, I can give you. 
 no higher praise, — I always feel with you, as if you were my 
 -'mother; you are so gentle, so delicate, so little exigeant, and I 
 feel such a perfect confidence towards you ; it will deeply grieve 
 me, if I have deceived or misled you, with regard to my senti- 
 ments, and I shall suffer bitterly, if our intercourse is broken up ; 
 but you have a perfect right to ask the question, and an equal right 
 to receive an explicit reply. I am engaged to Conrad — and was so 
 before he went abroad : he has grown cold and estranged of late ; 
 but he has never expressed a desire to be released ; as you were 
 his friend, I thought you were aware of it, or I would have told 
 you before. " 
 
 " And you, Bianca ? do you wish to be released ? " 
 
 " No ! " replied Bianca, with an accent that instantly destroyed 
 all hope in Lord Melton's breast. 
 
 " Then I have no further business here,' , said he, in a voice of 
 deep mortification. " I thank you for your frankness." 
 
 " Oh, do not leave me in displeasure ! " said Bianca, as he was 
 rising to go. " What have I done to forfeit your friendship? 
 Have I ceased to deserve that you should continue to me as you 
 always have been ? I grieve to give you pain ; and you know 
 not how thankfully I have treasured you as my best and most 
 valued friend. Be generous — I cannot let you go away from me. 
 If you knew all I am suffering, you would feel revenged for any 
 ill I have unconsciously indicted." 
 
 Tears filled Bianca' s eyes as she spoke, and there was a tone of 
 profound sadness in her words which touched Lord Melton to 
 the heart, and made him think he had been most unjust, selfish, 
 and unkind, ever to have thought of himself,, or desired any return 
 from her. 
 
 " I know," said he, in a subdued manner, " there is nothing 
 in me to deserve you should love me for it ; I ought to be satisfied, 
 and feel honoured by the high place you accord me in your regard. 
 Do with me whatever you will, only do not banish me from your 
 presence, nor deprive me of the intimacy I have enjoyed ; — let 
 me be your friend — let me be of service or comfort to yon, 
 and I will ask no more ; — tell me that you are not angry with 
 me, that what has passed will make no difference in your feelings 
 to me?" 
 
 "If I were to tell you all I feel for you at this moment," said 
 Bianca, half smiling, " you would build all sorts of wild thoughts 
 upon it. I shall hold you very fast now that I have been so near 
 losing vou." 
 
THE HALF SISTERS. 147 
 
 Bianca' s servant entered and whispered something. 
 
 " I must send yon away now," said she, " for the Greek dress 
 for my new part is come, and I shall be deep in stage millinery 
 and finery for the rest of the morning ; I dare not neglect it. 
 Yon do not know how mnch dress has to do with onr success. " 
 
 " Will yon not let me see it," said Lord Melton, pleadingly, 
 " and then I shall know that I am reinstated?" 
 
 "Well, if you really wish to stay, you may, but I give you 
 notice it will be very stupid work for you. — You can tell Madame 
 Michaud to come in," said she to the servant. 
 
 " I think a passion for dress must be in the primeval formation 
 of a woman's mind, as a geologist would express it," said she, 
 laughing. "How do you do, Madame Michaud — how have you 
 succeeded ? " 
 
 Madame, with many minauderies, unpacked and held up a 
 superb Greek costume. 
 
 " Oh, how gorgeous ! " exclaimed Bianca; — "madame, you are 
 a woman of genius ; if I make an impression in this part, half of 
 it will be owing to you ! " 
 
 "That is not a correct cap," said Lord Melton; "it is very 
 pretty for a fancy dress, but it is not a real country cap." 
 
 " Pardonnez, monsieur," said madame, deeply offended. 
 
 " I have one I brought from Scio at home, that would be much 
 better. Will you let me send it you ? " said Lord Melton. 
 
 " I shall be too glad of it; I don't like this one myself, but I 
 shall put it on now, to judge of the effect. 
 
 She returned in full costume, looking radiantly lovely. 
 
 " Have you a dagger amongst your treasures ? " said she. 
 
 " Yes, but I will not give it you. I am horribly superstitious." 
 
 "It is not one of my superstitions," said Bianca; " and yet I 
 have so many, that I ought to respect those of other people. I 
 think it is very unlucky to give hair ; but a dagger is quite an 
 exceptional thing. But now you must go in earnest, I am really 
 going to be busy. You will return soon," said she, holding his 
 hand as he was departing, and looking fixedly at him. 
 
 " Very soon," replied he, with meaning. "Do not fear me, 
 you shall find me all you would have me." 
 
 He had not long departed, and the milliner was still there, 
 taking directions for another stage dress, when Conrad came. 
 
 "Is not that a glorious costume?" cried she, spreading it 
 before him. 
 
 "You know how much I dislike seeing the insignia of your 
 profession. The effects are well enough, but I cannot endure to 
 see them in process ; you know how completely they are opposed 
 to my taste, and you might have the delicacy to keep them out of 
 my way." 
 
 Poor Bianca looked terribly mortified: she had hoped that 
 Conrad would have admired her in the Greek dress ;. it was for 
 him alone she wished to look well. 
 
 L 2 
 
148 THE HALF SISTERS. 
 
 " I ought to have remembered you did not like women's 
 finery," said she, submissively, and hastened to banish both the 
 milliner and the dress, and all the paraphernalia that had got 
 scattered about ; and then came and seated herself, half timidly, 
 beside Conrad, who had the grace to feel a little ashamed of his 
 splenetic humour. 
 
 " I am a great brute to you sometimes, Bianca, and you are 
 very patient with me. I do not deserve it — you are a great deal 
 too good for me." 
 
 This was quite true ; but Bianca did not believe it. She would 
 thankfully have endured a much worse ill-humour for the sake of 
 such an amende to make up for it. Conrad continued much 
 kinder and more agreeable to the end of the visit, than he had 
 been for a long time. At last he said : u 9 1 have engaged myself 
 to dine with two friends of mine from Paris. Were you not 
 saying something once about wishing to act in Paris, if a company 
 could be got together ? I will make inquiries, if you like, to- 
 day ; they will be able to give a good opinion as to your probable 
 success." 
 
 " Oh, how very kind you are !" said Bianca. u If you do not 
 dislike it, I have it much at heart to go to Paris ; but I would be 
 governed by you." 
 
 "Well, I will speak to my friends, at any rate, and then we 
 can talk further ; but I must go now." 
 
 He took a very affectionate leave of her, and left her happier 
 than she had been for many days. 
 
 Several days passed, and she saw nothing of him. She fancied 
 he was engaged with his friends, and tried to be patient ; but it 
 was very hard work. At last, one morning, a letter from him was 
 put into her hand. 
 
 CHAPTEE XXXIII. 
 
 Bianca opened the note with a trembling hand, read it eagerly, 
 and then flung it with a passionate gesture on the floor. Poor 
 Bianca ! the note was not "what she had hoped for. The perfume 
 of love was not upon it ; there was not the glowing out-pouring 
 of a heart to which utterance was an imperious necessity, and yet 
 not expressing, but only giving indication of, the passionate 
 depths within ; instead of this, there was kindness, and friendly 
 interest ; a letter no third party could judge of, for the eye of 
 one deeply loving could alone perceive all that was wanting. 
 One line in particular maddened her ; it was at the end, " Dear 
 Bianca ; be calm and wise : it is all you need, to be perfect." 
 
 " Calm and wise," echoed she, bitterly; " how should I become 
 
THE HALF SISTERS. 149 
 
 so ? how should any woman be so without a strong and noble 
 heart on which her poor beating, passionate soul may fling, itself 
 and find rest ? how should one thrown back upon herself be calm 
 and wise ? " 
 
 At this instant Lord Melton entered ; she had been so engrossed 
 that she had not noticed his knock. Her flushed and agitated 
 face told him at once that something was wrong, but her habitual 
 control of manner did not forsake her. She welcomed him cor-% 
 dially, and began to converse on indifferent subjects ; but her 
 eyes, in spite of herself, kept filling with tears, and there was a 
 touch of bitterness in all she said — a deeper meaning than her 
 words conveyed. Lord Melton was pained to the very soul to see 
 her thus suffering, but he thought it best to take no notice, 
 except by that touching sympathy of manner, that genuine 
 manly kindness, for which a woman, at such times, is so grateful. 
 At length he rose to depart, without having obtained any sort of 
 insight into what was grieving her. 
 
 " Oh, no, do not go yet," said Bianca, entreatingly ; " you do me 
 so much good ; sit still and talk on to me. I am not myself very 
 amusing this morning, so it's the more charity in you to stay." 
 
 " Tell me, then, Bianca," said he, seating himself beside her 
 on the sofa, " what it is that is distressing you. I cannot endure 
 to see you suffer ; if I am indiscreet, say so, but do not be dis- 
 pleased with me," 
 
 "Nothing new," said Bianca; " nothing but what to you 
 would sound very trivial. I have been worried by a letter this 
 morning ; it only came just before you arrived, and I had not 
 recovered myself." 
 
 Lord Melton's eyes fell, at this instant, on the crushed letter 
 which had got itself pushed under the table ; he knew it was in 
 Conrad's handwriting, and a pang of jealousy shot through his 
 hearty 
 
 "Conrad has vexed you," said he, quickly; "what has he 
 done ? " 
 
 " It is a letter about my acting in Paris ; he has been taking 
 a great deal of trouble to make inquiries, and get me proper 
 introductions ; he has been very kind, but it is not always kindness 
 alone that one requires." 
 
 " No," said Lord Melton, earnestly; "there are times when 
 kindness pains more than any ill-treatment. When we get 
 kindness, where we looked for love, it is a desolate thing." 
 
 Bianca did not reply, but she looked up at Melton, and the 
 tears streamed heavily over her face. 
 
 " Oh, Bianca, you are wasting all the treasures of your soul 
 on a dream — on a delusion. Conrad is not the sort of man for 
 you to love, he will never satisfy your tender and passionate 
 nature. If he had it in him to make you happy I could resign 
 you to him ; for I love you, Bianca, and to see you happy would 
 satisfy me. I know it by the misery it gives me to see you 
 
% 
 
 150 THE HALE SISTEKS. 
 
 suffer. Oh, Bianca, let me love you, let me be your near, dear 
 friend ; command me any way, and let me serve you. But I 
 cannot endure to see you suffer thus." 
 
 " You are my friend," replied Bianca, "my near, dear friend ; 
 I rely on your affection ; it is egotistic to draw, as I do, such 
 strength and comfort from your friendship, from your love, for it' 
 well deserves that name, and to give you so little in return; but 
 
 ou are the one being on whose firm strength and prudence I rely. 
 
 % is to you I instinctively look, in all my difficulties ; you to whom 
 I turn in all my troubles. You see," said she, smiling mourn- 
 fully, " it is the old story from the beginning — the one devoted, 
 and the other exacting ; living on your offerings, exhaling your 
 love- — and glad of it. But I am of no good to you. I feel 
 humbled before you. You are great and magnanimous, and, 
 believe me, I know your worth. Bear with me, continue near 
 mc. What would become of me if you were to forsake me?" 
 
 " Oh, Bianca, you are very merciless. But I will stay beside 
 you, I will never leave you till I see you happy. Command me 
 in any way ; I am yours, — body and soul. You do not love me ; 
 still, let me feel that I am necessary to you in any way. Let me 
 serve you, and that is all the return I ask. Let me feel that my 
 being is mixed with yours ; in some way, however distant, that 
 my life has not been in vain for you. The day when your 
 happiness will be complete without me, when I can no longer be 
 of use to you, this life will be closed on me for ever ; all I live 
 for will have departed from it. Bianca ! the consciousness that I 
 can serve you is almost a compensation for your love. You 
 must love as I do, before you can know the blessing it is to 
 give one's life to the one we love. You have been frank 
 and noble, you have used no juggling and coquetry with 
 me. By Heaven ! I believe it only makes me love you more 
 madly to see the love you feel for another ; it makes you more 
 grand in my eyes. And yet, if I see you with him — though you 
 spare my feelings in every way — oh ! then I am filled with rage 
 and dumb anguish. I hate him, and feel that I could kill him. 
 It is only when he is absent, and I am alone with you, enjoying 
 your dear confidence, possessing your friendship, that I can 
 forgive you for loving him. But here, as I am now, at this 
 moment, I ask no more. I feel that no one else can love you as 
 I do ; and that is a consciousness none can take from me." 
 
 Bianca's tears were falling fast. " Do not make me feel guilty, 
 my dear friend," said she, taking his hand in both of hers ; "do 
 not sacrifice yourself to one who so little deserves it of you ; and 
 yet, God knows, if you were to leave me, nothing could com- 
 pensate for your loss. I cannot help the past, I cannot recall it ; 
 you are everything a woman could desire ; I am a weak, self- 
 willed, passionate woman, whom you might well despise ; but I 
 cannot blot out my life. Before I knew you, Conrad was the star 
 of my hope. Listen to me, and I will tell you all. He was the 
 
THE HALF SISTERS. 151 
 
 secret of my attaining to my present position ; it was for him I 
 worked, and for him that I aspired ; when I was a young, friend- 
 less girl, he stood beside me in my deepest need. Providence, 
 Destiny, or what you will, threw him in my way ; he befriended 
 me when I had no other friend, and it is owing to him that I am 
 not a degraded outcast ; he helped me to a position in which I 
 could work my own way ; he was my benefactor ; he gave me 
 books, and showed me the mine of precious things that lies in 
 them. As a young man he showed a noble and generous'interesf 
 in my fate, and placed me in a regular theatre, where I might 
 rise to a higher grade in my profession ; do you wonder that I 
 loved him ? Do you wonder that he filled my heart and soul ? 
 I have lived, and grown in my affection for him, till it has become 
 a part of myself. It has been a talisman keeping me from all 
 evil ; it has been the secret of my strength. As a young man, of 
 one or two-and-twenty, when I was in a very humble position, 
 shortly after I had entered the regular theatre — fairly started on 
 my career, but had made no way — he would have braved his 
 father's anger, and would have married me. lie loved me madly; 
 but, alas! I fear, more from opposition, and the excitement of 
 circumstances, than from a true passion. No matter, I loved him, 
 as you love me. I was not what I am now. I felt a conscious- 
 ness of power within me, but I had achieved nothing ; and it 
 would have been suicide in him, dependent as he was on his 
 father, a student in his profession, to have thrown himself away 
 on a sixth-rate actress, however promising she might be. I 
 refused him — he knew why — he knew my love, for of that I made 
 no secret. I told him that I would work my way ; and that then, 
 if he pleased, he might claim me. He went abroad, and I 
 remained at home, to work my way up to him. We did not 
 meet again for four years. At first he wrote me letters full of 
 passionate love, but at last they ceased. He gave a prudent 
 reason — that they led to no results, and only unsettled him. He 
 had become prudent, and thought passion a very childish thing. 
 Time passed on, I made a provincial reputation, which is never 
 worth much ; but I felt that I had, in some degree, mastered my 
 art, and was fit to appear before a London audience. I came, 
 and succeeded — he was not in the house ! From the theatre, — 
 from those deafening applauses, the wreaths, the acclamations 
 when I was called before the curtain, the summit of my life's 
 endeavours, — I came home. Oh, that night ! "Well, I can suffer 
 nothing worse. I have felt the worst a human being can endure, 
 and — live. I am convinced people never died under the torture : 
 pain kept them alive. I left the theatre the instant I came off. 
 I could not have remained a moment — I was crushed and suffo- 
 cated. I came home and flung myself, in my stage dress, just as 
 I was, on the ground ; not weeping, but my very heart crumbling 
 away with dry agony — there I lay, all my sorrow crushed down 
 into my soul — so deep, no words nor tears could reach it. After 
 
152 THE HALF SISTEES. 
 
 a while, I know not how long, my maid came in laden with the 
 bouquets that had been thrown to me. I rose quite calm and let 
 her undress me. I suppose I must have slept, for I remember 
 nothing, till I saw her at my bedside the next morning, with a 
 heap of newspapers and letters, full of congratulations and praises. 
 I had achieved success — but what was I to do with it ? I had 
 never wished it for myself, and to be alone at the moment of one's 
 triumph, is more bitter than to be left desolate in one's sorrow. 
 "When I got up — I had visitors all day. Nothing but flattery 
 and praise. My despair was in my soul, and had left no traces 
 of its entrance. So I was complimented on my equanimity. 
 They little knew the fearful ballast that kept me down ! At 
 night I was to act again. Strange as it may seem, I was the 
 better for it ; I felt as if my profession would not be ungrateful 
 for all the life-blood I had spent upon it. 
 
 " That night, when I came off the stage, I found in my 
 dressing-room a note from him, asking if he might see me after ' 
 the play. The distance between our hearts was greater than any 
 that had ever been between our circumstances. J, who desired 
 to iiing myself into his arms, saying, ' There, take all my success, 
 all my genius, it is all for you — I have worked and succeeded for 
 you alone ' — felt all my gifts thrown back upon my heart ! When 
 I entered the carriage I found him waiting at the door, and he 
 sprang in after me. Oh, how often had I pictured to myself that 
 moment — looked for it, toiled for it — it had been to me a ' star 
 hanging in darkest night ; ' — and now I had attained it. He to 
 whom I had given my whole soul was beside me, paying me 
 compliments, saying the most beautiful and graceful things, and 
 in the sweetest voice ; — but oh ! no genuine tone, not one true 
 word! My god, whom I had adored, had vanished on the 
 moment of becoming visible ! Even the friend of my early days 
 was no longer to be discerned ; — a gay, graceful man of the world 
 was at my feet! I felt that I had again to subdue him, and I 
 determined I would accomplish it. But, alas ! an after-game of 
 love is harder even than an after-game of reputation. I fear I 
 have not succeeded. There is no more to tell you — what I have 
 suffered in hope, fear, and anxiety, is not to be known. I cannot 
 tell what I expect. I am hard, exigeante, variable — my temper 
 is failing under this daily torture — he neither comes on nor goes 
 off; he is jealous if I show any attention to others, but I remember 
 his love of old and cannot be satisfied with his homage now. Oh," 
 said she, shivering with misery, " I cannot live thus — I must 
 know my fate — I must know his real feelings — I must know the 
 best and the worst. Dear friend, in you, and your clear judg- 
 ment, I trust to save me from myself. See Conrad, talk to him 
 of me — note his words, his looks, his tones. You will not be 
 deceived. Tell me, on your honour, all that passes. If he be 
 trifling with me, I can and will be free from him. I have staked 
 too much, and am worth too much, to natter his vanity. Let me 
 
THE HALE SISTERS. 153 
 
 know how I stand in regard to him ; in yon I shall have no self- 
 deception to fear. Yon to ill do this," said she, beseechingly. 
 " You will not abandon me, now that I feel sinking ? " 
 
 She looked so utterly broken and wretched, the touching tone 
 of her voice altogether unmanned him. At that instant, when 
 no disguise remained, under which hope for himself could linger, 
 he felt that he loved her more madly than ever, and could dedi- 
 cate his life to watching over her. He rose from the sofa, and 
 walked up and down the room. At last, mastering his emotion 
 by a strong effort, he went up to Bianca, who sat gazing vacantly 
 before her. 
 
 " I will do all that you bid me," said he, in a husky voice. 
 " I will see Conrad to-day. You shall know all." 
 
 1 [ Dear, faithful friend ! " murmured Bianca, raising his hand 
 to her parched lips ; " God bless you, for all your goodness to 
 me." 
 
 He pressed her hand violently to his heart, and abruptly 
 quitted the room. 
 
 CHAPTEE XXXIY. 
 
 Loed Meltost, on leaving Bianca' s presence, mounted his horse, 
 and rode towards the Park to meditate a little on the singular 
 commission he had accepted, and to get, if possible, a little com- 
 posure into his soul. 
 
 He did not exactly hope to find Conrad fickle, for he loved 
 Bianca too truly not to desire her happiness beyond all things ; but 
 he could not get rid of his human nature sufficiently, to endure 
 any one to do her happiness but himself. With all his loyalty and 
 generosity, he found he had undertaken a task much harder than 
 he had imagined, whilst stimulated by the presence of Bianca, 
 and the sight of her tears. He would have been thankful for an 
 excuse to quarrel with Conrad, and felt for a few minutes as if he 
 could have shot him with great satisfaction ; but instead of that 
 he was obliged to go in search of him, speak civilly, and invite 
 him to dinner ! — a trial to have ruffled the torpid well-broken 
 nature of any saint, and Lord Melton had never felt so un-saint~ 
 like as at that moment. He walk savage at himself for having 
 accepted a position of so little l^gnity ; his wounded love for 
 Bianca, his wounded love for himself, his jealousy of Conrad and 
 indignation at his conduct to Bianca, all combined to produce (we 
 are sorry to record so unheroic a fact) a dreadful fit of ill-humour 
 — unmitigated by the slightest gleam of self-complacency from the 
 countenance of any of the virtuous motives which had incited 
 him to the undertaking ; indeed, for the time being, they were 
 
154 THE HALF SISTERS. 
 
 pleased to buffet and torment him, as if they had been so many 
 devils. 
 
 With all this, however, he remained firm in his resolution to 
 perform all that Bianca had required ; the consciousness that it 
 was for her sake, and at her request, was the only thought that 
 soothed his irritated mind. He was not up to encountering 
 Conrad just then, however ; so, turning his horse's head, he put 
 it into a gallop, and never stopped until he found himself near 
 Wandsworth Common. Violent exercise is the finest thing in 
 the world for calming mental irritation. Melton felt all the 
 better for his ride, and returned to town at a more tranquil 
 speed. 
 
 On his way home, he called at his club, it being about the 
 hour when Conrad was usually there. Melton had the comfort of 
 finding that he was engaged for dinner ; and though he agreed 
 
 to dine with Melton the day after, still there was a respite. 
 
 • * # # • # # 
 
 How was it with Bianca all this day ? 
 
 For a short time after Lord Melton's departure she felt happier 
 and more tranquil than she had been for many days ; she had 
 implicit trust in Melton, and she hoped, she knew what, from his 
 intervention. She was relieved by having found a faithful friend 
 to whom she could confide her secret heart ; the comfort of having 
 talked over the wearing anxiety which was eating out her soul, 
 to one who so well understood and sympathised with her, was 
 inexpressible ; and she did not reflect on the horrible pain she had 
 inflicted on that noble and disinterested nature. Her own 
 feelings engrossed her ; and she could not help pressing heavily 
 on the love which had flung itself under her feet, to make her 
 way easier. 
 
 But this mood did hot last long ; the intense weariness, and 
 yet ever shifting restlessness of her sick soul, hindered her from 
 seeing anything in the same light long together, She seemed to 
 herself to be weltering as it were in a quicksand, where she could 
 find nothing on which to rest her foot ; she was worn out with 
 baffled efforts to find the solution of her misery : her energies were 
 stagnant; all manner of wild fancies, and fantastic resolves, 
 exhaled from her dull, senseless heart, and she had no power to 
 grasp at or grapple with them. 
 
 She had no rational expectation of seeing Conrad that day, and 
 yet she listened to every footstep on the stairs, to every knock at 
 the door, till she was in a fever of excitement and expectation. 
 She had ordered herself to be denied to all but Conrad — should he 
 call — so there was nothing to break in on the monotony of her 
 day. She attempted to write some letters, but after a few lines 
 sprang up from the table in a paroxysm of impatience ; she sat 
 for a few minutes with her hands tightly strained within each 
 other, then starting up, she walked with hurried steps to and fro 
 the apartment ; sharp groans were the only articulation for the 
 
THE HALE SISTEKS. 155 
 
 agony of her soul, as she writhed convulsively, like a crushed 
 worm on the couch. " I cannot endure this," she cried at last, 
 in a quivering tone ; what have I done, what have I done, that it 
 should be laid onme?" 
 
 In a little while, the paroxysm passed — the tension of the 
 muscles relaxed. A volume of Shakspeare (the same given her 
 years ago by Conrad) caught her eye ; on reaching it from the 
 table, it fell, and some flowers dropped out ; they were the 
 bouquet he had flung her that night at the circus. The recol- 
 lection of all he had been to her in those days, all his boyish 
 generosity and delicacy, hardened now into manhood and worldly 
 wisdom, came upon her ; his once passionate love, old words of 
 tenderness and endearment, all came back on her parched and 
 burning heart ; but it was like those poor shipwrecked wretches, who, 
 dying of thirst, endeavour to assuage it with the salt-sea- water, 
 at the cost of madness. A violent fit of convulsive weeping, which 
 seemed as if it would tear her frame to pieces, followed, and 
 relieved, or rather exhausted her. She fell into a deep heavy 
 slumber, which lasted till her attendant entered to tell her that 
 the carriage was at the door to take her to the theatre. 
 
 " Why did you let me sleep so long ?" said she, hastily starting 
 up. " Is it not very late ? " 
 
 "All in good time; but indeed, and indeed, Miss Bianca," 
 said the woman, who had been her attendant many years, and 
 who loved her as a child, " you look more fit to be buried than to 
 go to the play ; and then that great party afterwards, you are not 
 fit for it, indeed ; do send back word to tne party at least, and say 
 you are not well." 
 
 " I wish anybody would bury me," said Bianca, "and then I 
 could be quiet ; what is that you have brought ? Tea ? put some 
 salvolatile in it." 
 
 ¥ I don't see how you are to get through your work to-night, 
 except by a miracle ; you have not eaten this blessed day, since 
 morning ; you will just kill yourself." 
 
 " Oh, you will see I shall get through very well, people do 
 not die so easily. Here, whilst I am at the theatre, send and 
 get this prescription made up, and have it ready when the play 
 is over." 
 
 "When Bianca reached the theatre she found it much later than 
 she imagined ; the orchestra were in their places, and she had to 
 dress in great haste. The necessity for exertion brought back all 
 her energy ; as her dressing proceeded her spirits returned, and 
 she was herself once more, or rather she forgot herself in her part. 
 Her character on this evening was a very arduous one, and never 
 had she acted with so much energy ; all the passion that was 
 , consuming her she poured into her part, and her triumph was 
 immense ; the house was nearly brought down with applause ; 
 all her private grief was for the moment swept away by the 
 maddening excitement. An actress must in her very essence be 
 
156 THE HALF SISTERS. 
 
 of a quick, passionate, and above all, of a mobile temperament ; 
 the energy within her must lend itself easily to all forms and 
 expressions ; it must not remain locked up in one mode of mani- 
 festation. Bianca was emphatically born for an actress, and this 
 stood her in stead now. The play gave a vent to all the unutter- 
 able emotions that had been tearing her heart all day ; the leaden 
 weight of deferred hope and sickening expectation was melted off, 
 and went to give an intense and passionate meaning to her acting 
 which, perhaps, it had never had before. When at the close of 
 the piece she was called before the curtain, she was in great 
 bodily exhaustion certainly ; but, for the time being, not a trace 
 remained of all the dark clouds which had overcast her soul. 
 
 Her attendant brought her some refreshment, before she pre- 
 pared for the soiree. Lord Melton was waiting for her in the 
 carriage, — he had been in the theatre ; and if he had been in love 
 with her in the morning, he was still more madly enamoured 
 to-night ; she seemed to him little less than divine. 
 
 An actress's triumph is certainly made visible and tangible, 
 is brought home to her senses in a vivid manner that no other 
 profession admits of ; her influence may be short-lived, but it is 
 an infatuation whilst it lasts ; and to feel that she is exercising 
 " sovereign sway and masterdom" over a whole assembly, wield- 
 ing their souls as she chooses, producing what emotions she will, 
 playing upon them as upon some curious instrument, is like being 
 possessed of a magician's power ; the fruits of her successes are 
 all paid into her hand ; she, as it were, receives ready money for 
 her genius. True, there is rarely fame for her ; she leaves no 
 trace behind of what she has been, she has her portion of goods in 
 this world ; but then that present moment is well filled up, and 
 it is only in sorrow and disappointment that one clings to the 
 future. Bianca was by no means insensible of her own power ; 
 she saw the effect she had produced on Melton, and she enjoyed 
 it ; besides, it seemed a good omen to her heart. 
 
 " I could not," said he, as they drove along, " do your bidding 
 to-day; he was engaged — I shall see him to-morrow. Oh, 
 Bianca! Bianca!" exclaimed he, passionately, "who can resist 
 your will ? You can subdue all men's souls to you. What hope 
 can I have that he is insensible to you ? Oh, forgive me, forgive 
 me ! You are so good, and I am so miserable ; but when I see 
 you radiant and triumphant, I feel thrown to such an infinite 
 distance from you. I could not stay in the theatre to-night ; I 
 could not bear to see you. I was killed to think that I could 
 make myself nothing to you, whilst you are the world to me — ■ 
 high as heaven. Bianca ! you must be a man before you can 
 know the madness of loving in vain." 
 
 " You men have so many distractions by way of compensation," 
 said Bianca ; — i ' but see, we are arrived — are we late or early ? 
 I cannot stay above an hour, I am so weary. Will you see that 
 the carriage comes round ? " 
 
THE HlLE SISTERS. 157 
 
 There was an immense crush on the staircase, and it seemed a 
 vain attempt to make their way in that direction. " Come this 
 way," said Lord Melton, " we can get to the drawing-rooms 
 through here; I know the house well." He crossed the hall, 
 and lifting a portiere, he led Bianca into a small room fitted up 
 as a tent ; two or three card- tables were laid out, and the centre 
 was filled to the roof hy a stand of costly plants, which surrounded 
 a small fountain. No one was to be seen as they entered. 
 
 " Let us rest here a little while," said Bianca, " it will not be 
 so pleasant when we get up stairs, and if there be such a thing 
 as a glass of water within reach, I should be thankful for it." 
 
 " Wait here, then, until I return, and I will forage for you," 
 
 " You shall find me here," replied she, seating herself; " only 
 don't be gone long — it is not worth taking any trouble about." 
 
 A few minutes after his departure, Bianca heard the sound of 
 voices approaching in the opposite direction. Her heart stood 
 still, as she fancied she distinguished that of Conrad amongst 
 them. 
 
 1 ' I tell you, my good fellow, that Bianca has not arrived yet ; 
 I have just been through the drawing-rooms. It was a long play 
 to-night ; and when she gets here, it will be an hour before she 
 can make her way up stairs, so possess your soul in patience, and 
 sit down to a game of ecarte; there will be ample time before she 
 appears." 
 
 "The Satirist says that you are about to marry her — I beg 
 pardon, that she intends to marry you. Is that a truth, par 
 hasard f " 
 
 "God forbid!" said Conrad, in an annoyed tone — "it is a 
 report I thank none of my friends for repeating. No, I leave her 
 to Melton ; a man with a coronet, and fifteen thousand a year, 
 may aiford to marry a fancy wife, — to season the dull and 
 decorous respectability of his position. I feel tempted to no such 
 eccentricity ; I should have spoken long since, if I had had any 
 serious intentions." 
 
 "You might have spoken fast enough; but would she have 
 responded, is the question," said another voice ; " and what may 
 he the fault which your fastidious excellency finds with the 
 charming Bianca ? " 
 
 "I have no idea of marrying at all at present," said Conrad, 
 in a piqued tone ; ' \ and when I do marry, I shall choose to have 
 a wife all to myself, and not one whose heart is case-hardened, 
 by having stood a siege from every man about town who has 
 chosen to address her honourably or dishonourably." 
 
 " Aye, it would be curious to calculate the number of stage- 
 kisses she had received," said another; " how many would you 
 guess them at?" 
 
 " Come, come, that is not fair," said some one, good-naturedly, 
 " no one ever perceived the least levity of behaviour in her. I 
 never heard even a whisper to her disadvantage." 
 
158 THE HALF SISTERS. 
 
 
 " The Bianca is a very good girl," said Conrad, " but she 
 is the last woman in the world I would marry. I would as 
 soon take Yan Amburgh's half-tamed tigress, as a grand high 
 tragedy woman for my wife. Besides, I have a horror of all 
 professional women. There ought to be a law to keep women 
 from getting their own living : there are men enough in the 
 world to work. "Women ought to be taken care of, and kept in 
 retirement ; they have no qualities which fit them to struggle 
 with the world." 
 
 "Everybody knows you to be tant soit peu oriental in your 
 notions," replied the voice of the young man who had first 
 spoken, "and the fair Bianca would not be exactly a promising 
 subject to begin with. Pour moi, I like a woman with a dash of 
 the devil in her, and able to fight for herself. I would marry the 
 Bianca to-morrow if she would 'have me." 
 
 " Bravo ! " cried Conrad, "I will tell her so. She will be here 
 by this time, I should think. Let us go." 
 
 The voices ceased ; Bianca remained stunned, stupified — she 
 felt turned to stone. Shortly afterwards Lord Melton returned. 
 
 "I hope I have not quite tired out your patience," said he; 
 "but, good God! Bianca, what has happened?" he cried, 
 shocked at the sight of her rigid and bloodless countenance. 
 
 " Nothing, nothing," said she, in a quiet voice. " I have only 
 been overhearing what was not intended for me." She took a 
 glass of water from his hand and drank the whole of it, " Now 
 let us go up stairs." 
 
 " You are not fit for it, Bianca. Let me take you home. I can 
 call the carriage in an instant, if you wish it," 
 
 "No, no, I tell you, I am quite able to go through my 
 business ; only, do you keep close beside me, and do not 
 leave me." 
 
 "But, Bianca, you are ill, you are frightfully pale, there is 
 something terrible in your looks." 
 
 " Is there ? " said she, indifferently ; " then the people will feel 
 quite sure that I have taken off my rouge, and think that it does 
 not suit me to go without — come along." 
 
 He led her across the tent-room to the door on the other side. 
 A slight shudder passed through her when she looked at the spot 
 where the conversation had passed a few minutes previously. A 
 card-table was breaking up as they went by, and the people gazed 
 curiously at her. 
 
 " That was the Bianca," said one, when they were gone. " She 
 does not look nearly so well off the stage as I should have 
 expected." 
 
 " Oh," replied another, "they are always so painted, one can- 
 not tell what they are really like." 
 
 "The terrible look" Lord Melton had remarked, passed away 
 before they reached the drawing-room, and nothing but the most 
 ordinary and placid expression remained. 
 
THE HALF SISTERS. 159 
 
 Conrad and his friends had grouped themselves in the doorway 
 to await her coming. 
 
 "With the most friendly cmpressement, Conrad advanced to her. 
 "How very late you are," said he, "I began to fear you would 
 not come. "Will you let me present one of my friends to you ; 
 he is an ardent worshipper of yours, and a very good fellow 
 beside — Me. Marchmoxt, you may present your homage. " 
 
 The good-looking young man who belonged to this name, bowed 
 to her ; and Bianca recognised his voice when he spoke, as that of 
 the young man who had deprecated the insolent remark of one of 
 his companions. Nothing could be more captivating than the 
 manners of Bianca; nothing exaggerated or overstrained; it was 
 perfectly natural and well-bred ; but marked with a peculiar air 
 of kindness and conciliation. A crowd of people soon came round 
 her, and she talked to every one, and smiled and bowed to every 
 one to whom it was needful ; but Lord Melton saw the absent look 
 of her eyes, which her smile never illuminated. Every one 
 seemed to do his possible, to say the best possible things. Bianca, 
 who did not in general excel in this species of light skirmish, 
 seemed that evening inspired, and was brilliant enough to have 
 established a dozen reputations. 
 
 " You would hardly suppose, to look at her, that she was an 
 actress," whispered the young man who had been presented by 
 Conrad. 
 
 "But she is one, nevertheless," said Conrad. 
 
 At length the crowd began to disperse, and Bianca rose to go ; 
 Conrad pressed forward to offer his arm, but she had already 
 accepted that of Lord Melton. Conrad, however, followed her to 
 the carriage, and seemed extremely anxious about the adjustment 
 of her shawl, expressing great solicitude about her exposure to 
 the night air. This last incident was the crowning drop in poor 
 Bianca' s cup that night; but she wished him good night in a 
 steady voice, and then fell back fainting in her carriage. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXV. 
 
 Early the next morning, Lord Melton received the following 
 note from Bianca. It was scarcely legible : 
 
 "Deae kind Feiend, 
 
 " I am better this morning, but dreadfully weak. I cannot see 
 even you, for I must get myself up for to-night ; it is a new play, 
 and there is no help for it. Take no more trouble about what I 
 requested yesterday. I know all I need to know. 
 
160 THE HALF SISTEBS. 
 
 " What a blessing it is we cannot be defrauded out of death ; 
 that is a rest that will not fail us. God bless you. 
 
 "Bianca." 
 
 Lord Melton guessed everything, and was ashamed of himself 
 to find that his secret feeling was a flash of gladness ; he did all 
 he could to suppress it ; but there it was in spite of him, for he 
 felt convinced that the real live Conrad was not his rival ; that he 
 was only a phantom dressed by Bianca's imagination, which must 
 fade "into the light of common clay," and he loved Bianca 
 deeply enough to have patience ; he could have waited seven 
 years, like Jacob, and found them as seven days now that for the 
 first time he had a hope for himself. He forgot, meanwhile, how 
 poor Bianca was suffering ; but our own personality sits closer to 
 us than any other feeling ; no generosity can enable us to get rid 
 of it; our " self-negation " is at best but a generous fiction, by 
 means of which we try to love some neighbour better than our- 
 selves; but it will not do; when that neighbour comes into 
 collision with ourself, our feelings take part with ourself directly ; 
 we can love those who combine with us, and enhance ourself by 
 reflection, but we cannot feel any genuine complacency for those 
 who cross it. Lord Melton felt in a much better temper with 
 Bianca than he had done the day before. 
 
 The day passed dreamily away; he did nothing, and was 
 surprised to find it dinner-time so soon. Everything stood 
 precisely as it did on the previous day, and yet everything was 
 changed for him. At the same hour the day before he had 
 nearly killed his horse by galloping it, in a frenzy of love, 
 spite, and desperation ; now, he felt quite up to being glad to 
 see the very man he had wanted to shoot yesterday ! Really 
 we are all fine creatures, to be immortal ! we ought to be shut 
 up in glass tubes to show the variations of the atmosphere, and 
 so turn our fantastic nature to some purpose ! 
 
 Dinner passed without much conversation; it is too good a 
 thing to be talked over, and is, besides, a trifling with one's 
 digestion — the greatest blessing under heaven ! 
 
 They were alone after dinner ; Conrad, luxuriously thrown 
 back in a large chair, had lighted a cigar, and, half- closing his 
 eyes, was watching the curling smoke in a state of dreamy , 
 beatitude. Melton was smoking to, but pacing restlessly up 
 and down the room. 
 
 " Melton ! " cried Conrad, disturbed by his companion's move- 
 ments, "you are as bad as a wild beast in a cage; and even a 
 tiger is too much of a Christian not to lie still after his dinner. 
 What are you in such a peripatetic reverie about ? Did you 
 quarrel with the fair Bianca last night?" 
 
 " Why do you suppose that ? " asked Melton, coldly. 
 "Come, come; everybody can see that you are her favoured 
 cavalier, and are the only one who gets a chance of even 
 
THE HALF SISTERS. 161 
 
 quarrelling with her, for she plays the discreet princess to a 
 miracle." 
 
 "I have a great respect for Bianca," rejoined Melton, " and T 
 do not like — in short, it has always seemed to me a hard case, 
 that professional women shonld he liable to be pressed as subjects 
 for all manner of idle discourse and speculation." 
 
 " Is she not a free topic — is she not a public character? 
 If we may not speak of an actress, Heaven have mercy oil 
 our tongues ! What may we speak about ?" said Conrad, 
 in unfeigned astonishment. ' ' But I can quite understand 
 your feeling ; that is the worst of having a public character 
 for a Dulcinea, there's no having her all to oneself ; the eclat 
 that surrounds her is piquant to one's vanity, it is urged on 
 by glare and gas-light, the flourish of drums and trumpets, 
 and the acclamations of the select members of the pit and gallerj^; 
 and when one penetrates to the goddess, one finds the atmos-' 
 phere round her in a fog with the sighs of a hundred hopeless 
 passions. The broad fact of her virtue may be firm as 
 adamant, but, for my own part, I would prefer a woman who has 
 Deen less tried ! " 
 
 "Do you speak from your heart ? " said Lord Melton. 
 
 "Certainly," replied Conrad; "and now do sit down, fori 
 want to talk to you since we are on the subject. I have the 
 highest respect for the Bianca, whom I have known ever since she 
 was a child. She was my protegee ; and, as a young man, I was 
 passionately in love with her. It was a mad acLoration ; I should 
 have ruined myself for her, — if she would have let me, — have 
 braved my father's anger, and married her outright ; but she was 
 very generous, as the phrase is ; or, rather, she had common 
 sense, for she refused me, confessing, at the same time, that she 
 loved me ; and, I believe in my heart, she did. She was full of 
 dreams of distinction in her profession, and promised, if ever she 
 entered on her heritage of glory, to bestow it on me. We 
 parted, I to go abroad, while she remained to drudge at home. 
 But she is one of those obstinate constant ones, who cannot be 
 estranged by absence. We used to write verjr moving letters to 
 each other for a long while. But though a woman's love may 
 subsist on letters, a man needs more substantial diet; and, besides, 
 she was too vehement ; there was no keeping up with her. A 
 salamander would have been scorched by her letters. Her sun 
 put my fire out; a phenomenon true in morals as in physics. 
 Travelling about from country to country does not tend to make 
 a man constant. In short, my passion for the fair Bianca died a 
 natural death. I still retained a sincere friendship for her, but 
 that is not much. When she appeared in London I was not in 
 the house ; but she made a hit, and I went the next night ; and 
 really it was superb ! and exceeded everything I expected. It did 
 not make me in love, but in vanity with her ; and, by Heaven ! 
 I was dreadfully embarrassed to find her so constant. However, 
 
162 THE HALF SISTEES. 
 
 I renewed my homage to her. But a passion once extinguished 
 ( ne renait jamais dans la me me place ni pour la meme personnel 
 as I need not tell you ; and we haye had nothing but squabbles, 
 and I am tired to death. When I came here to-day, I deter- 
 mined, if I had an opportunity, to open my mind to you. The 
 truth is, I want to get out of it ; for, at present, I am neither 
 one thing nor another with her." 
 
 Lord Melton was struck dumb at this unexpected and undesired 
 confidence. His first impulse was to laugh at his own whimsical 
 position; but he was obliged to say something, so he asked, 
 " Do you then dislike Bianca ? " 
 
 " Far from it," cried Conrad, " I have a real respect for her, 
 and would s£rve her in any way I could ; but I cannot be in 
 love with her. I like being in her company, I like talking to 
 her, mais cela suffit* Of late years I have got a real horror of 
 professional women. I never would marry an artiste of any 
 grade. A woman who makes her mind public, or exhibits 
 herself in any way, no matter how it may be dignified by the 
 title of art, seems to me little better than a woman of a 
 nameless class. I am more jealous of the mind than of the body; 
 and, to me, there is something revolting in the notion of a 
 woman who. professes to love and belong to you alone, goin^ 
 and printing the secrets of her inmost heart, the most sacred 
 workings of her soul, for the benefit of all who can pay for 
 them. What is the value of a woman whom everyone who 
 chooses may know as much about as you do yourself ? The 
 stage is still worse, for that is publishing both mind and body 
 too. Everybody may go to the theatre to see an actress, and may 
 pass whatever gross comments on her they will; she has no 
 protection, is open to every species of proposal, and that is not 
 precisely the line of life from which one would choose one's wife. 
 You know I am not straight-laced, but in the -matter of matri- 
 mony one's respectability is at stake ; it is the ground in which 
 one hopes to take root and flourish, and the profession of an 
 actress or an authoress is not the most promising for one's credit ; 
 besides they have been too much accustomed to admiration to be 
 able to do without it, or to be satisfied with the mere approbation 
 of a husband. Since I got entangled again with Bianca, I 
 have been thinking a great deal on this subject, and feel very 
 strongly." 
 
 "Then do you mean to asperse Bianca' s character?" asked 
 Lord Melton, fiercely. 
 
 ( " By no means," rejoined Conrad, " I am speaking of profes- 
 sional women. It is Bianca' s misfortune that she is one. I dare 
 say half the men about town could testify to her perfect virtue, 
 respectability, and insensibility, and all that ; but I am not in 
 love with her, and therefore my theory and practice are for once 
 in wonderful harmony." 
 
 Lord Melton had hardly been able to contain his rage during 
 
THE HALF SISTEES. 163 
 
 this ineffable harangue. " Why then," he said, bitterly, "do 
 you join the chorus of applause that greets her every night, if 
 you despise her for her profession ? " 
 
 "Pardon me," replied Conrad, shrugging his shoulders; 
 "what should we do with theatres and actresses? — "We were 
 speaking of matrimony, and I told you my opinion. I would £ 
 use all my influence to support Bianca ; I would stand by hevW 
 through any attack that might be made on her ; I would be her 
 staunch partisan (as I always have been) ; I would be her steady 
 friend ; but that has nothing to do with loving and marrying. I 
 could not love a professional woman, and I would cut my right hand 
 off sooner than marry one ; they are all very well in their way, 
 but no wife or daughter of mine should ever, with my consent, 
 form an acquaintance with actress, artist, singer, or musician." 
 
 " Would you then make them Pariahs ? " 
 
 "No, other people may not be so particular, and the world 
 is wide enough for them ; besides, what do women of that sort 
 care for quiet domestic life, such as we all dream of when we 
 marry, no matter what Don Giovannis we may have been in 
 our bachelor days. It is all very fine talking about liberality 
 and all that, but a professional life ruins a woman as a woman. 
 They all of them follow their profession, not from any high love 
 of art, but to gain their living, and that takes the shine out of 
 any ideal or poetry that might invest their art; they do not 
 believe what they profess to set forth, they do it for a piece of 
 silver and a morsel of bread, and get out of it as soon as they 
 can. Then, consider the fierce passions that are aroused, the 
 envy, the jealousy, the stimulated vanity, the self-love, suscep- 
 tible almost to insanity ; and for what purpose do they pay this 
 fearful price ? — To amuse a few hundred lazy people .for a couple 
 of hours, who go to see them, not to have any great or high 
 thoughts stirred within them, for one-half of them don't even 
 understand the good things that are, -said ; but to have their 
 ennui gently stimulated, or because, they don't know what else 
 to do with their evening ; and the life and soul of a woman is to 
 be melted down to minister to the caprices of a parcel of people 
 who have a contempt in their heart for the very thing they go 
 and applaud. Can such a mode of life be anything but a 
 degradation to the women engaged in it ? " 
 
 " Because the mass of people in the world are stupid, and blind, 
 and coarse, I do not see how that degrades the individuals who 
 make it their business to endeavour to refine and cultivate them," 
 said Lord Melton. 
 
 "First-rate people are, and always will be, first-rate," said 
 Conrad, "ho matter what their profession; but as regards the 
 stage, of which we are more particularly speaking, the gain is not 
 worth the expenditure of body and soul it requires ; people are 
 not to be taught virtue in earnest by seeing virtue in play ; they 
 go to be amused and don't thank you to be anything else ; and I 
 
 m 2 
 
164 THE HALE SISTEKS. 
 
 have too strong a feeling about women to desire to see them sacri- 
 ficed to any such hopeless notions. Men may stand it better, but 
 what is it that professioual life does for women ? Take Bianca, if 
 you will, as a specimen ; she is one of the best, and what has been 
 its effect? it has unsexed her, made her neither a man nor a 
 
 (woman. A public life must deteriorate women ; they are thrown 
 on the naked world, to have to deal, like us men, with all its bad 
 realities ; they lose all the beautiful ideal of their nature, all that 
 is gentle, helpless, and confiding ; they are obliged of necessity to 
 keep a keen eye to their own interest, and, having no inherent 
 force or strength, they are reduced to cunning ; their intercourse 
 with others becomes a matter of interest and calculation ; they 
 may, and many of them no doubt do, keep virtuous in the broad 
 sense of the term ; but, in their dealings with men, they use their 
 sex as a weapon ; they play with the passions of men to some 
 degree like courtesans ; they use the charms of their persons to 
 carry their purposes ; they may have no intention to realise illicit 
 hopes, but whilst a man is not quite hopeless, he will exert him- 
 self with a zeal, which, if he were quite sure nothing was intended, 
 would be circumscribed by a very wooden horizon. The soft plastic 
 virtues which are the charm of a woman, are all lost — and how can 
 it be otherwise ? Look what a professional career is. It is a life 
 that turns men into tigers — a state of war and fierce struggle ; a 
 man must be ready to tread down every obstacle, even if that 
 obstacle were his best friend ; he must know no friends, nothing 
 but patrons or rivals ; — every nerve strained to the full to work 
 his way forwards to fame and distinction, unless he have, along 
 with that, a fierce and fiery will, an indomitable perseverance, and 
 a stern energy that, as it were, makes him nerved with iron and 
 sinewed with brass, he will be trodden iinder foot ; — it is a state 
 of war without bloodshed ; and what ought women to have in 
 common with such a career as that ? They have not physical 
 strength for a hand to hand fight ; they are incapable of any 
 concentration of energy, or drudgery of hard work ; the best 
 results they produce are graceful failures ; their beauty lies in 
 falling short, rather than achieving. A woman's work cannot be 
 judged on the basis of its real merit, like that of men ; conse- 
 quently, it never is ; there is always a gallant fiction which guides 
 the judgment. All that a professional woman achieves, then, at 
 such a grievous cost of all that is charming in her nature, is only 
 to do what a man would have done much better. The intrinsic 
 value of a woman's work out of her own sphere is nothing, and 
 what are the qualities developed to make up for it ? She has got 
 to a knowledge of evil, for she has had to fight against it — to put 
 it aside (if indeed she have put it aside) ; the bloom and charm of 
 her innocence is gone ; she has gained a dogmatic, harsh, self- 
 sufficing vanity, which she calls principle ; she strides and stalks 
 through life, neither one thing nor another ; she has neither the 
 softness of a woman, nor the firm, well-proportioned principle of a 
 
THE HALF SISTERS. 165 
 
 man ; from licr contact with actual tilings, slie is slightly mascu- 
 line in her views, but the woman spoils their completeness ; she 
 cannot attain, at least she does not attain, to manly prudence and 
 grasp of intellect. She is a bat in the human species ; when she 
 loves, she loves like a man, and yet expects to be adored as a 
 woman — the good gods deliver ns from all such." 
 
 " And this," said Melton, sarcastically, when Conrad paused A 
 out of breath, \ ' is the inner side of the flattery with which youp 
 deify the successful artistes who minister to your pleasures ; this 
 is your secret opinion of the women, who, like so many roses, are 
 crushed and exhaled, to produce scarcely one drop of perfume ! It 
 is lucky none of them hear you, or we should have the rest of the 
 season turned into a desert. The nymphs of the ballet would be 
 strangling themselves in their garlands ; and as to her Majesty's 
 female servants, the singers and actresses, they would be throwing 
 up their engagements at a minute's warning, and Lord Byron's 
 f Curse of Darkness ' would fall on all pleasant things ! Try this 
 fresh claret, and tell me, in sober earnest, what women ought to 
 be, and to do, to meet your notions of female perfection. What is 
 the birthright of excellence they lose in making use of the talents 
 Providence may have given them ?" 
 
