^^^
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE.
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 ^i:^ s ^^p^ 
 
 THE AUTnOR OF 
 
 "CHARLES AUCHESTER," "COUNTERPARTS," 
 
 ETC., ETC. 
 
 BOSTON: 
 TIOKNOR AND FIELDS 
 
 M DCCC LX.
 
 author's edition. 
 
 MVERSIDE, CAMBRIDGE: 
 STEREOTYPED AND PRINTED BY 
 
 n. 0. nouaiiTON and company.
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 A MARRIAGE NOT MADE IN HEAVEN, AND ITS RESULT. 
 
 My father was an officer,- too late for Waterloo, and whose 
 only campaign was crowned with success in single combat 
 between himself and Love. My mother was a Romagnese 
 lady, and, yielding as gracefully as the god who sometime 
 ruled her, made my father, for a space too brief to reckon, 
 the happiest of men. He, making the grand tour in the 
 days immediately before it became a little one, saw and wor- 
 shipped, wooed and won her, and generously remained by 
 her side, instead of rooting her from her own soil for trans- 
 plantation — a process ever deteriorative to the physical com- 
 fort and moral energy of the Southern and the Oriental. 
 Self-sacrifice — the dearest offering of life to life — crowned 
 devotion on his part with that strange, peaceful destiny, an 
 early death. He died of malaria fever before I had learned 
 to know, although I had seen, his face. 
 
 For the vivid imagination with which my enemies deem 
 me accursed, and which ray best friends regard with a 
 certain pity more akin to fear than love (I verily beUeve 
 the imaginative are shunned by the unimaginative, as ghost- 
 less graveyards are shunned by the ghost-ridden), for this 
 same positive but incommunicable gift, perhaps my cradle- 
 1
 
 2 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 breeding sliould be blamed as much as my birthright. Four 
 years of the prime of infancy, and four more of child- 
 hood's morning, spent in the soft breast of nature, where 
 she has it all her own way, and is a gorgeous queen the 
 while a tender mother, must predispose a delicate and ardent 
 mind for ideas, as it prepares the eye for colors, and moulds 
 taste before its birth, instead of remodelling its too crude 
 shape from primitive and ruder formation. The passionate 
 current — not fitful, while impetuous, but profound and rush- 
 ing — of my blood, and the eager, while intense, creativeness 
 which informs every image with a soul, each soul with a 
 correspondent image, alike charge their strength and weak- 
 ness, defects and ecstasies upon Nature irresistible as Doom. 
 My mother married again — I believe she thought for my 
 own advantage rather than her own gratification, for, not 
 richly endowed herself, and her se^cond husband being wealthy 
 in the possession of very large estates, very eloquent in gen- 
 erous promises referring to me, and old enough to be my 
 grandfather, she concluded I should stand towards him in the 
 light of an only or eldest son. But on near and constant 
 acquaintance, he and I never suited each other. He was 
 obstinate and indolent ; I inflexible and nervous ; he parent- 
 ally patronized, I unfilially condescended, even in accepting 
 his attentions. We never came to an open breach ; he ad- 
 mired, and I loved my mother too much so to disturb her life 
 and peace. But the awful politeness which inwrapt us as 
 an atmosphere, made the natural relation between us as 
 elderly man and precocious child at once unpleasant and ab- 
 surd. My mother soon became conscious of this fact, which 
 we, however, all three duly concealed from each other as a 
 matter of fact, substituting a mutual complacent compliment- 
 ariness for it, as is the custom of society in wider and stronger 
 instances. At last when I had endured the luxurious annoy- 
 ance of this existence — it was steeped in luxury — for two 
 of the years of latter infancy, nature, stronger than custom, 
 as the master than the slave, interposed, dissolving the tie for
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 3 
 