 1 ' The sort of woman I dream of for my wife, is, in all respects, 
 the reverse of Bianca," said Conrad, gravely. " A rational, 
 though inferior intelligence, to understand me and help me in my 
 pursuits ; clinging to me for help, looking to me for guidance ; a 
 gentle, graceful timidity keeping down all display of her talents, 
 a sense of propriety keeping her from all eccentric originality, 
 either of thought or deed, her purity and delicacy of mind keeping 
 her from all evil, rather as a matter of exquisite taste, than from any 
 idea of the coarse realities of things, right and wrong. She would 
 shrink from evil instinctively ; and it is your pleasure to keep her 
 fragile, graceful nature from being too rudely tried ; — you know 
 she has no strength, therefore you preserve her carefully from all 
 danger. There is something inexpressibly touching in a true 
 woman's helplessness, her graceful prejudices, and aversion to 
 everything that is too prononcee ; she is the softened reflex of her 
 husband's opinions — she does nothing too well. For the woman, 
 whom alone I could love, would he too delicate to desire to attract 
 admiration by her accomplishments ; she w r ould be religious, 
 because she could not help it, but she would be alike removed 
 from philosophic doubt or enthusiastic bigotry. A woman ought 
 to have too much taste to be either a sceptic or a saint. Quietly 
 at anchor by her own fireside, gentle, low-voiced, loving, con- 
 fiding — such is my ideal of a woman and a wife ; and certainly a 
 professional woman would not be likely to realise it." 
 
 " Bravo," cried Melton, " you paint well, upon my honour. I 
 must take a glass of wine to recover from such a vision of exquisite 
 helplessness. Your taste seems a mixture of Oriental notions 
 and European customs. I agree with you, however, that wise 
 
i 
 
 166 THE HALE SISTEES. 
 
 guidance is precisely the one thing needed by women, and 
 precisely the thing they seldomest obtain. Women fall very 
 unluckily into the world : they have all sorts of precious qualities 
 and capabilities lying within them, which they know not how to 
 use aright, and it is their misfortune that in dealing with them, 
 secondary motives are alone appealed to. Women are put under 
 plenty of conventional restraint, there is plenty of punishment in 
 store if they go astray, but no broad principle is ever given on 
 which they may take their stand; arbitrary enactments, no 
 matter how surrounded by a chevaux-de-frise of social excom- 
 munication, unless they recommend themselves to the heart and 
 conscience as in themselves right and true, will fall down like 
 houses of cards at the first breath of a strong temptation. Women 
 from their birth are kept from that knowledge which contact with 
 the actual things of life alone can give ; they are placed in a state 
 of pupilage ; and how, I ask you, do men fulfil the task they have 
 arrogated to themselves of laying down the law for women r All 
 women feel their weakness, and wise guidance and government is 
 what they all yearn after. I question whether a woman ever took 
 a lover without a hope to find in him the one who would guide her 
 and lead her into all that it was right and desirable she should 
 become- — the one being on whom she might implicitly rely. And 
 what is it that they find, with their incomplete maturity', their 
 undeveloped capabilities, their crude imaginings, vehement 
 feelings, and blind aspirations after something better and stronger 
 than themselves ? Poor broken, fluttering things that they are ! 
 with indications of whatever is pure, lovely, and of good report, 
 yet without the strength or knowledge to educe meaning and 
 order from all the precious things crushed together and fermenting 
 within them, they do need guidance — they call for it earnestly 
 and passionately, and what is the guidance they find ? — an appeal 
 to their sense of gracefulness ! — the standard of right and wrong 
 offered to them is the approbation of us men ; all their virtues 
 and qualities are degraded into charms ; no higher motive is ever 
 suggested to them than that of being agreeable to us ; they are to 
 be flavoured with virtues and tinctured with accomplishments, just 
 up to the point to meet the taste of the day, but never with the 
 intent to strengthen their own. hearts and souls. A woman is a 
 rational being, with reasonable soul and human flesh subsisting, 
 and yet she is never educated for her own sake, to enable her to 
 lead her own life better ; her qualities and talents are not 
 considered sacred personalities, but are modified, like the feet of 
 Chinese women, to meet an arbitrary taste. What is the most 
 stringent caution ever offered to young women to lead their life 
 by ? It is, l Do not do so and so, do not say so and so, before 
 men, they do not admire it.' When it was the question about 
 giving women education — ' Men do not like learning in women,' 
 was the grand argument used. Men are allowed to examine into 
 their religious opinions, to be philosophers, to be sceptics, to be no 
 
THE H1T/F SISTERS. 167 
 
 religion at all, if they please ; "but lias it not been said a million 
 times, 'No man would permit his ivife to he an infidel,' — not 
 because it is a bad thing for her, personally, but because ' religion 
 in a woman looks so lovely.' And yet a woman has a soul of her 
 own to be saved ; but she is never appealed to on that ground ; — 
 she is exhorted to be modest, i because modesty is her great 
 charm,' — and as to female virtue, that is legislated for on the 
 score of its social convenience ; and though there is no end to the 
 fine things that have been said in compliment to it, yet they all 
 resolve themselves into that. Then their gentleness and softness 
 are l so lovely,' and are preached up in all the books written with 
 the purport of teaching the women of England their duty — and 
 no other motive is ever given. It no doubt is highly desirable 
 that women should be all these things ; but what I complain of 
 is, the all-pervading sensualism which runs through the education 
 and legislation men have provided for women. If women were 
 machines, were in very deed our property, then, indeed, all this 
 might answer ; but they are not, and there is no possibility of 
 educating them up to the point of being conveniently fascinating, 
 and then stopping short ; — they have higher qualities existing in 
 them, and unless those qualities are appealed to, you cannot hold 
 them, or influence them ; they are living souls, and you cannot 
 dogmatise to a life, nor cut it out according to pattern. 
 
 " Well, but my dear fellow," interrupted Conrad, " the women 
 who follow their own devices, and insist on being strong-minded 
 women, are deucedly disagreeable ; and they always end by 
 making fools of themselves." 
 
 " Those women who have strong qualities, decided tastes, 
 aspirations after higher and better modes of life, possessing 
 genius, in short, have no vent for their energy ; the vitality that 
 is in them has no adequate mode of manifestation, unless they 
 have a definite profession. If they are in private life, all their 
 energy is flung back upon them ; it becomes overlaid with ennui, 
 and they sink into apparent indolence and quietness, but a dis- 
 eased action goes on within — they are restless, discontented, 
 having so much more energy than tney can employ ; greedy after 
 excitement, no matter of what kind, their talents and their life 
 are fretted away together. In private life, their soul's energy has 
 no outlet but love — love, or religion — and that never comes till 
 afterwards ; so they throw themselves headlong into a grande 
 passion, and go to the devil, if the devil stands in their way. It 
 is a fearful responsibility to have to deal with such women ; and 
 your rules of taste are hardly likely to prove rules of life to such 
 fiery natures, in such emergencies. They require a living 
 principle, by which they might guide themselves aright. For, 
 depend upon it, to such as these, it is a very small matter to be 
 judged by men's judgment. They have an instinct for right and 
 truth, and nothing but being taught and guided to perceive aright 
 that which * really is, 1 can control their passionate wayward 
 
168 THE HALF SISTERS. 
 
 nature. Rules and decorums, and the ' three thousand punctu- 
 alities,' fall from them like 'green withes.' A man is never 
 embarrassed by any qualities he may possess ; he has always a 
 legitimate channel for their employment." 
 
 " And so have women," cried Conrad; " there is always plenty 
 for them to do. Let them find out some man wiser and better than 
 themselves, and make themselves into a beautiful reflex of his 
 best qualities. It would be far better, and more becoming, in a 
 woman, to do this, than to set up, on her own basis, as a superior, 
 independent being. Let her be agreeable and good-tempered, and 
 make his life happier. "What can she desire better? It is no 
 good, my dear fellow, your going on in this way about the rights 
 of women ; in the long run, people always get as much as they 
 deserve ; and if women are so ill-treated, as you say they arc, it 
 is just because they do not induce anything better ; any way, 
 they were never intended to go blazing about with distracted 
 reputations, as authoresses, actresses, and what not. No good 
 ever came of it yet ; they are neither happier, nor more respected 
 for it. If they admire a higher order of character in men, I 
 suppose men would have to improve themselves to meet the 
 demand accordingly. So what is the good of talking, and 
 wanting to make women disagreeable ?" 
 
 "It puts me out of all patience," cried Melton, "to hear of 
 nothing but the 'becoming,' and the 'agreeable;' there are 
 qualities, even in women, of infinitely more importance. To be 
 ' agreeable,' is not before all things necessary, even in a woman : 
 they never were intended to lead a purely relative life; and, until 
 they cease to be educated with a sole view id what men admire, 
 they will never be any better than they are. We require virtue, 
 and strength, and truth, and reality, from women ; grace and 
 agreeableness are secondary qualities. I can tolerate a woman 
 with real genius and qualifications for it, following a profession, 
 because, to a degree, it gives her a personal and independent 
 existence. The objections you raise are accidental, not essential; 
 and I believe in the possibility of finding women who pursue art, 
 for the love of art, and not for the glorification of themselves. 
 What, however, can be worse than the present order of things ? 
 As things now stand, in what does the delectable state of 
 'refinement, helpless confiding delicacy' and all the trash in 
 which women are educated end f If a woman has not a family, 
 or a profession, to occupy her time, she either takes to drinking, 
 or intriguing, or to playing the deuce in some way, and all to 
 deaden and distract the ennui that eats into her vitality, — vitality 
 which she has never been taught, adequately, to employ ; and to 
 which, in the end, Acteon-like, she falls a prey. Your ideal of a 
 woman would not. stand the wear and tear of real life. Weak- 
 ness is not grace, for that requires well-controlled strength. 
 "Women have an inner life as real as that of man, as full of 
 struggles and griefs ; if they are to be kept from evil, they must 
 
THE HALF BISTERS. % 1G9 
 
 have as strong a law of right and wrong to control them ; they 
 must not have their moral sense palled and tampered with by 
 conserves of morality, or a gospel according to gracefulness; 
 there is only one law of what is really, right, for men or for 
 women, and no second motive, no sense of decorum, will stand 
 either man or woman in stead in the hour of trial. A sense of 
 propriety cannot swallow up temptation. I am not a stickler for 
 the 'rigiits of women,' if by those you mean becoming a soldier, 
 or u lawyer, or a member of Parliament. The rights they really 
 do want, though they cannot so well articulate them, is to have 
 a sense of right or wrong inculcated for its own sake, and not to 
 have the life choked out of them by having the decorums and 
 ' the becoming' eternally substituted for it — not to have their 
 lives and souls* frittered into a shape to meet the notion of a 
 1 truly feminine character,' but to be allowed to grow up freely, 
 and to have their natural characters developed as God made . 
 them. But come, let us go and refresh ourselves by seeing 
 Bianca. We shall be in time for the last two acts. She is a 
 noble creature, if ever there was one ! " 
 
 "With all my heart," said Conrad ; "only if you had intended 
 to go and see her, you might have followed the considerate 
 example of the old country parson, who shortened his sermon, 
 because, as he told his parishioners, there was to be a bull-bait in 
 the afternoon, and he thought they might like to go !" 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVI. 
 
 The next morning Lord Melton went to see Bianca. He found 
 her just returned from rehearsal, lying pale and exhausted on the 
 sofa. He was pained to the soul by the haggard, wretched 
 expression of her face. She looked older by several years than 
 the last time he saw her. She half rose as he approached, and 
 said, 
 
 " You are the only person I wanted to see. Sit down and talk 
 to me ; I am wretchedly tired ; indeed I am always weary now ; 
 but we have just had a three hours' rehearsal, so there is some 
 excuse this time. Were you in the theatre last night ? I did 
 not see you." 
 
 ' ' I went late ; Conrad was dining with me, and we got into 
 rather a warm discussion. The curtain was just up for the fourth 
 act when we arrived. In that last scene with your children you. 
 were very grand ; it was like being struck with lightning. I can 
 give you no idea of the sensation you produced on me — you 
 
170 THE HALE SISTEES. 
 
 touched a chord that had never been stirred within me before. 
 What a mother you would make !" 
 
 "All!" said Bianca, smiling, " depend upon it, a woman has 
 only half her soul developed until she is a mother. No matter 
 how clever or full of genius she may be, there are within her 
 depths of passionate tenderness, strength, and devotedness ; 
 instincts, wisdom, which can only be unsealed in her for her 
 children. I felt that, last night. I could only imagine what it 
 would be ; but I felt there was a secret I could not fathom — a 
 depth of holy mystery into which I could not descend. I have 
 had parts with scenes about children in them before, but I never 
 felt so passionately affected as I was last night." 
 
 "I could not look round," said Lord Melton, "but from the 
 dead silence, I should fancy all the house was as much affected 
 as I was myself. Do you like the play as a whole ? The papers 
 speak well of it." 
 
 " My own part in it is very strong, and the situations are very 
 effective, but the dialogue is not equal to it ; and besides, it was 
 written expressly for me, and that is reversing the order of things. 
 The actor should be made for the play, not the play for the actor, 
 for it then always has more or less the air of being made to a 
 pattern ; and when the author has his eye always on the peculiar 
 capabilities of the actor for whom it is designed, he does not and 
 cannot go freely and fearlessly abroad into the wide region of 
 human nature — he never gets off the stage. His work has always 
 an air of the special and temporary, not of the broad, eternal, 
 though ever-moving, depths of humanity ; the emotions and 
 passions are all more or less stage properties, as much as the 
 dresses * and decorations ; and therefore I prefer plays which 
 have been written without any special reference to my capa- 
 bilities." 
 
 " What is the sort of character you lij^e acting the best ?" 
 
 " I never played Queen Katharine in ' Henry the Eighth,' and 
 I have a fancy I could do it well ; and if I were a man, I should 
 enjoy playing ' Hamlet.' Oh, you do not know, you cannot 
 imagine, the bitterness of heart, the intense envy I have felt in 
 former years, when a grand play has been put on, and I have felt 
 no hope, no prospect, of getting beyond my own little part of two 
 dozen lines! Oh, the maddening mortifications I have had to 
 devour ! I used to beg to have some of the copying of the theatre, 
 it eked out my salary ; and you may fancy what it was to have 
 to write out words that burned my heart, and feel all I had it in 
 me to do with them if they had been cast for me. I used to 
 think I should be at the summit of my desires if I might attain 
 the privilege of choosing my own characters. Alas, and alas ! " 
 
 "Well," said Lord Melton, " there is no doubt that it is a 
 privilege, and one that you must rejoice in having gained ; power 
 and position are valuable to those who can use them, but they 
 are means not ends ; and you are worthy to possess them, for you 
 
THE HALF SISTE11S. 171 
 
 use tliem to noble aims and not to your own aggrandisement and 
 glorification." 
 
 " All," replied Bianca, bitterly, u power is not what a woman 
 asks — it does not lessen her sufferings, or make her happier." 
 
 " Would you desire to be without sorrow or sufferings?" said 
 Lord Melton, gently; " and is making yourself happy precisely 
 the highest thing to be aimed at? S Happiness' as 'our being's 
 end and aim,' has always seemed to me a most * lame and 
 impotent conclusion ' for such a noble and mysterious drama as 
 the life of even the most insignificant of God's creatures. As 
 much of it as falls out for us incidentally, we are of course glad 
 to possess ; but to make it a distinct and recognised aim, to 
 convert our life's pilgrimage into ' a search after happiness,' seems 
 to me drivelling — to the last point of paralytic imbecility. What 
 is life in its very essence but the power to struggle ? All the 
 happiness I can conceive a noble rational creature aspiring after, 
 is the privilege of not being taken at a disadvantage ; of having 
 the free use of all his faculties : not to be confined or cramped in 
 his efforts, not be weltering and struggling like a strong swimmer 
 in an eddying current, nor embarrassed by being divided against 
 himself, but free to wrestle erect and manful against all the 
 difficulties that beset him. I do not, my dear friend, believe in 
 any state of happiness in which we may sit down quiescent, till 
 we go off into a state of coma ; that would be a life-in-death, 
 thickening our souls and stupifying our hearts, till there would 
 remain hardly a step between us and death, as far as any spiritual 
 manifestation went. No, no: believe me, that to possess our 
 souls entire, not to get them warped or crippled by any dispen- 
 sation that befals ; to be able to solve the problem of whatever 
 pain or sorrow we may be called on to endure, and so bring light 
 out of darkness, strength out of weakness ; is all that a noble or 
 heroic soul would feel disposed to pray for. To be able to take 
 patiently not only the external accidents and casualties of life, 
 but even the still harder-to-be-endured consequences of our own 
 actions, brings far more real comfort, more tranquillity of soul, 
 than all the panting aspirations after some undefined conjunction 
 of things under which we expect to live in perfect felicity to the 
 ' end of a long life,' as nursery fairy tales say." 
 
 "Ay, ay," replied Bianca, mournfully, " what you say is 
 heroic and manly, and capable of strengthening the soul of those 
 .already at ease : but when we are suffering, when more seems 
 laid upon us than we are able to bear, when our very lips are 
 white with the agony within us, — at such a time, we can only 
 feel the quivering of our nature, we can only hear the groans that 
 articulate it. However, we need not endure for ever, that is one 
 comfort." 
 
 " My dear, dear friend," replied Melton, "I must not have 
 you weak. You must not be faithless to yourself; you are too 
 richly freighted with precious gifts, recklessly to make shipwreck. 
 
172 THE HALF SISTERS. 
 
 You are not your own ; you have a task to do in this world, and 
 if you neglect it, you will not be guiltless. I am not ignorant 
 of the heavy blow that has fallen on you ; but a merely personal 
 grief is no excuse for your abandoning the post in which you are 
 placed, — for neglecting the work to which you are sent." 
 
 " You speak to me, as if I were a man" said Bianca, bitterly : 
 " what use has a woman for all her gifts, what object has she in 
 all her work, but to centre them in some strong ancl loving heart ; 
 and if she find not that, she has neither gifts nor wisdom. If my 
 ( gifts,' as you call them, do not seem precious in the sight of him 
 for whose sake I have toiled and aspired, — and in some degree 
 achieved, — of what further use are they to me f They have 
 failed me in my need, and are worthless. They have not only 
 failed to win me the love of the only human being from whom I 
 I ever cared to win it, but they have actually hindered me, have 
 been the real obstacles which have turned him away from me ; and 
 now I hate them, I despise them, — and, like faithless servants, 
 cast them behind me. Do not speak to me of them, — what have 
 they brought but wretchedness and humiliation, masked in 
 success and adulation ! You see me here before you, a scorned 
 and rejected woman, knowing myself to be so. I heard from his 
 own lips that he despises me, for the very faculties which have 
 been consecrated to him in my inmost soul ; and do you think 
 that, after such a revelation, all the shoutings, and applaudings, 
 and bouquets, which greet me nightly, will not sound in my ears 
 like the acclamations of a mob at the sight of a man in the 
 pillory, — or the execution of a felon, if you will. No doubt 
 we are all equally considered by them — a spectacle, and nothing 
 more ?" 
 
 " You are speaking bitterly, Bianca; and what is more, you 
 do not in your heart believe what you are saying. As an 
 utterance of pain and impatience, it may pass, but it must not be 
 recorded as the deliberate expression of your belief. The opinion 
 of a hundred Conrads, the selfish sensualism which would degrade 
 the race of women down to a mere standard of taste, — considering 
 them, and their gifts- and virtues, of value only in so far as they 
 are pleasant and graceful in his eyes, and the eyes of men 
 generally, — cannot make that true which is essentially false. 
 Gifts like yours were bestowed for something better than to make 
 the possessor desirable in the eyes of any individual, no matter 
 how exalted, or fascinating, or excellent he may be. Conrad 
 does not happen to admire women of a marked character, or of 
 distinguished , talent ; but that does not make them worthless, 
 nor does it alter the fact that you are a woman of genius, of 
 strong energetic character, devoted to an art which has never yet 
 been developed in its highest and noblest capabilities, but has 
 always had the misfortune to be looked upon rather as a vehicle 
 for the manifestation of personal capabilities, and for the acquire 
 ment of personal credit, than pursued as Aet, containing an Idea 
 
THE HALF SISTERS. 173 
 
 and significance far beyond the casual success or talent of its 
 votaries, which are very secondary. That they devote themselves 
 honestly, and with a single-minded purpose, to make manifest, 
 as far as in them lies, the soul, the Idea that lies hidden in their 
 art, — to he articulated in the laws and forms of their profession, — ■ 
 and, making it visible to the eyes of men, make it also honour- 
 able ; — this I conceive to be the true end for which men are 
 endowed. I conceive further, that every man who has received 
 a special power to work in any mode of art (no matter what), has 
 a responsibility not to be evaded, — and. he is bound to persevere 
 and work on, through good success and bad success, through evil 
 report and good report, and can be released by nothing but death. 
 If he be a true artist, one whose soul is really filled with living 
 fire from the altar of the Eternal, — if he be a true spirit, and not 
 an earth- vapour, — he will go on, will endure to the end ; and no 
 matter how faint and weary he may feel, ready even to lie down 
 and die by the way, — still he will not desist, he will not lose his 
 faith : he will find strength at his utmost need, and he will go 
 on, struggling to give form and utterance to the Divine idea 
 that lies in the Art of which he is the priest, grappling with the 
 undefined and mysterious, yet all-pervading, spirit, and com- 
 pelling it to make itself visible to those who have no skill to 
 seize on it for .themselves. But this can only be achieved by 
 those who are pure in heart, — free from double motives or selfish 
 desires for their own credit, and with whom it is the Work that 
 is ever present, and not the Reward. They who have this high 
 calling dare not stay their hand on account of any insult to 
 themselves : they are marked for a higher service, and to them it 
 is a small matter to be judged of men's judgment, — they are 
 bound to magnify their Work, and make it honourable. The 
 motive that has been influencing you, dear friend, although 
 beautiful and devoted in its aspect, has still been all too low, too 
 entirely personal to be worthy of you. It is now taken away 
 from you ; it may be that this is to teach you to go on in a higher 
 and nobler spirit — to endure, as seeing that which is invisible. 
 It has been necessary that you should suffer this also, and I feel 
 convinced that you will not fail." 
 
 Bianca had buried her face in the sofa pillow during this 
 speech, and did not immediately reply. At length she said in a 
 broken voice, 
 
 " One's own misery sticks so close to one, it is all within ; ' 
 whilst what you say, though strong and true, seems to lie abroad 
 on the outside. Your words ought to give me strength, but they 
 do not touch me ; I feel so weak and wretched, that I can believe 
 in nothing else. No, no, you must give me time — it is from time 
 alone, and not from any efforts of my own, that I hope to live down 
 this sorrow. The strong hours will conquer it." • 
 
 "lam content to have you say this," replied Lord Melton. 
 " I hope all things for you. Do you think that I am on a bed of 
 
174 THE HALF SISTERS. 
 
 roses all this time ? Oh, Bianca ! would that I might bear your 
 sorrow for you. It is horrible for me to see you suffer thus ! " 
 
 " You must forgive me that too," said Bianca, smiling sadly, 
 and passing her hand down his face. " Misery makes us press 
 very heavily on those who approach us to support our fainting 
 steps. I do not deserve your friendship, but you do me good. 
 What should I be at this instant without you ? But now you 
 must go away, for I 'dare not talk any more. Shall you look 
 in at the theatre to-night ? " 
 
 "I will try to do so, if only for half an hour ; but I am not sure 
 that I can." 
 
 " Remember," said she, holding his hancty "that I shall be 
 acting for you. You must not quarrel with me for any motive 
 that will carry me through, and I would do much for the sake of 
 pleasing you. Now, farewell." 
 
 CHAPTEK XXXVII. 
 
 Bianca was not long in deciding on the line of conduct she 
 should adopt towards Conrad, nor in following it out when she 
 had once made up her mind. After Lord Melton had quitted 
 the room, she lay still for a few minutes, and then, with a com- 
 posure that surprised herself, she went to her writing-table which 
 stood in the window, wrote a rapid note, directed, sealed it, and 
 despatched it to the post with a sort of cheerful alacrity ; and 
 when it was gone, felt really pleased, at least that she stood no 
 longer in a false position. She went to the theatre at night in 
 a feverish excitement of spirits, which she fancied a resolute 
 composure ; acted extremely well, and thought she had risen 
 superior to her weakness ; but when called before the curtain, 
 she recognised Conrad in the stage-box, and all her equanimity 
 was gone. Indignation, bitter scorn of herself, helpless, passionate 
 love, swept like a tempest through her soul, leaving her a 
 struggling wreck. She went home almost mad ; but with a wild 
 hope lurking in her heart, that Conrad, touched by her note, had 
 been unable to break with her, and had come there to let her under- 
 stand that he would not forego his claim, nor accept his freedom. 
 She imagined she would find him waiting for her at home, to tell 
 her how she had misjudged him, and how little he desired to be set 
 free. " Any one here ? " she inquired, hurriedly, as she sprang 
 from the carriage. 
 
 "No, madam," was the reply. 
 
 " Any letter come ? " 
 
 "Nothing at all, madam, since you went out — except Lord 
 
THE HALF SISTEES. 175 
 
 Melton's man with some grapes and flowers; Imt no letter or note 
 of any sort." 
 
 Bianca's heart sank dead within her, and she flung- herself on 
 the sofa in a fit of passionate weeping. Then she began to hope 
 for the morrow. Conrad had not been home — had not received 
 her note — she should hear from him on the morrow. The certainty 
 that some explanation, some words of frankness and affection, 
 must be wrung from him by what she had written, almost com- 
 forted her, and prevented her feeling the desolate hopelessness of 
 her position. 
 
 On Conrad's return home from two balls and a soiree, at which 
 he made his appearance after the theatre, he perceived Bianca's 
 note on the table amongst a heap of other letters. He opened it 
 the last, with a feeling of annoyance and dread ; he expected a 
 reproach for his absence and neglect. He found the following 
 words : — • 
 
 "Dear Coke ad, 
 
 "I overheard a conversation not intended for me on Thursday 
 evening, in the tent-room at Mrs. Bingham's party. Why have 
 you not been more frank with me ? Why leave me to ascertain 
 your feelings by a mere accident ? It was not well of you to 
 clo so, and I deserved better at your hands. You have suffered 
 much needless annoyance ; had I known that you felt me an 
 entanglement disavowed by your feelings, and disowned by your 
 judgment, you might have been free long since. However, it 
 remains for me to set you at liberty now from any claim I may 
 have upon you on the* score of our engagement, and you are 
 honourably free henceforth. But the generosity and kindness 
 with which you have befriended me can never be effaced, — they 
 lie in the safe keeping of the past, and can suffer no change. 
 If I have wearied you with my affection, forgive me ; it was 
 all the return I could make. God forbid I should be a clog or a 
 weariness to you. 
 
 " In conclusion, I have one favour to beg at your hands. As I 
 am obliged to continue on the - spot till the termination of my 
 engagement, will you refrain from attempting to see me, or from 
 throwing yourself in my way. Believe me, it is from no anger 
 or resentment that I ask this, but that I may be able to keep the 
 composure necessary to my work. No bitterness or unkindness 
 lurks in this request. God bless you, Conrad, for ever and ever. 
 
 "Bianca." 
 
 Conrad was not nearly so delighted as might have , been 
 expected, at reading this note. He had been taken at his word 
 unawares, and we hardly any of us recognise our wishes when we 
 see them suddenly realised. However, he was a man of the 
 world, and knew that his present fit of relenting would pass away, 
 and that the release offered to him must be accepted now, or 
 
176 THE HALE SISTERS. 
 
 never, as there would be no getting out of a renewal. The next 
 morning, as Bianca was at breakfast, she received a note, the 
 handwriting of which made her heart stand still. 
 
 " Any one waiting ? " she inquired. 
 
 " ~No, ma'am ; Mr. Conrad Percy's servant brought it, and said 
 there was no answer." 
 
 She allowed the note to lie several minutes before she had 
 courage to open it. When she did so, the whole pa,per swam 
 before her eyes, and it was some time before she could decipher a 
 word ; at length she read as follows : — ■ 
 
 " Bianca! you desire me not to seek you, and, therefore, I do 
 violence to the impulse which prompts me to come to you. God 
 knows the pang your note has given me. You are dearer to 
 me than you believe, than I believed myself. With, my whole 
 soul I respect and admire you ; and even those casual words 
 you overheard must have told you the consideration in which 
 I held you personally, the bitterness of them was for your pro- 
 fession. But whenever or wherever you might have heard me 
 speak of you — the high respect and regard in which I have always 
 held you, would have been always marked — do me that justice at 
 least. 
 
 " I have shrunk from an explanation with you in a way that 
 was cowardly, and that I do not justify; but pardon me if I say 
 that it was the ungoverned passionateness of your nature which 
 made me shrink from a scene likely to prove equally painful to 
 you and to myself . If you are suffering at this moment, believe 
 me, Bianca, you are not suffering alone ; my very soul is torn by 
 the severance of the ties that have bound us, but I believe it is 
 wiser to accept a present suffering than to entail a future and 
 more lasting one upon ourselves. We are not suited for each 
 other. I look to the end ; and this alone enables me to resist 
 coming to throw myself at your feet, and entreating you to forget 
 all that has disturbed us. You are quite right, and show your 
 usual firmness in desiring that for the present wc should not 
 meet, and therefore I feel that I am fulfilling your wishes when 
 I depart for Paris to-night ; afterwards, I shall perhaps proceed 
 to the south of France and Spain, and at all events shall not 
 return to England for some months. Now, Bianca, farewell. 
 Dear — very dear — will you and your welfare ever be to me. Do 
 not fancy this letter harsh or unfeeling ; my tears drop on the 
 paper while I sign this — Coxbad." 
 
 Whilst reading the letter, Bianca was at times in doubt whether 
 Conrad really intended to give her up after all, but the conclusion 
 banished all hope, and she sat like one turned to stone ; not think- 
 ing, not feeling, but utterly stupified. After awhile, she became 
 conscious of a sense of freedom and certainty, an absence of the 
 gnawing restlessness — the weary alternations of hope and despair, 
 
THE HALF SISTERS. 177 
 
 which had so long harassed her; and for a few hours she felt 
 better and more at ease. But when our grief is one that sinks 
 deep into our souls, although we feel it at first comparatively 
 little, "bear it wonderfully well " as nurses say, yet the pain that 
 has first stunned us, at last awakens us, and never sleeps more. 
 The whole of that day passed over pretty well ; Bianca employed 
 herself resolutely, and called up a sort of scornful indignation to 
 her support. A truly great soul never feels so surely convinced 
 of its own worth, as at the moment of undeserved humiliation ; 
 Bianca felt that she had deserved better at the hands of Conrad. 
 But she still loved him with the whole force of her nature, and 
 the need of forgiving him lay in her soul. A truly loving heart 
 can find no solace in anger. The dreary weariness of a love with- 
 out hope began to press heavily upon her ; there remained nothing 
 more for her to do, nothing but to sit down to endure. She heard 
 accidentally of Conrad's departure, and that only seemed to add 
 another leaden weight to her heavy life. She struggled courage- 
 ously to keep up to her work, and she did it. None who saw her 
 acting night after night with so much tenderness and passion, 
 could guess the frightful collapse that ensued. The condition in 
 which she spent the intermediate time was horrible. The agony 
 of her soul produced spasms of real bodily pain. She was 
 astonished at the misery which had befallen her ; it seemed too 
 great for any one to endure it and live. There is suffering so 
 vivid, so infinite in its aspect, that the sufferer cannot believe that 
 it is in very deed laid upon him to endure it. He looks upon it as 
 some terrific jest of fate, not intended to be carried out; — and 
 when it Hashes upon him that there is this affliction really existing 
 in all its tragic, stern, roek-like reality, filling with its hard dark 
 
 Eresence the whole length and breadth of his horizon, crushing 
 im down so that he can feel nothing else, can discern nothing- 
 else before, behind, or on all sides of him — he believes it can 
 never pass away, but will always continue then as now : for the 
 torture of the present is too intense to leave strength for hope, — 
 for anything but the wearv wondering how nature can endure so 
 much and not loose her hold on life. At times Bianca rallied, and 
 the paroxysms of intense anguish faded into a stupified calm, to 
 rouse her again to suffer with renewed intensity, till she could 
 realise the awful description of wretches in everlasting torment, 
 "they gnawed their tongues for anguish." Then with all this 
 there was the damning self- contempt, the consciousness of the 
 unavailing helplessness of her misery, — of a stern originality to 
 her alone, — to the rest of the world a common tale of no meaning. 
 She struggled on, however, during the month that remained of 
 her engagement; at the end of that time she was in such a 
 deplorable state of weakness and prostration, that her servant 
 called in a medical man. Lord Melton, who had been out of 
 town on business, was terrified on his return to see the ravages 
 four weeks had made in Bianca. She had fallen into a torpid 
 
 N 
 
178 THE HALF SISTEES. 
 
 melancholy, and now that the necessity of rousing herself to 
 appear at the theatre was over, she seemed like a curious piece 
 of mechanism, which has run itself down and stopped. She had 
 become utterly indifferent to all that passed around her, and 
 could be roused by nothing ; she scarcely noticed Lord Melton on 
 his return. 
 
 "I do not disguise from you, my lord," said the physician, 
 "that although there is no organic disease, there is such an 
 alarming debility and general prostration that the worst results 
 may follow. Medicine can do little for her ; there ought to be a 
 complete change of scene. If she has any friends they should be 
 sent for ; the sight of them might act upon her beneficially. It is 
 a moral influence alone that can be of any benefit ; medicine can 
 do nothing, for there is no specific disease to act upon." 
 
 u Then you recommend change of air ?" said Lord Melton. 
 
 M Most assuredly," was the reply ; " she should be taken to the 
 sea-side ; but anywhere would do, provided the change be com- 
 plete. She must be removed immediately, or I will not answer 
 for the consequences." 
 
 " How long has she been in this dangerous state ? " asked Lord 
 Melton. " She was not so when I left town a fortnight ago." 
 
 " She has broken down all at once," said the physician. "I 
 saw her the last night she played, and I never witnessed a more 
 admirable performance." 
 
 Bianca had no friends, no relatives in the world. Admired, 
 flattered, successful as she had been, she had yet no hold on 
 society, no home ; she was alone, but for her confidential servant, 
 in her deepest need ; she belonged to nobody ; the reed to which 
 she had clung had broken in her grasp and drifted away, 
 leaving her to sink in the deep waters that were overwhelming 
 her soul. 
 
 Lord Melton was inexpressibly touched by the loneliness and 
 abandonment in which he saw her. The passionateness of a 
 lover seemed to merge itself in the thoughtful tenderness of a 
 brother. 
 
 After considering awhile he wrote to his only sister, who lived 
 in Devonshire, telling her all the facts of the case so far as he 
 could without compromising Bianca's secret, and begging her 
 to come and fetch her to stay with her for a little at "Willersdale 
 Park. 
 
THE HALF SISTERS. 179 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVIIL 
 
 Lady Vernon (Lord Melton's sister) was a widow, and many 
 years older than himself. Left with a handsome jointure, and 
 possessing an estate in her own right, she had, besides, as much 
 to occupy her time and thoughts as any woman need desire. 
 She was a large, tall, majestic-looking woman, with the remains 
 of great personal beauty. She was rather peremptory and decided 
 in her manners, but kind, conscientious, and enlightened in her 
 ideas. She had lost all her children in their childhood, which 
 gave a touch of sadness to her character, and softened what would 
 * have been otherwise too firm and unbending. Neither men nor " 
 women are good for anything who have not been well broken up 
 by suffering. She was intensely proud, and a great stickler for 
 family honours and genealogies ; was learned in the heraldic 
 natural history of all the species of lions, bears, griffins, stags, 
 talbots, wiverns, and every kind of bird, beast, or impossibility 
 which figures on the " coat armours," as Sir Symond d'Ewes calls 
 them, of all the nobility and more important gentry in England. 
 She had the greatest possible respect for ancient descent. She 
 lived in a dignified retirement at her seat of Willersdale Park, 
 seldom coming up to town, but giving her whole attention to the 
 management of her tenantry. 
 
 The house was an extremely ill-favoured red-brick building, in 
 the Dutch style, of the time of William and Mary, but it had a 
 sober substantial look withal; her equipage and establishment 
 were in keeping with it. 
 
 She had no taste for actresses ; they were entirely out of her 
 line. Certainly there were instances of some of them marrying 
 amongst the nobility, but it was not a precedent she at all 
 admired, and she was much afraid lest her brother should be 
 induced to follow it. 
 
 When she received her brother's letter, she was at first much 
 put out of the way, but his reliance on the innate goodness of her 
 character was not disappointed. She did not feel at all tempted 
 to receive an actress as an inmate of her staid respectable abode ; 
 but on the other hand, she was touched at the picture of Bianca's 
 lonely anoT mournful position. She quickly made up her mind, 
 and actually arrived in London before her brother had begun to 
 calculate on an answer to his letter. * 
 
 u My dearest Margaret," cried he, "this is kind and good and 
 worthy of you ; it is all I could have desired. If you only knew 
 how much I love you for it ! " 
 
 " Well, well," said his sister, " I am an old woman, and I did 
 not know what scandalous stories might be set going about the 
 poor young thing, if you were the only person seen much about her, 
 
 n 2 
 
180 THE HALE SISTEES. 
 
 so I thought I had better come myself and give my personal sanc- 
 tion to her." 
 
 " Poor girl, she is too ill to be sensible of it," said Lord Melton, 
 hardly able to repress a smile at his sister's idea of sanctioning an 
 illness ; "but you are good and considerate all the same." 
 
 ' ' The character of a young woman in her position is so soon 
 whispered away, and nobody believes in brotherly love in these 
 days," said Lady Yernon. "lam not going to take you back 
 with me," continued she, " I dare say you would like to go well 
 enough ; but I shall not have you ; if you are very good, I may 
 perhaps invite you down on a visit while she stays ; but I am not 
 too sure that I shall." 
 
 It had never struck Lord Melton that he was not to accompany 
 Bianca : he had quite settled in his own mind how delightlul it 
 would be to continue near her, to watch over her, and he felt 
 terribly disappointed ; however, it would" not do to contradict his 
 sister, so he submitted, though not with the best grace. 
 
 " When do you think she will be ready to travel ? " asked Lady 
 Yernon, again. 
 
 " The sooner the better, the physician said." 
 
 " Well then, the day after to-morrow, let it be ; I want to get 
 home again ; the noise of these streets does not suit me at all. 
 And now, if you are ready, we will go and see the poor thing." 
 
 On the day named, Bianca was removed in Lady Yernon' s 
 carriage, by easy journeys, towards Willersdale Park; and 
 Lord Melton undertook to arrange the business affairs, which 
 her sudden illness had rendered her unable herself to see to. 
 
 On arriving, Bianca was installed by Lady Yernon in two 
 pleasant rooms, opening out of each other, looking on the garden, 
 and commanding a pleasant view of the country beyond. In less 
 than a week, the total change of scene, the pure air, and perfect 
 quiet, had wrought such a change for the better, that she was 
 able to walk in the garden, and to be taking long drives every 
 day. She was still very silent, but the deep gloom that had 
 hung over her seemed lessened. She was able occasionally to 
 rouse herself to reply to Lady Yernon, and to notice what was 
 . passing around. At the end of a month she was like one 
 recovering from a deep stupor, and coming back gradually to the 
 use of her faculties. She did not again relapse into her former 
 black melancholy ; but continued steadily to regain strength and 
 cheerfulness — at least outwardly. She was not yet up to any sort 
 of occupation ; and Lady Yernon wisely and kindly left it to time, 
 to perfect her recovery. 
 
 One day, rather earlier than usual, when Bianca descended to 
 the library, which was Lady Yernon's usual sitting-room, she 
 found her sitting before a table covered with work-boxes, prettily 
 bound books, pictures, and trinkets of various kinds. 
 
 "Are you about to open a bazaar?" asked Bianca, in some 
 surprise. 
 
THE HA.LP SISTEBS. 181 
 
 " Oh no, my dear, these are the prizes for my school ; the girls 
 go home to-morrow, and we are to have a grand examination this 
 afternoon hefore the prizes are distributed; do you feel at all 
 inclined to assist at it ? "We shall have a sort of feast afterwards ; 
 do you think you are strong enough ? " 
 
 "I feel as if I should like to go very much," said Bianca; 
 ' ' but what school is it ? — they cannot be poor children for whom 
 such beautiful prizes are intended." 
 
 "]Sb," said Lady Vernon, "they belong to a class which, to 
 my thinking, needs thoroughly educating a great deal more than 
 the children of the actual poor. They are girls born in a more 
 pretentious sphere of life, in the odour of gentility, but without 
 sufficient means to get a thorough education, or to be perfectly 
 comfortable in their attempts to keep up what they fancy to be 
 the proper appearances of the condition in life to which they are 
 pleased to consider themselves as belonging. Half-educated, full 
 of vain notions, and leading a life of painful effort and pretence 
 to appear richer and genteeler than is, to say the least, spontaneous 
 to their position, these girls are vain, useless, trifling, and what 
 to my mind is worse than all the rest, irredeemably vulgar ; for 
 ingrained vulgarity cannot exist without being symptomatic of 
 many graver faults of character. I am not speaking of any 
 conventionalisms of etiquette and external manner ; what I mean, 
 is a deep-seated pretentiousness to a better appearance in every 
 way than they have any intention or power to realise, but one 
 still striven after, for the sole purpose of making other people 
 think this, that, or the other — which is not a fact, but only meant 
 to be thought one. The poor things have^nothing to go upon, no 
 reality of any sort about them, except their vanity ; and where 
 any reverse happens by the death of their parents, misfortunes in 
 business, or what not, such as deprives them of their means of 
 living, shoals of these young women are thrown on the world 
 utterly incapable of work, and, whether they are i ashamed J or 
 not, 'to beg' is very unprofitable! No habits of discipline or 
 self-denial have been given to them, and what are they to do ? * 
 They have not the virtue to hang themselves out of the road, 
 but go, — hundreds of them, — to a far worse destruction both of 
 body and soul." 
 
 " "Well, and your school," said Bianca, seeing that the good 
 lady had talked herself out of breath. 
 
 "lam coming to that," said Lady Vernon ; " I like to begin at 
 the beginning. On one side of the park there was a spacious 
 house and large garden, which happening to be vacant, I fitted up 
 for a school about ten years ago, and put at the head of it a 
 woman for whom I have a thorough respect, and who had been 
 regularly educated to the business of tuition, and had not taken v 
 it up as an amateur means of getting a living. The parents of 
 the girls pay fifteen pounds a-year, for I don't want it to be a 
 charity school, and they also supply them with clothes. For this 
 
182 THE HALF SISTSES. 
 
 sum the girls are boarded and thoroughly educated. First, we 
 begin with all useful things, such as writing, arithmetic, grammar, 
 and so forth ; they are then initiated in all the ntysteries of ' plain 
 work,' as it is called, and are taught to make their own dresses : 
 for it is perfectly dreadful the sums that young women spend at 
 their mantua-maker's. When they are tolerably skilful in prac- 
 tical matters, then those who have any taste for accomplishments 
 may learn them ; but if they take them up, they are to learn 
 thoroughly r , and not a mere smattering. They are taught pro- 
 fessionally, $o that if needs be, they may either teach again or 
 employ them as a means of earning a livelihood. Those who 
 show any taste, are instructed in the art of wood-engraving, 
 etching, designing patterns for embroiderers; there is another 
 branch I have lately thought of, that of designing for calico 
 printers; it has not come to much yet, but it is quite feasible, 
 and all of them may be followed by young women in their own 
 houses, — a great advantage. If any wish to learn music or 
 singing, they are taught, but it is on the condition that they are 
 to learn thoroughly and severely ; so that, if they are cast on 
 their own resources, there is something for them to fall back upon. 
 The masters I select and pay myself, and I know them all to be 
 competent and conscientious. Some of the departments are filled 
 by girls who were formerly pupils in the establishment. It is not 
 so much what they learn, after all, that is the most valuable — it is 
 the habit which is burnt into them of being in earnest, of doing 
 thoroughly all they profess to do ; that is a principle which will 
 enable them to go through life, and is the beginning, middle, and 
 end of wisdom. With young girls, of course, a good deal goes by 
 fashion ; that I cannot help ; but at least the prevailing notion in 
 the school is, that it is disgraceful to put ivords for things. 
 They dress all alike, and wear white in summer and black in 
 winter ; for I wish them to get modest and becoming notions of 
 dress, and they cannot go very far wrong so long as they keep to 
 those two colours. Of course I have entirely my own way with 
 the girls, I make that a stipulation, so I have no sort of plague 
 with the parents. Well, my dear, it is only a mite, to be sure, 
 but I have the comfort of knowing that a few, at least, of the 
 rising generation, are turned out thoroughly taught and with 
 good notions of industry ; and my hope is, that they will prove 
 a little leaven leavening a great mass of idleness, folly, and 
 frivolity, with sentiments befitting responsible and rational 
 creatures. Girls, in general, get a smattering of all sorts of know- 
 ledge, but they are not taught that these lessons mean something, 
 — thev are not impressed with the imperative necessity of having 
 their life guided by strong principle ; they subside into nelplessness 
 and idleness: harmless they may be, so long as no evil presents itself, 
 but they are at the mercy of the first strong temptation that offers. " 
 
 " Do you make them go to church ? " asked Bianca. 
 
 *» Yes," said Lady Vernon, " I let them go regularly enough ; 
 

 THE HALF SISTERS. 183 
 
 but it is not the vague instruction they hear there that will do 
 them good or harm. I am an old-fashioned church-woman my- 
 self, but people must get the principles they can lead their lives 
 by elsewhere than from the pulpit in these days ; nobody can 
 make much of the sermons preached there.' , 
 
 "I should like to go with you very much," said Bianca, "if 
 you will take me. When do you start ? " 
 
 " After luncheon — and here it comes! — but, my dear, I don't 
 want to trepan you ; and so I give you fair warning it will be a 
 long affair. " 
 
 " Oh, I feel quite up to it," said Bianca. 
 
 As soon as luncheon was dispatched, the carriage came round, 
 and they speedily arrived at a pleasant, old-fashioned family 
 house, with a large walled garden at the back, and in the front a 
 lawn, sheltered from the road by several fine old trees. The 
 number of girls was about five-and-twenty, of different ages. 
 They were remarkable only for an extreme composure of manner, 
 and a quiet, earnest look, which pleased Bianca much. 
 
 "They are very lady-like in their appearance," whispered 
 she. 
 
 " I don't think they consider much about how they look," said 
 Lady Vernon, " and that may be the reason ! " 
 
 Their proficiency was examined into by Lady Vernon, who 
 also inspected the work they had done during the half year, and 
 the prizes'were distributed, though all received something in the 
 shape of a reward. Afterwards, Bianca was introduced to the 
 mistress — a lady about forty years of age — not at all clever- 
 looking, but with a firm, decided, and yet benevolent expression 
 of face, that looked as if she were quite competent to keep all who 
 were under her control up to the mark. 
 
 Then followed the " feast," which Lady Vernon had provided, 
 and a pleasant chattering evening ensued. There was a good deal 
 of music ; — one of the girls, a dark-eyed, passionate-looking girl 
 of about sixteen, attracted Bianca' s notice. She was the principal 
 musician of the school. 
 
 " You care a great deal for music ? " said she to her. 
 
 " Yes," replied the girl ; " I should like to go to Italy and learn 
 to sing. I care for music more than anything else in the world, 
 and I never heard anything to satisfy me, except once in a 
 dream." 
 
 " And what do you want to do with your music, when you 
 have learned?" 
 
 "I do not know ; I have only thought yet that I desire 
 to go to Italy, and to hear as much music as ever I can. Do 
 you sing ? " asked she. " I wish you would let me hear you." 
 
 "Well," said Bianca, good-naturedly, " what must I sing? 
 I am very fond of this ' Mass' of Haydn's ; I will see if I can 
 find something from it." 
 
 Bianca had very little voice, but she had all an Italian's 
 
184* THE II ALP SISTEKS. 
 
 feeling for music, and had, besides, been obliged to study it 
 in some degree. She threw into it the same intellect and 
 passionate earnestness that marked her acting, so that they 
 who once heard her, rarely forgot her. She felt quite pleased 
 to be able to give the girl pleasure, and sat down and sang 
 everything she could recollect, for more than an hour. 
 
 "All! that is something like the singing of my dream?" 
 said the girl, with glistening eyes. 
 
 ".Only I hope, my dear, for the credit of your musical 
 angel, that it had a better voice," said Bianca, tapping her 
 cheek. 
 
 But now Lady Vernon's carriage, which had been standing a 
 long time, could be kept no longer, and there was a general 
 breaking up. 
 
 " You are not much fatigued, I hope," said Lady Vernon, as 
 they drove home. 
 
 " Oh no, it has done me a great deal of good," said Bianca. 
 " I have really enjoyed myself. What are you going to do with 
 that girl who played so well ? " 
 
 " I don't know," said Lady Vernon ; " she is the first we have 
 had with any decided musical talent, and I hardly know what to 
 do with it. Music is apt to be such a dangerous endowment for 
 women." 
 
 1 1 But, my dear lady, dangerous or not dangerous, that girl 
 has real genius, and she will become a singer. It is of no use 
 rebelling against Providence ; rather let me add my mite towards 
 your good work. Let her go to the Academy when she has finished 
 with you, and I will undertake to see after her." 
 
 " My dear soul," said Lady Vernon, " you are very good — very 
 good, indeed ; but we" will hope better things. I should be very 
 sorry, indeed, to bring one of my girls out as a professional singer. 
 I don't like such people." 
 
 "Well," said Bianca, laughing, "promise me at least, that if 
 circumstances prove too strong for you, and you change your 
 views, that you will make me useful. How long has your school 
 been established P It must be a very expensive affair." 
 