 US witliout riulc sliock or intimation, anil saved us from that 
 dismallest catastrophe, a family colHsion. My step-brother 
 was born at tlie conjuncture, two yeai's after I entered the 
 pahace where I had never felt myself, nor been, a child at 
 home. I loved this baby dearly, readily ; my heart responded 
 to all the blood that Avas of mine in his, from its first little 
 quick pulsation ; yet, strange to say — say rather natural — ■ 
 my fraternal instinct, so sweet and unembarrassed, divided 
 more than ever our house against itself. The hour, almost 
 the moment, my mother was out of her bed, I presented my- 
 self before her. The babe lay on her lap, a lovely Roman- 
 limbed, ivory-tinted infant, substance of all the child-Christ 
 shadows on Raphael's canvas. I bent over him ; my kisses 
 went deep and soft into his swelling cheeks and firm white 
 forehead — soft, not to awaken him, for he slept. Then I 
 stretched up to kiss my mother. How beautiful she looked, 
 and was ! I have ever preserved the liveliest pride, while 
 the purest vanity (if vanity can be pure) in the beauty of 
 my mother. Methinks such a memory incites to chivalry in 
 youth — the youth of manhood. My mother was of the 
 ancient Roman beauty, rare now, if still remembered, with 
 hair to her knees, wrapping her form in a veil vivid as woven 
 gold, with the emerald eyes of Dante's Beatrice, a skin of 
 yellow whiteness, and that mould of figure in which undulat- 
 ing softness quenches majesty — the mould of the mystical 
 Lucretia. As I kissed l^ir this day — unusual demonstra- 
 tion on my part — she pressed her lips to mine more fondly 
 than before my brother's birth — unusual demonstration, too, 
 on the part of a mother with a late-born babe, besides an 
 older child. Her fondness, and my own unwonted affection- 
 ate temerity, emboldened me. " Mamma mine," I began, 
 confidentially and steadfastly, then paused and inly shrank. 
 She was ever anxious to grant, beyond the letter, my few and 
 far-between requests, and I suppose my tone bespoke the 
 accent of solicitation. 
 
 « Well, my darling Ernesto ! "
 
 4 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 " Mamma mine, I wish you to allow me to travel ; I think 
 I am now old enough." And I stared downwards signifi- 
 cantly at my feet, clad in proper socks and shoes ; it had 
 been my standing heterodoxy since I ran alone, to get rid 
 of these incumbrances, and shed them anywhere all over 
 the house and garden. 
 
 " Mamma mine," I proceeded, " men ought to wear shoes 
 in going up the burning mountain, or they must scorch 
 their feet." Children rarely connect, in communicating, 
 their ideas, however affluent in them. My mother was 
 plunged straightway into that soft cloud of wonderment 
 which is the highest development of the organ " marvel- 
 lousness " in a purely southern intelligence. But she re- 
 plied rightly, directed so by the true maternal instinct : — 
 
 " Where would you travel therefore, Ernesto ? " 
 
 " First to Vesuvius, mamma mine, then take a boat, and 
 go to England, and stay with my uncle Loft us." 
 
 My mother gave the gesture the nearest to a start that 
 so soft a creature could. 
 
 " What made you think of your uncle, my Ernesto ? Do 
 you remember anything about a letter ? " 
 
 " A letter from papa's uncle ; oh yes, mamma." 
 
 That letter was four years old, yet I remembered it ; it 
 had been addressed to my mother by her first husband's 
 nearest relation, who held him the most dear. He had 
 decided to adopt me then, as he would have adopted my 
 father — indeed he had adopted my father — and would 
 have made him his heir, but for his early death. When 
 the cold, courteous intimation had reached my mother, that 
 such a paternal connection of mine desired to prove himself 
 with me connected, she had indignantly repudiated the 
 possibility of my leaving her. Then I had been a veri- 
 table, if precocious baby ; I was now a precocious child. 
 — Ask mothers and nurses the difference between the 
 two ! 
 
 " Mamma, my uncle has a very great deal of money ;
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. O 
 
 and he is quite, all English. My little history with pictures 
 that he sent me says English are the richest men in all the 
 world. Mamma mine, I should like to be rich, and perhaps, 
 if I was very good indeed to my uncle, he would give me 
 all his money." 
 
 The letter had been read to me before I knew either the 
 meaning or value of — words. 
 
 " Ernesto, do you want to go away in a boat, and leave 
 mamma ? " 
 
 " Yes, yes ! indeed I do ! That is why I asked you, and 
 put on my shoes ; for I could have gone alone, without 
 asking you, or kissing you ; but then you would have 
 cried perhaps, and so should I, thinking of you a great 
 way off." 
 
 " But what made you think of it just now, Ernesto ? " 
 
 " Because of my brother ; he ought to have everything, 
 because he is the Count's son. And if he had everything, 
 you would not like it that I should have nothing, because 
 I am papa's." 
 
 'f The Count is very kind to you, too." 
 
 " He was ; I didn't like him to be ; but now I won't have 
 him, and I won't take any more presents from him, and all 
 he gave me I'll leave here for my little brother. Papa 
 would like that, I know." 
 
 " But why did you never tell me so before ? Ernesto, 
 if I had known you felt so — child, you should have told 
 your mother — I would never have married, but have only 
 lived for you." 
 
 "I didn't feel it, mamma — I never did feel it, really, 
 until the baby was born. So, when may I go to my uncle 
 in England, mamma ? " 
 
 The result of this little conversation and my predetermina- 
 tion was, that I Avent. My mother wrote to my uncle, and 
 until she heard from him I kept out of my false father's 
 way, though I loved the baby, and kissed my mother and it 
 more than ever. My uncle duly responded to my appeal.
 