 " Well, so it is," replied her ladyship. " I have only had it 
 working for ten years. Before then, I used to mess away my 
 funds with helping protegees, who, do what I would, always kept 
 falling from lowest deeps, to lower depths of helplessness ; or, in 
 subscribing to this, that, or the other society — things I took no 
 real interest in ; and I began at last to consider that with all my 
 income, I ought to produce a better result than I was doing ; and 
 that I had a responsibility laid upon me, which I was not ade- 
 quately discharging. About this time, a family which had 
 moved in rather genteel circles was left, by the death of the 
 father, in utter destitution ; without money, without any well-to- 
 do relations to help them, and without the necessary energy to 
 help themselves ; the girls were ignorant and pretty-looking ; 
 
THE HALF S1STEES. 185 
 
 educated enough to pass muster in a drawing-room, but utterly 
 incompetent to take any sort of situation ; they were not even fit 
 for ladies' -maids ; they could not thread a needle — they were 
 useless. Still the poor things could not starve, so I had them to 
 stay a little while with me, and got my maid to teach them to do 
 needle-work ; and I tried to get them into orderly habits : and 
 then I succeeded in finding for one of them a situation, something 
 between that of a nursery governess and a bonne ; and I also got 
 the others placed in some light employment, where they might 
 have made a respectable livelihood. But to earn one's own living 
 requires something more than mere needing it ; it requires disci- 
 pline, patience, and self-denial. These girls were not bad, by 
 any means ; but they had been accustomed to idleness, to visiting, 
 to flirting, and having their own way in all things ; they had no 
 strong principles to control them. I encouraged them all I could, 
 and with very moderate perseverance, they might have done well : 
 but before six months were over, one had eloped with an old lover, 
 who took her * under his protection,' as it is called ; and the other, 
 a short time afterwards, went on the streets : she was persuaded 
 to try her fortune as a singer at one of the singing saloons, and 
 her downward course was short enough, poor girl ! This is one 
 instance out of a hundred similar ones. Protegees always bring 
 dissatisfaction; it is like meddling with fire- works — it is a 
 thousand chances if they do not explode and burn your fingers ; 
 and so I began to think I would for the future have nothing more 
 to do with such vexatious speculations, but that if I could do 
 something for the class of girls to which my luckless protegees 
 belonged, it would lessen the supply of cases of distress ; and that 
 it would be far better to turn out a few thoroughly- taught, well- 
 principled young women, than to melt away my substance in 
 affording a rickety assistance to those whom nothing would ever 
 enable to walk alone. A case of great distress always stimulates 
 somebody's sensibilities : anything very palpable always does ; but 
 the need of help and instruction before matters come to extremities 
 is not so striking, so everybody must work at what seems to them 
 most desirable. I never in my heart took cordially to all that 
 * society ' work, and I am quite sure now, that it was very well 
 for me that I got out of it. I have found something at which I 
 can work heartily ; I believe that I am doing at least a mite of 
 usefulness ; and so people must do as well as they can in this 
 world." 
 
 " You have a real vocation for education," said Bianca, 
 laughing ; " it is a pity you were not born a governess." 
 
 " No', my dear, I could not have had my present influence, or 
 have carried out my plans so much as I do, if my bread had 
 depended on my teaching. As i Lady Yernon' I am quite inde- 
 pendent, and my 'ladyship' gives me a vast weight with the 
 fathers and mothers I want to persuade. My dear child, you 
 don't know all the difficulties I met with before my school was set 
 
186 THE HALF SISTEBS. 
 
 to work ; the false pride, the pretentiousness, the vulgarity — to 
 say nothing of anything else, that I have had to tame and smooth 
 down — it would take a day to tell you about : however, it only 
 showed me the necessity of what I was striving to do, and made 
 me more determined to go on. People have a fancy, that a certain 
 class of virtues, called the common principles of morality, are 
 indigenous, in all but very poor people. Now, this is a great 
 mistake. They need a vast deal of cultivation, — certainly a misty 
 tradition concerning picking and stealing, and the necessity of 
 young females being modest and virtuous, pervades all decent 
 society ; but nobody seems to know how much goes to make up these 
 qualities of honesty and virtue. They are not to be improvised in 
 a moment, neither do they come as a matter of course, the moment 
 there is a call for them ; and yet an immense number of the young 
 women who move in a respectable sphere have no more guiding 
 principles of action taught them, than if they were so many cats. 
 When any emergency arises, and there is any stress to prove what 
 is really in their hearts, it is no wonder so many extraordinary 
 lapses occur in persons who had, in their prosperity, seemed of 
 correct and unexceptionable conduct. There is a great fuss about 
 giving women a negative purity of mind, but there is no care taken 
 to give them any strong antiseptic qualities, whereby they may 
 resist evil. But what a prosing I have given you ! and how 
 sleepy you must be ! " 
 
 " So," said Bianca, " I take great interest in the subject. I 
 have been thinking what would have become of me if it had not 
 been for my good old priest at Birmingham? Really, I owe 
 a great deal to a few strong and very definite exhortations he once 
 gave me, when I was quite a girl, and placed in circumstances 
 which brought much of evil under my eyes. One word spoken in 
 season often helps us in after times, when those who spoke it have 
 long since forgotten it." 
 
 " Yery true," said Lady Yernon ; " but now let us go to bed, 
 you have sat up much too late. By the way, Melton comes here 
 to-morrow ; he will only remain a few days. 
 
 " I shall be very glad to see him again," said Bianca, as she 
 went upstairs. 
 
 The next morning Lord Melton arrived. He had thought his 
 sister's invitation a long time in coming ; but he was quite paci- 
 fied when he saw the improvement in Bianca's appearance. She 
 was quite well enough now to be amused, and to bear company. 
 Lady Yernon gave several parties ; they were an entirely different 
 style of people to any Bianca had ever seen — country gentry, who 
 did not often go up to London. 
 
 Lord Melton was Bianca's constant companion. Lady Yernon 
 was often engaged with her own private affairs, so they were a 
 good deal alone together. He read to her, rode out with her on 
 horseback, took long walks witb her ; and everything in the shape 
 of books, or music, or new caricatures that he fancied could amuse 
 
THE HALF SISTEKS. 187 
 
 her, was brought down for her. To Bianca Lord Melton was a 
 dear and valued brother ; to Lord Melton, Bianca became every 
 day an object of deeper and stronger attachment, and he was not 
 at all satisfied with the calm regard she accorded to him : still he 
 was willing to "bide his time," and carefully refrained from 
 overstepping, by any undue warmth of manner, the friendly 
 relation into which she had accepted him ; and as there was no 
 rival to dispute with him Bianca' s undivided attention, he made 
 himself tolerably contented. At first his visits did not exceed a 
 few days each time, but they gradually became longer, till at last 
 Willersdale Park seemed to have becdme his natural home. 
 
 CHAPTEE XXXIX. 
 
 One evening after tea, as the ladies were sitting at work round 
 the lamp, Lord Melton took up a book that had arrived that day 
 from toAvn, and volunteered to read aloud to them. 
 
 It chanced to be a novel which had just come out with a great 
 success, as a highly moral book : one of the Reviews said of it, 
 " Tine mire en permettrait la lecture d safilleP 
 
 After reading and skipping and looking on to the end, he at 
 length flung down the book, exclaiming, 
 
 * ' Upon my honour, I can stand this no longer. How can you 
 both sit there so patiently, to listen to such twaddle of rose- 
 coloured imitation- virtue. You know well enough that human 
 nature utterly renounces all affinity with nine-tenths of the stuff 
 that is put into books to pass for high morality. It is just one 
 more roll to the monster ball of vague opinions, which is ever 
 accumulating and filling up the world. There you sit, both of 
 you calling yourselves sensible women, yet neither of you ever 
 lifting your voice to protest against all the nonsense specially 
 consecrated to t«he description of the virtues proper to your sex. 
 The devil is the father of lies, and I wish he would fly away with 
 all his children, instead of leaving them to run wild over the 
 world ; but he is without natural affection, or else this thing 
 would not be here." 
 
 As he spoke, he jerked the unlucky book to the other end of the 
 room, narrowly escaping the destruction of a choice vase of Indian 
 china, and actually dislodging a glass of flowers which stood 
 beside it. 
 
 "Oh, my precious china!" cried Lady Yernon. "Maurice, 
 Maurice, another time do make a virtuous demonstration at your 
 own risk, and not amongst my frail treasures. Only think what 
 mischief you might have done ! " 
 
188 THE HALE SISTEKS. 
 
 "Luckily for us all," replied her brother, "there is a broad 
 margin to the possibilities of this world, and nothing is so bad or 
 so good as it ought logically to be. I might have broken your 
 china, but I did not, so there is no harm done. Forgive the shock 
 I have caused to your feminine susceptibilities. It has calmed 
 my zeal." 
 
 " I am glad to hear it," replied Lady Vernon, laughing ; " and 
 perhaps you will descend from the heights of declamation to the 
 special details of what you wish Bianca and myself to do." 
 
 "In the first place, I would have you both enter your own 
 protests against those opinions which are taken up by society on 
 different points, but which nobody means, nobody believes, and 
 nobody thinks of practising. Snrugging your shoulders, and 
 saying, sotto voce, i I don't agree, though it won't do to say so,' is 
 not sufficient; society, civilised society, is enamelled in cant. 
 Every pore is stopped, and a thick veneer of make believe is 
 spread over everything. What a talk for instance there is just 
 now about the condition of women ; and how much do you think 
 can come out of all that is said, sung, and written upon the 
 subject? It is quite deplorable, and I thank God every time I 
 say my prayers that He did not make me a woman to be given 
 over to patent moralists." 
 
 " There is no making us profit by them, that is one comfort," 
 said Bianca. 
 
 " Allah Akbar ! God is great and nature is powerful, or else the 
 world would be in a sad case," replied Lord Melton. " Stifle 
 Nature, endeavour to muffle her in sententious rose-coloured 
 phrases as much as you will, every now and then she asserts her 
 own reality, i avec explosion,' as the French dramatists say, — to 
 the great relief of the social system." 
 
 "Grand explosions of nature are not at all safe transactions," 
 rejoined Lady Vernon. " Can you suggest no quieter method of 
 regenerating society in general, and the condition of women in 
 particular ? I agree with you to the very extent as to the rose- 
 coloured sort of morality generally imputed to them and exacted 
 from them, but they should not be taught to laugh at that till they 
 have learned something better." 
 
 " But," said Lord Melton, " what is radically false, can give no 
 strength. Women have a great deal of modesty, delicacy, and 
 feminine refinement, but they are not taught the principles from 
 which these ought to spring as natural fruits. Certain qualities 
 are praised, but it is like children who make a garden by sticking 
 full-blown flowers into the ground and expecting them to keep 
 their bloom. Those who instruct them do not go to the real 
 principle which shall teach them to discern right from wrong, nor 
 give them any strong truths by which to guide their steps amongst 
 the temptations and delusions which beset them; therefore we 
 find that all the talk they have heard about ' graceful modesty ' 
 and ' female delicacy,' does not enable them to stand against the 
 
THE HALF SISTERS. 189 
 
 stern reality of a strong* temptation. Propriety cannot swallow 
 up passion. 
 
 " A rabid fit of truth- telling seems to have taken possession of 
 you," said his sister, " and you have taken possession of that easy 
 vantage-ground of general declamation, which all objectors and 
 theoretical reformers find such a pleasant dwelling place ; but 
 come out of it for once, and if you can suggest any practical thing 
 that women can do to mend themselves, I, as a woman, will thank 
 you most gratefully. Women would be only too thankful for 
 wise guidance, and it is precisely what they do not get." 
 
 1 'Nay," said Lord Melton, "I can suggest no compendious 
 system of morals like the receipts in the 'Housekeeper's Manual,' 
 — the spirit must be renovated before the details can be amended. 
 Was it not in the Sandwich Islands that Captain Cook was 
 invited to a grand banquet, at which the chief, by way of doing 
 him honour, first masticated all the choice morsels, and then 
 transferred them to his guest all ready for swallowing. That is 
 the sort of way in Avhich women's minds are fed. They are kept 
 in a state of perpetual childishness, — not childhood — that is a 
 graceful and natural state. Women out-grow childhood without 
 attaining a developed and matured nature. I know an immense 
 number of women, of one sort or other, and hardly one of them 
 seems to have attained the practical sense of a school-boy. Their 
 personal gifts and graces developed, they learn the art of society, 
 they obtain power and influence over men in right of their 
 fascinations, but they have no foundation of a real knowledge of 
 things to back their empire. Whenever it happens that, instead 
 of talking, they have to take a practical step for themselves, they 
 have nothing to go upon ; and, in earning their experience, it is 
 ten chances to one but they ruin their reputation." 
 
 " Women, in general, have no settled occupation," said Bianca, 
 looking up. "Those who have families, have, indeed, a legiti- 
 mate employment, enough to employ all their energies. Those 
 women, too, who have to gain their own living, have their hands 
 pretty full. But, with these exceptions, women lead a life of 
 nonentity, so far as the real value of their occupation goes. All 
 they do is to pass away the time., and it is of little real conse- 
 quence whether it be done or let alone. Look, for instance, at 
 the great body of unmarried women, in the middle classes — they 
 spend their days in the same kind of trifling that slaves in the 
 East amuse themselves with, till some one comes to put them 
 into a harem. They want an object, they want a strong purpose, 
 they want an adequate employment, — in exchange for a precious 
 life. Days, months, years of perfect leisure run by, and leave 
 nothing but a sediment of ennui ; and at length they have all 
 vitality choked out of them. This is the true evil of the condition 
 of women. The need of some sort of a stimulant becomes, at last, 
 an imperative necessity — it is the cry of their expiring souls, an 
 impulse of self-preservation ; they possess unsatisfied unemployed 
 
190 o;he ha.le sisteks. 
 
 powers of mind — a strong vitality of nature, that must consume 
 them, unless an adequate, legitimate employment be provided for 
 them. They must find something that is icorth being done ; 
 voluntary employment will not stave off the evil. The very 
 possession of existence inspires a desire for activity, and it is 
 melancholy to see the blind vague efforts women make to be 
 useful ; they do their various things, not as an imperative duty, 
 but because they have ' plenty of time,' and play at being Lady 
 Bountifuls and lady patronesses to poor people, to get rid of their 
 
 rown weariness. I do not set myself up as an example of what 
 women in general should be, but this one blessing I have had to 
 counter-balance the many questionable items in my position, I 
 have had a definite employment all my life ; when I rose in the 
 morning my work lay before me, and I had a clear, definite 
 channel in which all my energies might flow. I was without 
 social position, I had no friends, no respectability ; often wanted 
 food. I had to struggle with vexations in my daily life enough 
 to break any one's heart, in daily contact with most undesirable 
 environments : but with all this I was kept clear of ennui, which 
 eats like a leprosy into the life of women. I was leading a life 
 of my own, and was able to acquire a full control over my own 
 faculties ; and I have always had a sense of freedom, of enjoy- 
 ment of my existence, which has rendered all my vexations easy 
 to be borne. I would not, I tell you again, wish the generality 
 of women to resemble me. I have had too much struggling : I 
 am become in some degree hard and coarse from my contact with 
 the harsh realities of life ; but I do say that the idea of my life 
 has been true. I have had work to do, and I have done it. I 
 have had a purpose, and have endeavoured to work it out ; and 
 I say that if you could furnish women with a definite object, or 
 address motives in them fit to animate rational beings, you would 
 have a race of wives and daughters far different from those which 
 now flourish in your drawing-rooms ; the quality of their nature 
 would be elevated ; they would be able to aid men in any noble 
 object by noble thoughts, by self-denial, by real sympathy and 
 fellowship of heart, nor would they, as is the case too often now, 
 aid a cause by merely pressing their vanity into the service of 
 their charity, and think they have done all that is needed when 
 they have raised a few pounds by dedicating their amusements to 
 an object of charity, to give it a zest, and make them fancy it 
 some new thing." 
 
 1 'But, my dear Bianca," said Lady Yernon, "you are like 
 Melton, keeping to safe generalities. How, in the present state 
 of society, are women to be employed ? They cannot all work for 
 their bread, and what is there for them to do ? "Women's 
 employments are so limited." 
 
 " I told you," replied Bianca, " that there was no compendious 
 receipt to improve the condition of women : their present position 
 has been of gradual growth, and has all the disadvantages of a 
 
THE HALE SISTEBS. 191 
 
 transition state. They used to be subordinate to men in every 
 sense : they were household servants — bond-women, in short : 
 they are now become ornamental appendages, and enjoy a sort of 
 fictitious existence and consideration : language, as somebody 
 said, * has been mystified for the use of women,' and a whole set 
 of elegant virtues has been invented for their special adornment — 
 an improvement I grant, but not enough : not real enough to 
 govern wisely their frail, passionate, wayward nature, or to meet 
 the height and depth of their necessities." 
 
 " Well," said Lord Melton, u I have listened to you both, as in 
 duty bound, seeing you both belong to the class of the patients, 
 but I* think there is too much talk going on for much good to 
 come out of it, and my idea would be that in the present stage of 
 the business all the women of England should be shut up in Avhat 
 Catholics call i retreat :' — they should be alone, and have 
 nothing to do but to sit down and consider what it is they have 
 been taught all their lives, how much of it they really believe, 
 and Jiow much of it they have ever practised ; they should have 
 to consider what is a real matter of conscience, and what only a v 
 matter of convention ; they should have to examine themselves t 
 truly as to what it is they really love, and what are the things 
 they really hate, and what, candidly speaking, they care 
 nothing at all about. Of course they would not be expected to 
 reveal the result of these considerations, it should all be for their 
 own private satisfaction. It would be some time before they 
 could be sincere with themselves, — before they could strip off all 
 the moral fiannel-waisteoats, steel- collars, and go-carts, in which 
 they have walked all the days of their life ; but they would be 
 able to do it in time. They should have no books ; neither should 
 they have pen, ink, or paper to write diaries or confessions with ; 
 four bare walls should be all they had to see ; if you chose to be 
 rigorous, a diet of bread and water might be added. They should 
 come out thence, and begin their life anew ; their actual occupa- 
 tion might not be materially changed, but the spirit in which 
 they would pursue it would be different ; the face of society 
 would be renewed, for the very well-spring and fountain would 
 have been cleansed. I believe with that great man, who said — 
 ' Reality and perfection are the same thing.' " 
 
 " I see only one obj ection, ' ' said Lady Vernon. ' ' One half of your 
 fair penitents would hang themselves in despair of making any- 
 thing out of the chiffonage, to which their life had been reduced." 
 
 "Those who have not strength, or grasp of principle strong 
 enough to enable them to amend their ways when they perceive 
 their errors, and to conduct themselves in a way worthy the 
 possessors of that solemn reality called Life, and of their high 
 calling in being modes of God's manifestation upon earth, ought 
 to depart to Hades — the region of ineffectualities." 
 
 "Good Heaven!" said Lady Yernon, looking at her watch; 
 " it is nearly two o'clock, — to bed ! to bed ! to bed ! " 
 
192 THE HALF SISTERS. 
 
 CHAPTEE XL. 
 
 ? 
 
 Bianca remained three months an inmate with Lady Vernon, 
 recovering both her bodily health and her moral strength after 
 the painful shock which had so nearly destroyed her. The first 
 symptom of her returning energy was a desire to return to the 
 fatigue and excitement of her old way of life. She began to 
 re- act against the repose and elegant employments around her. 
 Letters of business, which had followed her from London and 
 been thrown aside in disgust and helplessness, now began to claim 
 her attention. She felt the need of something to do, and made 
 arrangements for visiting several of the chief provincial towns. 
 A few days after the conversation recorded in the last chapter, 
 she announced, at breakfast, her intention of leaving Willersdale 
 Park that day week. 
 
 " Nonsense, my dear, nonsense," said Lady Vernon; "I am 
 not going to v>art with you ; and where do you want to go to ? 
 and what do you want to go for ? I cannot understand such a 
 sudden freak at all, and you will just stay peaceably where you 
 are until you get quite well. — Why, Melton," she said to her 
 brother, who just then entered the room, " what do you think, 
 here is Bianca talking of going away next week ! It is quite out 
 of the question." 
 
 Lord Melton felt a very disagreeable shock when he heard his 
 sister's abrupt announcement ; he had all along known that 
 Bianca could not stay with his sister for ever ; but he had put off 
 thinking of the evil day, and now it had come on him unawares. 
 He could not at once say anything, but his change of countenance 
 was not lost on Bianca, who felt the more how needful it was for 
 her to get away. 
 
 " I must indeed leave you, my kind friends," said she ; " I am 
 not yet able to lead a life of quiet and ease for long together — it is 
 the vice of my nature. I have been on the stretch and struggle 
 all my life, and I cannot subside at once into respectable and still 
 life ; so you must let me go now. I will, if possible, return to 
 you at Christmas — if you will take in such a vagabond again ? ".. 
 
 " Ah, you miss the excitement you have been accustomed to ; 
 and excitement is such a bad thing, when it is the staple of life," 
 Said Lady Vernon. " My dear girl, how can you give yourself 
 up to it? With all your superiority, and fine perceptions of what 
 is refined and beautiful, how can you tolerate such coarse excite- 
 ment and such a glaring trashy mode of existence ? I am speaking to 
 you now, in my right of being an old woman, and you will forgive me 
 for saying that it strikes me as the only shade in your character ! " 
 
 " It is the shadow of the substance, my dear Lady Vernon, and 
 you could not change it without changing my character altogether. 
 
THE HALF SISTERS. 193 
 
 You forget that I am a vagabond born, and "with as clear a voca- 
 tion for being an actress, as any of the saints of old had for 
 being martyrs — I could have done nothing else in the world. I 
 needed to have all the restless energy worked out of me. If I 
 had been born in a respectable sphere of life, I should have 
 infallibly gone to the devil, and brought shame and confusion on 
 my peaceable kindred. My natural tendencies would all have 
 been violently crushed down. I should have found no opening 
 for my energies in the smoothly- compacted surface of female 
 existence. Grod gave me my talents, such as they are, and I 
 should have been possessed as by a demon, if I had not been able 
 to give free scope to them. I am not so good' as you think me, 
 by any means ; and if I am worth anything, it is the real hard 
 work I have had to go through, which has made me so." 
 
 " That may sound very well," replied Lady Vernon, " but 
 when one thinks of the sort of work it is on which you have spent 
 your life, one can feel no respect for it. I am not speaking of you 
 individually, but of your way of life, which is altogether worth- 
 less, and unworthy of any immortal being. Your whole life is 
 spent in dressing yourself up, and pretending to be that which 
 you are not. Oh, I wish I could say anything to induce you to 
 give up that mode of life which is so especially dreadful when 
 followed by a woman — nothing shall make me believe you 
 like it." 
 
 "We all live in our own meridian," said Bianca; "and can 
 see only our own horizon. You cannot think how strange all you 
 are saying sounds to my ears. You will laugh, when I tell you 
 that I have ^often wondered how women, who were not actresses, 
 contrived to pass their time ; what they could find to do when 
 they had their whole day free from any large occupation, — no 
 rehearsal for three hours in the morning, no long performance in 
 the evening, — to say nothing of hard study between the times. 
 I can see quite well the sort of look my life bears to you, but to 
 me it has quite another aspect. So far from despising it, I am 
 passionately fond of it. I do not deny that I enjoy my success, 
 but I have a higher aim ; I hope to elevate my profession into one 
 of the fine arts, — to see it ennobled, and freed from the mere- 
 tricious degradation into which it has sunk. I see all that might 
 be- made of it. Anything considered merely as an amusement 
 becomes despicable. But the stage requires so much from its 
 professors ; it so takes their life and soul, their very life-blood, 
 that it ought to have higher capabilities and nobler tendencies 
 than merely to serve as a vehicle to amuse the ennai, or to occupy 
 the idleness of an audience. I do not scruple to confess to you 
 that the applause I receive is sweet, and that I should find it very 
 hard to live without it ; it is the seal and token that I have pro- 
 duced the effect I aimed at. You do not know what you say, 
 when you speak of it as coarse excitement merely. You do not 
 know the sense of power there is in seeing hundreds of men and 
 
 o 
 
194 THE HALE SISTERS, 
 
 women congregated together, and to know that I can make all 
 that assembled multitude laugh, weep, or experience any emotion 
 I please to excite : — there is positive intoxication in it, and I 
 would not change that real power to become a queen, and have to 
 work my will through the cumbrous machinery of a government. 
 I act directly upon my subjects, and the effect follows instantly 
 upon my effort. I see all I produce ; and I cannot express to you 
 the zest, the intoxication, the delirious enjoyment of a successful 
 performance ; it gives a sense of power, that for the time elevates 
 one above mortality. It does not last, certainly. I have sunk 
 down weary and fainting after this fierce excitement. Then there 
 is the depression of having constantly before me an ideal I cannot 
 attain, and of knowing that those who applaud so vehemently, do 
 so only because they do not discern it as I must. All I have 
 achieved looks as nothing beside that which I am striving to 
 attain : but it is out of my very discouragement that I have 
 learned knowledge which triumph cannot give ; it is out of my 
 hours of blackness and despondency that I have learned my 
 secrets, and have risen again for the struggle. Strength comes 
 out of weakness left by the fatigues of labour. Give up my 
 profession ! — no ! not if it were in ten times worse repute than it 
 is: so much the more need would there be to redeem it. My 
 dearest Lady Vernon, you can talk better than I, but come and 
 see me act, and then I will make you feel more respect for my 
 profession ; any way, it is my destiny to be an actress, and I must 
 work it out." 
 
 " Well, go then, Bianca," said Lord Melton, sadly ; " go now, 
 but come back to us when you are wearied ; the glory that dazzles 
 you will soon disappear— art, for its own sake, never satisfied a 
 woman's heart yet." 
 
 ' * And that is the reason women have generally achieved so 
 little," replied Bianca; " they do not serve their art with that 
 singleness of mind and oneness of purpose which all art requires — ■ 
 it is jealous, and admits no rival. 'For me, I have now no second 
 thought to divide my devotion, and henceforth I belong altogether 
 to my work." 
 
 She felt sorry she had spoken so warmly, when she saw the 
 cloud that settled over Lord Melton's countenance. He was 
 deeply mined by her last words, and after a pause, he said : — 
 
 "Whilst you are following your destiny in your own way, I 
 shall carry out a project I have long entertained— I shall travel 
 in the East, to see Jerusalem, Thebes, the Pyramids, and < the 
 Zodiac's brazen mysteries.' " 
 
 Bianca now flinched in her turn. "Ah!" said she, with a 
 slight shudder, " I hate the word ' travel,' it has cost me so much. 
 Am I to lose you, too ? " 
 
 " You are like all women," said Lord Melton, pettishly ; " vou 
 care for nothing until it is taken away from you. When I 'am 
 three thousand miles out of your reach, you will perhaps think 
 
thU hale sisters. 195 
 
 of me with, kindness; any way, the experiment is worth 
 trying." 
 
 So saying, he quitted the room. 
 
 Bianca fancied it was only a spasm of temper, that would soon 
 pass away ; but the cloud grew darker. There was nothing to 
 lay hold of, nothing to complain of, but the distance increased 
 every day between them ; he was kind as ever, but there was a 
 grave, polite, displeasure visible through all ; he avoided all 
 private conversation with her, and whenever they chanced to be 
 alone, he evaded all her attempts to come to an understanding. 
 
 The day Bianca had fixed for her departure arrived, they were 
 together for a moment after breakfast. 
 
 " Maurice," said she, hastily, " why are you displeased? — tell 
 me what I have done. I cannot bear to depart thus ; let us be 
 friends." 
 
 " Friends, certainly, we are friends," replied Lord Melton, 
 gravely, taking no notice of the hand she had stretched out to 
 him. "You may rely upon me ever, as you would upon your 
 own brother." 
 
 " But why are you so changed, so cold? It kills me to think 
 that I have displeased you." 
 
 ' ' Bianca, it is of no use trying to cool down a volcano and 
 make it a comfortable drawing-room fire. You know it is not as 
 a brother that I have cared for you ; it is mere trifling to talk as 
 you do. I cannot afford to consume my life in a fruitless passion ; 
 these last three months have been very pleasant, too pleasant, and 
 I tell you frankly that I am going away in the hope of forgetting 
 you. I have ceased to have any hope of winning you. You 
 would not have left us thus, without saying anything to me of 
 your arrangements, had you not " 
 
 Lady Yernon entered before he could finish his sentence ; the 
 carriage came to the door, and there remained nothing but 
 the bustle of departure. Bianca departed more depressed and 
 melancholy than she had believed anything could ever make 
 her again. 
 
 Lord Melton kept his word and made immediate preparations 
 for his departure, but he was detained more than a month before 
 they were complete. During the whole of this time Bianca did 
 not hear from him ; she only knew from his sister's letters that he 
 had left the Park and gone up to London. She felt very uneasy, 
 but on the whole thought it best to let things take their course. 
 One morning she received the following note : — 
 
 "Dear Friend, — I was very cross the morning you went 
 away. I was a great brute, but I could not help it ; — forgive me. 
 I go on board in an hour, and purpose remaining absent a twelve- 
 month. If I die in that time, there wilL be an end of all that 
 concerns me. If I forget you, there will be an end of my unfor- 
 tunate love ; but if I live, I expect to come back in the same 
 
 o 2 
 
196 THE HALF SISTERS. 
 
 mind, and I shall try my fortune with you once more. "When 
 you write to me, do not fancy that I am vexed or sulky. I care 
 for you just as I have always done, and you know how that is ; 
 so do not go vexing yourself about me, but be a good girl and 
 take care of yourself. Write to me very often ; you know I am 
 your affectionate brother by your own confession, if I am nothing 
 else, and I expect to be treated accordingly. " Melton-." 
 
 Bianca felt very glad when she received this letter ; she fancied 
 it was because Lord Melton had become more reasonable. 
 
 Lady Vernon wrote to her frequently, and she was soon too 
 busy to have time for fanciful speculations. 
 
 CHAPTER XLT. 
 
 Letter from Bianca to Lord Melton. 
 
 " Dear Friend, — I have been a long time in writing to you. 
 I have a great deal to tell you ; so much, that I fear it will never 
 all get said. I have been working very hard, and found it, at 
 first, sad up-hill work, after the idle, pleasant life I had led so 
 long. Whether it was that I had begun to look at things through 
 your sister's eyes, or whether I had grown accustomed to better 
 things, I do not know ; but the fact was, that I nearly took a 
 disgust to all the theatrical accessories, amongst which I had been 
 living all my life. Everything connected with the stage looked 
 coarser than it had ever done before. Do not rejoice in the con- 
 fession, for I have been too hard at work to have leisure for the 
 cultivation of my susceptibilities, and they have died a natural 
 death. 
 
 ' \ I am now in the place where I first entered regularly on my 
 profession ; the scene of the first struggles, the hopes, the heavenly 
 brightness of my life. I cannot express to you the horrible com- 
 plication of emotions with which I found myself here once more. 
 I did not think that I had been such a weak fool — ' past is past, 
 and gone is gone ' — I am content that it should be so. Anything 
 that actually is, ranks higher than the most beautiful hopes that 
 ever ' gilded the eastern horizon ! ' No, no, facts, realities, no 
 matter how stern, are the only things I would ever desire to hold 
 by ; and so I have no regret for my past dreams — I once believed 
 in them, now I have proved them to be only dreams : l non 
 ragionam di lor.'* But all this is not what I was going to tell 
 you. The old company to which I formerly belonged is all 
 dispersed. Mr. Montague St. Leger, and all his glory, have 
 passed away. It is an entirely new set of people, except the old 
 prompter, who once spoke a kind word to me when nobody else 
 
THE HALF SISTERS. 197 
 
 did ; and it has been a real pleasure to me to see him again. I 
 might be his daughter, the old man is so proud of my success, and 
 that he prophesied it. He was so much affected on the first night 
 of my appearance here, that he could not go on with his duty, and 
 a substitute had to be found for the remainder of the evening. 
 But neither is all this what I really wanted to say to you. I go 
 on chattering, as children make a noise in the dark, to keep them- 
 selves from being frightened. "Well, then — I have seen Conrad ! 
 I met him in the street, quite accidentally. I did not even know 
 that he was in England. You may fancy I was horribly startled. 
 Pie was calm, formal, and polite. God knows what I was. I 
 came home after it, stunned, shattered, miserable to the last 
 degree. I had seen with my own eyes, I had realised, the fact of 
 nis supreme indifference for me. I was like a Criminal long left 
 under sentence of death, who fancies he has become reconciled to 
 nis fate and weaned from life, but when suddenly brought out to 
 suffer, finds that the cold definite reality passes all understanding. 
 There is no hope in a reality ; it is what it is, and there is no 
 escape from it. My dear friend, I, too, have gazed on the face of 
 a reality that has turned all my passion to stone. 
 
 " A few days after the rencontre I went tc/pay a visit to Mrs. 
 Bryant, who befriended me once when I much needed a friend. 
 [ was ushered into the drawing-room, and there I found Conrad 
 again ! Things, in this world, seem to move in a cycle ; things,- 
 people, circumstances, all come round again into their old position, 
 and yet the result is so different. Five years ago I was here, 
 acting at the same theatre, playing the self-same characters, Alice 
 was my friend, Conrad was on a visit there, all the circumstances 
 were similar, and yet how changed in their significance ! 
 
 "Alice received me kindly; was, I am convinced, glad in her 
 heart to see me; but there was a constraint in her manner, 
 evidently a fear lest any one should call and find an actress sitting- 
 there. Conrad assumed a quite different manner to what I have 
 ever noticed in him before, a contemptuous, supercilious polite- 
 ness, as if all women of my class were established in a species of 
 recognised degradation. Fleury, the French actor, mentions in 
 his memoirs, that the men of fashion in the old regime never 
 condescended to say Madame to a Bourgeoise, or a woman in a 
 shop, but addressed them as ' Ma me ' so and so, — a delicate shade 
 of impertinence, that proved them masters in the art. Conrad's 
 manner to me was in that style. Alice asked me to dine with her 
 one day next week, when her husband would be out of town. I 
 happened to glance in an opposite mirror, and caught a look of 
 Conrad's, which I knew well of old ; it is a look he has when a 
 proposition is made which he dislikes. I refused on the plea of 
 having no time ; Alice easily accepted it, and soon after I took my 
 leave, and came away depressed in heart. Alice herself cannot 
 vex or alienate me, but I can see that our intercourse will cease. 
 I know how easily she is influenced by those around her. I know 
 
198 THE HALE SISTEKS. 
 
 so well the mischief and danger of her position, and I know, too, 
 that I should be a good companion for her. 
 
 ' ' You will wonder why I plague you with a long history about 
 a woman whom you never saw, and who would not interest you if 
 you had. Alice is my half sistee : her father was my father 
 also, but I am illegitimate, and never knew him ; he had abandoned 
 mv mother and become a respectable man before I saw the light, 
 Alice is ignorant of this. I was careful not to tell her when I 
 was a poor, unknown, almost starving girl; for I saw then (in 
 spite of my affection and gratitude for her) her extreme timidity, 
 and the utter absence of all moral courage in her character. Her 
 conscientiousness would have made her desire to treat me as a 
 sister, and her horror of all blame or scandal would have taken 
 away all comfort from the relationship. I determined that I 
 would keep silence until I had made for myself such a position in 
 the world as would prevent my being considered a disgrace to a 
 respectable connexion. I did not even tell Conrad of this relation- 
 ship ; I had hoped that during this visit I might have made myself 
 known to her, and claimed her for my sister. I cannot tell you 
 how full of love my heart is towards her. Now I see that it can 
 never be ; it is another illusion gone, another hope passed away in 
 unripe blessedness ; — let it go, I yield it up ; no sin of my OAvn has 
 made me an outcast, and I have done all that lies in me for the 
 atonement of the error that first caused it. I speak to you calmly, 
 but I have shed bitter tears ; it seemed to me such an innocent 
 desire, one that I might have knelt down and begged God to grant. 
 I have succeeded in my ambition ; but all by which I had hoped 
 to sanctify that ambition^ to give to it value and sweetness, has 
 been thwarted, and what good shall my life now do me ? Dear 
 friend, dear friend, do not think me ungrateful to you, nor 
 unmindful of all you have done for me ; but I am traversing a 
 path where all my pleasant things have been laid waste. I have 
 no heart left to form new hopes. I am contented that things 
 should be as they are. I would not desire to change them now 
 that I see their nature. I can say no more than this, — I must sit 
 desolate for a while, and then perhaps I shall gain strength to go 
 on less wearily. But why should I plague you with all this, 
 except that vou are my friend, that you are patient with me and 
 love me, and are better to me than I deserve. 
 
 1 ' Your faithful friend and sister, 
 
 "BlAXCA." 
 
THE HALF SISTERS. 199 
 
 CHAPTEE XLIL 
 
 " My dear Bryant," cried Alice, as soon as they were seated at 
 dinner (the day of Bianea's visit), "I had quite an adventure 
 this morning. Who do you think has been here ? " 
 
 " Perhaps the Emperor of China ? if you insist upon my guessing ; 
 but I think you had better tell me, instead of driving mo 
 pitilessly out into the wilds of conjecture — who has been here ? 
 I ask you with an emphasis that would touch the heart of a 
 sphinx ! " 
 
 "Well then," replied Alice, "as I am made of ' penetrable 
 stuff,' I will tell you; but I do not promise that you shall 
 consider it a ' pleasing fact.' Bianca, the celebrated actress, has 
 been to see me ! I little dreamed when she was my protegee 
 years ago, that she would come to be a woman of distinction. 
 She was looking extremely well, and much handsomer than 
 formerly ; she came in her carriage, and was dressed beautifully. 
 She said she took advantage of being in the neighbourhood, to 
 call and thank me for my past kindness to her." 
 
 Bryant looked rather grave. "That is all very well for once, 
 my dear : it might be very grateful and all that, to call and show 
 you that she had prospered in the world, and to let you see that 
 she had a carriage of her own ; but now that both those objects 
 'are attained, I do not wish you to renew your acquaintance with 
 her. I should much more dislike your knowing her now that she 
 is become a noted person, than when she was struggling in 
 obscurity. Professional people live in a world of their own ; and 
 it is very undesirable that they should be introduced into the 
 private circles of the middle classes, it tends to destroy that 
 sobriety and balance of conduct which makes their peculiar virtue, 
 without introducing at the same time the abilities, and powers of 
 pleasing, which are the redeeming qualities of the other class. 
 I have a singular objection to meeting with authors, actors, 
 artists, or professional people of any sort ; except in the peculiar 
 exercise of their vocation, which I am willing to pay for. There 
 may be respectable people amongst them, but they are not 
 sufficient to give a colouring to the class ; and as a class, there is 
 a want of stamina about them: they have no precision or 
 business-like habits, the absence of which leaves an opening for 
 faults with very ugly names ; and persons whose profession it is 
 to amuse others, and make themselves pleasing, cannot in the 
 nature of things expect to take a very high position. Men 
 cannot feel reverence or respect for those who aspire to amuse 
 them." 
 
 "Well!" cried Conrad, laughing, "I have always observed 
 that heavy, sententious, stupid persons, seem to entertain a 
 
200 THE HALF SISTEES. 
 
 species of contempt for those who possess the lighter gifts of being 
 entertaining; but I never heard it made into a theory before. 
 To leave that part of the question, however, let me ask you, 
 whether you consider that the province of those who profess the 
 fine arts, is only to amuse ? Do you think that they have gained 
 the real end of their labour when they are paid for what they do ? 
 and do you consider the production of works of art to be a mere 
 mode of earning a living ?" 
 
 "This is an industrial country," said Bryant; "the great 
 mass of sympathy and intellect • takes a practical direction — a 
 direction that we understand ; we have no real knowledge of art, 
 no real instinct or genuine aspiration after it ; and I should say, 
 that in our hearts we do not respect, love, or honour fine art in 
 any of its manifestations, as we do that which is scientific or 
 practical. To the Italians, to the French even, music and 
 pictures are necessaries of life ; to us English, they only take the 
 guise of ornament, or convenience — of superfluity, in short. 
 That being the case, we naturally do not feel drawn to the society 
 of artists ; we have nothing in common with them — we do not 
 admire them; neither do we feel disposed to introduce to the 
 society of our wives and daughters, a parcel of actors, artists, 
 musicians, and so forth, who have no stake in society, who have 
 little to lose, whose capital is all invested in themselves and their 
 two hands, and who have, therefore, naturally cultivated them- 
 selves far beyond what we practical men have had a chance of doing, 
 and are capable of throwing us into the shade in our own houses, 
 whilst they show that they despise us. Let them keep their 
 places, and let us keep ours ! " 
 
 "But do you allow nothing for the civilising influence of men 
 of cultivated intellect amongst you ?" said Conrad. 
 
 "Railroads will do more," replied Bryant; "every people 
 must work out its civilisation in its own way. Love of the fine 
 arts is not our speciality, — we do not know a good thing from a 
 bad one, unless we are told ; and the pretence we make about it 
 has a bad effect on our character. There is such a pressure of 
 competition, and so much enterprise in all departments of 
 industry, that all the energies of English people are absorbed and 
 worked out in that direction. Show a man of mechanical genius, 
 in the manufacturing classes, the finest statue that ever was 
 made — his first question will be, i Was it made by hand ?' and 
 his next thought would be, to invent a machine, to produce 
 something like it by a mechanical process ; he would see nothing 
 in it which might not be obtained by a machine." 
 
 "Perhaps," said Conrad, "that may explain how, whilst the 
 results produced by the energies of the commercial classes seem 
 stupendous, like the works of demi*-gods, the people themselves 
 are absolutely unendurable — they are, in general, real barbarians, 
 savage men." 
 
 "What would you have?" said Bryant, shrugging his 
 
THE HALF SISTERS. 201 
 
 shoulders ; " they do the work of the world, and real labour was 
 never yet made to look beautiful ; we are engaged all day at the 
 full stretch with our nerves, sinews, brains, strained to the utmost 
 tension ; and do you think we have either strength or time to 
 spend in trying to move along gracefully? "We, who have to 
 grapple with realities, grow stern and rude as the elements in 
 which we work ; we have to produce the substance out of which 
 refinement, civilisation, the very country itself, have to come 
 forth. It is not our fault if the fine arts, and the artists who 
 produce them, seem small and trivial beside the immense interests 
 with which we have to deal, and the materials with which we 
 have to work." 
 
 "But," said Conrad, "do you not think that this movement 
 for the encouragement of art and diffusion of universal taste, will 
 have a softening and fertilising influence on the rudeness of the 
 industrial classes in this country ?" 
 
 "It will be only an acquired taste," replied Bryant; "but, 
 perhaps, like our hot-house fruit, it may have a finer flavour than 
 in the countries where it is indigenous. It is not a movement in 
 which I take the least interest myself, — but whatever is genuine 
 in it will go on, — and all the talking in the world will not keep 
 the rest alive. "We shall see what comes of it in the end ; but in 
 the meantime, I have remained here talking a great deal too 
 long. So good bye to you both. What are you going to do this 
 afternoon?" 
 
 " Mrs. Bryant talked of taking me to a party," said Conrad. 
 
 "Ah! that will be well. You had better take the carriage. 
 If I can, I will join you in the evening ;" and, with a nod to Alice 
 and Conrad, Bryant left the room. 
 
 i ' I have promised to take Mrs. Lathom some ferns ; she has 
 none, will you come with me to the conservatory to cut them?" 
 said Alice. 
 
 Conrad did not need asking twice ; he rose with alacrity, and 
 joyfully followed her. 
 
 "Do you," said he, as they walked along, " share in Bryant's 
 indifference to the fine arts ? I should say not ; everything 
 around you announces a cultivated taste." 
 
 "Ah!" said Alice, "I inherit from my father a passionate 
 love for pictures; he had a fine collection, but they were all 
 dispersed when he died, and I have felt as if I had been all my 
 life banished from my natural home, and forced to live in a 
 strange place where I could not feel at home. I was very young 
 when those pictures were sent away ; there were some statues and 
 busts, too ; and yet I remember them so well. I dream of them 
 at night ; and whenever I hear of heaven, I instinctively think 
 of my father's house full of pictures and beautiful objects, and 
 hope to be restored to it. I have tried to paint, myself; but 
 though my whole heart seems melting with a love for an idea of 
 some ineffable picture I never savv r , yet I have no control of hand, 
 
202 THE HALF SISTEBS. 
 
 and what I have produced are such blurred and patched daubs, 
 that I have given up the practice. You see I am surrounded with 
 everything that a woman can desire, and yet I feel shut up in 
 prison ; I can get to hear and see nothing that my heart cares 
 for. I hardly know what it is that I do thirst to hear and see. 
 I say pictures, because these are the only things that ever 
 expressed to me what I feel I need; but there are many other 
 things besides them ; it is not the actual pictures that I desire, 
 but what they seem to mean and utter that I want to hear. If I 
 might travel, I should find it ; but Bryant cannot leave home, 
 except on hurried business-journeys, and cannot take me with 
 him ; so I only go to the sea-side in summer. The sea makes me 
 happy, when 1 can go by myself, away from everybody, and look 
 into the clouds after the sun has set. What I want to see and 
 know so much, seems then within my reach." 
 
 M 'Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,'" 
 
 said Conrad, half to himself, as he listened eagerly to all she 
 said. 
 
 " Ah ! where does that come from ? " said Alice, turning quickly 
 to him. 
 
 " Do you not know the poem ? " said Conrad. " I will read it 
 to you when we go in. I have that volume of Wordsworth in my 
 portmanteau ; have you never read him? " 
 
 " No," replied Alice. 
 
 "Well, I am almost grateful to you," replied Conrad, "for 
 now I shall have the great pleasure of showing you for the first 
 time two poems that have a mysterious influence upon me, and 
 stir my soul to its foundations as no other words ever did. They 
 work on me like a spell ; if they take the same hold upon you, 
 there will be a bond between us beyond relationship ; they never 
 fade ; their effect now is as strong as when I read them first a 
 thousand times ago." 
 
 " I will not be an instant in cutting the ferns," said Alice, 
 ' ' and then we will go back and hear them before we set off. Is 
 not that branch of fern a miracle of beauty and grace ? to me 
 ferns always seem to have a supernatural look." 
 
 "Will you give me one ? " said Conrad. 
 
 "What would you do with it?" asked Alice. "You could 
 not carry it to London with you, and I cannot find in my heart to 
 let it get broken and die. I could almost as soon let a young 
 child come to harm ; no, no, let the poor things stay here in their 
 appointed home : but you may carry these, and take care you do 
 not break them; and now let us go back to the house, I am 
 impatient to hear these poems." 
 
 As soon as they returned, Conrad fetched the volume containing 
 " Lines on Revisiting Tintern Abbey," and Alice seated herself at 
 her embroidery by the window. Conrad had a finely-toned voice, 
 
THE HALF SISTEBS. 203 
 
 and he had the gift of reading remarkably well, but they were 
 qualities quite lost on Alice at the present moment, so entirely 
 was she penetrated by the poem ; it was as if the voice of the 
 heart of nature had syllabled itself, and made her own yearnings 
 articulate. She sat with, her face concealed from Conrad; tears, 
 in which no pain mingled, coursed each other down her cheeks, 
 and were the only utterance of the feelings that had been 
 roused. 
 
 "Now," said he, after a pause, "let me read you the other 
 poem I mentioned, the ' Ode on Immortality.' " 
 
 "No, not now; I could hear nothing that would break the 
 impression of the other ; and, besides, the carriage will be here 
 immediately." 
 
 She rose and left the room. Conrad was half dissatisfied at 
 her manner, which he thought betokened too much indifference. 
 
 " How could she go on with her worsted work, when she was 
 listening to such words of inspiration!" thought he, moving 
 almost unconsciously to the frame where she had been seated. 
 Bending over her work, he saw that it was quite wetted with 
 her tears, which shone like dew-drops on the half-finished 
 flowers. 
 
 " Ah ! " cried he, with enthusiasm, " how beautiful she is in all 
 things ! — with what exquisite modesty she concealed her emotion 
 — how infinitely more touching is the general coldness of her 
 manner, than all the passionate sensibility of other women! 
 Bianca would not have shrunk from letting me see her tears, and 
 she would have told me all she felt ; I should never have had the 
 delight of surprising her thoughts thus ! " 
 
 He pressed his lips with enthusiasm on the embroidery: in 
 which act he was almost surprised by Alice, as she opened the 
 door, looking as lady-like and calm as if no emotion had ever 
 ruffled her fair brow, or soft, star-like eyes. Conrad thought her 
 exquisite, and she was dressed, too, exactly according to his taste. 
 She wore a white chip bonnet, of a shape that suited the style of 
 her face ; the Cashmere shawl he remembered of old over a dress 
 of delicate rich- coloured silk. 
 
 "Are you quite ready?" said she, smiling ; " the carriage 
 is come round, and we are rather late, but we shall have a lovely 
 drive." 
 
 He assisted her into the carriage, and seated himself opposite 
 to her. For some time they neither of them spoke. He was 
 watching her, without seeming to look at her, and she was still 
 filled with the thoughts awakened by the poem. 
 
 " I owe you so much more than I can ever express," said she, 
 at last. " Will you lend me that book ?— -or, what will be better, 
 will you, when you go back to town, get me all his poems ? — they 
 will be like a new life to me." 
 
 "I am surprised you never met with them before," said 
 Conrad. 
 
204 THE HALF SISTEES. 
 
 i ' We have no library worth anything in this neighbourhood ; 
 and I know so little, that I cannot direct my own reading. I 
 wish you would tell me some more books to get ; I feel that I 
 waste my time sadly, and I do not know what to do." 
 
 ""Would you not find it worth while to subscribe to some 
 good Londou library, and have the books sent down to you? " 
 
 "Bryant would think it waste of money," said Alice. "We 
 have a Book Society j but no books are ordered in that I care to 
 read." 
 
 " You have a great deal of time to yourself," said Conrad. " In 
 what do you employ yourself all day ? " 
 
 " I hardly know," replied Alice. " I have nothing to do that 
 seems worth doing. I am depressed under a constant sense of 
 waste, a vague consciousness that I am always doing wrong, and 
 yet I can find out nothing that I ought to do. I need some one 
 to direct me and guide me. Bryant is all day at his business, 
 and is so engrossed in it, that I have scarcely any of his company, 
 and he wants to rest when he is at home. I used to think that I 
 should be so happy, if I might have all my time to improve 
 myself, and spend as I like ; but now that I have it, I do not 
 know what to do with it. My whole life is one cloud, and I have 
 a sense of responsibility which I can neither adequately discharge, 
 nor deliver myself from. I have nothing to look forward to. 
 When I get up in the morning, I know all that is likely to happen 
 before night ; one day is like another, and the weight of life that 
 lies upon me is intolerable. If I had children, it would be 
 diiferent, I should have something to live for ; as it is, I am of 
 use to nobody. I did not like saying so at dinner time, it would 
 have looked like contradicting Bryant ; but the only companion 
 I ever felt really to get good from was Bianca ; — she was with me 
 a little while some years ago, and she seemed to know so well all 
 I needed, and said such wise things, without seeming to think 
 them wise, that I felt stronger and better whilst she was with 
 me, than I ever did before ; — but you heard the objection 
 Bryant expressed to her. I dare not ask him to let me see her 
 again." 
 
 "Believe me," said Conrad, gently, "she is not the kind of 
 companion you ought to have. Bianca is a wonderful woman, but 
 she is in a position that must, of necessity, demoralise the essence 
 of all that is feminine and womanly in her nature ; — she is too 
 coarse, too strong, too passionate — you could not feel any real 
 sympathy with her ; and when a woman has once dwelt beneath 
 the brazen glare of popularity, her beauty and value as a woman is 
 destroyed, and the intrinsic worth of what she does to compensate 
 for it, is more than doubtful. I should grieve much to see you 
 disturbing the pure, gentle current of your life, by admitting a 
 woman like Bianca into your privacy." 
 
 " Do you know much of her of late ? " asked Alice. 
 
 " A great deal," replied Conrad, gravely. " Do you remember 
 
THE HALF SISTEES. 205 
 
 tlie mad passion I conceived for her when I came here for the first 
 time years ago ? — it ended in an engagement, which was still 
 subsisting when I was here last. After I had seen you, I felt 
 that Bianca was not a woman with whom I could spend my life ; 
 and I broke off the engagement irrevocably. You have far higher 
 qualities as a woman than Bianca, with all her brilliancy. I feel 
 myself a purer and a better man since I have known you ; and 
 you have raised the whole sex in my eyes, since in you, I have 
 seen realised the qualities I dreamed of as most excellent in 
 woman." Conrad uttered this in a calm, firm, almost austere 
 manner, which took away all tinge of flattery or gallantry. 
 