 6 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 My mother made manifest that it was my own, and he pro- 
 fessed himself gratified I had chosen his parentship of my 
 own accord. The messenger — his servant — who brought 
 his letter to my mother, was to take me with him back to 
 England.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 UGLYVILLE. 
 
 Mr uncle Loftas — great uncle I should rightly name 
 him, but have never done so — lived at Uglyville, in Kent. 
 Happy those, who deigning to read, skip, or skim this my 
 page, may fail to recognize Uglyville ; whether cheated of 
 its hideous association by dwelling at Hyde Park, or being 
 buried while alive in a salt mine, blest be they ! 
 
 Yet Uglyville — I cannot call it town — it is the strong- 
 hold of villas, and of those who are enraptured so to register 
 their temporal habitations, — Uglyville has encroached, in 
 developing upon as fair a site as any in this cold island. 
 And its encroachment has indeed been rapid, — rapid as a 
 royal progress ; it is a convenient distance from the city ; it 
 twists shopkeepers into gentlemen by six minutes of railroad 
 transposition, allegro, not ■prestissimo, and before it was a 
 convenient, nay, when it was a singularly inconvenient dis- 
 tance from the city, on account of the steep hill approach- 
 ing it, and before trains had passed into popular fables, 
 it bore a reputation for healthiness, founded on, and solely 
 sustained — as far as my experience weighs — by the almost 
 exclusive prevalence of its easterly winds. 
 
 I little appreciated at the moment my uncle's considerate- 
 ness in sending the round-bodied, glossy-faced mortal — his 
 only personal attendant — to take me to England. He could 
 not speak a word of Italian, nor I of English, and at this 
 distance of date, I often wonder how we ever reached these
 
 8 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 shores under the circumstance?. The man, whose name was 
 John, had brought with him a little fat gold watch and slim 
 gold chain from my uncle, to beguile me in the parting from 
 my mother, and — on his own account and responsibility — 
 a hamper of eatables, and enough wraps to smother both 
 himself and me. As for the watch, I dropped it, in one of 
 the first lurches of the steamer, into the sea ; and John's face 
 fell longer when I turned with disgust from the dainties dear- 
 est loved of British school-boys — cakes dark with plums and 
 greasy with butter, clammy gingerbread, brown sugar " boiled 
 goods," and English shortbread worthy of the walls of Troy. 
 Despite the cloaks and furs to which I took very kindly in 
 the Channel, although they muffled me up to all but the eyes, 
 they prevented not nor moderated my first English realiza- 
 tion — Uglyville itself. I came upon Ugly ville in April ; 
 but as in England the months often play at each other's 
 games, there was a true March wind sweeping everything 
 dry, and leaving an inch of dead white dust upon the wide 
 brown arid plain. Of that heath, that dream of dreariness, 
 shall I ever forget my first glance and instant-enduring 
 hatred ? The tumulus-hke centi*al hillock, crowned with 
 stunted skeletons of firs, the scant sprinkle of starveling 
 daisies on the worn-out grass, the dismal gravel-pits, the 
 foetid stirless ponds, where, under a green canojiy of duck- 
 weed frogs croaked eternally, the cold low line of hills east- 
 ward, in the eyes of Ugly villians a delightful " view," — all 
 these monotonous items of a prospect totally unbeautiful, fell 
 upon me like a solid shadow, an unchildlike and almost 
 hysterical sense of woe. 
 
 Nor did the fii'st sight of my uncle's house tend to counter- 
 act this mournful spell. On its outside front, and side facing 
 the road, there was not a single window ; it looked like a 
 square monument of stone, such an erection as a Saxon 
 might have perpetrated from ignorance of the Greek mauso- 
 leum, in emulation of that celebrated crown of man's selfish- 
 ness in death, a palace to contain his ashes, l^ut witliin,
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 9 
 
 certainly within, the funei-al impression existed not. With- 
 out staircase, all the rooms on a floor, and all lighted from 
 the back, it was, if singularly, most perfectly built, and my 
 uncle, in fact, had chosen it to isolate himself the more com- 
 pletely from his neighbors, and to conserve more safely his 
 innumerable treasures, for it would have been next to impos- 
 sible for a housebreaker to enter it. 
 
 When I arrived at the entrance with John, he pulled a 
 bell, and the house door opened, as it seemed, of itself, but 
 actually by a spring touched in the dominions of the kitchen 
 by the cook. My uncle, among other trifles, could not bear 
 to hear footsteps on the stone pavement of the hall. Then 
 John, holding my hand, a little lump of human ice inside my 
 glove, marched me straight into a room where sat my uncle. 
 John's footsteps did not annoy him at any time or under any 
 circumstances. That quaint, dim, priceless library, with all 
 its dark rich windows and volumes redolent of Russia leather, 
 ■and carpet like many-colored moss, and velvet rocking-chairs ; 
 I noticed none of these things then ; the inhabitant of the 
 room alone enticed me, and it was well for me that the sus- 
 ceptibility to fascination, which has ever been at the same 
 time my blessing and my bane, was at that moment touched, 
 for it annihilated my design, formed the moment I mounted 
 the hill of Uglyville, of running away. As my uncle held 
 out his left hand to me without rising from his seat, I as 
 decidedly made up my mind to stop. He did not kiss me. 
 I doubt that he ever kissed any one in his life, but he ad- 
 dressed a word to John, who pulled off my cap, and then he 
 laid his right hand on my head, spanned my brow's breadth 
 with his thumb and little finger, touched the back of my 
 neck, then laid himself back in his chair and laughed. Not 
 accustomed to be laughed at, I might possibly have resented 
 it, but for an instinct, if possessed at any age, which is strong 
 in childhood. I knew the laugh carried with it no contempt- 
 uous verdict. I admired, too, my uncle's fixce, because, 
 though infinitely more fine and interesting, it had the type 
 1*
 
 10 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 of mine. I ever admired countenances of my own order, 
 but only in proportion as they approached the perfection of 
 that order, and ever in proportion was I conscious of the 
 short-comings of my own personal apparition. However, my 
 uncle's inspection of me at that time did not extend beyond 
 the laugh ; he bade me good-night in Italian, (though it was 
 the middle of the afternoon,) and, I suppose, told John in 
 English, to take me to bed, as, though his words were in an 
 unknown tongue, I was straightway conveyed into a room 
 close by, undressed, and put into a huge and high four-poster, 
 so vast to my apprehension, that when, on being left alone to 
 go to sleep, I crawled to the side and looked over, there 
 seemed to be an awful precipice between myself and the car- 
 pet. I did not sleep, but I rested, and I dreamed. More 
 like the life of the angels, than any phase of mortal being, 
 are the dreams of an imaginative child. 
 
 None, save such a one only, has dreamt, or can understand 
 them, with their vague, sweet marvellousness, their unex-. 
 hausting excitement. And imaginative children are as rare 
 as full-grown poets, as blissfully endowed, and, alas, as un- 
 happy. 
 
 When I was fetched out of bed and dressed, and put down 
 at table opposite my uncle, to dinner, a few hours afterwai'ds, 
 I knew perfectly by his shake of the head, half comic, half 
 complacent, and yet altogether compassionate, that he knew I 
 had not been to sleep. That tacit knowledge of me, so con- 
 veyed, was balm to the fatigue, which, now my wild bright 
 visions were dispersed, weighed down my eyes and heart. I 
 ate very little — scarcely more than a bird at any time — 
 and again I marked the furtive unexpressed approval in my 
 uncle's brilhant eyes. In fact, he not only liked, but -^ dan- 
 gerous fate for a child at once strong-headed and sensitive- 
 hearted — I felt he adnaired me. This admiration strength- 
 ened my desire to acquaint him with myself, and myself with 
 him, by means of language, and I pass over the phase of my 
 learning English, and many points besides, totally unnecessary 
 to my tale.
 
 ALMOST A IIEROINK. 11 
 
 My uncle was a thorough-bred eccentrician ; but this defi- 
 nition of him should perhaps be deferred. He was some- 
 thing else, and better ; whether more useful, it is not in me 
 to decide. A dilettante-virtuoso^ I must name him, for want 
 of a correspondent home-phrase ; and besides, an antiquarian, 
 and the king of connoisseurs, whose exchequer set no need- 
 ful limit to the indulgence of his whims, or the perfecting of 
 his vast-schemed and minutely-complete collection. This 
 consisted of precious duplicates, priceless uniques, and crown- 
 ing relics, of high, low, medium art. To its full glory I re- 
 mained, I fear, forever impervious ; and its first impression 
 upon me was rather dull than dazzling. 
 