 Any further conversation was, however, prevented by their 
 arrival at " Fairy Hill," the residence of Mrs. Lathom. 
 
 Mrs. Lathom set up to be a " superior woman." Conrad had 
 hardly patience to endure the supercilious coldness and preten- 
 tiousness of her manner, which she considered the extreme of all 
 that was elegant. He was indignant at the tone of deep-seated 
 superiority she assumed towards Alice; to Conrad himself, she 
 intended to be very gracious ; but it was like the atmosphere of a 
 state drawing-room in November, with its fire not thoroughly 
 tighted. A few friends had been assembled to meet him; but 
 lhey sat stiff and silent on the superb gilded chairs. There was 
 not sufficient geniality to animate the dead weight of elegant 
 upholstery that filled the whole room. It stood in all the hard 
 unassimilated individuality of its native warehouse, and seemed 
 as if it never would feel itself at home. Every thing in the room 
 — the pier-glasses, the marble slabs, the marqueterie tables with 
 their gilded feet, the sumptuous carpet, the satin curtains, the 
 gold paper and gilded ceiling — all impressed on the beholder an 
 unmitigated sense of wasted money: there was no geniality to 
 make it forgotten. 
 
 A solemn whist-table in one corner, a few books of engravings 
 in miraculously splendid bindings, and a few faintly warbled 
 songs from one or two young ladies, were the only aids the victims 
 found to pass through the dreary evening. What conversation 
 there was, passed in a low tone between neighbours; all that 
 Conrad could hear was of the most bald, insipid description. To 
 Conrad, fresh from London society, and the conversational fire- 
 works flashing about there, it seemed marvellous how human 
 beings could exist in such a stagnant region ; and yet all the 
 people, taken individually, were sensible, educated persons, only 
 they did not possess the art of being sociable. 
 
 Conrad sat down to whist and lost a few sovereigns whilst 
 sighing for eleven o'clock. A sumptuous supper at length seemed 
 to rouse the guests into something like vitality. Mr. Lathom 
 handed a portly-looking lady in black velvet and point lace to the 
 seat beside him, at the bottom of the table ; and a stout, grave, 
 pale gentleman in spectacles, seated himself beside Mrs. Lathom 
 at the top ; every one else found their place as they could. 
 
206 THE HALF SISTERS. 
 
 Conrad got beside Alice, and sat down much astonished at the 
 profusion of everything he saw before him ; but when people have 
 dined early, and have been bored without intermission for a long 
 evening, a good supper is not a disagreeable diversion, and Conrad, 
 though he denounced it as a barbarism, found himself submitting 
 to it with much complacency. Bryant came in just as they were 
 sitting down. There was a little talk at supper, but it was 
 exclusively either political or commercial, and very uninteresting 
 to Conrad, who could take no part in it. 
 
 " Is this the average of your society ?" said he, in a low voice, 
 to Alice. 
 
 " As far as amusement goes, j»es," replied Alice ; " but some of 
 the gentlemen are very clever, and very agreeable when you can 
 talk to them, but it is not the fashion here to talk much to 
 women ; they naturally have more to say to each other, being all 
 in business together." 
 
 M And the women ? " said Conrad. 
 
 u Oh, that one sitting beside Mr. Lathom is a very nice woman, 
 very kind-hearted and genial ; but I am not intimate with any 
 of them ; they think so much of being ■ select ' in their society, 
 but I would be very thankful for somebody nice, no matter what 
 set they were in. How different Bianca looked to all the women 
 here ! »f 
 
 " That is not a fair comparison/' said he ; " Bianca has culti- 
 vated all her personal gifts and graces to the utmost ; it is her 
 profession ; but she would not have had the grace to spend a 
 long, stupid evening patiently as you have done, and yet you are 
 qualified to mingle in any set, however intellectual or refined." 
 
 " What a luxury it must be," cried Alice, " to have the entree 
 to London society, to meet really clever people, and hear witty 
 speeches, and things worth listening to ! " 
 
 11 Every patch of ground looks greener than the one we stand 
 upon," said Conrad, laughing. " I am going back to London 
 to-morrow, and yet I consider those who have the privilege of 
 coming to see you whenever they like are much more to be envied 
 than I am ! — But are we never going away ? I long to be home 
 in your drawing-room, to rest my eyes after all the gilding they 
 have seen to-night ; I have been trying to calculate how many 
 sovereigns must have been melted down to cover that room ! — 
 people should in decency disguise their money a little. But do 
 let us go. Bryant wants a cigar, I can see." 
 
 Alice rose ; her example was followed by the rest, and the 
 company dispersed generally. 
 
THE HALF SISTERS, 207 
 
 CIIAPTEK XLIII, 
 
 If people only would believe it, wishing is just the most 
 insanely dangerous pastime a rational being can indulge in! — 
 forethought, plans, schemes, are generally in the end, however 
 successful they may seem, nothing more than elaborate folly, in 
 which it would have been much happier for the parties had they 
 been disappointed. Good King David, the father of a wise son, 
 and himself a very politic man in his way, used to say emphati- 
 cally, ' ' In vain do they rise up early, and late take rest, and eat 
 the bread of carefulness;" — and the sailor -Song says quaintly 
 enough — 
 
 i ( For Providence will have its way, 
 Let men do as they will ! " 
 
 : Men would have fewer troubles, if they took less pains to bring 
 them upon themselves. Their greatest plagues generally result 
 from their success in some scheme on which they have specially 
 set their heart. 
 
 All this moralising is & propos to something that Bryant con- 
 sidered, at the time, a great stroke of good fortune. 
 
 The night after they returned from the party at Mrs. Lathom's, 
 and the gentlemen were smoking their cigars together after Alice 
 had retired, Conrad, who did not too well know what to talk 
 about, negligently asked Bryant, what he thought would be a good 
 investment for a few thousand pounds. He had not thought 01 
 the subject the moment before. Bryant caught at the suggestion; 
 it would suit his schemes just then remarkably well to have a 
 little additional advanced ; and if he could induce Conrad to 
 connect himself as a sleeping partner with his house, it would be 
 a good thing for him, and not a bad one for Conrad, as he con- 
 sidered the result secure. He began to sound Conrad on the 
 subject. Conrad, who would cheerfully have risked, not a part of 
 his fortune alone, but the whole of it, for a chance of getting a 
 hold on the family, listened eagerly to the proposal, and departed 
 the next morning, promising to think of it, — and fully resolved 
 to close with any terms, thinking thereby that he would be able 
 to see Alice again and again. Bryant, Conrad, and Alice, when 
 they heard of it, all fancied in their hearts that they must have 
 been wearing a u wishing cap," so extremely propitious did the 
 plan appear. The realisation of it seemed to progress equally 
 well ; the details, all arranging themselves, had fitted into each 
 other without any drawback or hindrance ; it rose like the building 
 of Solomon's temple, in which no noise of workmen or hammers 
 was heard. Really, if men did but know it, the desire of their 
 own hearts ought to make them afraid ! 
 
208 THE HALF SISTERS. 
 
 Conrad came clown again in a fortnight. He had shaved off his 
 moustaches — they looked a phenomenon in the circle where he 
 wished to be domesticated, and he was anxious to get rid of every- 
 thing incongruous, and to look as much as possible like an English 
 man of business. It was settled that he was to remain a few 
 weeks with the Bryants, to get some knowledge of affairs, whilst 
 the details of the partnership were arranged. In the course of 
 these few weeks a great deal that no one thought of went on below 
 the quiet, dreamy, prosaic surface of their every-day life. 
 
 Bryant took a real affection for Conrad ; thought him an 
 upright, intelligent, generous fellow, with great talents for busi- 
 ness, if they were cultivated. Alice was not aware of the hold 
 Conrad was gaining over her ; her whole life was brightened up ; 
 she became sensible of thoughts and energies which had never 
 stirred in her before. She employed herself with a zeal and 
 interest she had never before felt in any of her occupations. It 
 had become a matter of course to look to Conrad as a companion, 
 to turn to him instinctively for counsel and approbation in all she 
 did. His taste, his opinions, moulded hers. He directed her 
 reading, he read to her, and all she did or said found a gentle 
 echo in him. She had never been so happy in her life. Nor had 
 she ever been so charming. She seemed, for the first time, to be 
 placed in a congenial atmosphere, and all her graces and virtues 
 expanded in its kindly warmth. To Bryant, Alice was gentle and 
 loving as ever. His coldness and distraction did not annoy her 
 now. She did not feel them ; her own happy cheerfulness was 
 diffused, like a sunny light, on all within her influence. 
 
 Conrad's love and veneration for Alice knew no bounds ; every 
 day increased her empire over him ; the more he loved her, the 
 more carefully he buried it within his most secret heart. To live 
 in the light of her looks, to be near her, to hear her speak, was all 
 he asked. He would not have sullied the gentle purity of her soul 
 by a word that an angel might not have heard, nor have startled 
 her by a tone or look of passion. He loved her with every fibre of 
 his nature. All the best and purest feelings of his soul were called 
 forth. Every baser passion seemed subdued and purified. For 
 the time, he felt satisfied and content to add to the comfort of her 
 daily existence, and asked no return ; wished for nothing, except 
 to remain near her, and watch over her, like a guardian angel. 
 He could not feel any sense of guilt, for he had never been 
 sensible before of so many generous and noble impulses. He 
 really loved her, and love ennobles all it touches. " It makes the 
 reptile equal to the god." So things went on. "But all this 
 world contains holds in perfection but a little moment." Excel- 
 lency cannot be stereotyped — it must be maintained by the 
 struggle and strong grasp of life alone. Left to itself it loses its 
 • shape and glorious beauty, and fades and falls away into corrup- 
 tion and dissolution. 
 
 There was to be a grand dinner-party. Conrad had been 
 
THE HALF SISTERS. 209 
 
 talking of going back to town, but he remained for it. He had 
 begun to think that he ought to go — that he could not live 
 there all his life ; that he must go away ; for this thought alone 
 had disturbed the blessed tranquillity in which he had been so 
 long dwelling. But it was settled he was to remain till after the 
 dinner-party. It was the morning of the day : Alice was arranging 
 flowers, and busying herself in putting out her drawing-room 
 ornaments, and arranging the room as it was to be. She moved 
 about in her delicate-coloured morning dress like a gentle Naiad. 
 Conrad was lying on one of the sofas, pretending to read ; but, in 
 reality, watching her as she flitted gracefully to and fro. She 
 arranged her lamps, put out her best cushions, and filled a large 
 alabaster basket with flowers. She was very much absorbed in 
 her employment, and did not perceive the intense expression of 
 Conrad's eyes. 
 
 " You perceive' I have followed your taste in the lamp — I took 
 the one you admired. JN"ow come here and tell me how you like 
 the effect of the room ; I think it is very pretty as you look 
 through those folding-doors." 
 
 " You do all things well!" said Conrad, with involuntary 
 energy. 
 
 Then, confused at his own warmth, he walked into the inner 
 room, and pretended to be altering the position of the lamp ; but 
 he scarcely knew what he was about, and lifting it awkwardly, 
 the heavy lamp overbalanced in his hands, and fell to the ground 
 with a terrible crash. 
 
 " What is it ?" cried Alice, running in dismay at the sound. 
 " My beautiful new lamp ! and the oil is all over the carpet !" 
 She began hastily to pick up the broken glass, but put her hand 
 down heedlessly on a large jagged piece, which cut it severely. 
 She uttered a slight shriek at the pain, and Conrad, in great 
 agitation, lifted her upon a sofa, for she had turned sick and pale 
 at the sight of the blood. Conrad examined her hand, and pressed 
 it to his lips ; it seemed to him like sacrilege to let any of the 
 precious drops be lost. 
 
 " Give me some water," said Alice, faintly. He threw out the 
 flowers she had so carefully arranged, and brought the vase to 
 her ; she drank a little, and he sprinkled her face and neck. 
 
 " It is nothing ; I shall be better soon — do not be frightened." 
 
 i i Oh, Alice ! you are hurt — you are dreadfully hurt, and all 
 through my fault," cried Conrad, in despair. He washed the 
 wound, and bound it skilfully up : the perspiration stood on his 
 forehead, and his face was as pale as the handkerchief with which 
 he had stanched the wound. When he had finished, he shud- 
 dered and buried his head in the sofa pillow beside her. 
 
 " Poor dear Conrad, how I have frightened you," said Alice ; 
 but Conrad did not speak; he seemed under the influence of violent 
 emotion beyond his control, and the couch shook with the sobs 
 that burst from his bosom. 
 
 I? 
 
210 THE HALE SISTERS. 
 
 "Conrad, Conrad!" said Alice, wildly, " tell me what is the 
 matter. Are you hurt ? — are you ill?" and she attempted to lift 
 his head with her soft white hand. Conrad started at her touch, 
 and looked up. She was terrified at the expression of his counte- 
 nance ; his lips were still marked with Mood, traces of tears were 
 on his cheeks, and his eyes were pale and almost extinct. 
 
 " Speak to me, Conrad — one word — tell me what has come to 
 you that you look thus ?" 
 
 "I love you, Alice!" said he, in a low hard whisper; and 
 with a look of passion and despair, such as no woman could 
 misinterpret, he rose and left the room. 
 
 CHAPTEE, XLIV. 
 
 In spite of all the occurrences of the morning, the dinner-party 
 came to pass at its appointed time. Alice was standing in the 
 drawing-room, ready to receive her guests, looking a little paler 
 than usual — hut that might arise from her accident, for her hand 
 was very painful ; the "bandage was covered with Mack ribhon, 
 and she was obliged to rest it in a sling. The carpet showed 
 evident tokens of the misadventure, and it was quite a topic of 
 conversation for the time before dinner; 
 
 " Lamps are a great source of anxiety," said one lady, pathe- 
 tically. " I have been tormented to death with them ; they 
 always took the opportunity of either falling down, or going 
 out, or beginning to -smoke, when I had company, though they 
 burned beautifully at other times ; they might have known, 
 and done it on purpose. But now I keep a footman to attend 
 expressly to them, and I take no anxiety about them. If 
 anything goes wrong, it is a comfort to have somebody to blame 
 for it." 
 
 Others recited their various plagues and experiences : it seemed 
 a universal ground of sympathy. Conrad did not make his 
 appearance until just as dinner was announced * Alice felt him 
 come in, although she did not look towards him. He kept at the 
 opposite end of the room ; but in the general movement of sitting 
 down to table, he found himself placed nearly close beside her, 
 divided from her only by his companion and her right-hand 
 neighbour, who had brought her in to dinner. She was dressed 
 in black velvet, high to the throat, without any ornament except 
 a pair of pearl bracelets, her husband's gift when they were 
 married, and which she had put on as a sort of talisman this day. 
 So much in this world goes on from habit, goes on because it has 
 
THE HALF STSTEBS. 211 
 
 been once set going. Alice sat at the head of her table, went 
 through all the customary duties of her place, spoke and answered, 
 mechanically, words of course, and yet she was conscious of nothing 
 that was going on ; none of the company, with one exception, saw 
 anything peculiar in her manner ; she was very quiet and sijent — > 
 but seldom spoke. She never looked towards Conrad, and he once 
 only addressed her to say — " May I give you some wine ?" 
 
 She took it, but did not raise her eyes beneath the one glance 
 he turned upon her. The evening passed over like most other 
 evenings after a well-conducted dinner-party, where the guests 
 are all highly respectable, but by no means stimulating company. 
 There was coffee handed round to the ladies, and after coffee they 
 had a little music. Some of the dowagers held a privy council of 
 gossip amongst themselves ; while the younger ladies sat about 
 and looked at books and engravings, and were harmlessly ennuyg, 
 until the gentlemen re-appeared, which they did just, as it was 
 time to depart. The carriages were announced, the owners 
 entered them, and were driven away, and the whole affair was at 
 an end. 
 
 As soon as the last guest had departed, Bryant ordered candles 
 to his private-business room, desiring his wife not to sit up for 
 him, as he had his evening letters to read, and should probably 
 be up late. Alice was once more alone, sitting on the couch in 
 the inner drawing-room. What she was thinking about it would 
 be hard to say ; she did not know it herself ; she was stunned 
 with the declaration and the occurrences of the morning. How 
 long she had remained sitting there she knew not, when she was 
 roused by Conrad, who entered, looking pale, miserable, and 
 desperate. 
 
 "Alice ! " said he, " Alice, you must let me speak to you for 
 five minutes, now all those dreadful people are gone. It is the 
 last time. I am going away to-morrow, and I cannot leave you 
 thus. Come up stairs to your own sitting-room; we shall be 
 interrupted here ; you must hear what I have to say. Alice, do 
 not make me desperate, do not make me more wretched than I 
 am. I thought this evening would be eternal. For pity's sake 
 do not hesitate : — what have I done to deserve that you should 
 not trust me ? Alice ! you must hear me, you shall hear me, I 
 demand it as a right : I have that to say which you must listen 
 to, and I cannot speak here." 
 
 The servants were, in fact, beginning to extinguish the lights ; 
 Alice feared his agitated manner would attract their notice. 
 
 " What have you to say? n said she, hurriedly. " For God's 
 sake, consider what you are about ; you will be seen — you will 
 be heard — go away now." 
 
 " Will you let me see you alone for five minutes, in your own 
 sitting-room ? Alice ! I am desperate, I am capable of any 
 extravagance ; do not drive me beside myself; you must hear me, 
 I deserve better at your hands than this." 
 
 p 2 
 
212 THE HALE SISTERS. 
 
 Alice trembled violently, and half made a gesture to rise, and 
 then drew back. The servant entered the room where they were 
 together. 
 
 " Mrs. Bryant," said Conrad, in a formal tone, " will you look 
 out the drawing you promised to give me ; I go away so early 
 to-morrow there will be no time then." 
 
 To escape the eyes of the servant, Alice rose. At the door of 
 her sitting-room she stood for a moment irresolute, but women 
 of her character have an instinct to do whatever seems decidedly 
 expected from them. She went in and stood beside the fire-place, 
 almost insensible from .agitation. Conrad had lost all his power 
 of utterance. He leaned against the mantel-piece, not daring to 
 raise his eyes to her. The emotion of each rose to a point of 
 agony. 
 
 " Alice! " said Conrad, in a choking voice, " I wished to ask 
 — I could not go away without — Alice ! " cried he impetuously, 
 all the pent-up passion of his soul finding its way like a lava 
 torrent ; " Alice ! I love you — my whole soul is yours. I have 
 no life but you. You are my god — my religion — my life. I 
 love you. Do not send me away from you ; my whole soul is 
 devoted to you. I have lived in your shadow — in the sound of 
 your dear voice; you have been like a blessed angel to me ; all I 
 know of goodness or purity is from you. Alice, I love you. Do 
 not send me away from you, I cannot go — I will not go — I must 
 stay beside you. There is no world — no life — no place but in 
 your presence. Alice, Alice, tell me not to go away, let me stay — 
 let me live as your slave, I will never speak one word to you that a 
 blessed angel might not hear. I ask nothing — I desire nothing, 
 only let me stay — let me be under the same roof with you. I 
 have controlled myself — I intended to go away in silence, but I 
 have no power to go, the torture has forced me to utterance ; let 
 me stay and I will be dumb. Alice, Alice, be merciful. Ever 
 since I saw you I have loved you, and have I not been silent ? it 
 was to be near you, to have the right of approaching you, that I 
 embarked with Bryant. I ask nothing but to remain beside you : 
 once living in your dear presence, I cannot leave it ; why must I 
 go away^ ? Why are you banishing me ? I am mad, and you 
 have driven me mad. My whole life centres in you. I will not 
 go away ; let me stay, and I will never ofiend you more. I 
 thought to fly to save myself from perdition, but I am lost, I 
 am lost, let me stay!" He uttered this frantic appeal with a 
 rapidity and energy that made it almost inarticulate. 
 
 ; " Conrad ! Conrad ! " said Alice, " what words are these ? For 
 pity's sake hush, I must not hear them. You must go. You 
 will not be so wretched long. "We are both very wrong. Go ; 
 you must go, and not return. Oh, why did you ever come ! " 
 cried she, in an accent of despair. 
 
 " Alice, it is the only life I have ever known ; this last month, 
 this last precious month, would have been cheaply bought with 
 
THE HALF SISTERS.. 2 3 
 
 an eternity of pain. If I had not loved yon, I should not have 
 known life; — it has been the only thing I ever did that was 
 worth coming into the world for. I love yon ; I will pay the 
 penalty, if it be death or madness. Oh, I rejoice in suffering' for 
 you. I ask no return from you ; I ask only not to be driven 
 from your presence." 
 
 Alice had never witnessed strong passionate emotion. All her 
 life her soul had been athirst for words of love ; all the words he . 
 uttered found an echo in her own soul ; and she was obliged to 
 put aside the cup that was offered, for the first time, to her 
 parched soul in the dreary desert of her life. She leaned her 
 forehead against the mantel-piece, and, without trusting herself 
 to look at Conrad, she said, in a low but steady tone, " You 
 must go ; there is no more peace or safety for us together. So 
 long as I did not know youv secret I was guiltless. God knows, 
 I never suspected it till this morning ; we have been so calm, so 
 happy ; but that is all passed now, and will never return. Do 
 not attempt to come back again ; we can never be again as we 
 have been ; it is idle to dream of it. You will find again the 
 peace of mind you have lost. My life was dreary before you 
 came, and when you are gone," — her voice failed, but she 
 recovered herself, and continued abruptly, "It is a forbidden 
 thing for us to be happy as we have been, and we must both pay 
 the price of having learned what we ought never to have known. 
 I cannot innocently see you again. I must not remain here ; let 
 me go." 
 
 He seized one of her hands as she turned away, and flinging 
 himself on the ground, clasped her knees: "Alice! Alice!" 
 cried he, wildly, " do you know the meaning of 'for ever?' God 
 alone has the right to condemn to a ' for ever.' You know not 
 what you are saying. Tell me I am not to return for a month — ■ 
 for a year — for two years, — but fix some term when I may come 
 back to look on you." 
 
 " Conrad ! " cried Alice, in despair, " do not break my heart ! 
 It is you who should strengthen me ; you must have strength for 
 both. Do I look as if it made me happy to send you away for 
 ever ? — to know that we must never see each other again ? Do 
 not lead me into wrong : let me go ; I must go ; I will go." 
 
 Disengaging her hand, and without daring to look at him, she 
 left that room. Conrad remained in the same spot, prostrate on 
 the ground, unable to tear himself away from where he had last 
 seen her. The candle had long since burned out, and the cold 
 grey morning began to break the darkness. He madly kissed the 
 ground where she had stood, and staggered to his bed-room, 
 where, exhausted, he flung himself on the bed. 
 
 He had arranged to depart early, and was in hopes he should 
 escape without seeing Bryant ; who, however, was already in the 
 breakfast-room, where the shutters had just been opened, and a 
 hasty breakfast set out, when Conrad descended. 
 
214 THE HALE SISTERS. 
 
 ' ' Conrad, my boy ! I did not see you last night. Alice could 
 not get up to see you, she is very ill. I sat up late writing- 
 letters last night, and when I went up stairs at a little after two 
 o'clock this morning, I found her lying on the couch in her 
 dressing-room. She has had shivering-fits and fainting away 
 tiie whole night. I shall go with vou to the coach, and then 
 bring home the doctor to see her, for I am very uneasy about 
 her." 
 
 Fortunately, Bryant was too much engaged to notice Conrad's 
 haggard and disturbed countenance, or to perceive the agitation, 
 into which the mention of Alice threw him. Nevertheless, to 
 hoar of her suffering was the only consolation of which he was 
 just then susceptible. He felt a secret joy at knowing that ho 
 did not suffer alone. 
 
 " Now, my boy, we have not a moment to lose," cried Bryant, 
 rising and swallowing his cup of tea; " the coach starts at a 
 quarter to six." Casting one look at the desolate room, Conrad 
 followed him. 
 
 CHAPTEE XLV. 
 
 At first Alice felt Conrad's absence a relief, — he loved her, he 
 had told her so, and she was satisfied. The deep thirst of her 
 heart was appeased, she felt it was well for both he should be 
 away. Then began the deep vacuity of absence ; that weight, 
 " heavy as lead, and deep almost as life : " it enveloped her and 
 her whole existence as with a cloud of thick darkness, — "dark- 
 ness that might be felt." She shut herself up in the house — - 
 refused to see anyone, refused to go out. She could not bear to 
 look on any object associated with him. When she walked in the 
 garden, the very trees seemed to nod their heads, and mock her 
 dumb agony. She sat nearly always in the inner drawing-room. 
 Sometimes she tried to continue the ottoman she had worked on 
 when he was there, and forced herself to take a few stitches ; 
 then, flinging down the frame, as a pang of memory shot through 
 her mind, she would fall back in a fit of vehement hysterical 
 weeping, which increased upon her every day, till her health became 
 seriously affected. At other times she would go to a small 
 book-case, and taking clown the Wordsworth he had given to her, 
 sit looking at it without reading, wildly pressing her lips to a 
 mark on one of the pages. Sometimes she would make a desperate 
 struggle to free herself. She determined to crush this passion 
 out of her heart ; and once actually began to destroy the presents 
 he had given her from time to time, the box of paints, a little 
 
THE HALF SISTEES. 215 
 
 Swiss basket, and tlie rest. But such a host of memories came 
 with each — the kind words, the pleasant occasions on which they 
 had been presented — times, before she had eaten of the tree of 
 knowledge, when she was calm, happy, ignorant of passion — that 
 her courage failed her. Hastily snatching the little carved basket 
 from the llames, she took all her treasures and hid them in the 
 secret drawer of a cabinet, in the inner drawing-room, firmly 
 resolving that she would never visit them, or look upon them 
 again ; and that same night, after she had retired to rest, came 
 down stairs, to be sure that no one had meddled with them ! 
 She struggled, Helplessly, under a weight that seemed glued to 
 her very soul. A sense of remorse pursued her like a hend — 
 every kind word uttered by her husband went to her heart — a 
 thousand times she was on the point of telling him everything — ■ 
 the pent-up agony of her soul was more than she could bear — the 
 feeling of her duplicity was, perhaps, after all, the most intolerable 
 of her sufferings. She longed to tell her husband, in order that, 
 at least, she might stand true in his eyes ; but then she feared 
 to compromise Conrad ; she hesitated, and, after all, it was but 
 one emotion out of the thousand that tore her soul. Her health 
 failed, her temper failed ; it became unequal, passionate, morose. 
 She was in misery ; misery that no words could express : and, 
 at times, she was near suicide, as the only escape from her 
 intolerable suffering. 
 
 Bryant was, at that time, a great deal from home, or he must 
 have suspected some cause for this extraordinary change. He 
 saw she was dull, and out of spirits. He pressed her to invite 
 some friend — she pettishly refused. He proposed she should go 
 from home, with his sister, for change of scene — she sullenly 
 refused to stir. When he spoke affectionately, she repulsed him. 
 He could not account for the change that had come over her, 
 and at length quietly bore it ; hoping that, in time, she would 
 recover her equanimity. She was touched by her husband's 
 patient forbearance, and made many efforts to be more amiable 
 towards him ; but she was in misery, and when she thought 
 that she was never to see Conrad more, she was in a frenzy of 
 grief, that drove, for the time, all the better movements from 
 her heart. 
 
 A strong emotion — a real feeling of any kind, is a truth ; no 
 matter whether it be compatible or not with received maxims of 
 right and wrong. 
 
 A married woman, in love with a man not her husband, is a 
 fact worthy of all reprobation — worthy of the anathemas which 
 are deserved, by either men or women, who have taken on 
 themselves engagements,, and fail in the fulfilment of them. Still, 
 when all the anathemas have been expended, the fact remains 
 the same ; she is under the dominion of a real feeling, deep as 
 life, and overpowering as death. It is a fact, and requires to be 
 exorcised by something as deep, strong, and vital, as itself. It 
 
210 THE HALE SISTERS. 
 
 Will not stir for being called hard names, it does not recognise 
 them ; it stands on its own affinity with reality ; otherwise, it 
 conld not hold its place against the torrent of shame, fear, 
 remorse, and all kinds of confusion, which, like a wild deluge, 
 sweeps over the soul it hath entered, driving before it all the rules 
 of action, principle, and thought, by which life had previously 
 been shaped and organised. It has taken possession in right of 
 being stronger than anything already there ; it is proof against 
 evil report, danger, shame, death itself, when they are denounced 
 simply as penalties for the offence. A true woman would cheer- 
 fully risk her own salvation for the sake of him she loves. There 
 must be an appeal to some higher motive than mere personal 
 considerations, if a woman, once under the influence of passion, 
 is to be brought back to a sound mind. Alice had no one to 
 speak a word of strong counsel to her, she was left to be tossed 
 amongst her own shifting and vacillating emotions, — to her own 
 weak passionate heart. She had never been possessed of any real 
 sense of the paramount reality and importance of duty. Among 
 all the maxims she had been taught, and the vague, misty, 
 religious doctrines she had learned, there was not one, which 
 now, in this hour of temptation, presented itself, as appealing 
 to the realities of things. She had a vague notion of being very 
 bad, and very wicked, but what she was to do, or how sue ought 
 to right herself, never occurred to her. She sat down, helpless 
 and miserable, humbled to the dust by a sense of guilt, and yet 
 clinging to her passion for Conrad, without even an effort to 
 conquer it. The constant aspiration of her poor, tossed, trembling 
 heart, was, " Oh, that I had anyone to counsel me, to tell me 
 what I ought to do." Her instinct was to tell her husband— to 
 take up her true position with him. This instinct she did 
 not dare to follow; she thought it would be more prudent to 
 conceal it. 
 
 Things went on in this miserable, distracted manner for nearly 
 two months, when Bryant, who had been much worried by 
 business, had to go from home in consequence of the failure of 
 one of his correspondents. He never was in the habit of plaguing 
 Alice about his business anxieties ; they often rendered him silent 
 and abstracted, but never cross or harsh. Alice had been too 
 much absorbed in her own misery to notice the deepened shadow 
 that had come over him. He told her at breakfast one morning 
 that business of importance required him to leave home for some 
 days. 
 
 u Oh, do not go ; you must not go," cried Alice, passionately. 
 
 " What is the meaning of all this ? " said Bryant, in a surprised 
 tone. 
 
 " Do not leave me alone," said Alice, still more vehemently ; 
 " have yivu not seen me ill, suffering, and you are going to leave 
 me ! You love your business more than anything else. You care 
 not what comes to me. ' You would never miss me ; you would 
 
THE HALF SISTERS. • 217 
 
 live equally contented if I were dead : you have never loved mo, 
 and now you are leaving me alone ! " 
 
 " Alice, Alice," said Bryant, sternly, "what fantastic non- 
 sense is this ? You are worse than childish ; you fancy yourself 
 ill, and you give way to your temper, till your humour becomes 
 absolutely insupportable. You see me worried and anxious 
 about matters of indispensable importance, and you choose this 
 time for reproaches, — which you know arc not deserved." 
 
 " Oh do not speak unkindly to me!" cried Alice, piteously; 
 " I cannot bear it ; I am ill, weak, wicked, but do not leave 
 me ; or if you must go, take me with you, do not leave me by 
 myself." 
 
 Bryant was so accustomed of late to see Alice in violent fits of 
 excitement, and of a most variable and uncertain humour, that 
 he did not attach any sort of importance to this outburst of feeling. 
 He only replied in a cold, decided tone. 
 
 " You are asking what is quite impossible. I am going on 
 business that must be attended to, and you would be in the way. 
 I am quite tired of these scenes, and I wish you would try to get 
 a little more reasonable before I return." 
 
 He left the room as he said this, without any attempt to soften 
 its severity or to console Alice. 
 
 " I should be in the way," sobbed she, as soon as she was 
 alone, "lie is quite tired of these scenes — business, business, 
 always business — I am nothing, or at best of secondary . impor- 
 tance. Well, be it so, be it so ; I need feel no more remorse ; he 
 has lost me by his own fault." 
 
 Bryant was to go that evening. When he returned to dinner 
 he tried to make amends for his harshness in the morning, but 
 Alice remained sullen and indifferent. He was fully occupied 
 about the affair that called him from home; and after a few 
 attempts to conquer her ill humour, he left her to recover her 
 temper (as he considered it) at her leisure. Alice saw him depart 
 with a strange mixture of feelings. She had no definite purpose 
 of evil in her heart ; but for the first time she began to justify 
 herself, and to reason down her remorse. She ceased to struggle 
 with her own thoughts, and gave in headlong to the passion that 
 was consuming her. 
 
 The devil never fails to take advantage of every evil or weak 
 moment, and asserts himself at every "damning opportunity." 
 Bryant had to see Conrad in London, and to tell him of the 
 awkward turn affairs were taking; with trembling lips Conrad 
 asked after Alice, and learned that she had been ill and seemed 
 out of spirits. To Conrad this revealed much ; he felt that absence 
 had befriended him ; and he resolved to present himself before her, 
 sure that he would not be repulsed. 
 
 . Bryant had been gone four days, and Alice was sitting in her 
 accustomed place in the inner drawing-room, when she heard a 
 ring at the bell which she well recognised. It made her heart 
 
218 THE HALF SISTEBS, 
 
 stand still. She thought they would never open the door. She 
 feared that through some stupidity he would be refused on account 
 of "Mr. Bryant not being at home." Steps approached, the 
 drawing-room opened, and " Mr. Conrad Percy" was announced. 
 He did not advance till the door was closed behind him and the 
 servant had time to retire ; then trembling, and as much agitated 
 as Alice, he stood before her. 
 
 Alice neither spoke nor moved, but a flash of gladness like sun- 
 light passed over her face. Neither of them spoke. A passionate, 
 guilty joy was in their hearts; they were interpenetrated with 
 each other's presence, 
 
 "As the melting fire burnetii," 
 
 honour, conscience, every barrier that was between them was 
 destroyed ; they only felt they were together ; neither regret nor 
 doubt intruded. They weee togethee. That was the one 
 reality into which their whole life was absorbed. 
 
 " lou love me now, Alice," said Conrad, at last, in a low voice. 
 Alice did not reply, but the hands he held grasped his. 
 
 " You will never send me away again." 
 
 " Never! " said Alice. 
 
 Conrad had a perverse sense of honour. He was deterred by 
 no scruple from gaining the affection of his friend's wife ; but 
 when assured of his triumph, he shrank from the man on whom 
 he had inflicted such a grievous wrong: he insisted that Alice 
 should leave her husband's roof, and fly with him that very 
 evening. At first, Alice refused ; she had confessed her passion 
 to him, but intended to stop there. "Women always intend to 
 stand very firm, after they have given in the first step ; but the 
 "pomp of virtue," as Mr. Howe calls it, did not come to her 
 rescue. Conrad endeavoured to invest the step he was proposing 
 with an air of uprightness. He knew that if he could make her 
 believe that she had kept her faith with Bryant, in remaining 
 faithful to him so long as she continued under his roof, and that 
 in going away openly she was acting uprightly, he should be able 
 to shield her from the reaction of remorse or regret. He knew 
 her well enough, to be sure she would shrink from no blame or 
 scandal, or loss of reputation, so long as she could to her own 
 conscience throw the least varnish of rectitude over her crime ; 
 and, besides, he really wished to conduct matters as honourably 
 as circumstances would allow. 
 
 Alice, who believed that, in loving him, she had already com- 
 mitted all the sin possible, and that no redemption for her remained, 
 at length consented to fly with him — to leave her husband's roof 
 within an hour ! To avoid rousing the suspicions of the servants, 
 they agreed to leave the house separately. Conrad departed to 
 make arrangements for their flight, and was to await her at the 
 gate in half* an hour, 
 
THE HALF SISTEES. 219 
 
 " Be firm, my Alice. You will not fail me ; I trust my life, 
 my honour, all my future in your hands ! " 
 
 " You need not fear for me/' said Alice, with desperate calm- 
 ness. * ' I know that I have lost my soul for you. I know the 
 punishment on wives who are faithless — I know there is no pardon 
 or remission of sin for me in this world or the next. I have lost 
 myself for you, and would do so again a thousand times, to give 
 you hut one moment's gladness. I will not fail you." 
 
 When Conrad was gone, Alice, like one in the stupor of drunken- 
 ness or in sleep-walking, went to her dressing-room. She made 
 no preparation for her departure, she determined to take nothing 
 with her — she locked her drawers and her dressing-case, which 
 contained her jewels, and made the key into a parcel addressed to 
 Bryant. This reminded her that she ought to write to him to 
 explain what she had done, and she sat down to her desk and 
 began to write, in the same state of stupified excitement. It 
 seemed to her as if she were transacting a dream. 
 
 Meanwhile, Bryant, by one of those coincidences that occur so 
 often in real life, and which sound so unreal in books, had been 
 able to return home earlier than he expected. He thought he 
 would not write to tell Alice, but would give her a surprise. After 
 Conrad had been gone about a quarter of an hour, he arrived. 
 Surprised to find the hall door on the latch, he entered without 
 ringing ; and meeting one of the servants in the hall, ho reproved 
 his carelessness in leaving the door open. "Is your mistress 
 within ? " continued he. 
 
 "Yes, sir; she is in the drawing-room, along with Mr. 
 Percy." 
 
 Bryant proceeded there, but found no one. He went up stairs, 
 fancying she might be in her own sitting-room; but when he 
 reached the landing-place he saw, through the half-open door, 
 Alice, in her dressing-room, seated at her desk. 
 
 CHAPTEE XLVL 
 
 Bryant entered in the dusk. Alice had not heard his arrival, 
 and did not look up from her writing. 
 
 "My own Alice," said Bryant; — she looked up and saw her 
 husband standing over her. She uttered a shriek of terror, and 
 fell senseless at his feet. 
 
 " I ought to have remembered her weak, nervous state, and not 
 have ventured to surprise her," said he, to himself, as he tenderly 
 lifted her on the couch and tried every means to restore her to 
 
220 TIIE HALF SI3TEES 
 
 sensibility. He succeeded, at length ; but it was only to see her 
 seized by frightful spasms, which contracted and convulsed her 
 whole body ; her cries were piercing ; her delicate limbs were 
 tossed and contorted ; her head rolled violently from side to side, 
 and no trace remained in her features of the fair and gentle Alice. 
 In a few minutes the violence of the attack subsided, but was 
 followed by immediate insensibility. Bryant was in despair, and 
 terrified beyond expression at this frightful seizure. The whole 
 household, alarmed by her cries, came rushing up stairs. He 
 despatched three men on horseback in different directions for 
 medical assistance, whilst her own maid and the housekeeper got 
 her undressed and, assisted by Bryant, laid in bed, without 
 rousing her from the death-like swoon in which she was plunged. 
 When Bryant returned to the dressing-room for a moment, he for 
 the first time perceived the half-finished letter over which she had 
 been occupied when he entered. There was enough written to tell 
 him all that had passed during his absence. Every sorrow in 
 life seemed to be let loose against him at once. A deep flush 
 mounted to his temples, and the veins swelled and throbbed 
 to bursting, but no sound came from his compressed lips. He read 
 the paper over twice ; then lighting a taper on the hearth, he held 
 the paper in the flame till every particle was destroyed ; a gust of 
 air carried the light black ashes up the chimney, and he returned 
 to his wife's room. She had by this time recovered her senses, 
 but seemed in violent terror, and trembled extremely. She caught 
 a glimpse of her husband through an opening between the curtains 
 and screamed with fear, hiding and cowering under the clothes ; 
 the spasms returned more severely than ever ; and a horrible 
 suspicion darted into Bryant's mind that she had taken poison. 
 In a state of mind amounting to frenzy he sat beside her bed, 
 trying to shut out from his ears the sound of her cries. At 
 length, after an interval that seemed an eternity, two medical 
 men arrived, one of them the physician who attended the family. 
 Bryant, who could not bear to stand by whilst they consulted, 
 went to the dressing-room, and hiding his face with his hands, 
 sat in a convulsed and desperate calmness till they came to him. 
 The old family physician, who was also a friend, at length 
 entered. 
 
 " Well, sir ? " said Bryant sternly. 
 
 The old man came up to him, and putting his hand on his 
 shoulder, said, in a voice trembling with tears : 
 
 "You must be a man, Bryant. It may be averted even yet, 
 but we fear the worst. That sweet creature " — and here the old 
 man fairly burst into tears. 
 
 " Tell me what is the matter," said Bryant, imperiously; "I 
 will know ; I insist on having nothing kept from me, What is 
 this sudden and frightful seizure ? " 
 
 "A most severe attack of hysteria, complicated by spasms of 
 the stomach ; and, from her extreme delicacy and the great 
 
THE HALE SISTERS. 221 
 
 general debility under which she is labouring, we fear the worst. 
 It is not necessarily fatal — but — but — I dare not say that we are 
 sanguine." 
 
 "You are telling ine the truth?" said Bryant, fiercely. "I 
 will not be trilled with. Do you swear to me that it is natural — ■ 
 that she has not taken — that no one has given her — that it is not 
 from — from — medicine — ' ' 
 
 "No, no ; my dear friend, calm yourself; it is quite natural ; 
 it is a frequent form of malady with women, not often so severe. 
 But what do you suspect it arises from ? Has she had any strong- 
 mental shock or violent emotion to bring it on ? " 
 
 " Thank God ! " said Bryant, fervently, and drawing a breath 
 as of one relieved from intolerable fear. ' ' No, no ; I know of 
 nothing, I can account for nothing, and I will have no questions 
 asked ; — do you hear ? I hate that prying into every act of the 
 past weeks or months, and straining every insignificant point to 
 yield a reason or a meaning. You will ask nothing, and seek to 
 know nothing. It is enough that she is ill — dying — that you 
 cannot restore her precious soul. Tell me, will she, do you think, 
 be able to recognise me ? — to endure to see me ? — shall I hear her 
 sweet voice again ? Oh, let me but be able to speak to her once 
 more, if it be only for one moment, — let her but be able to hear 
 and understand one word, and I ask no more ! Tell me, may I 
 hope for this ? " 
 
 * ' We must hope so ; we must hope the best ; but you will need 
 all your firmness, so much depends on your calmness. You must 
 not see her now ; the least excitement would be fatal." 
 
 The old doctor grasped his hand and returned to the bedside of 
 Alice, whilst Bryant remained all that night and the next' day 
 sitting at the door of the dressing-room, listening to every sound 
 that proceeded from his wife's room. At length, late in the 
 afternoon, the old doctor came to him ; he had been in from time 
 to time to speak such words of comfort as he could, but to compel 
 him to take some food to induce rest was beyond his power. 
 Bryant sat motionless as an Indian Fakueer, rigid in sorrow. He 
 looked up with dull eyes as the doctor appeared. 
 
 " If you wish to see her, come now ; but be very calm." 
 
 " Let every one else leave the room," said Bryant, as he 
 followed the doctor, and stood beside his wife. She was lying 
 calm and sensible, but entirely exhausted ; her eyes were sunk, 
 and looked preternaturally large, surrounded with a large violet 
 circle ; she trembled when she saw Bryant, and cowered down 
 amongst the bed clothes. 
 
 "Am I then so very hateful to you, my poor child?" said 
 Bryant, mournfully. 
 
 She did not speak, but looked up in his face with, an expression 
 of touching, deprecating helplessness. 
 
 " Alice ! Alice ! " said Bryant, " let me speak to you. I feared 
 you should die without my being able to tell you, not of my 
 
222 THE HALF SISTEllS. 
 
 pardon, but of my love ; poor child ! how much, you nave 
 struggled and suffered, and I was ignorant of it ! "Why did you 
 not take refuge with me ? I would have sheltered you from 
 yourself; you might have trusted me, Alice. I could have 
 sympathised with your temptation, and you should not have been 
 left single-handed to struggle, and to fall at last. Who could have 
 loved you as I did, who coulcl have pitied and sympathised as I 
 would have done ? You should not have fallen, I would have won 
 back your heart with such love as must have won you. Oh, why 
 did you feel so little confidence in me ? Why did you not lean on 
 me in your helplessness ? It was not your fault that you were 
 tempted, and I should only have loved you more for your peril ; 
 dear child, I do not blame you now. I love you ; do not look on 
 me with dread. Think of me as one who loves you better than 
 any earthly thing." 
 
 Alice put out her hand to him, and he took it almost 
 timidly. 
 
 " Bryant," said she, in a whisper, "one thing I want you to 
 know : you are not dishonoured — in that one sense, at least, I have 
 been faithful to you. Do you believe me ? " 
 
 il I do," said Bryant, earnestly. 
 
 u Would to dod ! " continued she, in gasps, as her weakness 
 would permit her — " would to God I had confided all to you. I 
 was a hundred times on the point of doing so. You could have 
 brought back my heart to you ; — but I did not know you — I did 
 not dare to trust you. I see now all the evil I have wrought. 
 Forgive me ; you can forgive me, can you not ?" 
 
 Bryant bent down over her. She looked timidly up to him. 
 He lifted her up in bed, and laid her head upon his bosom, as she 
 had been a child. 
 
 11 1 have no right here now," said she. 
 
 " Ever your resting-place ! " cried Bryant, fervently. " Would 
 I had sought more to draw you here in love and trust. It was 
 my blame — I ought to have sought you more ; but, Alice, I love 
 you — -I have always loved you — I love you as a father, mother, 
 husband, all that the world has of most tender -and protecting. I 
 will not fail you ; — cling to me, trust to me ; — I love you far more 
 than you can love yourself." 
 
 Alice clung to him, like a frightened child. 
 
 1 ' Let me die here, Bryant, let me die here ; I have no other 
 wish." 
 
 " You shall get well darling — you shall not die, now that we 
 have just found each other again." 
 
 " No, no, no," said Alice, " it is very merciful thus — it is more 
 than I deserve — to die, and to be taken away from all the evil I 
 have done." 
 
 Her tears were falling fast ; — at first, they came like a painless 
 gentle rain ; but they became more violent ; the convulsions 
 returned, and though not so severe as at first, she had not strength 
 
THE HALF SISTEES. 223^ 
 
 to rally ; fainting followed, and at length she fell into a dead, 
 heavy stupor, from which she never awoke. She died in the 
 evening, — as nearly as could be ascertained, about the hour she 
 was first seized. 
 
 " The broken lily lies, , 
 
 The storm is overpast." 
 
 CHAPTEE XLVIL 
 
 Beya^t sat in his room of business the day after Alice had 
 expired ; his head rested upon his arms ; a pile of business- 
 letters, with their seals all unbroken, lay beside him. He was 
 plunged in a deep waking stupor of grief. He had been so 
 overwrought with agony, that the last point of sensation had been 
 passed. Wretches have been known to fall asleep on the rack in 
 the interval of their tortures. A number of thoughts, all more 
 or less irrelevant to the one great thing that possessed him, 
 crawled forth, like rats from their hiding-place, and careered 
 over his desolate mind, exciting no effort on his part to chase 
 them away. From the window he could perceive a half-finished 
 building* His dull . eyes followed the men as they went up and 
 down the ladder, carrying their hods of mortar and bricks ; the 
 round of one of the ladders broke, near the top, as the man was 
 stepping upon it, and he and his load of bricks fell to the ground. 
 It did not move liim ; he looked on, as though he were reading 
 it in a book. His eyes caught a spot on the carpet where it was 
 much worn, and he mechanically began to follow the lines and 
 patches, and to count the spots which formed the pattern. The 
 frenzy of grief had subsided, and left him in a lazy stupor of 
 reverie. 
 
 A knock came to the door ; which he heard, well enough, but 
 did not answer. It was repeated ; and the butler entered, to tell 
 his master that he was wanted in the drawing-room. Bryant 
 gave a dull vague stare ; and, like one under mesmeric influence, 
 rose, and followed the servant, who held open the drawing-room 
 door and closed it after him. 
 
 Bryant advanced listlessly. Conrad stood at the window place, 
 with his eyes fixed on the door. For an instant his features 
 seemed galvanised by a spasm, as the man whom he had so much 
 injured came in ; but they immediately became still and rigid ; 
 all the traces of mental anguish and fiery passion seemed to have 
 been arrested in their working, and left stamped therewith the 
 grim emphasis of death. 
 
224 THE HALF SISTEKS. 
 
 Bryant did not raise his eyes, nor perceive him, until he had 
 reached the middle of the room. The men stood face to face, 
 each bearing traces of strong agony, but utterly stilled now, and 
 unable to manifest either life or passion. 
 
 Conrad spoke first ; his voice came sharp and grating, as if it 
 came from a piece of mechanism. 
 
 "Mr. Bryant," said he, "I might have blown out my brains 
 for myself, but that it had become your right to do so. I know 
 that you must be aware of what happened in your absence, and 
 I have no wish, to elude your vengeance. Now make an cud 
 speedily. I am at your service, to meet you when you please." 
 
 Bryant's eyes gleamed fiercely at Conrad, and he looked like a 
 wild beast in sight of his prey. 
 
 "I have only one word to say," continued Conrad, "it may 
 make you think less hardly of her. On me alone your curse 
 should fall. She was pure in heart, and never guessed my 
 passion till I revealed it. She drove me away from her, she 
 might have escaped if I would have let her. I hunted her down, 
 she had no chance. Ask yourself, did you protect her ? When 
 she was struggling, did you stretch out your hand to save her 
 from the toils ? She was left to her own strength. Had you 
 taken her away when she entreated you, she had been saved ; but 
 your business, your money, your time, your cursed convenience, 
 made you refuse her harshly, — blind fool that you were ! She 
 was struggling to be faithful to you — to save your honour, and 
 you saw it not. She was dying with the struggle and you left 
 her to her fate ; to save a miserable l contract,' you left her. You 
 left her in my power ; the blood of her soul is on your hands as 
 well as on mine. Oh, when you refused either to remain with 
 her, or to take her away, to whom else could she go but to me 
 who loved her?" 
 
 His voice had gradually risen into an hysterical shrillness ; the 
 words he uttered came with pain and gashed his soul as though 
 they had been knives. Bryant at first seemed to listen as though 
 he heard not, but the iteration of the words, " You left her, you 
 left her," seemed to rouse him to madness ; he crushed his hands 
 together till the blood started beneath the pressure of the nails, 
 and then, as if a pent-up torrent had broken loose, bearing 
 down all before it, 
 
 " Man, man," he cried, in a voice hardly human in its agony, 
 "what gave you the right to torture me ? can you say aught I 
 have not said to myself r Do I not know that she was pure ? do 
 not I know her worth ? Are you, a stranger of yesterday, to come 
 and teach me her worth ; do I not know all, all — what can you 
 know ? You who would have degraded her — who only knew her 
 in her fall! Was not her whole life mine,- and you talk of 
 her! — you, you, you, oh God! that such a thing should be 
 able to mention her name — you school me to think less hardly 
 of her!" 
 
THE HALE S1STEES. 225 
 
 After a moment's pause, he seemed to constrain himself by a 
 violent effort, and continued in a calm, bitter tone : 
 
 " Listen to me, sir, and take this to heart all the days of your 
 miserable life, and know what it is that you have done. She 
 thought I did not love her, because I had no words like you. 
 She was the very life within my heart. She was the soul of my 
 life. By nature I was cold and proud. I could not make a 
 demonstration of my feelings, but I loved her all the more, 
 because it was her way to show much. You are a gentleman. 
 You taunt me with my attention to business. When a man 
 spends his life in doing a thing, he generally gives his attention 
 to it. You do not know what you talk about when you reproach 
 me with my business. I must have given my mind to it, or have 
 been ruined, and made her a beggar. Perhaps I Avas too much 
 engrossed. Such things grow on one. I knew not that she was 
 pining for more love, more sympathy, than I had power to show. 
 I knew it not ; I guessed it not, God knows. You came, sir ; 
 you were a man of fashion, a man of gallantry, a man of intrigue. 
 This thing you have attempted is nothing in the eyes of your own 
 set ; it would not live a week in one of your scandalous journals. 
 The device by which you obtained a footing in the family, and 
 blinded my eyes, will cover you with applause ; it will be a jest, 
 a good after-dinner story for a month ; and this will be all the 
 trace it leaves in your horizon — it is a very little thing, an episode 
 of three months ; and, to furnish food for your ennui, you have 
 consumed the life and soul of a woman, on whom God had 
 bestowed His most precious things. You have degraded a man 
 who only sought to do you good. You have uprooted me from 
 the face of the earth. What I shall be in another world, God 
 alone knows ; you have made me an outcast in this ; and you will 
 make a jest of it. I am become the legitimate object of a jest ; I 
 am become — what you have made me." 
 
 Hitherto he had controlled himself, but now a multitude of 
 thoughts were roused ; an intense hatred entered into him like a 
 demon, and he felt powerless to give it utterance. 
 
 " Killing you," he exclaimed, "would not slack my hatred." 
 But his words were lost in an articulate gurgling. 
 
 " God knows," said Conrad, " I have no wish to escape your 
 vengeance ; I came to offer you my life ; it is all the atonement 
 I can make. Your lot is enviable compared to mine ; to revoke 
 the last six months, I would willingly never have lived." 
 
 The ravages that misery had made on the young and handsome 
 features of Conrad struck Bryant even at this desperate 
 moment. 
 
 "I am not going to fight you," said he, more calmly; "her 
 name shall not be sullied ; your death in a duel would cause 
 inquiries, comments, in the newspapers. You must live, as I 
 shall have to do. I believe that you are sorry, now that you 
 have to pay the penalty of your sin ; but go, or the devil within 
 
 Q 
 
226 THE HALF SISTE11S. 
 
 me will be roused again — I should kill you where you stand. 
 Let me see you no longer — go." 
 
 ' ' Are you a coward, then, that you refuse to fight me ? What 
 more can I do ? " 
 
 " Go — let me never see, you more." 
 
 " I cannot live, I will not live ! " cried Conrad, passionately. 
 
 " She shall not be made the subject of slanderous gossip— s/?e 
 shall have peace in the grave, where you have laid her. You 
 talk of death ! . W hat have you done to earn such a blessing ?" 
 
 " Bryant, you may safely fight me. What cowardice, what 
 folly is this — we must fight." 
 
 " Have not I to live also ? " rejoined the other, sternly. He 
 pointed silently to the door. Conrad quailed beneath the deep 
 scornful misery that looked from his eyes. He felt constrained 
 to obey ; but when he reached the door he stopped, and with a 
 sudden impulse, turning round, he flung himself on the floor at 
 Bryant's feet, exclaiming, in quick, broken tones — • 
 
 "Be merciful, and kill me — or, if you will have me live — I 
 will swear to do so ; but as life is your sentence, for the love of 
 Heaven be merciful — let me look on her once more. I will 
 swear to go hence to redeem the future. I will live — live. You 
 understand — I will be your galley slave, and live my life out to 
 the end. But think what it is you lay on me. I have no claim 
 to what I ask; but, as one prays to God in deepest fieed, I 
 implore you to let me look on her once more. As God shall hear 
 you — and surely you have sinned against Him — as you hope to be 
 heard by Him, let me see her. I am kneeling to you — let me 
 see her. As you are a man, look on my misery — let me see her, 
 and I will swear to live." 
 
 His agony of entreaty could not utter itself in words : but that 
 tone of intense supplication, addressed by one human being to 
 another, was almost fearful. In the midst of his own wrongs 
 and hatred, Bryant could not help feeling a sort of pity at the 
 sight of the young man's desolation. Death had taken away all 
 littleness from his sorrow ; he was moved ; and, placing his 
 hand on Conrad's shoulder, he said, in a husky voice, "Come 
 with me." 
 
 They passed up the large staircase, and stood before the 
 chamber of death. Bryant took out a key, unlocked the door, 
 and they entered together. 
 
 There, on the bed surrounded with heavy crimson draperies, 
 lay the white, cold form of Alice, utterly insensible to the misery 
 of the two beings whom she had Joved best in life. There was 
 something frightful in the changeless calm of that which Still bore 
 the stmblance of passionate humanity. Conrad uttered, a sharp 
 cry at the sight of her, and fell, in strong Convulsions, over the 
 fool board oi the bed. 
 
 In the midst of his own sorrow, Bryant felt a flash of triumph 
 to think that in death she was all his own; and that Conrad, 
 
THE HALF SISTERS. 22? 
 
 the intruder, the usurper, stood there an alien, without the power 
 to take a last look except by his permission. 
 
 It was beyond his strength to remove Conrad, but with the 
 assistance of the butler, he was taken to another chamber. He 
 went not near him himself, but, with proud, Arab-like hospitality, 
 ordered medical assistance and every needful attention for him, 
 and then locked himself in the room where the dead lay. There, 
 sitting beside the bed, one hand clasping that of Alice, he watched 
 all night, feeling that she was all his own once more. 
 
 Men must lose some dear object by death before they can 
 realise the invisible world : we must have a stake in it before we 
 can believe it. 
 
 Sitting there, beside his dead wife, Bryant was admitted to the 
 threshold of the unseen state. What now to him was the dream 
 of life, with all its highly- coloured appearances ? — hope and fear 
 were alike dead : he sat in the presence of the Invisible, and 
 calmness came gradually to his soul. 
 
 Alice's weakness — Conrad's treachery — his own wounded pride 
 ■ — all seemed now hushed to insignificance in the presence of the 
 great, mysterious fact of Death ; even his grief seemed small and 
 idle. What was he that he should complain ? The tumult and 
 glare which had surrounded all things subsided before the cold, 
 colourless light of death. 
 
 He left that chamber in the early dawn of the next morning 
 with some portion of the eternal calmness on his own soul. 
 
 He did not trust himself to see Conrad, who lay in a brain 
 fever. He ordered that he should receive all needful attention, 
 and a regular nurse was hired for him. 
 
 Bryant left the house immediately after the funeral. 
 
 It was many days before Conrad recovered sufficiently to leave 
 his room. He had been dealt with by a hand not of man, and 
 when he left his sick room, years seemed to have passed over 
 his head. 
 
 He entreated the old butler to let him once more enter the 
 room where he had seen Alice dead. The old man gave him the 
 key, and he repaired thither alone. 
 
 The hangings of the bed and all the arrangements of the room 
 were the same as before, but Alice had passed away — even the 
 lifeless form that had been there was now hidden for over from 
 the eyes of all men. 
 
 He stooped, and reverently kissed the pillow on which he had 
 seen her laid, and loft the room without looking back. 
 
228 THE HALF SISTEUS. 
 
 CHAPTEE XL VIII. 
 
 The walls of the town of B were all' placarded in large 
 
 letters, of every colour in the rainbow, with the "Immense 
 Attraction, for five nights only, of Mademoiselle Bianca," who 
 would make her first appearance that evening in her celebrated 
 character of Juliet, in Shakespeare's play. 
 
 Bianca arrived about the middle of the day, and found herself 
 for the first time on the scene of her early struggles ; she had 
 not visited the town since she left it in the train of Mr. Simpson's 
 equestrian troop. Had she been asked then, her position of 
 to-day would have seemed the realisation of her most fabulous 
 dreams ; and yet now she was as little able to sit down and rest 
 as she had been then. The stars in heaven all seem the same 
 distance from us, all of them seem to us to be let into the smooth 
 solid-looking vault that roofs the earth, and ive must get up there 
 before we can believe in the very terrestrial sort of glory it would 
 be that we should find. 
 
 With all this, however, Bianca felt a whimsical sort of satis- 
 faction in returning under such different auspices; she had 
 attained an object by dint of her own resolute efforts, and there 
 is always a complacent feeling in success of any kind. It is 
 always more satisfactory to learn even the worthlessness of an 
 object by success than by failure. 
 
 Bianca had to proceed at once to rehearsal, which proved a long 
 and wearisome affair. After it was over, she proceeded on foot 
 to find out the old lodgings where she had formerly resided. 
 There had been so many changes in the neighbourhood, that she 
 had some difficulty in finding her way. The old court was still 
 standing, but most of the former inhabitants had passed away, 
 and altogether the place was much more desolate-looking, and the 
 people of a lower and rougher description than when she left it : 
 to be sure, eight additional years of total abstinence from paint 
 and whitewash had materially darkened the face of things, and 
 accounted for the dilapidated, demoralised look of the place ; it 
 had become, as the policeman told her, " a very low neighbour- 
 hood." 
 
 She addressed a disorderly, good-natured woman, who was 
 standing at an open door, surrounded by several other women, 
 who were gazing at her in great curiosity, and inquired where 
 Mrs. Mullins lived. 
 
 For some time nobody could tell anything about Mrs. Mullins, 
 and the whole court was gathered together to hear what was 
 wanted. At last a heavy black-looking man, who was leaning 
 Lazily against a door-post with a pipe in his mouth, announced that 
 " if it were the woman whose husband used to be the ostler at the 
 

 THE HALF SISTERS. 229 
 
 1 Black Swan,' she was gone to the House, for her master had got 
 a kick from a vicious horse, which had lamed him entirely, and 
 when they could carry on no longer they had to go to the House." 
 
 " What house ? Where ? " asked Bianca, bewildered. 
 
 " Why the Union, to he sure," answered the man; " I reckon 
 it is only poor folks who knows where it is;" 
 
 M Ay, ay, poor folk must be thankful for anything," said one 
 of the women in a scolding tone ; " they have pig-sties like these 
 to live in whilst they can work hard, and the House to prison 
 them when they are wore out." 
 
 Bianca turned away, glad to escape. As she went, she gave a 
 trine to a child, whom she saw assisting an aged woman, probably 
 its grandmother, to crawl up and down the nags in the sunshine, 
 that came slanting over the roofs. 
 
 " I have to be thankful for much that I was nearly forgetting," 
 thought she, as she emerged into the main street. 
 
 Her next visit was to find the old priest, who had been her 
 friend. She soon reached the dark low house attached to the 
 little chapel ; it was situated in a very poor and densely populated 
 neighbourhood. She was shown into his little parlour by the 
 housekeeper, not the one Bianca remembered. The priest looked 
 up from his writing as she entered. 
 
 " You have forgotten me, father," said Bianca; as the priest 
 seemed searching his memory. 
 
 " Ho you remember a young girl in the circus here some years 
 ago?" 
 
 " Ah ! " said the old man, with an indescribable reserve. 
 
 " I am she. You have not forgotten how kind you were to me 
 and to my mother : and here is the little book you gave me with 
 your own name in it, and you told me to be always a good girl ; 
 this is the first time I have been in the town since." 
 
 " Ah, indeed, yes," said the old man, putting off his spectacles; 
 " I remember you now, but I should not have known you. And 
 how is the good lady, your mother ? " 
 
 "It has pleased God to take her away from me," replied 
 Bianca. 
 
 The priest's face assumed a look of gravity, as if it were the 
 habitual expression on the receipt of such intelligence. " I will 
 say a praver for her to-night." 
 
 "Thank you, father." 
 
 "Well," rejoined the old man, "and what have you been 
 doing all these years ? It was a bad way of life you were in ; 1 
 trust you have quitted it." 
 
 " I have left the circus," said Bianca, smiling ; " but I fear I 
 am still in a way you will not approve of — I belong to the theatre 
 still." 
 
 ' ' Well, w r ell, many of your class when they become weary of 
 the world to which they have dedicated their best days, have 
 grace given them to renounce it, and to hide themselves in a 
 
230 THE HALE SISTERS. 
 
 cloister ; and many I could name have become shining examples 
 of piety ; we must despair of no one ; even Mary Magdalene, you 
 know, was honoured to become a saint, though no one could have 
 led a worse life. — Grace may find you anywhere." 
 
 Bianca felt inexpressibly chilled and disappointed by the old 
 man's tone ; she had come to seek him with her heart overflowing 
 with the recollection of his kindness, and rejoiced like a child at 
 the thought of seeing him once more. The utter absence of every- 
 thing like human nature in his manner, — the frigid professional 
 tone of his exhortation, — threw all that back upon her heart. He 
 had become a priest, and nothing more ; and she knew no spell 
 by which she could penetrate through the dry filigree-work with 
 which his heart was incrusted. It was another phase of her past 
 life blotted out of the golden book of recollection : she had 
 attempted to bring it back into the present, and the whole 
 vanished like the figures in a magic mirror, on the attempt of 
 the beholder to approach and grasp them. The old priest — -the 
 fatherly friend, whose image she had so gratefully cherished — ■ 
 was gone : a dry, bigoted old man, who had lost all interest in 
 her, remained in his place. And yet it was only the natural 
 indifference of old age, aided by the total absence of all human 
 affections (for the old man had no relatives), which had wrought 
 this change ; he now did his duty with a single eye to his own 
 salvation, and considered that the less mortal feeling mingled 
 with it the better. Every thing that centres in self, even if it be 
 the saving of our own soul, makes a very barren and uninteresting 
 result. 
 
 * ■ I have prospered in the world since you saw me, father, and 
 I have brought you a small offering. I cannot go amongst the 
 poor myself, and I prefer its passing through your hands ; if 
 amongst your poor there is any one situated as I was, let her have 
 a double portion. If there be any good work in which you arc 
 interested, I shall rejoice to aid to the extent of my ability." 
 
 " Ah ! " said the priest, brightening up at the sight of the 
 handsome sum Bianca had placed in his hand, — " this will be a 
 great help to the Sisters of Mercy, — they are very poor." 
 
 " Have you established a House, then?" asked Bianca. 
 
 This was touching the right chord ; and with more cordiality 
 than he had yet shown, the old man asked her if she would like 
 to visit it. Bianca eagerly assented. She had never seen a con- 
 vent, but often when weighed down with sorrow, or wearied with 
 labour, she had indulged in vague thoughts of ending her days in 
 one ; especially since her disappointment in Conrad, the idea of a 
 convent had hovered before her like a haven of repose after she 
 should have finished her labours. 
 
 He took her to a small house adjoining the chapel, where the 
 sisterhood were located, until such time as a suitable dwelling 
 should be erected to receive them. 
 
 The lady superior, a severe, majestic-looking woman, received 
 
THE HALF SISTERS. 231 
 
 them with much civility, but from behind an indescribable wall 
 of reserve, that separated her as completely from those she 
 addressed, as if she had been an inhabitant of another world 
 made visible. 
 
 At Bianca's request they were conducted over the house. It 
 was " the hour of recreation," and the sisters were seated at a 
 long table, some of them writing', some reading, but most of them 
 engaged in needle-work. They all looked very picturesque, for 
 the Catholic understands costume ; but there was a stony sweet- 
 ness of expression on their faces, as if all spontaneity of thought 
 and will had been petrified into a placid negation. Bianca 
 experienced a sense of something almost like fear, at the aspect 
 of so much humanity quelled down and buried beneath a concrete 
 of inflexible obedience to an artificial authority, through which 
 no blade of genuine spontaneity could spring. All aspirations of 
 devotion, even the very works of mercy to which they had dedi- 
 cated themselves, seemed to have been drilled to rules, till they 
 weighed down on the soul like a nightmare. Bianca felt stifled 
 in that low, close house, tenanted by these bodies destitute of a 
 will ! She placed an offering in the poor's box, and hastened to 
 quit the place. 
 
 " Farewell, daughter," said the old man; " and, remember, 
 when you are weary of the service of the world, Holy Church will 
 open her arms to receive you to a quiet resting-place." 
 
 Bianca drew a deep breath, when she was fairly in the street. 
 "Anything but that, anything but that," said she to herself; 
 ( c no amount of weariness or suffering shall induce me to commit 
 moral suicide, — I am free, at least, to lead my own life, and suiter 
 my own sufferings ! I will never dream of a cowardly escape 
 again ! " 
 
 When she reached her hotel it was late ; and she had barely 
 time to dine, and repose for half an hour, before it was time to 
 proceed to the theatre. 
 
 Whilst she was dressing, her maid told her that a respectable 
 looking young woman had been inquiring for her, and seemed so 
 much disappointed that she could not see her, that the maid had 
 desired her to call the next morning at nine o'clock. Bianca 
 listened to all with great indifference, and as at that moment she 
 was called, she did not make any inquiries — indeed, had quite 
 forgotten the whole matter, when the next morning, as she was 
 sitting at breakfast, the door of her sitting-room was thrown open, 
 and the waiter announced, " A young woman to speak to you, 
 ma'am." Bianca looked up, and recognised Simmonds, Alice's 
 maid, who had been very kind to her when she was Alice's 
 protegee. 
 
 ' ' Why, Simmonds ! is that you ? I am very glad to see you — 
 come and sit clown, and have some breakfast, and tell me how you 
 left your mistress — is she here ? have you brought me any message 
 from her?" 
 
232 THE HALE SISTEES. 
 
 " Oli ! Miss Bianca, my poor missis, my poor missis!" ex- 
 claimed Simmonds, passionately. 
 
 "What of her ? tell me quick," cried Bianca, remarking for 
 the first time the deep mourning of the woman's dress, "-has she 
 lost her husband ? is Mr. Bryant dead ? " 
 
 Simmonds sobbed more violently, and did not reply ; at length 
 she said, " No, no, he has lost missis, and if ever there was an 
 angel in the world she was it." 
 
 "Alice dead!" said Bianca stupified. 
 
 "Ah! indeed, yes, ma'am, I knew you had a respect for her, 
 and that made me come and tell you ; I thought, may be, you had 
 not heard. I saw your name on the walls, and I felt sure it must 
 be you." 
 
 Bianca poured out a cup of coffee, and' handed it to Simmonds, 
 who, like all women of her class, now that the violence of her 
 emotion had subsided, began to feel the consolation of talk. 
 
 "Ah! Miss Bianca, missis was very fond of you, and often 
 used to speak of you to me ; she would have shown more to you, 
 only master said you were an actress, and he did not like his 
 wife to know you. Ah ! in my opinion, this would never have 
 happened if you had been there." 
 
 Bianca, still stunned with the intelligence she had just heard, 
 sat dimly conscious that Simmonds was speaking. At length, 
 putting her hand to her head, she said, like one speaking out of a 
 dream : 
 
 " Did you say just now that Alice was dead ?" 
 
 " Indeed I did, ma'am, it is only too true ; but oh, Miss Bianca, 
 don't look in that way, it hurts me to see you, indeed it does." 
 
 " Tell me, when did she die ? " said Bianca. 
 
 " A month ago last Wednesday," replied the woman. " Master 
 is just heart-broke now it is too late. He left the house after the 
 funeral ; but Mr. Conrad is still there and quite out of his senses." 
 
 "Mr. Conrad Percy!" said Bianca, quite bewildered, "what 
 has he to do with the matter ?" 
 
 "Well, Miss Bianca," said Simmonds, mysteriously, "I don't 
 mind speaking to you, for I know it will go no further ; but there 
 is not another mortal person to whom I would say what I am 
 going to tell you. I think it is nowise honourable for a servant 
 to go and spread reports about the family ; a confidential servant, 
 too, as I may say, for the missis told me anything — nothing- 
 passed in the house without my knowing, and I have my own 
 thoughts about things. Well, then, ma'am, if I must say it," 
 continued she, lowering her voice, and looking round mysteriously, 
 "Mr. Conrad and missis were great companions; — master was 
 always busy with his own affairs, and did not know how to 
 manage her; he would leave her alone for days together, and 
 perhaps hardly speak to her sometimes for a week. I have seen 
 missis often and often come up into her own room and cry about 
 it, though she never said a word to me ; but she could not help 
 
THE HALF SISTERS. 233 
 
 my seeing ; and Mr. Conrad was very fond of her, he worshipped 
 the ground she trod upon ; my opinion is that he went into part- 
 nership with master, only to have an excuse to come to the house 
 — though, of course, I would not say so to anybody in the world 
 but you. As to missis, she was as innocent as a lamb ; but it 
 killed her — I know it was that and nothing else. She never had 
 those dreadful spasms before ; and if master would only have 
 opened his eyes and taken a little notice, she might have been 
 alive now. With my own ears I heard her ask him to take her 
 away with him, when he went to Paris, and he refused, because 
 he was going on business. ' His business ' came before every- 
 thing, and missis was hurt at always coming second to a parcel of 
 rubbishing iron. He is sorry enough now, poor man !" 
 
 " Well," said Bianca, more and more bewildered — 
 
 " Well, ma'am, it is not a thing one ought to say lightly, but 
 my mind misgives me that missis was going away with Mr. 
 Conrad. He came again after master went to France. I met 
 him in the hall just as he was going out ; he looked quite strange 
 and bewildered ; he took me for Mrs. Lauriston (master's sister), 
 and said something that Mrs. Bryant was ill, and could not see 
 me. I went straight to the parlour, and saw missis, who was 
 going up stairs. I shall never forget her face whilst I live, so 
 stony and desperate looking. Ah! poor thing, she never came 
 down those stairs again, till she was carried in her coffin ! " 
 
 Simmonds burst into fresh tears at the end of her recital. 
 Bianca sat without speaking, utterly stupified by what she heard. 
 Simmonds continued — 
 
 " Whilst missis lay dying, Mr. Conrad roamed like a spirit 
 round the house ; he never darkened a door, but wandered up and 
 down the park like a man beside himself. He climbed up to the 
 window of her room once ; I saw him, and went down to speak to 
 him. It would have made a stone pitiful to see him, with his 
 hair all matted on his forehead, his eyes like glass, and his face 
 quite dreadful to look at — twenty years seemed to have passed 
 over his head. Master took on dreadful, too ; but it was his own 
 fault, in one way, — if he had only shown more what he had felt, 
 none of this would have happened. Missis was like a child, and 
 a kind word was more to her than a fine present. She and master 
 were quite reconciled at the last, and she died quite composed ; 
 but she suffered dreadful tortures. I am sure niy heart is almost 
 broke to think of all the misery there was. Master let Mr. Conrad 
 see her after all was over, and it nearly killed him. Master 
 behaved very handsome, and said everything was to be done for 
 him ; but the poor young man is not long for this world, I am 
 thinking. I don't know who is most to be pitied. Master looked 
 dreadfully ill when he went away ; they say he is gone abroad. 
 All the servants had their wages paid them, and a quarter over, 
 and the house is to be shut up ; only Mr. Thompson, the butler, 
 is left in charge of it. Everything looks so strange and desolate, 
 
234 THE HALF SISTERS. 
 
 even in this short time, that you would hardly know the place, 
 Miss Bianca," 
 
 Bianca had concealed her face in her hands, and remained 
 silently leaning her head on the arm of the sofa. Wounds, hardly 
 closed in her own soul, were opened afresh ; and she staggered 
 under a bewildering sense of misery which seemed to encompass 
 her about on all sides. She could not weep : her whole being was 
 parched with torture, everything was blotted out in the world ; 
 it seemed to her that she alone remained a living thing in it, and 
 that her whole vitality had diminished down to a single point— 
 the consciousness of pain. 
 
 " Dear, dear Miss Bianca ! do not you take on so," said the 
 sympathising Simmonds, fancying that Bianca was weeping, the 
 only manifestation of sorrow women like her can understand. 
 
 the waiter entered with letters, and said that a person was 
 waiting to see Bianca on business. 
 
 " Show the person in," said Bianca. She had no more time for 
 the indulgence of emotion, her sorrow had to be imprisoned in her 
 heart, till she was at liberty to return to it. The business of life 
 is imperative, and will not stop till we are consoled ; it rolls along 
 day by day, like a great Juggernaut, indifferent whether we are 
 carried in its train or crushed beneath its track. 
 
 "Well, Simmonds," said she, when the waiter departed, " if 
 you have not suited yourself with a better situation, will you like 
 to remain with me ? My present maid has more than she can do, 
 and will be very glad of a companion. I should like to have you 
 with me, for you were very faithful to her who is gone. Will 
 you stay with me?" 
 
 1 ' Indeed ! indeed, Miss Bianca, I will be only too glad if you 
 think I shall suit you, for I always liked you, and so did poor 
 missis," 
 
 " Then it is agreed," said Bianca, "that you come to me on 
 the same terms. You may go now. Can you be ready to come 
 to-night, or will to-morrow suit you better." 
 
 ' ' Just when you please, Miss Bianca ; I think to-night, if it is 
 all the same to you, for I feel quite low-spirited by myself; and 
 now I will wish you good morning." 
 
 Simmonds curtseyed herself out of the room, with a nutter of 
 satisfaction, for which she reproached herself as hard-hearted : 
 but the truth was, that Simmonds had always cherished a secret 
 wish to see something of the world ; and now, to be engaged as 
 own maid to a great actress, and to have the prospect of seeing 
 a play whenever she pleased, was an immense satisfaction, that 
 insinuated itself into her heart, whether she consented to its 
 admission or not. 
 
THE HALE SISTERS. 235 
 
 CHAPTER XLIX. 
 
 Conead left that room, crushed under a weigW of unutterable 
 misery, sensible of nothing* but the blind desire to get away from 
 the house which had been cursed for his sake. 
 
 There was something* weird-like and menacing* in the desolate 
 stillness of that deserted place. It seemed, to his morbid fancy, 
 that he had left the living* world, and passed M into the land where 
 all things are forgotten," and where the souls of men await in 
 gloomy half consciousness, the judgment for " the deeds done in 
 the body." 
 
 " How soon can I have a chaise to take me away from here ? " 
 asked he. 
 
 " In an hour, if you wish it, sir," replied the old man. "But, 
 are you quite sure that you are well enough to travel ? The last 
 orders that master gave were, that you should not go till you were 
 quite recovered." 
 
 " And where is your master ? " asked Conrad. 
 
 The butler shook his head, as he replied — " Master went away 
 the day of the funeral, and we none of us know where to. I do 
 not think, somehow, that he knew himself. All the servants were 
 discharged, and only I and my sister, who lives at the lodge, were 
 left in charge of the things here. I cannot say when master will 
 come back. I have lived in this place, man and boy, nigh fifty 
 years, and it hurts me to see things gone so desolate. He is a 
 good man, Mr. Bryant, and it is a sore heart he has taken away 
 with him ! " 
 
 Conrad groaned — it was as if a hot iron had been thrust against 
 him. 
 
 "See that the chaise is here as soon as possible. I must go 
 hence to-day." 
 
 "If you are quite determined, sir, there is a letter master 
 left with me, desiring that you might have it before you went." 
 
 The old man left the room, and shortly returned with a sealed 
 letter. So soon as Conrad was alone, he broke the seal and read 
 as follows : 
 
 * ' Conrad, do not waste your time in useless grieving. If we 
 never" meet again, I tell you now, that I forgive you. Waste no 
 more of your life, but do somewhat that shall redeem the past. 
 I wish you to live, and to make yourself respected. You are still 
 young, and may hope that much time lies before you. 
 
 "John Bkyant." 
 
 A few words had been added just before the signature, but they 
 had been carefully blotted out. 
 
 Conrad bowed his head upon his hands and wept bitterly. 
 
 In about half an hour the butler announced that the chaise was 
 
236 THE HALF SISTERS. 
 
 at the door. Conrad wrung the old man's hand, without 
 speaking, and flung himself back in the vehicle, covering 
 his face to avoid the last look of the home he had rendered 
 desolate. 
 
 Conrad had formed no plan for himself ; he mechanically ordered 
 the horses' heads to be turned towards London. His lodgings 
 were there, and so was his servant ; otherwise there was no reason 
 why he should have gone there, rather than to the other end of 
 the world. He belonged to no one — his kindred were not nearly 
 related to him, and he had never been on terms of intimacy with 
 any of them. The journey passed over in one vague gloomy 
 reverie. He was unconscious of all the incidents that occurred, 
 although he mechanically performed his part at the different 
 stages. 
 
 It was nearly dusk when the chaise drove up to the door of his 
 lodgings, and his appearance caused some commotion in the house. 
 He was evidently not expected ; his servant was from home, and 
 his landlady ushered him herself, with many apologies, into his 
 sitting-room, which wore the half dull, half dirty look, which all 
 lodgings in town are prone to assume. The furniture, all in its 
 wrong place, stood stiff and uncomfortable against the walls ; no 
 fire was in the grate ; the windows had not been recently cleaned, 
 and the foggy remains of daylight dimly struggled through them. 
 A pile of letters, visiting cards, circulars, and bills, lay on the 
 table beside his meerschaum, and a half emptied box of cigars, 
 whilst a faint odour of tobacco lingered on the close, cold atmos- 
 phere of the room. 
 
 Conrad was too weary and too miserable to take any special 
 note of the discomfort, although in general he was very sensitive 
 to such influences. He threw himself on the sofa, until such time 
 as his servant should return. 
 
 It was now become quite dark, and the gas-lights from the 
 streets were glaring on the walls, making both the light and the 
 darkness look equally harsh. He knew not how long he had lain 
 when his servant entered with the lamp. He started back at the 
 first aspect of his master, who was so changed by his illness as to 
 be hardly recognisable. " Good Heaven ! Mr. Conrad, sir, you 
 are come back looking like a ghost ! I had grown quite unhappy 
 about you : I did not know where you were to be found, and so 
 could not forward your letters. I had only just gone out, and 
 have not left the house for more than a week before." 
 
 " How long have I been away ? " asked Conrad, abruptly. 
 
 " Five weeks to-morrow, sir," replied the man, surprised. 
 
 " I thought it had been a hundred years. What day of the 
 week is it ? " 
 
 " Thursday, sir." 
 
 " Ah, indeed! " said Conrad, endeavouring to recollect. 
 
 Nature is a benevolent mother ; our weakness is at once our 
 limitation and our deliverance ; when our sufferings become 
 
THE HALE SISTEES. 237 
 
 utterly unendurable, she bewilders our perception of it, and steeps 
 our senses in forgetfulness. 
 
 Conrad was thus stupihed ; staggering, too, under the weakness 
 of a recent illness, he gave in like a baffled swimmer, and ceased to 
 struggle with the deep waters that were overwhelming him. 
 
 " I am sure, sir, you are very ill," said the man, compassion- 
 ately ; " you will be better in bed." 
 
 " No, no," replied Conrad, impatiently, turning away his head 
 and closing his eyes, " let me alone, let me alone." 
 
 " But, sir, you look in a high fever, and must really let your- 
 self be led." ' 
 
 Conrad made a fretful gesture, but the man persisted, and at 
 length succeeded in getting him to his room ; he was like one drunk 
 with misery. 
 
 " Shall I leave you a light, sir ? " 
 
 "No, darkness, darkness, let me be in cold and darkness for 
 ever." 
 
 The servant retired, but determined that if his master were not 
 more like a reasonable being in the morning he would fetch a 
 doctor on his own responsibility. 
 
 The next morning, when he proceeded to his room, he found 
 Conrad in a heavy stupor, from which he could not arouse him. 
 The doctor arrived and declared congestion of the brain to be 
 imminent, and proceeded at once to strong measures. 
 
 For many days after this, Conrad lay utterly unconscious of all 
 that was going on around him ; and even when out of danger he 
 had such a tedious and precarious convalescence, owing to several 
 severe relapses, that it was several weeks before he could leave his 
 room. No condition in life can well be more desolate than that of 
 a man without either mother or sisters, falling- ill in lodgings. 
 Conrad, however, was fortunate in having a servant who was 
 much attached to him, and who tended him very carefully. He 
 had lived with him many years, and of course knew all his affairs 
 rather better than his master himself. He contrived, from various 
 indications, to discover where it was that his master had been 
 during his late absence (for Conrad had carefully avoided giving 
 him any clue), and then he pretty well surmised all that had taken 
 place. He had, indeed, settled in his own mind how matters 
 would end long before either Conrad or Alice dreamed of their 
 danger. People in his class do not understand delicate distinc- 
 tions ; they have a rough, coarse way of judging of things, which, 
 however, often comes nearer to the actual truth than a more subtle 
 philosophy would have led them. 
 
 Conrad remained plunged in an apathy from which nothing 
 could rouse him, and the gloom thickened every day. 
 
 One morning he entered his master's room with an air of sup- 
 pressed importance ; a happy thought had struck him. 
 
 " Dear heart, sir! " said he, as he was dressing him, " I wish 
 you would see some of your old friends, many of them called 
 
238 THE HALF SISTEBS. 
 
 whilst you were lying ill. I did not tell you yesterday (speaking 
 of your friends reminds me of it), that whilst I was in at the con- 
 fectioner's buying some grapes, Miss Bianca came in; she knew 
 me directly, and began to speak to me quite kind and pleasant, 
 and I made bold to tell her how ill you had been, and she seemed 
 quite put out of the way about it." 
 
 Conrad did not speak, but he looked as if he were listening, and 
 Walters went on. 
 
 " Do you know, sir, I think Miss Bianca is a very kind, nice 
 young lady, and I think it is a great pity you never see her now. 
 It would do you good to talk to her, she seemed so sorry as never 
 was when I told her about your illness." 
 
 Walters said no more, but he had touched the only chord which, 
 in the present state of things, could move Conrad. After Walters 
 had left him, it seemed as if the desire to see once more Bianca 
 began like a spark of life to assert itself. He waited until Walters 
 next entered the room (for he had not energy to ring the bell), 
 and then desired him to bring the cab round and prepare to drive 
 him to Bianca' s house. 
 
 Walters brought him his hat and gloves, put his cloak around 
 him, and placed him in the cab, as if he had been a child ; for 
 at the last moment Conrad shrank back, it looked so impossible 
 to go. 
 
 Bianca was not at home when they arrived, but Conrad was 
 coaxed into waiting for her. The servant ushered him into a 
 pleasant parlour, the windows of which opened to the ground, and 
 looked into a small garden, tastefully though rather fantastically 
 laid out; it was Bianca* s usual sitting-room. It was very simply 
 furnished ; but it had a bright home look with its fresh chintz 
 hangings, and book- shelves all round the room, and stands of 
 plants and vases of choice flowers. A bust in marble, beautifully 
 executed, of her old friend, stood on a pedestal, and the pure 
 bright sunlight streamed full upon it. 
 
 As Conrad lay on the couch before the window, he felt himself 
 gradually penetrated with a sense of pleasure at the change 
 from his own large, dim, heavy-looking rooms to this cheerful 
 region. 
 
 Suddenly he heard Bianca' s voice in the hall — a rush of 
 mingled feelings made him wish that he could sink into the 
 earth, to hide from her eyes. Bianca entered in the midst of his 
 misgivings ; without speaking, she went up to him, and they 
 grasped each other's hands in silence. Much as Bianca desired to 
 control herself, the tears gushed from her eyes at the sight of the 
 ravages the last few months had wrought upon Conrad. His hair 
 had grown quite grey, his figure was bent, and almost reduced to 
 a skeleton ; his thin pale face was stamped with a look of settled 
 pain. For some time they were both unable to speak. 
 
 " I am eome back to you, Bianca," said Conrad at length, in a 
 voice hardly audible. 
 
THE HALE SISTEES/ 239 
 
 " And to whom else should you go in sorrow?" replied she, in a 
 kind, calm voice, for she had regained the mastery oyer herself, 
 and did not wish to agitate him ; she sat down on the sofa beside 
 him. 
 
 "Oh! Bianca, if I had never left you, I should not now be 
 thus," said Conrad. 
 
 " Hush ! " said she, gently, " let the past be past, we will not 
 speak of it." 
 
 " Would that it might indeed be past," said he, gloomily, — ■ 
 " but nothing can die that has once been! — Bianca," continued 
 he, after a pause, " I felt that I must come to you again — do you 
 forgive me?" 
 
 She looked at him with the tenderest pity in her large clear 
 eyes. 
 
 " There is nothing to forgive between friends," said she ; " you 
 are come to seek me when you were in sorrow, what more could 
 you do ? Do not let your thoughts dwell on the past ; think of 
 me as your mother, as your sister." She rose, and began to 
 arrange the pillows for his head, as if he had been a sick child. 
 1 ' Now you must be very quiet ; you are not strong enough to 
 talk." 
 
 Conrad obeyed ; her manner was inexpressibly tender and 
 maternal ; he felt soothed and comforted, as Orestes might have 
 been when he was beside Electra. Her grief had given to her 
 features that expression of refinement and softness which nothing 
 but sorrow can give. She then took her netting, and seated 
 herself on a chair beside the couch. 
 
 " Bianca ! are you Alice F" said Conrad, suddenly, — " you had 
 her face this moment." . 
 
 " No, no, dear Conrad, you are dreaming," said she, soothingly j 
 for she began to fear that his mind was unsettled. 
 
 "You are so strangely like her," persisted Conrad. "How 
 wonderful, if her soul should have passed into you, in order to 
 come back and comfort me ! — You never used to look like her." 
 
 " You did not perceive it, perhaps," replied Bianca ; " if I am 
 really like her, it is not so strange as it appears — there is a secret 
 I never told you." 
 
 " Is there r" said Conrad, absently, for he was still filled with 
 the sense of awe which the resemblance inspired. Since Bianca' s 
 sorrow it had indeed become strikingly developed. 
 
 " Do not go away from me, Bianca," said Conrad, as she rose 
 from her chair. 
 
 " No, dear friend, I am not going to leave you, I only want to 
 show you a picture." 
 
 She went to her desk and took thence a small miniature. 
 
 " Have you never seen a picture like that ? " said she, giving it 
 to him. 
 
 "Alice had one in her room — a portrait of her father" — 
 
 " And that is a portrait of my father also." 
 
210 THE HALE SISTERS. 
 
 " Who and what are you then ?" asked, Conrad, wildly. 
 
 " Alice was my half sister, although she was ignorant 
 of it." 
 
 "But, Bianca, explain all this — tell me everything; why did 
 you keep this from me ? tell me quickly, but come back and sit 
 beside me ; do not go so far off." 
 
 She complied, and returning to her seat beside the couch, 
 she told him the history with which the reader is already 
 acquainted. 
 
 "Oh, Bianca," he exclaimed, when she ceased to speak, "how 
 strangely all has happened ! I cannot tell you the good it does me 
 to know this ; but I also have many things to tell you, and that 
 which you must know before I can feel sure that you have for- 
 given me." 
 
 " Not to-day, Conrad ; you have been already too much 
 agitated. Besides, I already know much of what you would 
 tell me." 
 
 Dinner was now brought in. 
 
 " Now Conrad," said Bianca, " remember you are my patient, 
 and I shall be a most despotic nurse ; you must eat what I give 
 you." 
 
 " If you have poison for me I will drink it," said Conrad. 
 
 " Well, that is quite right, only just now some of this fowl and 
 a glass of Madeira will do you more good." 
 
 After dinner Conrad fell asleep for near an hour. Bianca gazed 
 upon him with the kind of yearning tenderness a mother might 
 feel towards a storm-tossed, misguided son, who, after many 
 wanderings, should return destitute and broken to the shadow of 
 his home. The deep life-long affection she had cherished for him 
 was recompensed at last,' although in a different mode to what she 
 had once expected. Still it was an inexpressible consolation to 
 feel that it had not been wasted ; he had recognised her love when 
 he fell into sorrow, and it was beside her that he had come to find 
 rest. It was abundant recompense and consolation for all she had 
 suffered. Her affection for him had, it was true, changed its 
 character. All passionate emotion had passed away ; she was 
 disenchanted of all her illusions with regard to him. He was no 
 longer the idol before whom she worshipped, and to whom she 
 vainly dedicated her gifts. The fiery pain in which her soul had 
 been steeped on his account had passed away, aod it was now 
 become as if it had been written in a book concerning another 
 person. 
 
 She felt a mournful presentiment that he was wrecked for life — 
 that his career was finished in the midst of his days ; and, with 
 her heart purified from all personal emotion, and selfish feeling, 
 she made a vow in her heart to be to him henceforth — mother, 
 sister, friend. When he awoke he seemed refreshed — the look of 
 deep pain was lightened. 
 
 The day was beginning to decline, and Walters appeared 
 
THE HALF SISTEJ1S. 211 
 
 witli the cab, to take his master home before the evening 
 set in. 
 
 " I am sure you must be an angel from heaven, Miss Bianca," 
 said the man, in a low voice ; " Master looks better already. 
 May I bring him again to-morrow ?" 
 
 " Oh, yes," said Bianca, with a smile, " if he does not come of 
 his own accord." 
 
 Life does not end in a catastrophe like a book or a play. We 
 may, and do feel, after some occurrence which has shaken our 
 being to its centre, as though we had reached the end of the 
 world, and that our next step must be out on sheer nothingness ; 
 but it is not so. Life goes on until death receives it ; made up of 
 the same stuff as heretofore, and filled up with natural occur- 
 rences. The clay after that one, which once seemed to us as 
 though it must be the end of our being, comes as fresh, and 
 unscarred, as the first that dawned on Eden. 
 
 Both Bianca and Conrad had each touched a point in their 
 experience beyond which it seemed impossible for life to proceed. 
 But neither their sorrow, nor their passionate despair, had been 
 realities. The darkness which hung over them had dispersed ; 
 and Life still stretched before them with a Future hung in the 
 distance, and shrouding the end, as of old. 
 
 CHAPTEE L. 
 
 Whilst these things were going on in England, Lord Melton, 
 utterly unconscious of them, was wandering hither and thither 
 with great perseverance. He had been to Egypt, seen Ali Pacha, 
 inspected the Pyramids, and all the wonderful remains of tombs 
 and temples and statues. The Egyptians, who deified Life — that 
 one notion of religion running through all their forms of worship 
 — were the people who erected the most gorgeous dwelling-places 
 to Death, its twin mystery. He also made excursions into the 
 Desert ; took sundry family dinners with Bedouin Arabs, whose 
 encampment he fell in with; made a collection of shawls and 
 pipes, and any curiosities he fancied Bianca would like, or that 
 would amuse her. He had constantly written long letters to her, 
 and to his sister, detailing his adventures ; but as curious readers 
 have had all manner of the very best Oriental details in " Eothen " 
 and Warburton, they can the better afford to go without them now; 
 at least it satisties our conscience for not purposing to give them 
 any ; we really cannot go so far out of our way. We only wish 
 to lind Lord Melton, who, after ten months' wanderings, arrived 
 
242 THE HALF SISTEKS. 
 
 in Athens. He had quite made up his mind that letters would he 
 awaiting him from his sister and from Bianca : hut whether his 
 directions had not heen sufficiently precise, or whether his various 
 correspondents had nothing to say which they considered worth 
 foreign postage, or whether their precious letters had gone to 
 enrich the treasury of the moon (the paradise of lost things), it is 
 impossible to say ; all we know is, that not a single letter or news- 
 paper had arrived for Lord Melton, and that his lordship was, as 
 his valet expressed it, " very much put out of the way" in 
 consequence. People must he in a foreign land, and counting the 
 days until they reach the place where their letters ought to he, 
 before they can know the dead, sickening hlank, of hearing that 
 there are none. An incredulous disappointment, and a disposition 
 ■ to storm the post-office, or to bribe the clerks to any amount to 
 unsay their intelligence and find a letter, seems a feasible miracle. 
 If people only knew the amount of suffering entailed by negligence, 
 they would not allow a small amount of hindrance to prevent their 
 letters being as certain as sunrise. Lord Melton was bitterly dis- 
 appointed : and the consciousness of feeling himself a very ill-used 
 man, with the full privilege of unlimited sulkiness, was a very poor 
 compensation. Added to which, the heat of the weather, and the 
 fatigues of his journey, threw him into a high fever. He had 
 been unwell for some days, but on the night of his arrival at 
 Athens, he became so ill that he had to send for a physician, and 
 submit himself during many days to medical discipline. When 
 he was again able to travel (indeed almost before it was prudent), 
 he proceeded to Constantinople, although he heard that the plague 
 was going aboufr like influenza. Constantinople was the next 
 place where he had directed his letters to be sent, and he would 
 have gone if there had been fifty plagues instead of one. 
 
 When he reached Constantinople, he immediately despatched a 
 messenger to the embassy for his letters and newspapers. This 
 time he was not disappointed. He eagerly opened a closely written 
 letter from Bianca, and read it all through ; but the veins stood 
 out on his forehead, his countenance was flushed, and his lips 
 compressed, till all their colour was driven back. When he had 
 finished reading it, he looked carefully to see whether under the 
 seal, or in a postscript, there might not be some word or line he 
 had overlooked ; but he found none. Then, with a gesture of 
 rage, he crumpled the letter in his hand, and flung it vehemently 
 to the other end of the room. 
 
 For a few moments he seemed literally choking — he flung his 
 arms above his head, and then walked rapidly up and down the 
 room, as though he would, by motion, calm the rage which was 
 convulsing him. 
 
 "What a fool I am! — what a double fool, to let myself be so 
 played upon. That cursed Conrad ! Oh, that I could kill him, 
 stamp the life out of him ! To come crawling back to her, after 
 he had insulted her, abandoned her, because he saw another 
 
THE HALT? SISTERS. 213 
 
 valued the prize lie flung away ! And Bianca ! — but all women 
 are alike ; none have truth, none have sense ; she knew, and had 
 proved what he was, and now writes to me that he has come back 
 to her, with a cursed bland complacency, as if it were the most 
 natural thing in the world ! "Why did she not invite me to the 
 wedding-breakfast at once — or to assist at the ceremony and give 
 her away ? — it needed but that to be complete ! She cares for 
 nothing but herself when it comes to the point." 
 
 His words, which came like a torrent, broken by rocks and 
 obstacles, instead of calming him, seemed to lash him into fresh 
 fury. There was something fearful in the sight of one usually so 
 self- controlled, thus moved. The whole purpose and hope of his 
 life seemed violently thrust aside, for the idle caprice of a man, 
 who, he knew, set no real value on the prize he was thus coldly 
 wresting from his grasp. All the pure and constant affection 
 he had lavished on Bianca was suddenly turned to mockery, 
 and, even in his own eyes, made him seem a blind, weak fool. 
 The whole world, to his distempered fancy, seemed combined to 
 turn all that had been generous and trusting, all his best qualities, 
 to his own discomfiture. 
 
 The whole of that night he passed in a state of bitter anguish 
 he had never known before. 
 
 His hope of winning Bianca had grown almost to a certainty ; 
 ■ — he had felt sure, when all obstacles were removed, that such 
 love as his was, must, in the end, win her; and now it was 
 violently wrenched away, and a blank despair, with which he 
 could not struggle, invaded and took possession of his soul. 
 
 Lord Melton was not one of those who had ever played at being 
 " sad as night;" he had never gone through qfay species of 
 mental convulsion: he was a fine, sound, healthy-touted character, 
 with a great deal of good sense, and a singleness of mind and 
 motive, a directness of purpose, that had kept him clear of all 
 metaphysical perplexities ; he was always intensely in earnest, 
 which gave a child-like directness to his whole character. His 
 passion for Bianca was part of himself— no external circumstances 
 could touch it — so long as Bianca remained what she was, so long, 
 hopeless or not, would his affection for her remain unaltered. 
 The fierce passions that were now roused within him— the dark, 
 terrible despair that filled his soul, absolutely terrified him ; he 
 was, as it were, taken prisoner by the powers of darkness, and 
 the sense of the reality of these powers crushed and bore him 
 down ; he was overpowered, and all idea of escape or struggle 
 seemed vain. 
 
 As the night deepened, the dark aspect of his position became 
 more exaggerated and fantastic ; visions of Conrad and Bianca, 
 in their home, where, by some mysterious power he also was 
 condemned to dwell, haunted him ; he seemed to have caught the 
 trick of Conrad's way of speaking, and of Bianca' s mode of 
 thought,, which served to give a colouring of reality to his most 
 
 p. 2 
 
2M< THE HALE SISTEHS. 
 
 bitter and fanciful imaginings ; lie ceased to distinguish that it 
 was he himself who embodied these fancies, and attributed them 
 to Conrad, to Bianca ; his mind was dragged along by his imagi- 
 nation, as wretches of old were bound alive to the chariot of 
 their victors, and dragged along the ground. After awhile all 
 his perceptions became confused; he no longer discerned the 
 objects around him. His valet found him delirious in the 
 morning ; his fever had returned with tenfold violence, and it 
 was many days before he recognised those around him. Having 
 a fever and being delirious are easy and compendious phrases for 
 those in health to use, and to them it conveys an idea of illness, 
 perhaps of danger ; but the fearful suffering from the visitation 
 of those inhabitants of the realm of madness, — the intense reality 
 of those delirious wanderings are never recognised. 
 
 " Deeds to be hid, which were not hid, 
 And all confused, I did not know, 
 Whether I suffered, or I did, 
 
 But all was guilt, and fear, and woe." 
 
 At length Lord Melton was convalescent — his misery had 
 become less dark — it was a suffering that had to be borne, and 
 he recognised it as such. 
 
 Never, for an instant, did a doubt of how it would all end 
 intrude upon him. It must be remembered, that he was entirely 
 ignorant of the sad and fatal drama which had occurred 
 during his absence, and which separated Conrad and Bianca, 
 as by a gulf of fire, from all possible return to their old 
 relations. 
 
 Still further was he from surmising the deep radical dis- 
 similarity and discrepancy of character which every day developed 
 between Bianca and Conrad. He did not know that Bianca, set 
 free from her first engagement, and become accustomed to his 
 refinement, and clear, keen judgment, had involuntarily erected 
 himself into the standard by which she judged and measured 
 all others. Bianca was not aware of it herself. Lord Melton 
 did not know, either, that Conrad, broken and weary, had gone 
 to Bianca, as the only living being who would endure the weight 
 of his desolation, without any trace of his old passion, but with 
 an immense and intuitive reliance on her indestructible affection, 
 which no absence or ill treatment could efface. He did not know 
 that it was an unconscious tribute to the worth and reality of her 
 character : — and, above all, he was ignorant of that well-spring 
 of tenderness and devotion, which, in a woman who has truly 
 loved, survives all the more earthly and selfish emotions of 
 passion. The living principle of love remains, when all 
 passion is dead ; and then it takes that deepest and broadest 
 form of manifestation, which - has its foundation woven 
 into the very fibres of a woman's nature — the sentiment of 
 maternitv. 
 
THE IIALF SISTERS, 245 
 
 The sentiment of motherhood is latent in all women, and is 
 a far stronger instinct than any passion for a lover. Let a man 
 they care for ever so little come before them ill and suffering, 
 and this instinct is instantly aroused — they are capable of any 
 exertion or any sacrifice in his behalf: it signifies no sort of 
 passion, and is compatible with utter personal indifference. 
 When the need of sacrifice and exertion is gone by, the mere 
 collapse from a state of occupation may set a woman thinking 
 and dreaming, and the transition to sentimentality is very 
 short and easy ; but then it must be a new untried affection, and 
 not, as in Bianca' s case, a sentiment on each side thoroughly 
 worn out. It was the sincerest tribute Conrad could pay to the 
 intrinsic worth and nobleness of Bianca, to come to her with an 
 unerring instinct that she would receive him ; and that no thought 
 of her own dignity, or her own position, no self-love, or vanity of 
 any kind, would hinder her. 
 
 But Lord Melton knew nothing of metaphysics, and still less 
 of psychology ; neither, as we have seen, did he know anything 
 of the facts of the present case ; so, naturall}- enough, all the 
 reason and judgment he endeavoured to bring to bear on the 
 matter, only made the conclusion he arrived at more elaborately 
 wrong. 
 
 If we would only condescend, when we are dealing with 
 reasonably conscientious people, to believe what they tell us, 
 we should generally arrive nearer the truth than by asserting 
 our claim to shrewdness and cleverness by drawing our own 
 inferences. 
 
 Lord Melton had hitherto implicitly believed Bianca in all 
 she said. In this instance she had told him the exact truth 
 about her own sentiments for Conrad. ,She could not in a 
 letter venture on details, and Lord Melton fell bankrupt in faith, 
 or, perhaps, we should say, there was a strong run on his 
 jealousy, which did not allow his faith fair play, and he got into 
 a most complicated state of misery accordingly. 
 
 The old theologians were quite right in making faith the 
 primeval virtue of religion— the granite rock of its foundation ; it 
 is a divine inspiration of heart, a clear insight into things, to 
 which neither knowledge nor reason can reach. ; " it is high, they 
 cannot attain unto it." 
 
 In Lord Melton's case faith was just the only virtue which 
 could bring its own reward with it. There were many excuses 
 for him, still excuses cannot redeem anyone from the consequences 
 of his own act, so Lord Melton was miserable all the same. When 
 he was well enough to travel, he ordered his departure, but 
 previously he wrote to Bianca, what he considered a highly proper 
 and dignified letter. In it he remarked, somewhat sarcastically, 
 on " her forgiving spirit," and said that women were fond of' 
 forgiving, and that " unless a man behaved like a scoundrel to 
 them, he had no chance of rousing either their heroism or their 
 
246 THE HALE SISTERS. 
 
 generosity." He concluded rather grimly, with his best wishes 
 for her happiness, ' ' wherever and with whomsoever she might 
 fix her choice ! " He casually mentioned that he should travel 
 for some time further, and omitted to furnish her with his 
 address ; a piece of dignity which at the time rather soothed 
 him, though like all other dignity, it weighed heavily on him 
 afterwards. 
 
 The next day he departed for Trieste, intending to make up 
 his mind to his further destination when he arrived there. 
 
 Thus had a source of distrust and change crept into an attach- 
 ment which he believed could never either die or fade until he 
 himself should die. Between these two beings formed for each 
 other, deeply and purely attached! For Bianca loved him, 
 although her love was yet like the young corn, hardly showing 
 its gentle green, above the ground, and she did not recognise it 
 till it had struck its roots in her heart. The devil, who is 
 the father and furtherer of all evil, the hater of unity, and 
 the promoter of division, had succeeded in inserting a wedge of 
 dissatisfaction and distrust between Lord Melton and Bianca ! 
 
 CIIAPTEE LI. 
 
 All this while, Conrad continued to come frequently to Bianca ; 
 her calm, clear spirit soothed and sustained his weak and 
 shattered soul ; he fell into the habit of her society, whilst he 
 "continued to go to her house without giving a thought to the 
 various rumours and interpretations that would be likely to arise 
 from it. In effect a great deal of gossip was the result, ileports 
 of all kinds were afloat, from the sedate paragraph in the daily 
 papers, containing an official announcement of the ' ' Hymeneal 
 altar," down to passages in scandalous prints, of a far more 
 questionable tendency : jokes, innuendoes, and circumstantial 
 ueports, containing every quality in the world except truth, were 
 life concerning her. Bianca could not be unaware of all this, 
 neither was she so heroically superior to humanity as to be 
 indifferent to what was said of her. No woman can be indifferent 
 to evil reports of her good fame : but whilst Bianca' s proud heart 
 was blistered by finding that her name was running the gauntlet 
 of all the infamous things that papers dependent on high- seasoned 
 scandal chose to invent, still she did not feel at liberty to draw 
 back ; she felt that without her, Conrad's life or reason would 
 have failed, and she did not dare to let a thought of herself stand 
 in the way. " I will live all that down hereafter," she said to 
 herself, and in the meanwhile, neither by look nor sign, did she 
 
THE HALE SISTEItS. 247 
 
 show to Conrad that she had the least cognisance of all the reports 
 that had been raised. Conrad was too absorbed in his own 
 feelings and his own sorrows, to think of anything of the sort ; if 
 he had been aware of it, he had too mnch gentlemanly feeling, 
 and too mnch real regard for Bianca, to have subjected her to it 
 for any selfish consideration of himself. 
 
 Gradually, however, he came to her less frequently, and a 
 change, the nature of which she could hardly have defined, came 
 over him : at first she thought it was out of consideration to her ; 
 that he had become aware of the painful reports, and was 
 endeavouring silently to extinguish them, and she felt pleased 
 and grateful for his delicacy: but it was not long before sho 
 perceived that some other and far deeper feeling was at work 
 within him, but as he shrank from all conversation that seemed 
 to question him on that point, she was obliged to leave him to 
 time. 
 
 One evening she was driving to a large dinner-party that had 
 been made expressly for her. Many of her leading acquaintance 
 — indeed, nearly all of them — had magnanimously countenanced 
 her during the storm that had arisen, for which they one and all 
 took great credit to themselves ; never failing, however, when they 
 mentioned the fact, to go over a tolerably long list of highly 
 unexceptionable people who kept them in countenance. Bianca, 
 in this, was very fortunate, for if only one had given way, it is a 
 chance but that the whole circle would have gone, like a row of 
 children's soldiers, of which, if you touch but one, they all fall in 
 succession. Bianca, continued to be invited to the most unexcep- 
 tionable dinings and tea-drinkings. She would much rather 
 have stayed away from most of them ; but in this world it is one 
 of the social rewards, and criterions of " perfect respectability, " 
 to receive admissions to the heaviest and solemnest reunions that 
 can be drawn together; whilst exclusion from them, is "to lie 
 under the ban of the empire." As an estimable old lady once 
 said to us, in the depth of a dreary party, ' ' there would cease to 
 be any reward for virtue, if we admitted both the good and the 
 bad indiscriminately to our social intercourse." 
 
 But all this is an immense digression. Bianca was going, on 
 the evening in question, to a most unexceptionable dinner party. 
 There was a momentary stoppage in the street, as they were 
 passing the doors of a dissenting chapel ; it was evidently some 
 special occasion, for large bills were posted oh the wall, and the 
 name of some noted preacher was underlined. Bianca half smiled 
 to see how extremes met, and that she and the preacher who 
 would, no doubt, have considered her in a high state of reproba- 
 tion, were both pressed on the public by the same mode. A 
 crowd of people were pouring in, and a long string of sober- 
 looking carriages blocked up the way. Bianca looked out with 
 some curiosity, and her eyes caught Conrad's as he was turning 
 to enter in. He seemed slightly annoyed at being recognised, 
 
248 THE HALE SISTERS. 
 
 but he immediately came to the carriage-window to speak 
 to her. 
 
 "Where have you been all the week ? and what is there here 
 to-night to make such a concourse ? " 
 
 " Are you then coming?" asked Conrad, with surprise. 
 
 "IP No ; I want to know what it is." 
 
 " A very noted and eloquent preacher, and a very holy man," 
 replied Conrad, gravely. " He is a new friend of mine." 
 
 "Well," replied Bianca, smiling, "do not let him make you 
 forget your old ones." 
 
 The obstruction had now ceased, and the coachman drove on. 
 Bianca thought with some surprise on the utter change that must 
 have passed over Conrad to induce him to enter a dissenting 
 meeting ; he had never been at all addicted to going to church 
 under any circumstances, and she had heard him express the 
 most unmitigated contempt for all kinds of Methodists and 
 Dissenters; but she had reached her destination, and had no 
 further convenience for speculation. The evening passed over in 
 stately decorum ; but she learned casually that Lord Melton was 
 in Yienna, and talked of making an excursion into the heart of 
 Bohemia ; that he had been in Yienna some weeks, and was going 
 about a great deal into the very gayest society. 
 
 " How very strange that he has never written," thought 
 Bianca, and a vague discomfort of heart seized on her. 
 
 It seemed as if all her intelligence of Lord Melton's movements 
 had been frozen up, and were suddenly set free like the words 
 heard by Pantagruel and his companions ; for the next day, a 
 lady whom she had not seen before that season, called upon ner. 
 After some ordinary talk, the lady suddenly said, " By the way, 
 I am not to forget to tell you, that my brother returned last 
 week from Yienna, where he left your old friend, Lord Melton, 
 who is become the gayest of the gay. Frank says that he goes 
 into an immense deal of society, • la crime de la crcmej as 
 Mrs. Trollope would say. He was said to be madly in love with 
 the prima donna who is making such a sensation there, La 
 Fornasari ; who, by the way, Frank declares to be wonderfully 
 like you ; perhaps that may be the reason why Lord Melton has 
 fallen in love with her. Frank can talk of nothing else but her 
 beauty, and her wit, and her eccentricities ; he says she does 
 every day the maddest things possible. I hope she will come 
 here, I do so like people out of the common way." 
 
 " That depends on circumstances," said Bianca, laughing : "I 
 know nothing so disagreeable as people who set up to be out of 
 the common way ; they are so prosaically fantastic, and as stupid 
 as a labyrinth of which one knows every turn." 
 
 "Oh, but I assure you that La Fornasari is not one of that 
 sort ; she is as full of caprices as Undine before she got her soul, 
 and has turned the heads of all the young men in Yienna : she 
 has ruined I do not know how many, and one young Polish 
 
THE HALE SISTERS. 249 
 
 nobleman has committed suicide on her account ; he and his most 
 intimate friend were both in love with her, and they came to a 
 quarrel in consequence ; there was to have been a duel (Frank 
 was asked to be one of the seconds), but the night previous to the 
 meeting, this poor young man shot himself, because he would not 
 light his friend. He left a most beautiful letter, Frank says, and 
 a farewell waltz, which he dedicated to the Fornasari. His friend 
 was so affected that he renounced her, and left the city the next 
 day. It made a great sensation, and even the Fornasari was 
 touched. She wrote some words to his air, and sang them 
 herself; and made a vow, for his sake, to treat the very next 
 lover who presented himself, with great consideration. Lord 
 Melton, seemingly, has been that one, for he came on with her 
 directly afterwards. Frank brought me a copy of the air and 
 the song. I will send them to you. Is it not a romantic 
 history?" 
 
 i 'Highly so, indeed," replied Bianca, absently. 
 
 " The Fornasari will never keep Lord Melton long," said 
 Conrad, who was present, " nor any one else, except those who 
 follow her for the fashion. She has no more heart than a wicked 
 fairy. If she came to England she would not succeed. I should 
 be sorry to see one so utterly shameless even in the theatre. She 
 is not fit to be spoken of." 
 
 Both Bianca and the lady looked surprised at this burst of 
 energy. The lady, however, very shortly after rose to take her 
 leave. 
 
 After she had departed, Bianca sat silently, making up a 
 bouquet, which she was to wear in one of her scenes that 
 evening. Conrad, who was sitting opposite to her, in a large 
 chair, was struck with the peculiar expression of her countenance. 
 
 " I do not believe one word of all that chattering woman has 
 said!" said he, suddenly. " Melton is not the one to get 
 entangled with a bad meretricious woman ; if your friend, who 
 was speaking of her so lightly just now, had only known one 
 half of what I do, she would be struck dumb with shame for her 
 own levity." 
 
 " When did you know her?'" asked Bianca. 
 
 "Some years ago, in Italy. She had then just made her debut. 
 I saw her the first night of her appearance ; she certainly is as 
 much like you in person, as she is different from you in mind." 
 
 "How was it you never mentioned her to me ? " 
 
 " Bianca, if you only knew how loathsome those years of vanity 
 and folly look to me now, you would not wonder that I shrink 
 from recalling them ; and yet, perhaps, the lengths and depths of 
 sinfulness to which I have been permitted to go, were necessary 
 to my complete humiliation, so that I might walk in penitence 
 and self- abhorrence all my life, and, being made to see my own 
 weakness, never trust in my own heart more." 
 
 ' ' What a singular mode you have taken up of expressing 
 
250 THE HALF SISTERS. 
 
 yourself lately," said Bianca; " you seem to have quite a new 
 i way of thinking on all subjects. " 
 
 "]Sot a new way, dear Bianca; I have only found, I trust, 
 the old way — the way that alone can conduct us to rest and 
 peace." 
 
 Bianca looked puzzled — but she had become accustomed to hear 
 him speak mysteriously, and attached no particular importance to 
 it : to-night, however, he seemed singularly grave and sad. 
 
 " You are not well, to-night, Conrad ; you are not yet strong 
 enough to venture into these crowded places at night. If you 
 must go to church, go in the day-time. By the way, you have 
 not told me anything of what you heard last night. Preachers 
 have such power when they are eloquent. The pulpit, next to 
 the press, is the most powerful instrument for influencing the 
 minds of men, and in these days it has quite lost its power. 
 Men have not now their hearts stirred within them from the 
 pulpit, for they know beforehand all that the preacher is allowed 
 to tell them." 
 
 ' ' I wish you would not speak in that way, Bianca, you do not 
 know how it jars upon me. I consider that the man who is 
 called to the ministry is called to a perilous honour, which places 
 him higher than the angels — inasmuch as they only contemplate 
 from afar the mystery of which he is a partaker." 
 
 " You are growing quite a mystic! " said Bianca, winding a 
 silver wire round her flowers : "look, are not they lovely ? " 
 
 " To come from the fresh dew and the sunlight, where they 
 were placed, to wither in the glare and heat of the theatre ! " 
 said he, looking mournfully at them and at her. 
 
 "And why not in the theatre as well as in a ball-room?" 
 said Bianca, impatiently. 
 
 "Just as well and just as ill," said Conrad gently ; " both (to 
 say the least of them), are equally vain and w T cary modes of 
 existence for an immortal soul, which may be called at any 
 moment to give in its account of ' the cleeds done in the body.' 
 If I felt regret that those fair perishing flowers should exhale 
 their beauty and their perfume on such service, how much more 
 great and terrible must seem to me the waste of you, with all 
 your gifts of genius (given for far higher purposes), your noble 
 faculties, and fine qualities, sacrificing night after night at the 
 shrine of that world which rewards its votaries with bitterness 
 and self- contempt, which lures them on, to leave them desolate 
 and deceived at last ! Believe me, clear Bianca, no worldly 
 success, no earthly glitter, will ever satisfy a human heart — they 
 all ' leave an aching void the world can never fill. 1 " 
 
 " Conrad, you are not well," said Bianca, kindly : " I am not 
 going to argue with you, because what you say is quite true, only 
 you seem to have taken it up in a strange perverted way ; all you 
 say about sacrificing to the world is .very true, but it does not 
 touch me : if one has work to do, one must do it ; no one worth 
 
THE HALF SISTER3. 251 
 
 the name of a rational being ever dreamed of living* for the sake 
 of amusing himself. If you tried my life for a month, you 
 would find it real hard work, and no amusement at all." 
 
 "We do not understand each other, Bianca," replied Conrad ; 
 " some day it will perhaps be given you to know what I mean." 
 
 " Meanwhile, I must go to the theatre ; my time is up. When 
 shall I see you again ? " 
 
 " Will you let me find you alone at eleven o'clock to-morrow, 
 if I come? " asked Conrad. 
 
 " Make it ten o'clock, and then you will be sure to find me 
 disengaged," said Bianca ; "but if you are going home, shall I 
 set you down ? " 
 
 " No. I will be here at ten o'clock to-morrow." 
 
 Bianca was tying her bonnet, and did not remark the peculiar 
 manner in which Conrad spoke ; she nodded her head to him as 
 she left the room, and desiring the coachman to drive very fast, 
 as they were late, she sprang into the carriage. 
 
 Conrad remained where she had left him, apparently in bitter 
 reflection. After a while he started up like one stung with pain, 
 and began to pace up and down the room. He stopped opposite 
 the window which opened into the garden. It was a rich June 
 evening ; it was beginning to get dusk ; a clear air tint that 
 seemed like light from neither sun nor moon, but rather a 
 transparent darkness, was spread over all. An expression of 
 intense pain knitted his forehead. 
 
 " Thirty years old to-day! " exclaimed he bitterly; " and this 
 is all the good that my life has done me ! utterly wrecked , utterly 
 bankrupt! Sorrow I have brought on all who have known me, 
 bitter, never-ceasing remorse on myself! these are the goodly 
 fruits of all the labours I have done under the sun ! " 
 
 "Oh!" groaned he, as in utter anguish of spirit, — "a lost 
 life, — a lost life, — a lost life ! to what' purpose has been all this 
 waste ? Would to (rod that I had never been born ! " 
 
 He clasped his hands above his head with a gesture of despair, 
 and flung himself on the couch, which shook under his convulsive 
 sobbings. After awhile they ceased, and he lay calmed and 
 stunned ; but then again, as impelled by some fury, he sprang 
 from the couch, and began again to walk, with writhing steps, 
 up and down the room. 
 
 "She has rest in the grave where I have laid her — where I 
 have laid her. Yes, yes, — ' woe to thee that spoilest, and thou 
 wast not spoiled — and dealest treacherously, and they dealt not 
 treacherously to thee ; — when thou shalt cease to spoil, thou 
 shalt be spoiled — and when thou shalt make an end to deal 
 treacherously, they shall deal treacherously with thee.' " 
 
 He uttered these words in a dull, absent tone, like one 
 speaking in a trance, or as if he had used a voice that was not 
 his own. 
 
 "Ay," continued he, in a sharp, quick tone, "that is my 
 
252 THE HALF SISTJEJBS. 
 
 doom ; those are the words written against me, and none can take 
 them away. None can take them away." 
 
 One of the servants entered hastily with a light ; he had heard 
 a sound of talking, and knowing that his mistress was not at 
 home he was alarmed. The sudden flashing of the lamp dazzled 
 the eyes of Conrad, but he instantly recovered his self-possession, 
 and coldly bidding the man bring his hat, he left the house. 
 
 CHAPTER LIL 
 
 Tiie next morning, when Bianca descended to breakfast, she 
 found Conrad already arrived ; but she started back at his strange 
 aspect. He seemed utterly transformed, and for a second she 
 hardly recognised him. He was dressed in a coarse iron-gray 
 coat, made something like a Quaker's ; his linen, about which he 
 had always been singularly fastidious, was of the very coarsest 
 description, though perfectly white and clean. The whole of his 
 dress, which was of the same iron-gray colour, seemed to have 
 been made by a tailor who worked for artisans, so rudely 
 and clumsily was it fashioned ; his shoes were thick, with nails 
 in the soles, and coarse gray woollen stockings were seen above 
 them. 
 
 "What on earth is all this about, Conrad? What are you 
 going to do with yourself in this guise ? " 
 
 1 ' I have many things to say to you, Bianca, and we have no 
 time to lose in idle surprise." 
 
 M Well, sit down and have some breakfast, and tell me what it 
 is that has come upon you." 
 
 " A change of heart which will lead to a changed life, I would 
 fain hope," replied he, gravely. 
 
 " You are speaking parables this morning," said she, trying to 
 speak cheerfully, although a vague fear that his mind was getting 
 unhinged oppressed her. " What shall I give you ? I can recom- 
 mend this chocolate ; I had a quantity given me the other day. 
 It is real Spanish." 
 
 "Thank you, no, I have already eaten; delicate food no more 
 shall pass my lips." 
 
 Bianca, more and more surprised, began to sip her chocolate in 
 uneasy silence, waiting for what he should next say. He did nol 
 speak, however, until she seemed to have finished her breakfast ; 
 he appeared to be considering in what manner he might best unfold 
 his errand. At length he spoke, in a slow, grave voice. 
 
 " I am come to say farewell. I have not told you of my plans 
 before, because I feared you would oppose me and harass me, by 
 
THE IIALE SISTERS. 253 
 
 painful entreaties. You know all the folly of my past life — you 
 know all the sin of it — you know the deep sin of all that lies on 
 my soul. You have "been very good to me ; if you had not stood 
 beside me in the beginning, I must have lost my reason, which 
 has been spared me to work out my repentance. When that was 
 done, your work ceased. You wished to have restored me to peace 
 and comfort, but that was not for me. What have I done that I 
 should ever know peace again ? How could I live at peace, when, 
 she is in the grave, where I have laid her ? But, Bianca, when I 
 was helplessly crying ' What must I do to find peace ? ' I strayed 
 by chance, not knowing whither I went (you see I was guided 
 there hy a power not my own), into that chapel where you saw me 
 entering the other night, and there I heard the message intended 
 for me. I was told there that I had lived in self — that I had been 
 dead in pleasure, dead in sin, and that there was a woe against all 
 those who lived at ease, forgetting God — forgetting their brethren, 
 the poor of this world. I knew I had done all this — I knew that 
 I had bestowed on the needy none of the good things which I had 
 thought mine, but of which I now heard I was only steward. I 
 had kept all for myself, and my soul was weighed down with a 
 curse. Oh, Bianca ! you know not what it is to open your eyes 
 suddenly, and see yourself utterly steeped and polluted with sin ; 
 to be obliged to abhor yourself more than the most loathsome 
 thing you ever gazed on before ; — but you must know what you 
 re — it is the first step out of the abyss. I went to this chapel 
 often ; I heard what my soul thirsted to hear. You could not 
 speak those words to me, — good, and kind, and devoted, you were 
 still blind yourself. At length I spoke to the minister from whose 
 lips I had first heard what I was. He showed me what I must do. 
 The time past of my life shall suffice to have wrought folly — 
 henceforth, I give myself to try to do good, as I have before done 
 evil. Of myself, I can do no good thing ; but help will be given 
 me. I have sold all I possessed. Henceforth, I will wear no 
 elegant clothes, I will eat no delicate food. I am the steward of 
 my fortune— the possessors of it are all those who are in hunger, 
 and want, and wretchedness. I go to live amongst them, to 
 minister unto them." 
 
 " But, Conrad, that is pure fanaticism, and nothing else. With 
 your education, and your talents, to go to live entirely with rude, 
 miserable wretches, is throwing yourself away; it is not using 
 your gifts to advantage." 
 
 " Do not talk to me, Bianca, you know not what you say. I 
 came* to speak to" you for the last time, therefore do not distract 
 me from what I have to say. I would fain exhort you to quit 
 your mode of life, for one better befitting an immortal creature ; 
 but I am not worthy to exhort you, you are far higher and better 
 thaii I am ; you will have another teacher sent to you. I have 
 better wishes for you than you have for yourself ; something telh 
 me you will be led into the right way before you die. ISTow, 
 
254 THE HALF SISTERS. 
 
 Bianca, farewell, — God "bless and reward you for all you have 
 been to me." 
 
 His words choked him, and the tears streamed fr@m his eyes, as 
 he rose and took her hand. 
 
 " You have been a dear and precious friend to me," said he, in 
 a voice broken with emotion : i i forgive me all the sorrow I once 
 brought on you." 
 
 " Surely you are not leaving me in this way, Conrad! " cried 
 Bianca, fearfully, — "where are you going? — why are you 
 going? — it must be some dream," said she, with a bewildered 
 look. 
 
 " It is no dream, Bianca, — the Conrad you knew is dead. — •The 
 last day of my old life closed yesterday — to-day my new life has 
 arisen." 
 
 Bianca put her hands to her head; he took one of them, and 
 said, gently, ' ' All this tumult and confusion will pass away. 
 You should rejoice that I have found the true and the right way, 
 and not sorrow that I have left my old life behind." 
 
 "But you will let me hear of you — you will come and see me, 
 sometimes, at least ?" 
 
 Conrad shook his head. 
 
 1 ' If ever you should be in want or sorrow, and should need me, 
 then I would come : — a note to the minister of that chapel would 
 always find me. Bianca, Bianca ! " continued he, whilst his 
 whole frame shook with the emotion he endeavoured to suppress, 
 " do not weep thus, — it breaks my heart to see you, for I can- 
 not help you. You are good and kind, and would do all things 
 for me ; but you cannot help me ; you cannot heal my wounded 
 soul. I must go — -'there is a task laid on me which I must 
 fulhl.' " 
 
 He grasped both her hands in his, and with lips cold as death 
 he pressed one long kiss upon her forehead. 
 
 " I have left you, Bianca, some books and things that you will 
 keep for my sake ; and this I have brought you, too ; you may 
 keep it innocently : and now, farewell." 
 
 He laid a small morocco miniature case upon the table, and 
 without again venturing to look at it, he left the room. 
 
 % 
 
 C1IAPTEE LIU. 
 
 Loud Melto~n t , in the course of his wanderings, found himself 
 
 at Trieste. He was undetermined as to his course ; he could not 
 
 --resolve to return to England, and he had put off making up his 
 
 mind until he should reach Trieste. It Was a relief to him, that, 
 
THE HALF SISTEES. 255 
 
 until he arrived there, he need decide on nothing ; he flung him- 
 self into the chapter of accidents, like one trying a " sortes" for 
 something to determine his steps. 
 
 When he had settled himself at the hotel, he strolled towards 
 the sea. He sat down, at length, listlessly enough, to survey the 
 busy and vivid scene before him. 
 
 Suddenly a loud scream arose, from a group of children who 
 were at play in a boat, which was secured to the shore by a cable 
 twisted several times round a stone pillar. The boat had been 
 swayed to and fro by the ripple of the waves, and their movements 
 in their game, in a way that rendered it difficult for them to keep 
 their balance. A dispute arose, and the biggest of the ©hildren 
 seized another angrily ; in the struggle, both fell over into the 
 water, between the boat and the shore. Both disappeared, and 
 were drawn by the waves under the boat. Before, however, Lord 
 Melton could reach the spot, a young sailor who was lounging 
 near, had dived like a water-dog after them, and in a few moments 
 re- appeared with one of the children hanging, drenched and life- 
 less, across his arm. Lord Melton promptly relieved him from 
 his burden , and he again disappeared beneath the surface to search 
 for the other. This time he was less successful, and had to come 
 up to take breath more than once. At length he appeared with 
 the other ; it had got entangled in a heap of sea-w eed under the 
 boat, and life was quite extinct. Lord Melton had carried his 
 burden into a cabaret which stood near the quay, and was 
 anxiously watching, beside the bed, the application of all the 
 usual remedies, when the second victim of the casualty was 
 brought and laid down beside the other, who was now beginning 
 to show some symptoms of restored animation. All the bystanders 
 assisted, and seemed instinctively to turn their eyes to Lord 
 Melton for directions. He had with difficulty succeeded in 
 calming the tumult and bustle of many advisers, and introduced 
 orderliness into their proceedings. 
 
 " I fear," said he, putting his hand on the child's heart, "that 
 this poor little thing is past our care ; we can but try. Is that 
 water still warm ? " 
 
 An answer bei,ng returned in the affirmative, he directed one of 
 the bystanders to place him in it, and then turned to continue his 
 cares to the one under his hands. On lifting the left arm to rub 
 it more conveniently, he observed the mark of a small cross 
 pricked on the inner side in blue ink, whilst several initials were 
 printed in different colours at each of the angles. He had no leisure 
 to bestow much attention upon this, as his ears were at that instant 
 assailed by loud lamentations, mingled with the shrill clamour of 
 many female voices, speaking at once in varied tones of depreca- 
 tion and sympathy. The door of the apartment burst open, and 
 a tall masculine looking woman, in the dress of a Hungarian 
 peasant, violently disengaged herself from the grasp of her com- 
 panions, who strove to soothe her, and rushed to the body of the 
 
256 THE HALF SISTEUS. 
 
 dead child, wliicli had been removed from the bath, and strained 
 it frantically to her bosom. 
 
 " It is the mother — the mother of them both," said some one in 
 the group, in an almost unintelligible patois. 
 
 "Tell her," said Lord Melton, "that she is losing the only 
 chance of recovering her child. She must be quiet." 
 
 A dozen voices were raised at once ; the woman seemed not to 
 heed, but sat with a stony gaze, rigidly clasping the form of her 
 child. 
 
 Lord Melton, much affected, endeavoured gently to remove her, 
 and to draw her attention to the one he had succeeded in restoring, 
 but she pushed him angrily aside, and regarded the now calmly 
 breathing form of the rescued one with a shudder of despair 
 and affright, whilst she fiercely resisted his attempt to disengage 
 the child she still convulsively clutched. 
 
 " They were both your children," said Lord Melton, " and you 
 must be thankful for the one preserved to you." 
 
 She stared at him wildly, without understanding a word he said. 
 The voices of several women were again raised to enforce his 
 words. 
 
 " It is false, it is false," said she, wildly : " this one is my son; 
 what is the other to me ? I have lost my soul for it, and now it 
 has cost me my son." 
 
 "She is mad, the poor Monica!" said a woman, compassion- 
 ately; "the one that lies dead was her favourite; she never 
 favoured the other, she would not have cared had the other been . 
 the victim." 
 
 "I am not mad, I tell ye," cried the mother, fiercely: "this 
 one is my child — my precious son ; the other — how should I know 
 who owns it — it has brought evil on me from the beginning : " 
 and muttering still wilder words, she went off in a violent hysterical 
 seizure, and had to be removed to a distant room. 
 
 Lord Melton's patience was at last rewarded by seeing his little 
 patient fall into a peaceful slumber. With some difficulty he 
 continued to clear the room, and remained still watching beside 
 the bed. He might have sat there about half an hour, when a 
 servant returned, saying that the woman, the mother of the 
 children, earnestly desired to see him. 
 
 " Is she better?" asked Lord Melton — "this little fellow is 
 doing well." 
 
 " His mother rambles and talks wildly — it seems to be Little she 
 cares for this one ; she calls the other her child : but she asks to 
 see you, and will not rest until your lordship is good enough to 
 humour her." 
 
 " By all means I will go ; and you will see that the doctor and 
 the landlord understand that I am responsible for all expenses, 
 and so forth. The sailor who jumped into the water after him, 
 should have something ; but that I will see to myself. Remain 
 here beside the child until I return." 
 
THE HALF SISTEES. 2o7 
 
 Lord Melton was shown into a miserable garret in the auberge, 
 and on a low pallet the wretched woman lay. A priest was beside 
 her, and several women were standing round the bed, which was 
 covered with marks of blood: in her paroxysm of grief she 
 had broken a blood-vessel, and she seemed on the point of 
 death. 
 
 44 Here is the good English prince who has saved yonr child," 
 said one of the women. 
 
 44 Let him come close, that he may hear me," said she, in a 
 whisper. 
 
 14 Yonr son is alive, and out of all danger, and will be at play 
 again before evening,''' said Lord Melton, cheerfully. 
 
 44 1 am dying," said the woman, 44 with a deadly sin on me,— 
 will you help me to lighten the curse ? " 
 
 44 1 will do everything possible," replied he, kindly ; " but you 
 are not in a state to talk." 
 
 44 Yes, I am ; everybody stay to hear what I say: — that child 
 is not mine — I was persuaded to keep him — the priest will tell you 
 all how it was. You are rich ; you can go where you will ; you 
 can find its mother, and deliver me from her curse." 
 
 The woman spoke in gasps, and in a patois hardly intelli- 
 gible ; but her eye was fixed upon him in an agony of entreaty, 
 anxiety, and terror, that was terrible to endure. 
 
 44 My good woman, what can I do ? You are deceived in my 
 power to help you." 
 
 The woman groaned, and with a look of despair to the priest, 
 she said, " Father, tell me how to make restitution — do not let 
 me die under it's mother's curse." 
 
 The priest said a few words which he intended to be consoling, 
 but they had no effect : the poor creature sprang up in bed, and 
 seizing Lord Melton's arm, said, with a shriek that vibrated 
 through the whole house, "Promise, promise;" a violent fit of 
 coughing drowned her voice, and a dark stream of blood gushed 
 from her lips ; her head fell back — all attempts to restore her 
 were in vain : after a few moments' struggle all was over, and she 
 lay dead before them. 
 
 Lord Melton had never seen any one before at the moment of 
 death, and the horrors of the death-bed he had just witnessed 
 were an appalling addition to the thrilling mystery which invests 
 the event, even when the transit is most peaceful. He felt as if 
 under the influence of a terrific dream, from which he could not 
 deliver himself. 
 
 44 You are unequal to this sight, my lord," said the priest, 
 compassionately, ' ' you had better retire, whilst we perform the 
 last offices : — at another time I will explain the miserable woman's 
 words." 
 
 He gently led him outside the door, and guided him down the 
 rickety stairs to the open air, which somewhat relieved the 
 deathly faintness that oppressed him. 
 
258 THE HALF SISTEES. 
 
 "I must go now, my lord, but I will see you this evening, if 
 you will allow me." 
 
 "You will find me at the Golden Lion," replied Lord Melton, 
 giving him his card — " and will you see that the rescued child 
 wants for nothing ? " added he, placing a sum of money in the old 
 man's hand. 
 
 " Be quite sure that everything needful shall he done ; — can I 
 see you at five o'clock if I call ?" 
 
 " At any hour that will suit your other engagements." 
 
 " At five, then, I will not fail to be with you," replied the 
 priest, courteously, as he turned to enter the auberge. 
 
 Lord Melton walked back to his hotel, shocked and stupified by 
 the events of the morning. 
 
 As he entered, a travelling carriage drove up, and a gentleman 
 in deep mourning, evidently an Englishman, alighted. 
 
 Pre-occupied as he was, Lord Melton could not avoid remarking 
 the look of deep settled grief which rested on his countenance. 
 
 " Do you happen to know who that gentleman is that arrived 
 just now ?" asked he of his valet. 
 
 " His name is Bryant, my lord." 
 
 CHAPTEE L1V. 
 
 Loed Melton was sitting at the open window of his apartment 
 in the hotel, which commanded a view of the sea. He was smoking 
 with great diligence. Of all human inventions smoking is the 
 greatest resource for any sort of perplexity ; Sancho Panza's bene- 
 diction on him who invented sleep, may be reiterated with 
 emphasis on the man who invented smoking — it calms his irrita- 
 tion, it soothes his sorrow, it unravels his perplexities, it inspires 
 his genius ; and difficulties which seemed impossible at the begin- 
 ning of a cigar, grow to look quite tame and manageable at the 
 end of it. Lord Melton had met with an incident that might 
 either lie dormant for ever, or like the grain found in the sarco- 
 phagi of mummies, be destined, after years of darkness and 
 oblivion, to germinate a preternaturally abundant harvest of 
 adventures. He was interrupted by the old priest, who came 
 punctually to his appointed time. In his hand he led the 
 child, which had now quite recovered from its accident, but 
 was crying bitterly after its mother and little brother. 
 
 Lord Melton received the old man very cordially, and com- 
 forted the child with some sweetmeats. 
 
 "What is to be done with him?" said he. "Having saved 
 
THE HALF SISTEES. 259 
 
 his life I feel bound to do something towards making it worth his 
 living." 
 
 " I have been myself thinking of the same thing," replied the 
 old man ; " poor little fellow, he has already had many vicissi- 
 tudes. I have written down the confession of her who died this 
 morning, along with the dates, which may be useful. So many ' 
 extraordinary coincidences occur in life, and we are so often 
 brought in contact with people strangely connected with events, 
 from which they seemed for ever divided by accidents of distance, 
 time, and country, that there is no saying what influence you may 
 exercise over that young creature's destiny. I do not believe that 
 we any of us stand alone in the world ; we are all more or less 
 connected with each other, and whoever we have once known, 
 never passes away from us entirely ; incidents are continually 
 occurring to bring them again across our path." 
 
 "I have often thought so," replied Lord Melton; " but it 
 seemed too vague a fancy to make a maxim about, or to petrify 
 into a fact." 
 
 " Yes," said the priest, " it requires some courage to stake an 
 action on the faith of that which is not seen. "We call the whole 
 human family our 'brothers' as a J- 'agon de parler, but most of us 
 only believe in the connexion we may chance to make with those 
 who cross our path ; we cannot risk an action on the faith of that 
 bond of unity, which lies underneath all apparent diversities of 
 interests, nations, and races. A practical faith in the Providence 
 which gathers together in one all the families of the earth, seems 
 to you enthusiasm, or perhaps insanity." 
 
 "Well," said Lord Melton, good-humouredly, "whether I 
 accept your theory or not, at least I am not going to abandon 
 this little one so strangely thrown in my way, — and to come 
 back to the first question, what had better be done with him?" 
 
 " The superior of the monastery of St. Lazarus would receive 
 and educate him ; but I am too poor to pay the fee." 
 
 " That is very easily settled," said Lord Melton, greatly relieved 
 by this simple solution of the question. 
 
 " Now you see how we are all fitly joined together," said the 
 old man, smiling ; " what to you seems so easy, to me was an 
 insuperable obstacle. Men would fail in nothing, if they would 
 only work together." 
 
 Lord Melton did not know what to make of the priest and his 
 childish belief in his own theories. He inquired where this 
 monastery of St. Lazarus was ; and hearing that it k ;r near, he 
 proposed to walk thither at once, and arrange the bu^uess ; to 
 which the old man assented, and they accordingly set off. 
 
 " I am only remaining in this place until to-morrow," said 
 Lord Melton, as they went along ; " and, according to your 
 theory, I have been brought here for this purpose." 
 
 " Who knows," replied the priest, " why you have been 
 brought? It is not in man that walketh, to direct his steps. 
 
 s*2 
 
260 THE HALF SISTERS. 
 
 We never know what we do at the time when we are doing it : 
 we seem to be following our own business, or our own pleasures — • 
 and when the event is completed those are proved to have been 
 but mere tools." 
 
 By this time they had reached the monastery. The business 
 that brought them was soon despatched. Lord Melton paid a sum 
 that would maintain the child until he was old enough to be put 
 to a trade, and the old priest promised to take him the next 
 morning. 
 
 The next morning also saw Lord Melton start for Yienna. 
 
 He had many friends in Yienna, most of them in distinguished 
 positions in society, so that, on his arrival, he was welcomed into 
 all the fashion and gaiety going about at that season. 
 
 After his desultory, wandering, and yet lonely life for so many 
 months, he was surprised to find how extremely pleasant all the 
 dissipation proved in which he found himself thus suddenly 
 involved. 
 
 In fact, he had had quite enough of his own company; and 
 sociability is a much deeper feeling in human nature than any 
 sort of misanthropy, sulkiness, or exclusiveness in which even 
 an Englishman may please to rejoice. For a season one may wish 
 to escape the sight and sound of our species, but after awhile one 
 is always very glad to go back to them. 
 
 Two nights after his arrival, one of his acquaintance burst into 
 his room to carry him off to the opera. It was the first night of 
 the Fornasari's appearance in " Semiramide," and tickets were 
 worth more than their weight in gold. 
 
 Lord Melton was startled at the name ; it was precisely 
 the one that figured in the narrative the old priest had given 
 him. 
 
 Of course he offered no objection, and they went accordingly. 
 The house was filled to the ceiling with an enthusiastic audience, 
 but Lord Melton did not go with the multitude. He saw in the 
 Fornasari a beautiful woman, who at first sight startled him by 
 her resemblance to Bianca ; but it produced a singularly unplea- 
 sant effect upon him; her bold, insolent, defiant look, for an 
 instant almost shook his faith in Bianca. It did not seem possible 
 for them to be so much alike and yet different. Even her singing 
 and acting disgusted him. She had a magnificent voice, and 
 showed Hashes of genius in her personation of the character, but 
 all was marred by the constant intrusion of herself. Music, 
 singing, acting, all seemed nothing but so many vehicles for the 
 glorification of herself. It was no realisation of Semiramis, the 
 demi-god, the wondrous, half- fabulous Queen of Babylon ; but 
 an intrusive manifestation of an unmentionable woman. At least 
 so Lord Melton thought, until the scene with Arsace, after she 
 discovers that he is her son ; and then there was a touch of deep 
 feeling and reality, which contrasted strangely with the meretri- 
 cious character of the former portion of her performance. 
 
THE HALF SISTERS. 2G1 
 
 " How do you like her ? — what do you think of her ? — does she 
 not realise your idea of a syren ? " were questions that burst like 
 a waterfall over the ears of Lord Melton as soon as the curtain 
 fell. 
 
 " To me she seems perfectly hateful," said he ; " and I could 
 not have conceived it possible that any one so beautiful, so gifted, 
 and with a voice I never heard approached (much less equalled), 
 could produce such an utterly disagreeable impression. She did 
 not suggest the idea of a syren to me in the least, but something 
 far less classical ; all the time she was singing with that fierce, 
 cruel, insolent, and yet enticing look, I could think of nothing 
 but Delilah beguiling Sampson to betray him to the Philistines." 
 
 "It is her receiving night, and I was about to ask you to go 
 there with me to supper, but with those sinister notions you will 
 hardly like to venture," said his friend. 
 
 . " Do you mean to say that you could present me ? " asked Lord 
 Melton. 
 
 " Decidedly, if you like to come." 
 
 " Well, then, she certainly is a phenomenon I should like to 
 view more nearly ; so if you think I shall be received, I should be 
 very glad to go. 
 
 " You are an Englishman, and will be received quite well, 
 there is no fear. She has a great desire to sing in London, and 
 so is very civil to all the Englishmen who come in her way, as a 
 matter of speculation ; but come along, for we shall be late. 
 
 As they went along Lord Melton said — 
 
 " I should think that woman must have a history — where does 
 she come from ? — who is she ? " 
 
 " Oh," replied the other, "those sort of women have seldom 
 any antecedents worth knowing. — They drudge till they come 
 in|o notice, and then one is too much taken up with the present 
 to go back to the past. I can tell you nothing about her, except 
 that she has turned the heads of the whole city, and that men 
 ruin themselves, make fools of themselves, and now and then 
 shoot themselves, to her great glorification, for she does not in the 
 least distress herself about those accidents : and yet, now and 
 then she shows a gleam of feeling that astonishes one, and makes 
 one wonder whether she is the frivolous, heartless creature she 
 seems ; in fact, she is an enigma beyond my power to solve, and 
 that, I suppose, keeps up the enthusiasm about her : but here we 
 are arrived — now for your reception ! " 
 
 They were admitted without delay, and were conducted by a 
 servant in gorgeous livery up a handsome, well-lighted staircase, 
 to an ante-room, filled with all sorts of curiosities, bijouterie, 
 pictures, statues, bronzes, porcelain, &c, &c. ; they had no time 
 to stay to examine them, as they were immediately ushered into a 
 smaller room adjoining, where about a dozen men of different ages 
 were assembled. 
 
 The room was hung in panels of rose-coloured silk, with a 
 
262 THE HALF SISTEES. 
 
 ■wreath, of gold flowers in the centre of each: — no expense 01 
 luxury had been spared, and yet the result was rather whimsical 
 than tasteful, and Lord Melton fancied it bore the impress of the 
 character of its possessor. The room was neither Gothic, nor 
 Grecian, nor Chinese, nor Medieval, nor of the Renaissance ; and 
 yet it was a mixture of them all, and every style had sent some 
 object to represent it. One or two immense mirrors were let into 
 the wall, so that in the daytime those presenting themselves for 
 admission could be perceived and recognised. 
 
 The room was lighted with a profusion of wax lights, but 
 shaded into a pleasant silvery radiance ; the atmosphere was heavy 
 with perfume that arose from a stand of flowers, which in that 
 room seemed not without a certain meretricious look, as if they 
 had become demoralised from their associations ; in fact, they had 
 composed the innumerable wreaths and bouquets which had been 
 flung to her on the stage the previous evening. Card-tables were 
 laid out in different parts of the room, for the Fornasari was said 
 to be addicted to high play, amongst her other virtues. 
 
 Lord Melton was presented by his companion to the guests 
 already assembled, who were mostly men of some consideration. 
 
 " I ought to have told you that there is always play after 
 • supper, but you need not join unless you like." 
 
 The Fornasari just then entered, and prevented the need of a 
 reply : she was plainly and quietly dressed, and was accompanied 
 by lier sister, a pretty enough insignificant young woman, who 
 was her dame de compagnie. She seemed tired and out of spirits, 
 and made a much better impression on Lord Melton than he would 
 have believed possible five minutes previously. She received 
 him with something almost like kindness, and placed him beside 
 her at supper, which was announced almost immediately in an 
 adjoining apartment. 
 
 Everything was served in excellent style, and the conversation 
 was loud and lively ; but the Fornasari sat very absent and silent, 
 joining only by fits and starts in what was said. 
 
 " This is one of your days for being in low spirits, madams; 
 one of the eclipses with which you shroud your brightness in pity 
 to your worshippers," said one of the guests, a fat middle-aged 
 man, with an air of faded gallantry. 
 
 She did not take the trouble to reply ; but her sister, with a 
 half officious, half pert air, said, — 
 
 " Ah, yes, that makes you value us more when we shine ; it is 
 only politic to be invisible sometimes." 
 
 " If we have finished supper, let us go back to the other room," 
 said the Fornasari, abruptly. " Do you play?" asked she, 
 turning to Lord Melton. 
 
 " Not unless I am wanted to make up a game." 
 
 " Ah, that is right ; then you will sit and talk to me. I shall 
 not play, either. — Count de Rossi, you must have your revenge 
 another night." 
 
THE HALE SISTERS. 263 
 
 The company dispersed themselves about the room, and made up 
 their parties to the different tables. The Fornasari seated herself 
 on an ottoman, and signed to Lord Melton to sit beside her. 
 
 She began to converse with him about his travels, and showed 
 a degree of shrewdness and good sense in her observations that 
 surprised him. Afterwards she asked him many questions about 
 England, about the theatre, and about the estimation in which 
 performers were held. 
 
 " But I suppose," said she, bitterly, " that there, as elsewhere, 
 people think it due to themselves to exploiter all the beauty, 
 genius, or powers of pleasing, possessed by those whom evil stars 
 have doomed to live by them, and afterwards to despise those who 
 have amused them, with all the majesty of stupidity. Do you 
 know, I have often envied the power exercised by stupidity ; it 
 has a weight far beyond that of genius. Genius may break its 
 heart in the endeavour to infuse a spark of sensibility or sympathy 
 with its efforts; and stupidity can stand unmoved, unruffled, 
 utterly invulnerable, and coming off decidedly the best in the 
 encounter. ' Against stupidity the gods themselves fight in 
 vain ; ' and, as for me, who am a mere mortal, I am absolutely 
 frightened at its leaden superiority to all my genius, — such a 
 strange mystery attaches to silence and stupidity ! " 
 
 Lord Melton laughed. " Is that intended as a tribute to my 
 English impassivity ? " said he. 
 
 " No ; it is a tribute to truth, for once." 
 
 ' ' Your perception of the dignity of stupidity, in your dazzling 
 position," replied he, " looks somewhat like the taste of a monarch 
 for black bread and a peasant's hovel. You would both be satisfied 
 with a short life. Those once accustomed to a brilliant position 
 can never desire another, except as a carnival disguise." 
 
 "Yes," said the Fornasari, with something like bitterness, 
 1 1 my life is like the last scene of a pantomime, or a display of 
 fireworks ; there is a very flat and smouldering result — but the 
 audience will have dispersed before then." 
 
 "This is the anniversary of a great sorrow," continued she, 
 after a pause ; " several years have passed since it befel me ; but, 
 at these times, all this glare and noise is very sickening. You 
 have a kind face, and it is a comfort to me to see you here to- 
 night." 
 
 Lord Melton said something about his good fortune in having 
 been presented to her, and turned the conversation on her per- 
 formance of the " Semiramide." " I was startled," said he, " in 
 that scene with your son. You invested it with a feeling I could 
 not explain. What was your idea in it, if I may ask ? " 
 
 "Envy," replied the Fornasari, abruptly. She rose as she 
 spoke, as though to break off the conversation; and, approaching 
 one of the tables where two of her guests were playing ecarte, she 
 staked a heavy wager on the one who was losing. It was getting 
 late, and Lord Melton rose to leave, feeling much more in charity 
 
2G4i THE IIA.LE SISTERS. 
 
 with his hostess than he would have" believed possible two hours 
 previously. " Ah! you are going," said she, turning her head 
 towards him. "Well, I hope you will come again." 
 
 Lord Melton bowed ; and then he added, involuntarily, "Will 
 you give me a private audience to-morrow if I come ? " 
 
 " I will," replied she. " Be here to-morrow at eleven o'clock, 
 and I will see you." 
 
 Several things had struck Lord Melton as coinciding with the 
 facts mentioned in the priest's note ; and at least it was worth 
 while to try whether the Signora Fornasari in his note, was the 
 same person as La Fornasari of the evening before. Punctually, 
 at the appointed time, he presented himself at the gate, and was 
 admitted by the concierge without hesitation. He was shown 
 into the room he had before seen : the daylight came softened 
 down to a tendre jour, through blinds of rose-coloured crape. 
 The Fornasari herself, in a most becoming morning-dress, was 
 trying over an air in a new opera, which was shortly to appear. 
 She ceased at his entrance. 
 
 "All you Englishmen are punctual," cried she gaily. She 
 seemed quite to have lost the depression of the evening before, 
 and Lord Melton began to feel a return of the disgust with which 
 she had at first inspired him. He even thought that his poor 
 little half- drowned protege would be better without a mother to 
 the end of his life, than to be restored to the arms of such a 
 questionable parent. She saw that she failed in producing an 
 effect; that the good feeling with which he regarded her the 
 evening before had passed away ; and like a woman accustomed , 
 to success, she determined not to let him depart until she had 
 recovered her ground. She was one of those Avomen cursed with 
 gifts which result in the ruin of themselves, and the misery of 
 those who come under their spell. She had a passion for subju- 
 gating all who came within her reach, for the gratification of her 
 own vanity ; and for this miserable result she displayed powers 
 almost miraculous. She seemed to know every turning and 
 fold of the human heart ; to carry in her own nature the 
 key of every different character. She could turn and govern men 
 at will. Had she been a noble woman, she might have made 
 them into heroes ; as it was, she was contented with making them 
 fools for her sake. She was so largely endowed and organised, 
 that in herself she seemed the epitome of the whole sex ; but all 
 her gifts were limited and vulgarised by being centred in herself, 
 and by the total absence of all elevation of thought or feeling. 
 She had tasted the intoxication of the subtle sovereignty which 
 women like her can exercise, and to hold her empire to the latest 
 moment was her only aim. She saw Lord Melton did not admire 
 her levity of tone, and fell gently back into the half- confidential 
 melancholy of the evening before ; which, after all, had for once 
 been a genuine expression of the feeling of the moment : but 
 mobile as she was, the same mood never lasted an hour. 
 
THE HALF SISTERS. 265 
 
 " It is the misfortune of women like me," said she, in reply to 
 some slight compliment from him, " that those who come near us 
 never seem to see anything worth respecting ; and that makes one 
 feel towards them as if they were natural enemies, and show 
 them no mercy. Why should one trust them, or treat them well ? 
 - — they would only make one suffer for it. You have some feeling, 
 some humanity in you ; but it makes me mad with contempt and 
 hatred to see the crowd of those who come round me, for the 
 gratification of their own egoism and vanity. They get what they 
 can from me ; and if my beauty were to fade, or my voice to fail, 
 they would allow me to sink clown to straw and a hospital with- 
 out remonstrance or regret, if they only found another who could 
 fill my place. Do you think that I am blinded by all this luxury 
 and adulation that surrounds me ? Do you." think I do not know 
 that they are all fairy gifts, which when breathed on (as they 
 will one day be) by age or sickness, will vanish, and I shall find 
 myself like an awakened dreamer, in rags and starvation in a 
 garret. It is written on every panel in the walls — there is not a 
 clay in which it does not cross my fancy ; — the thought is like 
 a familiar spirit always within call. It will be my fate. I am 
 not a coward to fear it, but it gives a zest to the present moment 
 and keeps enjoyment from palling. What should men like you 
 know of the fierce intoxication contained in the exhortation of 
 1 Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die.' " 
 
 " The fate you sketch," replied Lord Melton, " seems to me 
 much less fearful than the state of mind you describe. Power is 
 power, and may be turned to one purpose as well as another. If 
 you were to use the influence you sway to a better purpose, the 
 consequences would not be so bitterly reckless as you represent 
 them. On your own showing, what you call * your fate ' is of 
 your own working." 
 
 "Oh, I know I am a gilded Ishmaelite," said she, laughing; 
 ' ' but I will not fall, until I become old and ugly, and have lost 
 my energy, and then it will not much signify what befalls me. 
 We all change so much that what seems very terrible at one time 
 is quite supportable at another; there is always room to walk 
 upright under troubles that at first seemed as if they must 
 crush us to death. Besides," added she, speaking in a tone of 
 natural feeling, "one sometimes has had a great sorrow, after 
 which we feel quite sure nothing again can ever give us any pain ; 
 we have endured the worst and live. But I can keep you no 
 longer now, for I am wanted at the opera." 
 
 "I have already intruded too long," said Lord Melton ; "but 
 it struck me that you might be the person referred to in this 
 memorial ; if so, you will find information that highly concerns 
 you; if not, pardon my ofiiciousness." 
 
 He placed the paper on the table and departed. The Fornasari 
 sat for a moment after he left the room like one buried in painful 
 thought; then negligently taking up the paper, she began to 
 
266 THE HAI/F SISTEItS. 
 
 read ; but her negligence was soon changed into the most 
 vehement agitation. An expression of fear and hope was in her 
 face, her lips were apart and colourless, her eyes dilated, and 
 a nervous spasm shook her frame. Her sister came running 
 in alarm, having heard her sobs of hysterical weeping in the 
 next room. 
 
 1 ' You will never be able to sing if you sob in this manner, 
 Julietta," said her sister ; " what has come to you ? " 
 
 "Read, read," cried the Fornasari. 
 
 That same night there was a terrible emente at the Opera. The 
 Fornasari had departed, and no one could tell whither. 
 
 CTIAPTEE LY. 
 
 Such was the substance, from which the reports that reached 
 Eianca, of Lord Melton's intimacy with the singer, had their 
 origin. It would have annoyed him excessively to have known 
 that his name was mixed up with a style of woman he detested 
 so thoroughly. He felt very sorry for the Fornasari — sorry to see 
 so many good gifts laid waste — but he was too much of an 
 Englishman in all his notions to entertain any philosophical 
 charity for her, and he did not feel called upon to exert himself 
 to rouse the small leaven of good which even he thought he 
 discerned, amid all her sins, against the laws of good morals 
 and good taste. Indeed, the judgment human beings pass on 
 each other, has often more to do with the outrage offered to the 
 idiosyncracies of personal taste and feeling, than to their derelic- 
 tion from abstract principles of morality. 
 
 When people commit sins with which we individually have no 
 sympathy, and which press inconveniently upon us, we are apt to 
 £ive them over to absolute reprobation ; they are utterances of 
 humanity we do not comprehend. But if it were possible that 
 any one man should arise, who could thoroughly know all that 
 was in man, we should be struck dumb with the immense 
 tolerance, sympathy, power of reconciliation, and of guiding to 
 good, which he . would manifest for all orders and degrees of men 
 — from the Pharisee, with his broad phylactery of respectability, 
 clown to the most hardened outcast of Norfolk Island, who has 
 sinned himself down to the level, and almost to the likeness, of a 
 brute. Meanwhile, it is a great comfort to believe that there 
 exists a higher judgment, which will revise the rash and compen- 
 dious mode by which so many are given calmly over to reprobation 
 by their fellows. This, however, is a digression. 
 
THE HALF SISTERS. 267 
 
 Lord Melton continued in Vienna, going, as has been repre- 
 sented, a great deal into society. He gradually grew into a more 
 healthy frame of mind — he was carried out of himself and his 
 own sensations. He began to feel that he had no right to allow 
 even the overthrow of his dearest hopes to engross his thoughts. 
 He had preached this doctrine to his conscience often enough, 
 but now he began to feel and believe in it, and to make a strong 
 determination to act upon it. He was one of those deep, constant, 
 Othello-like natures, which form but few attachments, and those 
 few are so interwoven with the very stuff out of which their life 
 is formed, that when one of them is violently broken, their whole 
 nature receives a shock, from which it slowly and with difficulty 
 (if ever) recovers. It is almost impossible for them to replace an 
 old affection with a fresh one. To many it may seem a very small 
 thing which had befallen Lord Melton, and it may seem foolish 
 and weak that it should have so completely prostrated him ; but 
 that which is only a scratch to one man, proves a mortal wound 
 to another. After the first natural pang of wounded self-love had 
 passed away, his affection for Bianca re-asserted itself in its full 
 force. He did not judge her conduct, he did not even blame her ; 
 he recognised, in her indestructible affection for Conrad, a nature 
 like his own. He only felt a sorrowful satisfaction (which no one 
 can call selfish) in the conviction that she would now need more 
 than ever the brotherly, disinterested affection he had vowed her 
 — for no amount of faith, hope, or charity, could enable him to 
 believe that Conrad was either worthy of her, or sensible of her 
 worth. He vividly foresaw the bitter disappointment in store for 
 her, when she should discover the cold limitations of his nature, 
 which she had mistaken and revered as proofs of his power to 
 guide her. 
 
 It was an immense relief to him when the sentiment of his own 
 self-love was silenced, and he had given up all thought of his own 
 dignity. A great part of his suffering had arisen from the 
 struggle between his pride and his affection, the intense yearning 
 to forgive Bianca the slight she had offered him, and to care for 
 her as of old, with the harassing sense of his own discomfiture, 
 which seemed to prescribe a dignified estrangement from her for 
 the future, as his only possible course. But now that he had 
 succeeded in imposing silence on his wounded amour propre, and 
 was restored to unity within himself, he felt almost happy again, 
 and able to bear his disappointment like a man. He determined 
 to return to England very shortly. He was first to make an 
 excursion into Bohemia. He had heard some curious details of a 
 singular race of people inhabiting a wild and almost unknown 
 district ; about whose roads, and inns, and things to be seen, no 
 guide-book had as yet been written. He felt a strong desire 
 to explore them, and being so far on his way, it seemed too 
 fair an opportunity to be lost, after which he felt fully deter- 
 mined to return home and do his duty as an English nobleman 
 
268 THE HALF SISTEIiS. 
 
 and landholder, and no longer discharge them through his 
 steward. 
 
 All this time the habitues of the opera were in despair, at the 
 prolonged and unexplained absence of the Fornasari. The whole 
 public came to a sense of its insulted majesty — "by disappoint- 
 ment every day beguiled ; " and it magnanimously determined to 
 crush her under the weight of its just displeasure, in case she 
 should now be even ready to return. Apparently she knew her 
 own power better than the public did ; for one night she suddenly 
 re-appeared mo»e resplendent than ever, singing and acting as 
 she had never done in her life before. Till she came back to them, 
 the audience had hardly realised the loss they had sustained ; the 
 sense of their dignity was not proof against the sense of their own 
 amusement ; they allowed her to proceed, and at the close of the 
 opera sealed her pardon by calling her before the curtain, when 
 their gracious forgiveness was turned into enthusiasm by the 
 graceful air with which she seemed to thank them at once for 
 their applause and their forbearance. 
 
 That same day, Lord Melton received two notes, one from the 
 old priest at Trieste, informing him that the child, whose life he 
 had saved, had been given up to a lady who had claimed him, 
 having given reasonable proofs of being his mother, and appealing 
 to Lord Melton whether that did not convince him of the truth 
 of his doctrine, that we were all one family on the earth. The 
 other note was from the Fornasari herself, overflowing with 
 gratitude to him for his humanity to her child, and requesting 
 him to come and see her very soon. 
 
 Lord Melton was on the point of entering the carriage to leave 
 Yienna, and he did not feel tempted to delay his departure, to 
 pay a visit to receive thanks ; he therefore wrote a polite and 
 stately note, excusing himself from obeying her commands. He 
 had an indescribable sort of spite against this woman, for 
 reminding him so disagreeably of Bianca ; she seemed an odious 
 libel upon her, both in her life and profession. 
 
 But the chapter of accidents and adventures having once opened 
 on Lord Melton, did not seem destined to close very soon. 
 
 At the close of the first day's journey, the road, whicli led 
 through a wild and thinly-peopled district, turned off through 
 a dark wood, principally of pine trees ; large masses of rock, 
 covered with long moss, lay scattered about on each side of it, 
 and piled up in all directions, bearing witness to some long past 
 convulsion of nature. The fading daylight with difficulty pierced 
 the close shade of the trees. Lord Melton desired the postillions 
 to hasten their pace, which they actually did, and in consequence 
 came up with a smart shock against some dark object which was 
 lying across the road, and which proved to be a travelling- carriage 
 that had been overturned. A German postillion, whose natural 
 amount of stupidity had been increased and perfected by the black 
 beer he had obtained that day, was helplessly trying to disengage 
 
THE HALF SISTERS. 258 
 
 tlie passenger within the vehicle, and whose groans proved him 
 to be suffering severely. A couple of horses, with their broken 
 traces still hanging to them, were lazily picking what fodder they 
 could hnd on the road side. 
 
 Lord Melton succeeded in calming the torrent of objurgation 
 which arose from his own postillions, at this untoward event, 
 for the postillion of the other carriage was too much stupifled to 
 reply. He then got out of his own vehicle to offer his assistance. 
 
 Pushing aside the drunken man, he addressed the person whom 
 he presumed to be inside, in French, which was replied to, but 
 with a decidedly English accent. 
 
 " I think we are countrymen," said v Lord Melton ; " I rejoice 
 to have come up at such a conjuncture. How can I next assist 
 you?" 
 
 " By getting me out of this place if you can," replied the other. 
 "I am much bruised, and my arm is caught on the other side. 
 Have you any people with you to help ? " 
 
 The Englishman spoke in evident pain, though there was a 
 singular composure in his manner. Lord Melton was shocked to 
 find that his arm, which had been placed out of the window of 
 the carriage, in the attempt to open the door at the moment it 
 overturned, had been caught beneath it, and though fortunately 
 a small piece of rock had left a space between the side of the 
 carriage and the ground, still there was reason to fear the limb 
 would be severely crushed. 
 
 With the assistance of his own postillions, Lord Melton suc- 
 ceeded in liberating him from his painful position. On emerging 
 from the depths of the carriage he recognised the Englishman 
 whom he had seen at the door of the hotel at Trieste, who was really 
 no other than Bryant. He was in a state of extreme suffering ; 
 his left arm was broken, and he was, besides, so much bruised as 
 to be hardly able to stand. 
 
 " You had better proceed at 'once with me, Mr. Bryant, without 
 waiting for the assistance your messengers, will bring ; they will 
 contrive to get the carriage along, somehow, and you ought not to 
 lose any. time in getting your bruises looked to." 
 
 Bryant started at hearing himself addressed by his own name, 
 in the middle of that wild, desolate place, and nearly in the dark 
 besides. 
 
 " You have proved yourself a friend in need," said he : "I did 
 not expect you were an acquaintance, also. If I could take out 
 my writing-case, I should be inclined to follow your advice, but 
 it contains papers I dare not leave out of my sight." 
 
 " We will get out the case if you will trust us, — but — " 
 
 Bryant, who had supported himself with difficulty, tottered a 
 few steps, and would have fallen, had not one of the postillions 
 caught him in his sturdy arms. 
 
 " Carry him, and place him carefully into the other carriage," 
 said Lord Melton, " whilst Hook for the writing-case," 
 
270 . THE HALF SISTEBS. 
 
 As they had not been able to lift the carriage, the search was 
 neither easy nor successful ; he looked everywhere, but the case 
 was not to be found, and fearful of keeping the injured man 
 longer without medical assistance, Lord Melton was obliged to 
 order the carriage to proceed ; he left his own servant with strict 
 injunctions not to permit anything to be touched or removed, and 
 to bring the broken vehicle along as soon as possible. 
 
 The pain of removal had roused Bryant from his insensibility, 
 but he still seemed unconscious of everything but his own 
 suffering. It was not until he had been lain in bed at the small 
 miserable inn, and his arm set, that he asked after his writing- 
 case, and manifested the warmest anxiety when he found it had 
 not been brought. It was almost necessary to keep him in bed 
 by force, 
 
 "I will go back, and superintend the removal of the case 
 from the chaise, it you will only tell me whereabouts you 
 placed it." 
 
 1 ' In the back of the carriage — it is a small panel that opens 
 with a spring ; if you will add this to the other favours you have 
 already conferred, it would be a great comfort to me to know you 
 were on the spot, and that no one had access to the inside but 
 yourself." 
 
 To calm his anxiety, Lord Melton good-naturedly complied, 
 and turned out in search of the carriage, which he found in the 
 same place, the assistance not having arrived. 
 
 This time he was more successful, and securing the case, and 
 some books that were also with it, he began to retrace his steps a 
 second time ; — the distance was not more than a league. On 
 arriving, he found Bryant in a high fever, and quite delirious. 
 He addressed Lord Melton as " Conrad," and ordered him to 
 leave the room. He raved a great deal about " Alice." That 
 which no power on earth would have induced him to mention 
 to his dearest friend, he, in the defenceless state of delirium, 
 talked about incessantly. Lord Melton watched beside his bed 
 all night, and in those unconnected wanderings he found the solu- 
 tion of all that had been tormenting and perplexing himself. 
 
 CHAPTEE LYI. 
 
 In* the meanwhile Bianca was fulfilling her vocation, but not 
 at all with satisfaction to herself. She was still engrossed with 
 her art. But other feelings had taken possession of her, and 
 prevented its being the only object of her life. The old actor 
 was quite right in saying, that " when women got hold of a love 
 
THE HALF SISTEBS. 271 
 
 affair they made that their business, and let everything else go to 
 the devil." It is a sad truth, not at all creditable to the sagacity 
 of the female mind ; but, alas, so it is ; and Bianca, with all her 
 strength, was only a partial exception to the general rule. Lord 
 Melton's continued silence perplexed her. She had a profound 
 consciousness that she had not behaved too well to him, and she 
 began to feel terribly afraid he had succeeded in regaining his 
 liberty, at the very moment when she was 'better disposed to 
 him than she had ever been before. Such is the perversity of 
 human affairs. The kindness, and tenderness, and more than a 
 mother's thoughtfulness, which he had always shown her, and 
 which she had at the time considered matters of course, became 
 now to be looked back upon as things vainly and mournfully 
 precious ; which she had allowed to pass away from her, uncon- 
 scious of their value, and with a stupid indifference. 
 
 She had been much worn by her attachment to Conrad. She 
 had been obliged to supply affection both for him and herself 
 also. There had been nothing reciprocal in it ; or, at least, she 
 had given so much more than she had received, that a weariness 
 of soul remained, which made her shrink from all violent or 
 strong emotion. She fancied that she had become indifferent for 
 ever ; when, in fact, she was only gathering strength, breaking 
 up the ground for a calmer and more lasting attachment, that 
 should embrace the whole life ; in the existence, and under the 
 broad shadow of which she might dwell at rest and peace ; in 
 which she might put her whole trust, without needing to feel 
 anxiety as to the meaning of each word and look, clinging with 
 painful tenacity lest she should be thrown off, to fall, she knew 
 not whither. She needed to dwell under the influence of a large, 
 calm, loving nature, which should, as it were, sheathe her more 
 vehement and impetuous spirit. She now awoke to the con- 
 sciousness of all that Lord Melton would have been to her. But 
 he had come before her when she had no strength to accept the 
 love he offered — like water found too late, by wretches perishing 
 in the desert of thirst. Now, when she would have stretched out 
 her hand to the blessing, it appeared to have passed, and she 
 was smitten with " that curse of life — too late." 
 
 Every day now increased her intense desire to regain the friend 
 she had allowed to depart. She reproached herself for her former 
 coldness and indifference, as if, at the time, she could have been 
 other than she had been. Every day the recollection of the time 
 when he had been her friend, came to her, as dreams of a 
 golden time, which had passed away because she did not know 
 its worth. 
 
 She endeavoured to give her whole soul more and more to her 
 art; tried to make herself believe, that to live a calm, self- 
 sustained existence, dedicated like that of a priestess, cold, strong, 
 and pure, to the utterance of the oracle confided to her, was 
 indeed the noblest and highest vocation she could embrace. But 
 
272 THE HALF S1STEJJS. 
 
 it would not do, she needed some more human motive to sustain 
 her. She could have felt capable of everything, if Lord Melton 
 had been there to approve of it, and sympathise with her actions. 
 But standing alone, with only an abstract motive in life, all was 
 cold, hollow, and dead. She was alone in the world, and all the 
 ties she had endeavoured to weave for herself, had been broken 
 in sunder. Often when she went into private society, and sat in 
 the midst of family groups, saw them bound together by ties of 
 kindred, and of natural affection, and felt herself like Ruth 
 standing " amid the alien corn," a stranger received amongst them 
 from courtesy, from kindness it might be, but having no part nor 
 lot amongst them, no right to take a share in their joys and 
 sorrows, living, like a mendicant, on voluntary affection, without 
 a claim on the love of any one, — the yearning thirst for natural 
 affection, for some one to belong to, became so intense, that, after 
 an evening spent " in a friendly way," as the phrase is, she would 
 go home and weep bitterly, from the mere sense of isolation. 
 Her position was as brilliant as ever ; her reputation, if possible, 
 stood higher. She had acquired a fortune amply sufficient for all 
 her wants ; but her whole being was drooping in the glare of her 
 success; her heart was aching with desire for that common 
 blessing, which yet is more precious than life — the natural 
 affection of friends and kinsfolks ; which comes from G od, and 
 is given when men enter on this weary life, to be a rest and 
 refreshing for them, and that they should not walk through the 
 desert alone. 
 
 Bianca did not, however, fold her hands in indolent low 
 spirits ; she tried hard to drown the voice of sadness which rose 
 up in her heart with the hum of work : and that sadness was 
 good for her too, for it kept down all thoughts of glorification 
 and self-complacency ; the voice of praise could not beguile a soul 
 that was listening for words of affection. She who looked with a 
 species of envy on those women who were occupied with the 
 common duties of home, was not likely to have her heart 
 hardened by a success that set her only further from their daily 
 sympathies. 
 
 One day she received a letter from Lady Yernon, who was the 
 nearest approach to what she fancied a relation must be ; the 
 letter was as follows, we give it entire : — 
 
 "Mydeab Biaxca, — Why on earth do you not write to me 
 a little oftener than you do ? but there seems to be a natural 
 perverseness in human nature, which induces even the best 
 people to stand still, the moment you tell them earnestly you 
 wish them to go on. I believe if I had never told you that I 
 delighted in your letters, and desired to have as many as ever 
 you could write, that I should have been better off— you would 
 not have put me off with such a short allowance ; decidedly the 
 broad basis of humanity, — bah! I was going to make you a 
 
THE HALF SISTEKS. 273 
 
 treatise on metaphysics instead of telling* you of my worries, as a 
 friend ought to do. I am in a very bad temper, as you will have 
 discovered ere you have read thus far. "When I am very cross, I 
 always fancy it a symptom of not being well, and dutifully confess 
 it to my medical man along with my other items. My dear, 
 either everything in this world is very precious indeed (even the 
 things we have despised), or else nothing is of any importance at 
 all, not even those things we have considered the most important; 
 only figure to yourself that at my time of life I have to begin 
 to revise all the ideas that have carried me thus far on my 
 journey ! It is as bad as having to suspect my old butler of 
 making away with the plate, or being obliged to turn away my 
 woman who has lived with me for twenty years, at a moment's 
 warning. The same question applies to both distresses — where 
 am I to look for fresh ones ? You see one's own convenience is 
 the primeval granite foundation of our nature after all ! Well, 
 I am coming to the subject of my letter with the most graceful 
 minuet step I can master, for to walk straight up to the fact of 
 owning myself in the wrong is beyond my virtue. Do you 
 remember that girl who you said sang so well on that evening, 
 when you went with me to my school ? — and have you forgotten 
 how you preached to me that she was a genius, and ought to have 
 her musical talent cultivated ? I dare say also, that you remember 
 how I declared that I would have no singing women in my 
 school ? and how I said many more very sensible things ? 
 Well, my dear, I am obliged to confess that I was quite 
 mistaken, and to come round to the opinion you then expressed. 
 Ignominious, is it not, to turn all my old ideas about the fitness 
 of things out of doors ? However, I cannot help thinking women 
 are happier and better when they are the centre of a home, and 
 can live there contented amongst their duties, leaving the world 
 outside for men to dig and delve and make a garden of Eden of 
 it if they can. Still, if Crod is pleased to give a woman faculties 
 I suppose she must cultivate them. There will be no successful 
 going against nature, until the Millennium, ' when the lion will 
 eat straw like an ox' — though I do not think he will much relish 
 it even then ; and the diet evidently would not suit him in the 
 present state of things. I have been attempting to make my 
 lion and my lambs lie down together, and the experiment has 
 failed. You foretold it. I think you offered, in case that girl's 
 musical faculty grew too strong for me, that you would get her 
 admitted into the Academy — and I would be really glad to claim 
 your promise now. That girl will do no good if she is thwarted 
 any longer. I have kept her down — put her to severe studies — - 
 cultivated her in history and geography, all to no purpose. She 
 is a dunce at all but music ; and for the credit of my manage- 
 ment, I blush and grieve to say that she made an attempt to run 
 away ! Fortunately, she was "discovered, as she was scaling the 
 garden wall and brought back. When questioned as to what 
 
274 THE HALF SISTERS. 
 
 she intended to do, she said, ' Sing in the streets, to earn money 
 to go to Italy! ' — a precious prospect, after all our teaching and 
 instruction in the cardinal virtues ! It is a clear case, that 
 there is no good to be got by going contrary to such decided 
 tendencies ; we must make the best of them, and train them as 
 well as we can. She has always been a good girl in all that 
 does not concern the singing; but she has grown wilful and 
 sulky, and eceentric of late, so the sooner we put her in the way 
 of following her humour honestly the better. Will you take 
 steps to make all the needful inquiries and arrangements, and 
 write to me, as to what you think will be the best way of placing 
 her. Can you not come down to me for a week ? I want to see 
 you very much ; and I have been so worried with the affair of 
 this girl, that I really need something pleasant to take the taste 
 of it out of my life. So, finally, in the hope of being helped 
 out of my troubles by you, 
 
 " I am, my dear Bianca, ever your friend, 
 
 " Mahgaket Yeeno:n-." 
 
 Bianca laughed heartily over her old friend's whimsical distress, 
 at finding a musical genius jleveloped on her hands; but she 
 was very well pleased at such a good opportunity of putting 
 some theories of her own in practice, about the training of 
 women for a profession. She answered the letter immediately, 
 offering to take the girl altogether off her hands, promising to 
 put her in the way of making herself independent, and to take 
 charge of her in the meantime. 
 
 "I have," said she in conclusion, your own wholesome 
 mistrust of all patrons and proteges. Those who are very helpless 
 are generally incapable of being helped, they will not walk, but 
 require to be carried — a mode of proceeding very unadvisable. 
 All one can do is to set people in the right way, if they cannot 
 hit upon it for themselves, and then they must use their own 
 faculties for getting along. Still this is a legitimate opportunity 
 for being useful, which I shall rejoice to embrace. I have been 
 very successful in my own career ; I have so much for which 
 I have reason to be very thankful, that I feel a need to bestow 
 on some one else the blessings I have received myself. You 
 have heard me speak of my old friend, the actor, who was almost 
 like a father to me in my early life. I could never make any 
 return to him for all his goodness. I must repay my obligation 
 by befriending some one who needs help now as much as I did 
 then. I undertake this for his sake, and if he were alive now, 
 he would understand and accept my work. You have no 
 weariness or caprice to fear from me, I am discharging a sacred 
 obligation, and if my efforts in this girl's behalf bear good fruit, 
 she in her turn will find some one to whom she may repay the 
 benefits she will have received from me. To be able at the same 
 time to relieve you from an embarrassing charge is a great 
 
THE HALF SISTERS. 275 
 
 additional pleasure. I am not going to give her a royal road to 
 success ; she must give golden work if she wishes to attain it ; 
 but she shall have a good starting point, so that she may be free 
 to apply all her powers to the prosecution of her art, and not 
 have to spend her strength in fighting with sordid difficulties, 
 which wear the life and soul out of one to no profit. She will 
 begin at a point which I had to attain wearily, working in the 
 dark upwards out of deep mire. She shall begin in the daylight, 
 I am resolved. Let her come to me at once, I wish to study her 
 powers and her character a little before T take any decisive steps 
 about her. To you I will be always ready to render a strict 
 account of your delegated responsibility. My engagement will 
 terminate in three weeks, and then if you will invite me to 
 Willersdale Park for a holiday, no child would be more delighted 
 to come. I desire to see you once more quite as earnestly as 
 you can wish to see me. I shall look out for this young lady in 
 four days at the furthest. You know my impatience when I once 
 take an idea into my head until I can get it realised, so show 
 some sympathy with my natural impetuosity ! 
 
 " Ever your affectionate 
 
 "BlANCA. 
 
 "P.S." "What is become of your brother ? I have received no 
 letter from him for a very long time, and I fear — " 
 
 The words " I fear" were blotted out, for Bianca could not 
 frame the sentence. 
 
 At the end of a week from the day she wrote the letter to Lady 
 Yernon, that excellent lady's butler arrived at Bianca' s house in 
 attendance on a young girl of about sixteen. 
 
 They were ushered into Bianca' s morning-room, where she was 
 writing. 
 
 " Ah ! Mathews, is that you ? " said she, looking up and smiling 
 on him, "I am very, glad to see you; how did you leave Lady 
 Yernon ? " 
 
 " Her ladyship is quite well, thank you, Miss Bianca, and I 
 hope you are the same. She sent this letter and this young lady 
 under my charge, and ordered me to deliver both without fail into 
 your own hands." 
 
 " And how are you, my child ?" said Bianca, kissing the young 
 girl, who stood nearly fainting with timidity. " I am very glad 
 to see you — you have not forgotten me, have you ? " 
 
 " Oh, no, and nev^er shall ! " was the reply that came, scarcely 
 audible, through the blushes that burned her cheeks. 
 
 " Well, Mathews, you are a capital knight, and have done your 
 errand well. How long can you remain here ? " 
 
 " Why, ma'am, her ladyship said I was to return directly; 
 but, that if you asked me very much, I might remain over 
 to-morrow. " 
 
 " Then you are to consider yourself asked quite enough to keep 
 
 i 2 
 
276 THE HALF SISTEES. 
 
 you here. You must make yourself at home — and I think you 
 will find an old acquaintance down stairs. " 
 
 Bianca rang the bell, and her own maid came — the one who had 
 lived with her before the advent of Simmonds. 
 
 " Here is a visitor, Agnes, you must take him down stairs and 
 introduce him." 
 
 Mr. Mathews and Agnes smiled on each other, in the best 
 pleased manner possible, and left the room together. Bianca then 
 turned to the young girl, who sat on the sofa, gazing timidly 
 around the room. 
 
 " Now, are you tired with your journey ? Will you lie down a 
 little before dinner ? If you will, come with me, I will show you 
 your room. Do you think you will be rested enough to go to the 
 Opera to-night ? " 
 
 "The Opera! oh!" ejaculated the young creature, as if a 
 glimpse of Heaven were suddenly disclosed to her eyes. 
 
 "You have never seen one?" asked Bianca, smiling at her 
 childlike gladness. 
 
 "No, never; and it seems too good a thing to happen to me. 
 I have learnt airs out of ' Norma ' and ' Medea,' and they have 
 been so beautiful, that I thought to see a whole opera, and hear it 
 all well sung, would be the very grandest thing in the world. I 
 used to think about it at night, after I was in bed, and wonder 
 how it would be. I used to be glad when bed-time came, that I 
 might be able to build castles about the Opera." 
 
 1 ' Well, you shall go to-night. This is your room. You have 
 been taught, by Lady Yernon to be very orderly, and I am glad 
 of it, for I do not like having any but very orderly people about 
 me. I shall come in every morning to see that you do not keep 
 your things in a litter." 
 
 " Such a beautiful room ! How good you are to me. I will do 
 anything you bid me," replied the girl, delightedly. The room 
 was, indeed, very pretty, and Bianca had taken some trouble in 
 preparing it for her protegee. The walls were hung with a neat 
 fresh paper ; the furniture was painted green, and the curtains 
 were of snowy whiteness. The window looked into the garden, 
 and a splendid American creeper grew almost into the room. 
 There was a dressing-room beyond, which had been fitted up for 
 a chamber of study ; it contained a small book-case and a neat 
 cottage -piano. The paper and furniture corresponded with those 
 in the bed-room. A neat, plain writing-desk stood on a small 
 table in the centre. The window opened into the garden, like the 
 other. l ' These rooms are entirely your own ; you can come hero 
 to sit whenever you are disposed, and you will practise here." 
 
 *' Oh, I shall be so happy!" cried the girl; "it will be like 
 living in a fairy tale ! " 
 
 11 But your fairy must be hard work, my child; you are not 
 coming here to play. However, just now rest yourself; Simmondd 
 shall come and help you to unpack your things, and put them into 
 
THE HALF SISTERS. 277 
 
 the wardrobe. "Whatever you want, apply to her for, if T am not 
 at home. They shall come and tell you when dinner is ready." 
 
 Bianea kindly and considerately left the girl to calm herself at 
 leisure, and to get a little accustomed to her new environments 
 before she attempted any conversation. On going to her own 
 room, she found Simmonds at work, and commended the young 
 damsel to her special care. 
 
 The opera that night was "Don Giovanni." Donzelli was in 
 London, and singing that season. The house was full, and very 
 brilliant — nothing could be imagined more dazzling than the 
 spectacle — and yet that light and radiance seemed only the 
 appearance produced by some glorious reality beyond. It requires 
 a person to be drilled into life, and to know thoroughly all the 
 pitiful details which go to make up both the decorations and the 
 spectators, before he can lose the idea that they are the utterance 
 and manifestation of some more exceeding excellence ; the enchant- 
 ment is over, when he feels convinced that all the preparation has 
 been to produce an appearance only. To this young girl, however 
 (whose name we may as well say was Clara Broughton), every 
 person in the house, down to the very box-openers, seemed gilded 
 with glorious mystery. They had a box on the first tier, close to 
 the stage. Clara timidly touched the satin curtains, and then 
 touched herself, repeating, softly: " I am here at this minute!" 
 — as if she expected to be spirited away — and she was willing to 
 give some pledge to her memory, that she might be sure she had 
 really enjoyed such blessedness ! 
 
 At length the curtain drew up, and the opera began. Clara had 
 never been inside a theatre in her life before, and was bewildered 
 between the make-believe of the scenery, and the reality of the 
 actors. But all outward things were speedily to be swallowed up 
 for her, in the entrancing sounds of the music ; every nerve seemed 
 strained to the utmost tension, that it might bear the weight of 
 rapture which increased every moment, till she felt that madness 
 must follow the attempt to contain it all. Her senses were too 
 small to comprehend the immense, the unutterable delight that 
 was placed before them. It was painful to feel that there was so 
 much she could not grasp. At the end of the first act, Bianea 
 was terrified at the wild wrapt expression of her face. She spoke 
 to her, but could obtain no answer— she seemed in a trance with 
 her eyes open. 
 
 "I wish you could manage to obtain a glass of water," said 
 Bianea, to the gentleman who was with them; "we shall be 
 liaving this child in a fit of apoplexy, if we do not take care. I 
 had no idea she was so excitable." 
 
 " With her musical temperament, it is enough to drive her mad, 
 to come here, if she be not used to such places." 
 
 1 i She only came from school in the country this morning, and I 
 do not feel to have done at all a wise thing in bringing her ; do go 
 and get some water." 
 
278 THE HALF SISTERS. 
 
 The opera at length ended ; Clara drew a long breath, and threw 
 herself back in her chair. The glittering house, the dazzling 
 spectacle, were now become nothing to her ; she was like one who 
 had been gazing on the entrance of Paradise, and found the vista 
 suddenly darkened. She was miserable — as all people are, when 
 a great enjoyment has passed suddenly away from them, broken 
 off with no prospect of return. 
 
 When the ballet began she felt nothing but disgust. 
 
 " How can the people stay to look at this sort of thing when 
 they have just been listening to music ! " cried she. 
 
 " Would you like to go home ? " asked Bianca. 
 
 Jf Ah, yes, and then I can think of what I have heard ! " 
 
 The next day was Sunday, and Bianca took her to Warwick 
 Street Chapel, where she attended. There the music was of a 
 different nature, and produced even more effect than the Opera. 
 She concealed herself in the pew from all bystanders, and remained 
 dissolved in tears, which alone had the power to give inarticulate 
 utterance to all the emotion that was stirred in her soul. Bianca 
 recollected her own sensations at the first glimpse of the manifesta- 
 tion of her own art. 
 
 Bianca determined that her protegee should see everything that 
 was most remarkable, for as she said to Lady Yernon, "If girls 
 who have been allowed to grow up without unhealthy stimulants 
 can be taken, when their faculties begin to ripen, to see the best 
 performances on the stage, and to hear the best music, it gives an 
 impulse to their intellect, and a development to their ideas that 
 makes both their existence and their character stronger and more 
 complete." 
 
 On this theory Clara was taken several times to the theatres. 
 She saw Bianca act, and once or twice accompanied her into 
 society. At the end of a month she had received a mass of 
 sensations and ideas which it would need many years of life to 
 elaborate and unravel. 
 
 One day Bianca went to her room when she was practising. 
 " Oh," cried she, "this is an air I have been trying the whole of 
 the day, and I cannot sing it as I wish, will you listen to it ? " 
 
 " Willingly," said Bianca. 
 
 The girl sang it with an intense feeling and expression, though 
 her voice and intonation were very unfinished. 
 
 " Well, there is a quality in that singing I like very much," 
 said Bianca ; " but you need a great deal of study yet, and now I 
 want to talk to you a little. To-morrow you are to begin your 
 studies regularly. You will not go out so much as you have 
 hitherto done ; you must earn your right to go into society by 
 your own endeavours. You have a career before you. You have 
 been shown what excellence in the arts is, and you see how much 
 you have to do before you can be worthy to be a companion of 
 eminent artists. Measure yourself always with the highest, and 
 never do less than your best. That has been the only rule I have 
 
THE HAXF SISTEES. 279 
 
 known through life. Another thing, my dear child, remember, 
 that strong and sterling qualities of character are needed to make 
 the brightest genius of any more worth than the gold and purple 
 clouds of evening, which turn to leaden-coloured mists. People 
 are sometimes apt to think that genius is like the kingdom of 
 Heaven, which, if you have, all other things will follow of course. 
 But, my dear girl, unless you cultivate an iron resolution to follow 
 a purpose once conceived steadily out to the end, an industry and 
 perseverance, which are proof against all self-indulgence, a spirit 
 of loving-kindness and single -mindedness, you will find your 
 genius of little worth, except to lead you into splendid mistakes. 
 You must strive to be a complete and well-balanced character, if 
 your genius is to do its perfect work and to attain its full growth. 
 lou have a rich and fertile nature^-you have genius for music ; 
 therefore, watch over it as a precious responsibility committed to 
 your charge, and know that every time it is desecrated to your 
 own personal glorification its force and quality are deteriorated. 
 You must be faithful to your charge if you would have your genius 
 reach the fulness of its strength. I have given you a long 
 lecture, but recollect it is my own life that I am giving you to 
 profit by. Now let us come down to dinner, and then to-morrow 
 I will give you the plan according to which I should like you to 
 apportion your time, that you may make the most of it." 
 
 Bianca was rather stern at times, she felt so earnestly when she 
 had any instruction to give ; but no one could be more gentle and 
 affectionate, when there were no principles to be insisted upon. 
 
 Clara Broughton had a fine rich nature ; the seeds of good 
 principles and good habits had been already inculcated in her, and 
 with Bianca her intellect was daily developed, and her good habits 
 strengthened. To Bianca it was an intense pleasure thus to watch 
 over and form the mind of this young girl, and to train her for 
 her career in life ; it took her thoughts out of herself, and was a 
 wholesome occupation, by which her own being was strengthened 
 and calmed. 
 
 Instead of going down to "Willersdale Park for her holiday, 
 Lady Yernon came to her, as she did not wish to break up Clara's 
 regular mode of life so soon ; but it was settled that they should 
 both spend the Christmas holidays there. When Bianca had got 
 the better of her restlessness, and was throwing all her energy 
 into her actual life, and as little as possible allowing herself to 
 
 11 Sit at Fancy's door, 
 Calling shapes and shadows to her," 
 
 then, as always happens in life, when one is resigned to going 
 without some dearly desired object — it always comes to us. 
 
 One fine morning the postman brought Bianca the letter from 
 Lord Melton she had so long and so vainly looked for ! The con- 
 tents were everything her heart could desire, and she felt more 
 contentedly happy than she had ever been before. 
 
280 THE HALE SISTEIiS. 
 
 When people make a great fuss about "happiness our being's 
 end and aim," it is a very vulgar affair, and rather impertinent to 
 the toiling, busy world, which has plenty of its own complicated 
 affairs to mind. Still, when any one has worked and endurea so 
 long and constantly as Bianca, people are apt to feel rather 
 glad when she obtains a little spell of happiness — she has 
 earned it. 
 
 CHAPTEE LVIL 
 
 For, two days Lord Melton remained watching beside Bryant, 
 who lay sometimes in a state of stupor, and at others in delirium. 
 He talked of past scenes, and mingled names and circumstances, 
 some of which, like a touch on a secret spring, revealed to Lord 
 Melton the explanation of Bianca's conduct, which he had so long 
 wearied himself to find. 
 
 During the second night, whilst Bryant slept, he again referred 
 to the last letter he had received from her, and which, although 
 crushed and torn in his first jealous fury, he still kept and 
 cherished with a perverse tenacity. He now read it again, and 
 as it seemed with enlightened eyes ; for he now discerned all that 
 seemed before so dark in her allusions, and which he had fancied 
 was only her manner of breaking the weight of his annoyance at 
 her intelligence. Now that he saw what she really had meant, he 
 was astonished at his own stupidity and want of faith. But no 
 martyr ever gave himself to the flames with the cheerfulness with 
 which he endured the reproaches of his own conscience ; he rejoiced 
 in every fresh light he was able to throw on his own harshness 
 and false judgment ; he was so thankful to find himself in the 
 Wrong, that he would willingly have compounded for a great deal 
 more remorse than fell to his share : no saint was ever so glad to 
 fce justified as he was to feel condemned. One only misgiving 
 tormented him, and that was lest Bianca, out of patience at his 
 Deglect, should have allowed her interest in him to grow cold. 
 Then that there might be some reaction to this flood of gladness, 
 lie began to fear lest from some transcendental idea of generosity, 
 she might have allowed herself to be prevailed upon to join her 
 fate to Conrad's for life, in order to save him from the passionate 
 effects of his remorse ; as lie was one of those weakly impulsive 
 characters who can neither resist a temptation, nor* endure the 
 consequences. He knew that the brightness of Bianca's life had 
 been overcast, and he did not know whether she might not take 
 refuge in a life of austere self-sacrifice ; accepting a fate she had 
 once passionately desired, but from which all love and hope had 
 now departed, in the same spirit as other wounded and weary 
 
THE HALF SISTEIIS. 281 
 
 hearts had taken refuge in a cloister. The more he pondered upon 
 this the more probability did it assume. He knew her affectionate 
 heart, and he knew also her lonely and isolated life. He deter- 
 mined that the moment Bryant was sufficiently recovered that he 
 might be left without inhumanity, he would proceed straight to 
 England and see if a chance were still open to him. 
 
 During the second night Bryant, who had been for some hours 
 in a peaceful sleep, awoke ; he withdrew the curtain and perceived 
 Lord Melton sitting in a large arm-chair. 
 
 " How long have I been in bed ? and have you been watching 
 beside me all this time ? " asked he. 
 
 " How do you feel now ? Better for your sleep ? Here is the 
 portfolio I got from the carriage, it has not been opened." 
 
 These words seemed to cause a spasm of memory to the wounded 
 man. 
 
 w Ah ! " said he, with a slight shudder, " you are very good to 
 have charged yourself with it ; but how fatigued you must be, 
 will you not retire to bed ? " 
 
 " Oh, I assure you, they have made me up a capital bed in the 
 corner of the room, and I have taken all sorts of good care of 
 myself ; but the doctor desired that you might have this draught 
 sosoonasyou awoke, and you were not to talk. He could not 
 judge of the state of your hand and arm until the fever had a 
 little abated. Are you in much pain ? " 
 
 " Rather ; but it is bearable now. Will you tell me one thing," 
 continued he, with a sort of embarrassment: "have I rambled 
 much?" 
 
 " You certainly have had delirium; but what then? words 
 uttered in delirium mean nothing. One might as well catechise a 
 dream. Do not torment yourself whilst you are so weak. Be 
 assured you have said nothing you ought not." 
 
 This was intended to tranquillisc his mind, although it was not 
 precisely what he would have considered the truth. He only half 
 believed it, but it was soothing to be told so ; besides, he felt a 
 desire to sleep, and he again fell ofT into a quiet slumber before he 
 had summoned the energy sufficient to ask any more questions. 
 
 The next day, when the doctor came, he pronounced the patient 
 much better ; but two of the fingers of the left hand were so much 
 crushed as to render amputation needful. 
 
 Bryant bore the operation with great firmness. When both 
 the doctor and Lord Melton complimented him upon it, he said, 
 with a look of inexpressible gloom, " It is possible, in some cases, 
 to find even severe bodily pain a relief from worse suffering in the 
 mind." 
 
 He was again removed to bed, and ordered to be kept very 
 quiet, as his system had not recovered from the shock it had 
 received. Lorcl Melton continued with him, although it required 
 some self-denial to spend long silent days beside the couch of 
 a stranger, when he desired so ardently and impatiently to 
 
282 THE HALE SISTEKS. 
 
 commence his journey to England. About three nights after the 
 operation had been performed, Lord Melton was on the point of 
 retiring to rest, when Bryant said : — 
 
 "Do not leave me just yet; I have strength to ask you a 
 question now, which I want to have answered out of the road. 
 Will you tell me, as briefly as may be, what stuff it is that I have 
 actually talked during these last days ? " ! 
 
 " What you have said has been very incoherent. I can really 
 hardly give you any account of it. You talked about some ladj r 
 named Alice, and about one of your friends, whom you called 
 Conrad, with whom you seemed to have quarrelled." 
 
 " And could you divine on what account?" asked Bryant, 
 eagerly. 
 
 " You are still feverish and excited," said Lord Melton, "you 
 are not yet able to carry on a connected conversation. You have 
 said nothing that can betray what you would wish to conceal. 
 Do not ask any more questions to-night ; in a day or two you will 
 be stronger, and then we will talk as long as you please." 
 
 Bryant, with his sensitive suspicious nature, which so seldom 
 opened to voluntary intercourse, felt abashed by this speech, and, 
 turning his face to the wall, uttered a half-sullen " (rood night." 
 
 Lord Melton saw what was passing in his mind, and considered 
 over the best, the most practicable means of setting him at ease — 
 for, certainly, to come to the knowledge of a man's secrets through 
 the medium of his being delirious, is something like unwittingly 
 reading a letter left lying about. 
 
 The next morning, when he went to visit Bryant, he found him 
 embarrassed and reserved; he still felt awkward at the species 
 of rebuff he had encountered the evening before ; but he was 
 decidedly getting on very well, his fever was abated, and his hand 
 was doing well. After a few common-place remarks, Lord Melton 
 sat down beside the bed (for Bryant could not yet bear to be 
 moved), and looking at him with his frank blue eyes, he said, 
 after a moment's pause: "If you are well enough, Bryant, I 
 should like to have a little conversation with you this morning ; 
 will it tire you ? " 
 
 " Not in the least, my lord, I shall be happy to listen to you," 
 said Bryant, somewhat stiffly . 
 
 " I have been thinking a great deal of what you said last night, 
 and I think I had better tell you frankly how much I have learned 
 from your delirium, and then you need feel no more annoyance 
 about the matter ; but first I shall have to trouble you with a 
 history of some affairs of my own. I am too much of an English- 
 man to feel at all inclined to talk to everybody about private 
 matters : — in fact, it is bad taste, and I know you feel with me 
 on that point ; but it will explain to you how I happened to pay 
 any sort of attention to that which in another state of mind, you 
 would never have told me. The fact is, that I found myself a 
 party concerned. You mentioned the name of a man I have long 
 
THE HALF SISTERS. 283 
 
 known, and your unconnected raniblings tlirew light on a matter 
 which has cost me great suffering." 
 
 Lord Melton then entered into rather a minute detail of the 
 manner in which Conrad had crossed his path. He compelled 
 himself to go into particulars, in order that Bryant might be 
 relieved from the galling consciousness, that whilst his secret had 
 been surprised, he was utterly ignorant of every particular con- 
 nected with the charitable stranger, who had shown him a degree 
 of kindness, which, under those circumstances, was rather oppres- 
 sive. Lord Melton began at the beginning of his intercourse with 
 Bianca, and her engagement to Conrad ; he told him how, in a 
 lady whom she called Mrs. Bryant, and whose name was " Alice," 
 she had discovered her half-sister. 
 
 " Ah! that is strange," said Bryant, " and must be some one 
 else — my — Alice, I mean, had no sister, she was an only child ; 
 and, now I recollect, she had a protegee, some young actress, 
 whom she insisted on befriending in spite of my dislike to those 
 sort of people ; and, if she be the same party, she must have 
 imposed upon you by a false tale. Alice would have told me if 
 she had had any such relation." 
 
 " Pardon me," replied Lord Melton, " Mrs. Bryant was ignorant 
 of the fact. Bianca, knowing your prejudice against her profes- 
 sion, did not wish to embarrass her sister, and therefore determined 
 not to disclose it until she should have reached such a position 
 as not to discredit her. Subsequently she found, that even her 
 distinguished reputation would not secure her a cordial reception 
 with you ; and therefore, although her whole heart was yearning 
 towards this sister, who knew her not, she had the magnanimity 
 to conceal it. You do not know Bianca, or you would not speak 
 of her in that tone. As to your being ignorant that Mrs. Bryant 
 had a sister, it is very possible ; as, when men marry, and have 
 legitimate families, they are generally silent about former events. 
 Bianca's mother was an Italian lady. 
 
 " Ah, that will explain matters," said Bryant. 
 
 Lord Melton then went on to tell him all he had suffered, from 
 hearing of the renewal of Conrad's intimacy with Bianca, and 
 how the things he had vaguely uttered in delirium, had enabled 
 him to see the meaning of all that had so painfully perplexed Mm. 
 
 " When you know the weight from which your words have 
 delivered me," concluded he, smiling, "I can hardly think you 
 will have the heart to regret that I was here to profit by them." 
 
 " You are a good fellow, Lord Melton, and I respect you. 
 Thank you for all you have done for me, and thank you for all 
 you have just said, more than all. If it has done you good, I am 
 very glad you have been here to hear everything. What you say 
 of Conrad, proves, that he is, what he has always been, a plausible, 
 good-for-nothing fellow, thinking of no one but himself, and 
 bringing sorrow on all who have trusted him. I never knew any 
 good come from those fellows with such a pretence of fine feeling 
 
28-1 TILE HALE SISTERS. 
 
 and refinement, yet. What they gain in smoothness they lose in 
 honesty. I remember, years ago, when he first came to us, how 
 he went sneaking after this girl. His father came down and put 
 a stop to it ; and, I must say, I persuaded him to get his precious 
 son out of the country. But the girl seems to have been only too 
 good for him." 
 
 " Indeed you are right there," replied Lord Melton, " there are 
 few men for whom she would not be too good." 
 
 " I should like to hear something more about her if you can tell 
 me. If she were really her sister," but here his voice faltered, 
 and he stopped abruptly. 
 
 Lord Melton was glad of an opportunity of speaking of Bianca ; 
 he desired to make her worth known to all the world ; besides, 
 talking of her was an indulgence he had not enjoyed for a long 
 time, and he did not need to be asked twice before he began a 
 most elaborate and detailed biography, lengthened with his own 
 comments. Bryant was a very patient listener ; to be sure he 
 did not hear above one-half of what was said, but he did not 
 interrupt the narration, and that was the grand point. He heard 
 enough, however, to feel an interest in her: opposite as were 
 their modes of life, there was that in the heart of Bryant which 
 recognised her worth, and responded to her energetic perseverance 
 and strength of purpose. 
 
 " Ah ! " said he, when Lord Melton at last ceased, " she must 
 be a very remarkable young woman, quite superior to her station. 
 I had no ill-will against her, I wished to do right, and an actress 
 did not seem to me a desirable companion for — but no matter, 
 I see now how mistaken I have been in many things which I 
 thought proper and prudent. If I had known what she was, it 
 might have been the means of avoiding a great deal of misery, 
 but I did for the best ; I thought how strange it would seem to 
 let an actress into the family. Nobody else knew anything of 
 her. I could never endure to have observations made on my 
 actions. She seems to have been a very well-conducted young 
 woman indeed." 
 
 The surgeon now came in, and Lord Melton left the room. 
 
 "Yoti must not allow your patient to talk much," said he, to 
 Lord Melton, when he departed; " the system is very much 
 excited, and he must be kept very quiet." 
 
 Lord Melton did not attempt any more conversation during the 
 day, and indeed Bryant did not seem disposed for any. He 
 appeared to sleep a great deal, but he only took that method to 
 disembarrass himself from all looks or inquiries. For more than 
 forty years he had been a taciturn, reserved man. Within the 
 last few days all his habits and ideas had been violated, and 
 notwithstanding all his friendly feeling for Lord Melton, he 
 suffered under the painful impression which made itself felt 
 through all the real sorrow that was on his heart, of having 
 lowered himself, of having done foolishly. People of his character 
 
THE HALE SISTEES. 285 
 
 are morbidly sensitive of ridicule, the fear and dread of which 
 pursues them to their remotest thoughts, and cramps all spon- 
 taneity of action. They are utterly unable to understand 
 impulsiveness of utterance. To make themselves remarkable is 
 their supreme dread ; good, true, upright, excellent, as men of 
 this sort are, they are prone to be suspicious, and to take a 
 disgust, at the least action that does not appear in the measured 
 formal guise to which they are accustomed. 
 
 Bryant, notwithstanding his burst of good- will to Lord Melton, 
 suffered from the reaction of his shy, reserved nature ; but the 
 ice was fairly broken, his sorrow had borne down all the petty 
 ideas that once held him in bonds, the desire for human sym- 
 pathy, — that deep primeval sentiment of humanity, asserted 
 itself ; he was away from England, and all that had been the 
 world to him. The reaction of his old nature subsided. 
 
 Lord Melton did not go into his room until the next morning ; 
 he sat down and began to converse about indifferent things : 
 particularly he began to make inquiries of Bryant about this 
 district in Bohemia which he had been about to explore, and 
 spoke of continuing his journey in a few days. 
 
 "It is very dull for you staying here," said Bryant, " and 
 you have been very good already, but can you not stay, as you 
 are here, until I am able to move, and then we can travel 
 together. I was on my way to our iron mines, which are further 
 in the country. I know the district you mean well, and if I were 
 with you I could show you the country better than you would be 
 able to see it for yourself." 
 
 "Why for the matter of that," said Lord Melton, "I do not 
 now think of going at all, for I feel anxious to get back to 
 England." 
 
 "Ah! you have something to go back for!" said Bryant, 
 mournfully. " I shall never endure to live in England again." 
 
 " I know you have had a great sorrow," replied Lord Melton. 
 " I saw you at Trieste, and felt drawn to you there — although 
 I was far from suspecting we should so soon be thrown 
 together." 
 
 ' ' And you have heard what I never thought would be uttered 
 by me -to mortal man. My lord, you are a man of honour, and I 
 will not insult you by the request to keep secret all you know. 
 You have told me a great deal about yourself, and I thank you for 
 your confidence. I feel a comfort in talking to you, I have never 
 known in talking before ; and we are mixed up together in a 
 very singular way. I have been thinking a great deal of what you 
 said of Bianca. I am very sorry I never judged of her for 
 myself; but I thought she was artful and scheming, and I took 
 part with old Mr. Percy against her and against his son : but it 
 has come home to me. I did it for the best, as I said before. 
 It would be a great comfort to me to see her now ; what is she 
 like ? — is she handsome ? " 
 
286 THE HALF SISTEBS. 
 
 "Extremely handsome," said Lord Melton, " with black hair, 
 and dark gray eyes." 
 
 " Her hair was nearly black too. — Well, my lord, if you marry 
 her be kind to her, and do not let any worldly matter come 
 before her in yonr mind ; women feel such things — they are very 
 tender-hearted, and have nothing to occupy them as we have; 
 and do not hide your feelings from her, do not be ashamed of 
 showing how much you love her. You deserve to be happy; 
 but break off her acquaintance with Conrad, it will do her no 
 good." 
 
 Lord Melton listened in silence, and in some surprise to these 
 expressions : he did not know that, trite and common-place as 
 they seemed to him, they were utterances taught by the sufferings 
 of a life laid waste ; that they had been burnt into his soul by 
 an experience the most terrible. Had he known all, he would no 
 longer have wondered at the oracular earnestness with which 
 they were delivered. 
 
 " You said, I think, that she had no relations," continued 
 Bryant, after a pause, "that she had been left all her life to 
 struggle by herself ? " 
 
 " Just so," replied Lord Melton. 
 
 " Well, that is a pity. Poor thing, she must have had a hard 
 time of it ! Will you let me see her when you are married ? — • 
 and," continued he, speaking with an effort, " will you tell her 
 that her sister's husband earnestly desires her to consider him as 
 a brother ? If she had only left a dog behind, I should have 
 cherished it — much more her own sister," added he, as if to 
 himself. 
 
 "You little know the blessing you are sending," said Lord 
 Melton. " I, who know the yearning affection with which Bianca 
 regarded her sister, the desire she had to be known to her, and 
 the generous forbearance which induced her to keep silence, can 
 answer for the satisfaction your kind message will bring to her. 
 You will, you must, return to England, and let her know you, 
 and love you herself." 
 
 Bryant shook his head, mournfully. 
 
 " My dear lord, I am not a young man, and I have no more 
 strength to hope. My life is broken up. I do not complain, — 
 one must endure whatever is sent to us. Sometime, perhaps, I 
 shall return to England, if I live, and then it will be a comfort 
 to see her sister. There are some events that leave one like a 
 mountain shivered to the base ; it may look, outwardly, a very 
 narrow crevice, but it goes all the way to the foundation, and 
 nothing can unite it. I am on my way to our iron mines. I 
 shall stay there to superintend them. In that distant place I 
 shall see nothing to remind me of the past. As long as I live, I 
 must be doing something. I do not care for making money no^v, 
 it is the work I care for. I shall live in the mountains among 
 the miners. Since I have been in sorrow I have thought of 
 
THE HALE SISTEES. 287 
 
 many things that never struck me before, especially since I have 
 been lying here. We have many hundred workmen in our 
 employ — we paid them their wages — they did our work — the rest 
 was their concern. I think we should have considered something 
 more than making our money out of them. They are a sad wild 
 set. I have not much faith in benevolent schemes, but I shall 
 see what can be done about them. I can do things for any one 
 but myself just now. I have no plan, but I shall look into their 
 condition a little. When I have the heart to go back to England 
 I shall see what is to be done there. I must live out my days, 
 Lord Melton ; and I shall be, I hope, submissive to my Maker ; 
 but I do not feel as if anything could make me either glad or 
 sorry again." 
 
 " You shame me, Mr. Bryant," said Lord Melton. " My 
 conscience reproaches me for all the little use I have made of my 
 position and influence. I shall often think of you, and try to 
 follow the example you set me." 
 
 "With a happier heart, I trust," said Briant, smiling 
 mournfully. 
 
 In a few hours afterwards he again addressed Lord Melton, 
 who had been writing letters at a little table in another part of 
 the room. 
 
 " I have been considering," said he, " that I was very ill 
 advised, and very selfish, to ask you to delay longer. You ought 
 not to write to England, you ought to return thither : now that 
 all your doubts are cleared up, and a faithful heart is awaiting 
 you, do not allow a light thing to keep you from going to claim it. 
 Perhaps, too, she is suffering from your absence. Oh, when there 
 are so many uncertainties in life, do not kill an opportunity of 
 easing the heart of one who is suffering ; it may pass away, and 
 leave you a remorse." 
 
 Lord Melton looked up. " I believe you are in the right," said 
 he> quickly ; " you have spoken the word and I will act upon it. 
 I dare hardly hope in the bright picture you draw, but any way I 
 will go home. I have behaved unkindly ; and, as you say, she 
 may be suffering ; I am brute enough to hope that it is so." 
 
 " And when will you depart ? " said Bryant, not without a pang 
 at finding his words so promptly acted upon. 
 
 " Oh, I shall not go until you are all right again. I am not 
 going to leave you^n this hole, not half recovered yet. I shall 
 not stir a step until you are able to travel ; and then, the day you 
 can proceed towards your mines, I shall set off towards England, 
 as fast as the horses will take me. I have been away, and kept a 
 sulky silence so long, that a week of absence, more or less, will 
 not be felt. I have written a letter, which I hope will get me 
 forgiven. Even now, I fear more than I hope." 
 
 Bryant was not disinterested enough to combat this resolution. 
 Lord Melton continued a fortnight longer ; at the end of which 
 time Bryant was well enough to travel. During that period, a 
 
288 THE HALF SISTEES. 
 
 warm esteem, and sincere friendship, had arisen up between these 
 two men, so strangely thrown together. 
 
 Bryant's whole life had been too rudely shattered to allow of 
 anything like a feeling of happiness springing up in it — but it 
 seemed less arid and desolate — a friend had been sent to him in a 
 world where he thought himself alone. He felt stronger, and 
 better able to endure his lot. 
 
 Lord Melton departed with a heart full of hope, in spite of all 
 he said and thought to the contrary. 
 
 " Farewell," said he, as he wrung Bryant's uninjured hand, 
 " and remember that you belong to us when you return to 
 England." 
 
 " I do — I will. God bless you for all the comfort you hav3 
 been to me," replied Bryant. 
 
 In a few moments they were both on their several routes. 
 
 CHAPTEE LVIII. 
 
 It was now near Christmas, and, in a few days, Bianea was to 
 go down to Willersdale Park. Her heart whispered to her, that 
 she would there see again the one being who had for a long time 
 past entirely filled her thought, either as a latent unacknowledged 
 influence, or in the more decided guise of regretful reveries. Even 
 since the receipt of his last letter, she had felt all her doubts set at 
 rest ; she knew that he would return the same as he had departed. 
 But, after the first gush of joy, she had become restless and impa- 
 tient. She began to fear that some accident would intervene, to 
 dash down her cup of happiness, now that it. was nearly within 
 her grasp. In her hours of sorrow she had often wished that she 
 might lie down and die ; and, on the occasion of an epidemic, 
 which carried off a great number of persons, she had looked with 
 a species of envy on the funerals constantly passing the streets. 
 " Amongst so many, why am not I included ?" Avas her regretful 
 aspiration. But now, she was seized with a strange horror, lest 
 her unhallowed prayer of those "days of darkness" should be 
 heard and answered. She, who had been so brave and patient in 
 times of sorrow, had become a coward during the season of sus- 
 pense and expectation, which preceded the dawning of her day of 
 hope. Hopes are only inverted fears ; but it requires more 
 strength of faith and resignation to the decree of a higher will, to 
 wait calmly the solution of a theory of bright hopes, than to stand 
 firm and resolved under the shadow of threatening ill. 
 
 Bianea was not one, however, to allow herself to be lightly 
 carried away by every gust of feeling, and she struggled hard 
 
THE HALF SISTERS. 289 
 
 to regain the mastery over her mind, but with very moderate 
 success. 
 
 A few clays before the one fixed for her departure, the music- 
 master whom she had engaged for Clara requested an interview. 
 Bianca, who fancied that it only had reference to some arrange- 
 ment about her employment during the vacation, was puzzled to 
 understand the embarrassed tenacity with which he continued in 
 the room after all business had been settled and dismissed. She 
 was impatient for his departure, and not at all disposed to find 
 agreeable conversation to prolong his visit. She relapsed into 
 silence ; during which she continued to pack her dressing-case, 
 the occupation she had interrupted on his entrance. 
 
 At length the poor man, grown desperate, said, with the 
 perspiration standing on his forehead, " When did you say I 
 might have the pleasure of renewing my lessons to my very 
 talented pupil?" 
 
 " "We shall be absent a month, and I will write to you on our 
 return." 
 
 This was definite enough, but it seemed to convey no intelli- 
 gence. 
 
 " There certainly is one thing I have neglected to inform you 
 of, madam, and that is, my own intention to proceed to Italy 
 early next season. I think, if Miss Clara were to study in 
 Italy, it would be of the greatest advantage to her — indeed, it 
 is necessary. She has great talent and genius ; I would almost 
 
 say " 
 
 " I intend her to have every advantage, and I am sorry she is 
 likely to lose the advantage of your instructions.' ' 
 
 " I was going to ask, madam, with all deference to your 
 superior judgment, whether you think an attractive young 
 woman ought to appear in public without the sanction and 
 protection of a husband?" 
 
 Bianca looked up,— a gleam of the worthy man's meaning 
 (for worthy he was) began to dawn upon her, but she was not 
 going to help him in its development; so she replied, "Well?" 
 
 It is astonishing, sometimes, how little serves for an answer ; 
 it is like parcying a thrust in fencing, the least touch diverts the 
 course of a weapon. Bianca's "Well?" served the purpose of 
 bringing a very general proposition into a definite form, though 
 still painfully expressed, as if he were badly off for a language. 
 Itwas to the effect, that he being fully impressed with a sense of 
 Miss Clara Broughton's charms, genius, and virtue, wished to 
 become, in his own proper person, the " husband who was to 
 give the sanction and protection" required for her appearance 
 on the stage, and that he was most anxious to obtain Bianca's 
 support and influence with Lady Vernon. 
 
 " You are aware that Miss Broughton has relations ; I can say 
 nothing in this matter, except that I will mention your proposals 
 to Lady Vernon, and speak favourably of you as far as I know. 
 
 u 
 
290 THE HALF SISTEKS. 
 
 You are older a great deal than Miss Broughton. Have you 
 spoken to her?" 
 
 " No — a- thousand times no! — for whom do you take me, 
 madam ? You are the first to whom I have opened my lips. I 
 can offer the young lady a good position ; she might fall into the 
 hands of those who would marry her on speculation for her 
 talents, as heiresses are married for tneir money. I can offer 
 her a home, and whether her future keeps the promise of the 
 present or not, it will make no difference in my feelings towards 
 her." 
 
 " Well, I can give you no answer, except, as I said before, to 
 lay what you say before Lady Yernon, to whom I think you had 
 better write yourself." 
 
 The good man retired with all the gratitude that such good 
 hopes were likelv to excite, 
 
 " So, Clara's romance of life seems likely to be soon and safely 
 decided," said she to herself, when left alone; ''certainly a 
 worthy, honest, sensible man for a protector will be a great 
 advantage, and smooth many difficulties in her course ; but I 
 prefer my own struggles to all the patent safety that could have 
 been secured to me. I wonder what Clara's instinct will be about 
 the matter ! " She, however, resolved to say nothing until she 
 had seen Lady Yernon, and talked over the matter with 
 her. 
 
 Lady Yernon was standing in the hall waiting for them, when 
 they arrived. 
 
 M My dear child, how glad I am to see you again ! Both 
 Christmas and the New Year will realise their ordinary i com- 
 pliments of the season,' now that you are really come back to me 
 — and is that Clara ? Why, mercy on me, how you are grown 
 and improved ! you are looking quite womanly. I suppose you 
 have been thriving upon having gained your own way ; but, come 
 along, for dinner has been waiting I do not know how long. I 
 have had your own old rooms prepared for you," said she to 
 Bianca, as she led them along the gallery, " do not stay to make 
 any toilet, for we have to keep Christmas alone. I have invited 
 no one. I thought a little real quiet would be a blessing 
 to you." 
 
 Bianca, who had been hoping and expecting she hardly knew 
 what , felt a strange chill of heart at these words ; all the delight 
 of Willersdale Park had vanished ; for a moment she felt as if she 
 had been entrapped into a prison, from which she longed rest- 
 lessly to escape. Lady Yernon went chattering on in the 
 extremest spirits ; either Bianca kept her countenance with 
 wonderful success, or else her ladyship's penetration was not 
 on the alert. 
 
 They descended to dinner. The old-fashioned dining-room, 
 ornamented with evergreens, with its oak panels, and rich 
 crimson draperies — the sideboard, loaded with massive plate, all 
 
THE HALE SISTERS. 291 
 
 lighted tip with a dazzling fire, and a profusion of lights, — looked 
 like a scene of old English Christmas time ; but Bianca, who 
 had been unaccountably , hoping she knew not what, felt a 
 chill disconsolateness at finding that Lady Yernon had spoken 
 the literal truth, and that there was actually no one besides 
 themselves. 
 
 i ' I have not done yon the honour of having a fire lighted 
 in the drawing-room for you," said Lady Yernon. " I thought, 
 in this bitterly cold weather, we should be more comfortable in 
 my sitting-room, and there I have ordered coffee ; but I believe 
 it would have broken the heart of Mathews if we had not dined 
 in state. You completely turned his head that time he stayed 
 with you in London. He speaks of it as of the l three 
 glorious days' of his life. After awhile I must hear Clara 
 sing." 
 
 " She has been a very good girl, and made great progress," 
 said Bianca. " I am very well satisfied with her." 
 
 Bianca was listening for the name of Lord Melton, to whom 
 his sister had, as yet, made no allusion ; but she continued 
 talking on, about everything else in the world except the one 
 thing Bianca was sickening to hear. "When they reached the 
 sitting-room, Lady Yernon wheeled round the sofa to the 
 fire. 
 
 " There now, Bianca, do you take your own old place, and 
 I will sit here, in Melton's chair. Poor fellow ! I wonder when 
 he will come back to occupy it again ! I had half a hope that he 
 would take us by surprise, and be here for Christmas ; but he has 
 neither come nor written. He is making an unaccountably long 
 tcur. I do not think that men with large estates like his ought 
 to be so long absent." 
 
 " Then you do not know when he will come back?" said 
 Bianca. 
 
 " Not the least in the world, my dear, any more than 
 yourself." 
 
 There was a pause, during which they drank their coffee ; 
 then Lady Yernon, turning to Clara, asked her if she could 
 sing so soon after dinner. Clara went at once to the instru- 
 ment, and for nearly an hour sang in her fresh rich voice, all 
 the pieces she fancied she sang the best. 
 
 " Upon my word she has not lost her time," said Lady Yernon ; 
 "I can hardly believe that she is the same Clara I sent to you, 
 half in disgrace, six months ago. You see you were right, my 
 dear, and I was wrong." 
 
 The hall-bell at this moment was rung, though Clara's singing 
 had prevented them hearing the sound of wheels along the 
 avenue. 
 
 "What can that be?" said Lady Yernon, "at this time of 
 night ? — surely no accident at the school-house." 
 
 Bianca' s heart beat violently — she could utter no suggestion. 
 
 v 2 
 
292 THE HALF SISTEES. 
 
 " This way, my lord — the ladies are here," said the old butler, 
 Hinging open the door. 
 
 The next moment Lord Melton, wrapped in furs to the chin, 
 stood amongst them ! 
 
 CHAPTEE LIX. 
 
 ""What a perverse fellow you are, Maurice, " cried Lady 
 Vernon, when the first greetings were over, and Lord Melton 
 had quietly subsided into his accustomed chair, "you are like 
 all other very good people, who reject the recognised ' arts of 
 tormenting,' but who still contrive to smuggle their desire to be 
 disagreeable into circulation ! Here I have been abusing you to 
 Bianca, and saying the wisest things about your long silence, and 
 still longer absence, and you come back to contradict them at the 
 eleventh hour, and force me to feel so glad to see you, that I have 
 not the heart to persist in them; but you have behaved very 
 shamefully all the same ! " 
 
 "When criminals are condemned to death, the judge always 
 reads them a homily ; but when they can prove their innocence 
 they only receive congratulations. You are speaking a speech 
 not set down for you, my lady — I appeal to Bianca whether I 
 deserve scolding ? " 
 
 The blood rushed to Bianca' s face, and her voice would not for 
 a moment obey her, but she replied at length. 
 
 " Your friends must all be delighted at your return, though 
 they might still have rejoiced had you come earlier." 
 
 Lord Melton did not answer, he began to disturb the slumbers 
 of his sister's Persian cat, which was stretched luxuriously before 
 the lire. 
 
 The conversation became general, he had much to tell, and he 
 seemed in high spirits. Bianca was struck with the change that 
 had come over him : he looked much older than when she last 
 saw him, and his ideas were more firmly knit and developed; he 
 did not seem less good and kind than of old, but a latent sternness 
 and determination was perceived through all his sweetness of 
 temper and gentleness of manner. This was precisely the one 
 bharm he had always needed to gain influence over Bianca's 
 fancy. She had felt too completely her power over him, now it 
 seemed his turn to assert his ascendancy over her. 
 
 Whilst he told them his adventures with a brilliancy and 
 abandon she had never seen in him before, or asked his sister a 
 multiplicity of questions on all that had happened during his 
 
THE HALE SISTERS. 293 
 
 absence (declaring that he had seen no newspapers for the last 
 six months, except some files of the New Zealand Herald), 
 Bianca sat silently listening, intensely happy to be once more in 
 his presence, bnt still with a vague fear lurking in her mind lest 
 all this disengaged easy talk should portend that he had recovered 
 his freedom. Lord Melton, on his side, made no attempt to draw 
 her into conversation, or to attract her attention ; and although 
 his sister had vacated her place on the sofa beside Bianca, he did 
 not take possession of it. 
 
 " People never meet exactly as they parted," said Bianca to 
 herself, as she retired to rest. 
 
 She apparently was destined to prove the full truth of her 
 aphorism, for though she could find no positive fault with Lord 
 Melton's manners, still there was an indescribable something 
 about them that did not satisfy * her; in fact, in comparing 
 them with what they had formerly been, she fancied he had 
 become more distant and formal than she had ever known 
 him. 
 
 The fact might be, that they had fallen out of their old habit of 
 brotherly intercourse, such as it existed at the time of Bianca' s 
 long visit to "Willersdale Park ; but more especially it arose from 
 Lord Melton being fully possessed with the idea that he had 
 Bianca entirely to win, and he was so much afraid of spoiling his 
 cause by being too precipitate in the renewal of his proposals, and, 
 by asking too much and too soon, throw himself further back than 
 ever, that he perhaps fell into the contrary extreme. Besides, he 
 was very well content with the actual posture of affairs, for he 
 had Bianca all to himself, and there was no one to interfere with 
 him, or to excite his jealousy : so they read, and rode, and walked, 
 and talked together as of old, but they were seldom alone, for 
 either Lady Yernon or Clara were generally of the party. 
 
 Bianca' s heart smote her, when one morning, about a week 
 after her arrival, she found a letter on her breakfast plate, from 
 Clara's music-master and admirer, desiring, in the most pathetic 
 terms, to know his fate, and entreating her to use her influence 
 with Lady Yernon, to incline the heart of the young lady towards 
 his suit. 
 
 Bianca had not exactly forgotten her promise, but she had put 
 off speaking to Lady Yernon, thinking that the man would write 
 himself ; and now it seemed that he had, with desperate patience, 
 been awaiting the result of her mediation. 
 
 She was aroused by hearing Lady Yernon saying, in her clear, 
 quick tones, 
 
 " My dear Bianca, what does all this mean ? What is it at all 
 that you ought to have told me, but which you have not told me i 
 I cannot find my way through the mystery of this letter ; just 
 look at it, and see if you know who has written it." 
 
 Lady Yernon gave her the letter in question, which was from 
 the unhappy music-master, full of expressions of " respect," 
 
294 THE HALF SISTEES. 
 
 " anxiety," and " honourable intentions," and begging her 
 favourable decision on the proposals he had the honour of sub- 
 mitting to the Signora Bianca the day before her departure from 
 town, and which she had kindly promised to lay before her 
 ladyship. 
 
 " Well, are you as much in the dark as myself?" 
 
 "Alas! no, replied Bianca. "I see my own omissions with 
 distressing clearness. If you will come into my room after 
 breakfast, I will explain all I ought to have told you as soon as I 
 arrived." 
 
 " Is it a lover of your own who is praying for my good offices ? " 
 
 Lord Melton looked up quickly from his newspaper. 
 ! " No, no," said Bianca, blushing. 
 
 " Well, I am all impatience to hear," said the good lady, who, 
 with all her virtues, was the least in the world of a gossip. " So 
 now, Maurice, you must amuse yourself this morning ; we are 
 about to hold a cabinet council in our own regions, and shall bo 
 invisible till luncheon." 
 
 "It is not for me to make any objection," said Lord Melton, 
 rather stiffly, for he felt unreasonably annoyed at not being taken 
 into their confidence. He held open the door for them to pass, 
 and then returned to his newspaper, which he threw aside at the 
 end of ten minutes. He stood over the fire, looked out of the 
 window, and had all the air of a man who does not know what to 
 do with himself; — at length, catching the tones of Clara's piano, 
 he took himself to the music-room. 
 
 " Well, now, Bianca, let me hear the history of the mystery," 
 said Lady Yernon, seating herself in a comfortable bergere on one 
 side of the fire-place, having first arranged a small table for 
 herself, to hold her many coloured wools. Bianca took possession 
 of the couch opposite; but she did not employ herself to any 
 purpose, she only pulled a piece of packthread into every species 
 of entanglement. 
 
 "Our correspondent is the music-master I engaged for Clara; 
 he professes to be attached to her, and to wish to marry her. I 
 promised to lay the case before you, and to say all the good in my 
 power of him. You see it is as prosaic a piece of business as 
 possible. I thought that I had better speak to you before I 
 disturbed the child's young head with the affair. She suspects 
 no more than your worsted work." 
 
 " Well, but, my dear, let me have full particulars. To have 
 that girl well married, would be an infinite relief to my mind, for 
 ever since there has been a chance of her singing in public, I have 
 felt responsible for all that may befall her ; and to know her in 
 the hands of a good, sensible man, who will take care of her, 
 would take away half the objection. To me, there seems some- 
 thing revolting in an unmarried girl singing in public. I mean 
 nothirg disrespectful to you, my dear — you are an exception to all 
 rules to the contrary." 
 
THE HALE SISTEHS. 295 
 
 Bianca then went into a more detailed acconnt of the affair. 
 
 " How old is he, and what sort of a looking young man is 
 he?" 
 
 " He is about thirty, and what most people would call rather 
 handsome. A light German looking young man, with a very 
 kind, amiable face." 
 
 " So far, so good; if she can fancy him I think it is quite as 
 good a match as she can reasonably look for. So, finally, I think 
 we should tell the child and hear how she stands affected; and 
 although she has no parents, she has relations, who ought to be 
 consulted." 
 
 "I have some letters to write," said Bianca, "so I will leave 
 you here, and send Clara to you. Poor child, she seems very 
 young to have her destiny sealed for life ! " 
 
 " My dear Bianca, do not be romantic ! if she dislikes him she 
 shall refuse him, but for the rest she may be very thankful to 
 marry a steady, sensible young man who can take care of her. 
 I have seen a great many love matches in my time, and 
 they have none of them turned out so well as to make me 
 anxious to see a young woman in whom I take interest, marry 
 headlong for love. Girls at her age can get up a fancy for 
 any one." 
 
 Bianca went to the library to write her letters ; on the way she 
 met Clara, and sent her to Lady Yernon, glad to get the respon- 
 sibility removed from herself. 
 
 Whilst she was writing Lord Melton entered : she did not perceive 
 him, and he flung himself without speaking on one of the couches 
 where he could watch her movements in a large mirror. 
 
 She wrote letter after letter ; Lord Melton lost all patience, he 
 thought she would never stop ; the scratching of her pen on the 
 paper irritated his nerves until he could bear it no longer. He 
 exclaimed pettishly, 
 
 " Who on earth are you writing so many letters to, 
 Bianca?" 
 
 She turned round in surprise at the sound of his voice, she 
 could not see him, as he was hidden by the, back of the sofa. He 
 arose as he spoke. 
 
 " Ah ! " said she, "is that you? I did not hear you come in ; 
 how long have you been here ?" 
 
 " For a long time. I intended to wait patiently until you had 
 finished, but it seemed as if you were about to write on to all 
 eternity, and I was listening for every stroke to be the last. Who 
 can you have to write so many letters to ? " 
 
 "Most of them are on business," said Bianca, "I have 
 neglected everything since I came here. My holiday will be over 
 soon, and I must think about work." 
 
 " So you wish to get away ? " said Lord Melton, bitterly. " Do 
 you know, Bianca, it is a very great failing of yours, that of 
 never being easy unless you are moving about." 
 
296 THE HALE SISTEES. * 
 
 " I assure you I never felt so little inclined ' to move about,' as 
 you call it, in my life." 
 
 Lord Melton's heart beat violently ; lie did not speak, but began 
 to walk up and down the room ; — at length, he came and sat down 
 at a little distance from her. 
 
 "Bianca!" said he, in an unsteady voice, "a long time ago 
 you said you loved me as a sister ; that will not content me ; tell 
 me, are you still the same? — can you give me nothing more? I 
 cannot go on in this way. I cannot live as we have lived together, 
 since I came home. If you cannot give me any hope, tell me so, 
 and I will trouble you no more." 
 
 He did not dare to look at Bianca, who trembled too violently 
 to speak. 
 
 " Answer me, Bianca. I will not be importunate ; I know you 
 will mean what you say ; but give me one word." 
 
 Still Bianca did not say that word. She could not utter a sound, 
 although her lips trembled. 
 
 " Bianca ! " cried Lord Melton, in a tone of passionate entreaty, 
 " I do not ask you to speak — only give me your hand, as a sign 
 that I may hope." 
 
 Bianca placed her hand tremblingly into Lord Melton's. "I 
 will be anything you wish," she said, " only do not leave me 
 again." 
 
 Lord Melton could hardly believe the evidence of his senses — 
 he was giddy with joy. 
 
 " But, Bianca, do you love me? — or is this only your generosity, 
 that cannot bear to give me pain ?" 
 
 " No, no ! " said she, in a low voice, " it is not generosity. ^ I 
 know now, that my whole soul is bound up in you. It would kill 
 me to lose your love." 
 
 " But it is not as a brother you love me ?" persisted he. " I 
 wish there were no such relation to deceive one ! "Will you ever 
 tell me that I am your brother again ? " 
 
 '/What would you have?" said Bianca. "You possess my 
 whole soul — every thought I have is yours. I cannot tell when 
 I began to love you — it has come like daylight. When you were 
 so long absent, and so long without writing to me, I suffered very 
 much. I feared lest you should have wearied of me, and left me. 
 I found, then, that you were part of my life. I have been quite 
 unhappy enough about you to satisfy your utmost scepticism, that 
 at last I do love you as you desire to be loved ! You deserve that 
 I should tell you all this," said she, looking at him through the 
 tears that were blinding her, with an expression of radiant 
 happiness, like sunshine through a silver mist. ' ' I have made 
 you suffer as well as myself ; but until you were £onc, I knew not 
 how much you were to me. Do not leave me again — let me belong- 
 to you, so that nothing may ever part us more ! " 
 
 Lord Melton drew her towards him, and whispered, 
 
 " That nothing may ever part us more ! " 
 
THE ULA.LE SISTJSJtiS. 297 
 
 CHAPTER LX. 
 
 Lady Yeknon went to the library to take Bianca' s opinion of 
 the letter she had written to Mr. Meyer (which, by the way, was 
 the name of Clara's adorer), and also of the communication she 
 had made to Clara's uncle, but she found the room vacant ; she 
 then went to find her in her own sitting-room, but with equally 
 little success. The bell rang for luncheon, but neither Lord 
 Melton nor Bianca made their appearance. Clara, too, had 
 vanished — to dream over the new prospects the morning had 
 disclosed to her, and to find out whether she really could be in 
 love with Mr. Meyer. She fancied she should greatly prefer 
 Lord Melton; and wondered whether he " meant anything," by 
 coming into the music-room, and listening to her, whilst she 
 practised that morning ; and thought how very handsome and 
 fascinating he was, so superior to every one she had ever seen 
 before in her life. 
 
 Accordingly, Lady Yernon found herself left completely alone, 
 which rather annoyed her, as, at that moment, she felt herself 
 much in need of that woman's true consolation — a long confidential 
 gossip about the events of the morning. 
 
 The first dinner bell rang, and yet no one appeared; but, 
 whilst she was dressing, a tap was heard at the door ; it was Lord 
 Melton's servant, who came from him, to request that her ladyship 
 would allow him to come to her dressing-room for a few moments' 
 conversation before she went down to dinner. 
 
 " Certainly," cried Lady Yernon, who overheard the message ; 
 " say that I shall be disengaged in five minutes." 
 
 Her "five minutes "were of reasonably conscientious length 
 for a woman finishing her toilet — that is to say, not more than 
 ten elapsed before she entered her dressing-room, where she found 
 her brother, who declared he had been waiting there more than 
 half-an-hour. 
 
 " My dear Maurice, where have you hidden yourself all the 
 morning ? and do you chance to know what has become of Bianca ; 
 but," cried she, looking at him with surprise, "what good news 
 have you heard that makes you so radiant ? " 
 
 " Something that I hope you will consider as 'good news,' too, 
 Margaret — Bianca has consented to become my wife ; and all that 
 is needed to my perfect happiness is, that you should feel as 
 happy as I do." 
 
 Lady Yernon could not reply for an instant, then she 
 said : — 
 
 " You know how anxious I have always felt for your marriage, 
 but I always doubted whether you would find a woman to deserve 
 
298 THE HALF SISTERS. 
 
 you. Bianca is a noble creature; and though I do not like 
 actresses, and I wish she had been anything else in the world, 
 still you may feel very proud to have won her. I love her as if 
 she were my own daughter ; and you, both of you, have my best 
 blessing ! " 
 
 The old lady then fairly burst into tears ; as, somehow, people 
 are always prone to do, when they hear that a dearly loved 
 relative is about to marry : but she soon dried her eyes, embraced 
 her brother, and went off to Bianca' s room. She found Bianca, 
 who had not begun to dress, sitting before the fire, rather 
 anxious as to the first effect of Lord Melton's communication ; she 
 knew the good lady's family pride, and she had a vague fear that 
 the almost overpowering happiness of the morning must be shaded 
 by some mortal mixture of disappointment, but all shadows 
 vanished before the maternal kindness with which Lady Yernon 
 pressed her to her heart. For a minute both were too much over- 
 powered to speak. 
 
 "God bless you, my dear child," said she, at length, "lam 
 glad to have you for a sister, though I shall always feel more as 
 if you were my daughter ; Melton has told me everything ; he 
 deserves that you should make him happy." 
 
 u I who have been alone all my life, am finding all my kinsfolk 
 in one day," said Bianca, leaning her head on the old lady's 
 shoulder. " I will be your sister or daughter, or anything you 
 will. I cannot love you more than I do. You have been all 
 goodness to me, and now you are still adding to it; — tell me again, 
 will you have me for your sister ? " 
 
 " Indeed, yes, my darling," said Lady Yernon, taking Bianca's 
 face between her hands and kissing her forehead. " Maurice may 
 be thankful to gain you for a wife, and I am glad to receive you 
 . into our family," concluded she with affectionate dignity. 
 
 " Now, my dear, you must come to dinner, it has been waiting 
 at least two hours ; never mind dressing." 
 
 " I will not be a second," said Bianca. " I shall be dressed by 
 the time the bell has been rung." 
 
 " Well then, I will leave you, to see what has become of that 
 child Clara." 
 
 The dinner was at last actually on the table. Mathews, the 
 old butler, and one of Bianca's most devoted admirers, had some- 
 how penetrated into the secret ; he considered that he belonged 
 to the family, and had a right to take interest in all that concerned 
 it, and there was something almost paternal in the attentions he 
 bestowed on Bianca that day. Nobody talked much, but it seemed 
 as though they spoke to each other without words, for no one felt 
 silent. Poor Clara soon found all her vague fancies about Lord 
 Melton scattered like mist ; and she, with that spider-like instinct 
 which is very strong in mankind, especially in the young, began 
 to weave reveries almost as bright, of which the attainable Sir. 
 Meyer was the centre. 
 
THE HALE SISTEES. 299 
 
 It had been arranged by Lady Yemen that Clara should go to 
 spend a few weeks with her uncle and aunt, and there Mr. Meyer 
 was to come and make his suit in person, for as the old lady 
 sagaciously said, she would be much more likely to view him 
 dispassionately when seen from her own level than when she was 
 liable to be dazzled by the accidental position in which she found 
 herself at Willersdale Park. In the course of a few days a most 
 satisfactory letter came from her uncle, who was a veterinary 
 surgeon in a market town in Essex ; and under the escort of 
 Mathews, Clara once more took a journey. She was to spend the 
 remainder of the holidays with her uncle, and then go up to town 
 to Bianca. Clara's affairs once off her hands, for the present 
 at least, Lady Yernon became very anxious that her brother's 
 marriage with Bianca should take place without delay, in 
 which idea Lord Melton quite coincided. Bianca pleaded for 
 time to acquit herself of her professional engagements. The 
 point of time was stoutly contended, but in the end Bianca 
 found herself obliged to yield, especially when Lady Yernon 
 said, 
 
 1 i My dear Bianca will not, I am sure, refuse the first request- 
 made by her sister ; which is, that she will not again appear on 
 the stage, now that she belongs to us." 
 
 " So be it, then," said Bianca, gracefully; " arrange all as you 
 wish it to be, and I will be conformable." 
 
 " That is being a good child ! " said Lady Yernon ; whilst Lord 
 Melton, as in duty bound, expressed all the gratitude it was 
 possible for man to feel. 
 
 ***** 
 
 Three weeks afterwards, all the newspapers contained announce- 
 ments of the marriage of " Yiscount Melton, of Melton Hall, in 
 Staffordshire, and of Fort Yernon, in Scotland, with the celebrated 
 actress Bianca." As Parliament was not sitting, and there were 
 no very exciting public events going on, the public were not 
 deprived of any particulars, from the bride's veil of Honiton lace, 
 down to all sorts of anecdotes and incidents of her professional 
 career, as many biographical sketches as could be collected, 
 criticisms on the different characters in which she had appeared, 
 estimates of her genius, tributes in prose and verse to her virtues 
 and accomplishments, with bitter lamentations for the irreparable 
 loss the stage had sustained from the abdication of its high- 
 priestess, — all which was the only drawback to Lady Yernon' s 
 complete and entire contentment at the event, which was cele- 
 brated at Willersdale Park. 
 
 As her own marriage so much sooner than she had anticipated, 
 put it out of Bianca' s power again to take charge of Clara, Lady 
 Yernon obviated the difficulty by promising to receive her until 
 some other arrangement could be made. Clara soon spared every 
 one any further anxiety about her by an ecstatic letter to 
 Lady Yernon, in which she declared her profound affection for 
 
300 THE HALE SISTERS. 
 
 Mr. Meyer, and stated, that with the approbation of her friends, she 
 had accepted him, and that they were to go to Italy immediately. 
 Clara's cup of happiness seemed brim full. Bianca felt half afraid 
 that the journey to Italy had some share in her enthusiasm for 
 Mr. Meyer ; but Lady Vernon declared that it was a very 
 promising looking affair, and a letter coming also from her uncle, 
 in which he expressed his perfect approbation of the match, and 
 a great deal of gratitude to Lady Vernon for all her kindness, 
 Bianca resigned herself to letting matters take their course. She 
 made Clara a present of all the furniture of her house in Brompton, 
 and sent her a splendid wedding-dress beside. Lady Vernon, 
 also, gave her a handsome present ; and Clara was married, and 
 departed with her husband for Italy with as bright prospects as 
 any young woman could desire. 
 
 Bianca and her husband proceeded to Fort Vernon, intending 
 to reside for some months there. 
 
 It is a great mistake to suppose that genius is shown in one 
 special mode of manifestation alone ; — it inspires its possessor, and 
 enables him to feel equal to all situations. 
 
 Bianca might have been born to her new position, so easily she 
 sustained her dignities, and so well ordered and appointed was 
 her household. 
 
 One evening, about six months after their marriage, Bianca 
 and Lord Melton were in the library at Fort Vernon. It was 
 a splendid room; the ceiling was panelled with emblazoned 
 escutcheons and armorial bearings, the walls and book-cases 
 covered with black oak carvings, 
 
 * ' Full of fancies, strange and sv/eet, 
 All made out of the carver's brain." 
 
 Lord Melton had been reading aloud, whilst Bianca was working 
 a cushion in crochet for Lady Vernon. The fading light, which 
 was rendered still more dim by coming through the panes of 
 curiously stained glass, prevented him continuing his employ- 
 ment. He ceased to read, and silently watched Bianca, as she 
 strove to finish the row she had begun, in spite of the increasing 
 gloom. He stirred the fire, and the flashing light danced on the 
 gorgeous ceiling, and the quaint dark mouldings round the 
 room. 
 
 " Bianca," said her husband, as if he were asking the most 
 ordinary question in the world, l ' in how many former states did 
 you live, before you came into this world ? I have never men- 
 tioned it to you, but I have been wonder-struck at the prudence 
 and dexterity with which you have adapted yourself to what must 
 be such a new order of things — the orderliness, the — what shall I 
 say ? — house-keeping qualities, which have developed in you are 
 so marvellous, as to make you seem what the Scotch folks would 
 call 'not canny.' " 
 
THE HALT SISTEES. 301 
 
 " Why, you Turk, you heathen, you unbelieving Jew! " cried 
 Bianca, Hinging down her work — " is this positively the first time 
 you have discovered that I am a clever woman ? You are like all 
 the rest of men, and have no faith in a woman's genius, until it 
 is shown in the practical manifestation of arranging your break- 
 fasts, dinners, and servants. There is no wonder in the matter ; 
 the simple secret of filling any position, great or small, consists in 
 just giving your mind to see and understand what are the peculiar 
 requirements of it, and in doing them heartily. But with all 
 that," continued she, looking at him affectionately, "you cannot 
 think how it pleases me to r/ear you say that I manage my house 
 well, and that you like what I do." 
 
 " Bianca ! will you tell me one thing ? " said he, after a pause. 
 " I may be ' a curious impertinent,' for asking ; I ought, perhaps, 
 to remain content with my present blessedness, without seeking 
 farther ; but still, will you tell me, did you love Conrad as much 
 as you love me?" 
 
 " J^o," replied Bianca, firmly. " He would not have permitted 
 me to love him as I love you ; he would always have been putting 
 himself between us. I should have always been struggling to 
 follow my own nature — to be, in short, what I am now — and he 
 would have been tired to death, and I should have worn myself 
 out in the attempt to make his affection what I desired to find it 
 — to make it what alone would have satisfied me. I should not 
 have discovered until it was too late, that it was not in his nature 
 to be what I desired ; not until I had broken myself against the 
 irremediable incompatibility of our characters ; in the end, I 
 should have been forced to recognise that I possessed a larger and 
 more devoted nature than his own, which would have been an 
 entirely fatal thing to me, for a woman can only love when she 
 fancies that on the whole the object is endowed with a greater and 
 nobler character tnan her own. It may be that she possesses 
 individually more beauty, more genius, more brilliancy, than the 
 man she chooses ; but there must be a preponderating character 
 in him. She must find in him something that supports her best 
 and noblest impulses, and which strengthens her weakness. I 
 should not have found this with Conrad. I have had opportunities 
 of studying his character well since the days when I loved him ; 
 he had sympathy with nothing but his own arbitrary notions. 
 Instead of being able to live easily and freely beside him, all my 
 strength would have gone in efforts to avoid collision, and to 
 obtain marks of affection ; till, wearied and worn out, I should 
 have ended by making him as wretched as myself. I can see now 
 how well it is for us that we are not allowed to choose our own lot 
 in life. I tremble when I think of all my own headstrong wilful- 
 ness. We are none of us, or to speak more modestly, I am not, 
 wise enough to be trusted with my own wishes." 
 
 "Then you are happy with me, Bianca ? " said her husband. 
 
 " Upon my honour I am too contented to know whether I am 
 
302 THE HALF SISTEBS 
 
 happy or not. I have never thought about it. I only know that 
 I would endure again all that horrible uprooting of my life, 
 which at the time seemed as if it must tear the very soul out of 
 me, and endure as much more added to that as nature might 
 support without losing her hold on life, if in the end I might be 
 as I am now, to know you as I do, and to possess the priceless 
 treasure of your love. It was good for me, necessary for me, that 
 I should suffer all that horrible anguish. My love for you grew 
 out of that chaos, from the wreck of all on which I had built 
 myself up. Oh, if we could only have faith enough, at the time 
 we are suffering, to resign ourselves to the will of Him who 
 orders all things, to take His will for the best and wisest ; and 
 ' though he slay us to trust in Him,' it would be the true, the 
 only wisdom. I am humbled to the dust when I think how little 
 I have deserved all the happiness that has come upon me. I 
 would not now for all the world have been without that great 
 sorrow, although at the time it well nigh overwhelmed me. 
 Sorrow is our matriculation in humanity, and no one who has 
 received its mysterious baptism would ever wish to have been 
 spared what has been laid upon him. My love for Conrad was 
 true and devoted ; my whole life was bound up in him at the time, 
 and it kept me from much evil: but I could not give up my 
 idol ; and when it was taken away I had no faith to trust a 
 Higher Will, and that made my suffering." 
 
 " But," said Lord Melton, "if you had ceased to love Conrad, 
 how could you show such devoted kindness to him in his sorrow ? 
 You must have had some love for him remaining, or I should not 
 have had the instinct to feel so jealous." 
 
 " It was a different sort of thing altogether," said Bianca; 
 " the feeling had completely changed its nature, and there was 
 nothing of which you need have been jealous." 
 
 " That I believe, now ; but how could I feel sure at the time ? 
 We are all wise enough after the fact. Do you know where he 
 is now ? " 
 
 " I do not. He completely broke all connexion with the world, 
 and I suppose he is still working out his idea of expiation, and 
 
 of wearing away the remorse that consumed him." 
 
 ***** 
 
 It might be about a fortnight after this conversation that 
 Bianca said one morning at breakfast, 
 
 "In spite of all the tine things I said the other evening about 
 the vanity of wishing, I have fallen a victim to it myself." 
 
 " Well, tell me what it is about, and then we shall see if it be 
 possible to compass it ? " 
 
 " I want to go to Italy. It is my own country, and I should 
 so much like to see it again. Will you take me there ? " 
 
 ■ ' We will see Avhat can be done towards winter ; at present, I 
 must live at home a little." 
 
 "Ah, yes!" said Bianca ; remorsefully; "and when I think 
 
THE HALF SISTEBS. 303 
 
 that it was I who banished you for so long, I feel glad to suffer a 
 little of the penalty ; but you will take me some time f I feel a 
 yearning to go there I cannot express." 
 
 It was not likely that Lord Melton should thwart such a very 
 moderate desire of his wife's. They went to Willersdale Park in 
 the autumn, to pay a long-promised visit to Lady Yernon : after 
 which they were to proceed to Italy. 
 
 On their journey from Scotland to Willersdale Park, they 
 remained all night at Newcastle. When Lord Melton entered to 
 breakfast in the morning, he found Bianca sitting so absorbed in 
 a play-bill that she did not perceive his entrance. 
 
 " What have you found to interest you so much?" said he, 
 looking over her shoulder. 
 
 " How strangely things come about in this world ! " said she. 
 "Mr. Simpson and his company are performing here in all their 
 glory ; this is a bill of their performance for to-night. This is 
 the very town where my mother fell ill. Conrad and Mr. 
 Simpson extricated me from my distress. It was the first time I 
 ever saw Conrad, and he spoke Italian to me, and seemed like an 
 angel from heaven. I have lived out that romance, I am going 
 back to Italy which I had then just left, and here comes Mr. 
 Simpson to witness my exit in the same way as he presided over 
 my entrance on life in England. All rounded in ten years ! it 
 seems like a dream ! " 
 
 " It is a singular coincidence," said Lord Melton. " What is 
 this Mr. Simpson like ? I should rather like to see him." 
 
 "And so should I, very much," said Bianca; "he really was 
 a very good man in his way, and very kind to me ; he might have 
 been my father, only he paid me so ill; and he had so much 
 real feeiing and zeal for his calling. I would go and see him, 
 only — " 
 
 "Only what?" 
 
 " Only, that I know him to be quite capable of exhibiting me 
 in a grand transparency, and getting up a drama on my romance 
 of real life ! No, I know him too well to venture to glorify him 
 in any such manner ; but, if you will come out with me, after 
 breakfast, we will buy the most sumptuous breastpin to be 
 found at any jeweller's in the town — I know his taste — and I 
 will send it as an anonymous tribute to his genius. Now, I am 
 quite sure you must have finished your breakfast, so come along." 
 
 As they were proceeding up one of the principal streets in the 
 town, they encountered a grand equestrian procession, the rear of 
 which was brought up by Mr. Simpson himself ; not on a lofty 
 phaeton, as of old, but in a magnificent private carriage, 
 almost worthy of a lord mayor, and drawn by eight beautiful 
 horses. 
 
 "Look! look!" cried Bianca, "that is Mr. Simpson; he is a 
 little older than he used to be, but he is very little changed. I 
 dare say he has set up the carriage because he considers that it 
 
30 li THE HALE SISTERS. 
 
 looks more patriarchal than his former resplendent phaeton. I 
 wonder whether his wife be living still — I would send her some- 
 thing too. Is not our identity a strange thing ? " 
 
 They had now reached a jeweller's shop, and Bianca chose the 
 most radiant brooch she could find, as a present to Mrs. Simpson, 
 and a very handsome gold snuff-box for the hero himself. She 
 desired that they might be sent forthwith to. Mr. Simpson's lodg- 
 ings. She wrote, herself, on the envelope, that they were the gift 
 of one who had sincere respect for his character, and admiration 
 of his genius. 
 
 "I wish I could be by, to see his astonishment," said she, 
 laughing, when they got out of the shop. "I can just fancy him; 
 and then how happily and complacently he will settle down in the 
 conviction, that the dawn of his fame has arisen ! " 
 
 " Well, my angel, but we shall be late ; the carriage will have 
 been waiting an hour." 
 
 ***** 
 
 After remaining a short time with Lady Yernon they went to 
 Italy, to her birth-place, but Bianca found no one living there 
 who remembered her. At Milan they saw Clara and her husband 
 — both supremely happy. Clara's voice kept its promise ; and, 
 with the instruction she was receiving, there was every reason to 
 expect that she would take the lead amongst English singers on 
 her return, and raise the credit of the English school. 
 
 Bryant came to England, and paid Lord Melton* and Bianca a 
 visit. He never rallied from the deep depression of spirits which 
 Alice's death had left : he continued to superintend his vast mining 
 concerns, but it was for the sake of ameliorating the condition of 
 the workmen, which seemed the only object in which he felt any 
 interest. His clear sagacity and business-like habits enabled him 
 to be very useful to Lord Melton, in his plans for the improvement 
 of the peasantry on his Scotch and Irish estates. At first, Bianca 
 seemed to awaken many painful recollections, and he avoided her ; 
 but afterwards he grew very much attached to her. 
 
 Conrad never re-appeared in the world. Some years after her 
 marriage, Bianca received a letter in an unknown hand, informing 
 her of his death. It was from one of his own sect, who had been 
 desired by him to communicate the fact to her. He had fallen a 
 victim to typhus fever, which was ravaging the courts and alleys 
 amongst which he was constantly pursuing his mission. 
 
 Lady Vernon lived to a good old age, and her school flourished 
 to the last. After her death Bianca continued it, and set up others 
 on its model. 
 
 Lady Yernon left all her fortune, with the exception of some 
 legacies and annuities, to her brother, with directions that it was 
 to descend to his younger children. Bianca and Lord Melton 
 lived long and happily together ; every year seemed to increase 
 the perfect union between them. They had several children, who 
 inherited the sound character of their parents. 
 
THE HALF SISTEBS. 305 
 
 If the reader insists on a moral being tacked to the end of a 
 story, to save him the trouble of extracting it himself, we can find 
 nothing better than those words of Shelley : — 
 
 u Gentleness, Virtue, Wisdom, and Endurance, 
 These are the seals of that most firm assurance, ' 
 * Which bars the pit over Destruction's strength ; 
 
 And if, with infirm hand, Eternity, 
 Mother of many acts and hours, should free 
 
 The serpent that would clasp her with his length, 
 These are the spells by which to re-assume 
 An empire o'er the disentangled doom." 
 
 THE EXD. 
 
 RRADBURV AND EVANS, PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS. 
 

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