 Those mediaeval cabinets of costly carving, close-packed 
 with riches of unwearable ornaments — with ancient rings 
 and signets, Egyptian necklaces, strange bracelets, won from 
 embalmed arms, and brooches ravished from the bosoms of 
 the dead — or stranger and more aged receptacles of jierfo- 
 rated wood, containing mosaics, and petrifactions, fibulae, 
 lachrymatories, chrismatories ; glass cases veiling from the 
 decaying air, weird idols of lost religions, and rude weapons 
 of forgotten warfare ; dry bones of extinct animals, and the 
 yet silky feathers of birds, \\hose wings no longer cleave a 
 lustrous path through any heaven ; trays upon trays of gems, 
 and coins, and memorial medals ; velvet-bedded boxes of 
 intaglii and camei ; shrines of wrought bronze, and ivory 
 chasing, ensculptured gold ; valuable whole, and invaluable 
 cracked vases ; the scarce books bound in wood, the gem- 
 incrusted missals, the papyrus-pamphlets, and black-letter 
 poems ; the tables of touch-me-not china, and wondrous 
 shells, and awful insects, pin-transfixed; the old medicines, 
 and older poisons, sealed in crystal ; these, among the items 
 of marvel and rarity innumerable, affected me with indiflfer- 
 ence, after they had sated my first curiosity ; nor was I 
 " knocked down," as the saying is, by the spoils of modern 
 luxury and art, ranging from the smallest models of all the 
 great inventions, to the choicest cabinet color-gems of a Tur-
 
 12 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 ner's brush ; from the latest-spied grass of the Australasian 
 Flora, to pyramids of Bohemian glass. I lived with these 
 treasures for years, was brought up — educated — partly 
 through them ; and my uncle was conversant with their 
 histories as a true aristocrat with the peerage ; yet I never 
 learned to distinguish Palissy from Raphael ware, Greek 
 work from Byzantine, nor a steam-engine half an inch long 
 from the mouse-trap of a Genevese Chatelaine. That my 
 uncle did not turn against me, as my ignorance and misap- 
 preciation grew upon him, I ascribe to the fact, that it is the 
 mere possession of such costly trifles that makes those who 
 desire them, happy ; and that they no more require other 
 men to like them (however they admire or envy) than they 
 would wish other men to love their Avives — suppose them 
 married. 
 
 This brings me to other characteristics of my uncle ; he 
 was a cynic of the sternest breed, an unquestionable misan- 
 thropist, a settled eremite. "When I became old enough to 
 marvel at his mode of life, I was also old enough to discern 
 why he, — high mannered and easy beyond a courtier, scholar 
 beyond the hbrary, and philanthropist whose mail-of-iron 
 philosophy cased a heart the most bountiful I ever knew, — 
 should so pass his existence in exile from humanity, shirking 
 the duties and the pleasure of social intercourse, and cutting 
 himself off' from all but solitary ties. I had not been long 
 under his roof, nor outside it often, before I clearly compre- 
 hended that as Diogenes chose a tub for a house, on special 
 account of its inconvenience and shelterlessness, so my uncle 
 selected the dull plain of Uglyville to pitch his tent on, 
 because of its dull ugliness and the moral and mental plati- 
 tude of its inhabitants. At thirteen, in due possession of the 
 eager, "not idle," curiosity of the imaginative, I one day 
 asked John (of whom something further presently) why my 
 uncle had never married ? 
 
 " I should have thought," I observed, " that any woman 
 would have had liim. It is a mod thiiiir for me, liow-
 
 ALMOST A UEROINE. 13 
 
 ever," I added consequentially, " that he would not have 
 them." 
 
 " Why so ? " asked John, simply — I don't suppose he ever 
 realized a meaning in words that only imjylied one. 
 
 " Because, of course, he would have had some children, 
 and I should not have been his heir." 
 
 " Oh," said John, not as an interjection, but, as it sounded, 
 because it was proper to acknowledge my remark. 
 
 " But," I persisted, " was he never after any lady, John ? 
 not even when he was young — as young as I am ? " 
 
 Let not this presumption of maturity in childhood go 
 against my chai-acter for innocence. I was innocent, ex- 
 ceedingly, too innocent to conceal the vanity of my age and 
 — sex ! John did not laugh, he never laughed ; but the 
 quiet smile that wrinkled his quiddity of a mouth, showed 
 that even if his sense of the absurd was dormant, it could 
 be pricked by anything superlatively I'idiculous. 
 
 " Very young gentlemen," said John, after the smile had 
 slowly dispersed, and his mouth had returned to its normal 
 shapelessness, " very young gents do better not to marry ; 
 there is plenty of time for them to look about them, and not 
 take up with the first young woman that looks at them in 
 church." 
 
 At this distance of time I have a dim glimmer of a recol- 
 lection that John was alluding to the daughter of the pew- 
 opener at the great dark church to which John went on 
 Sunday evenings, and to which he sometimes took me " for a 
 change," as he expressed it ; and which young lady, excited 
 by my connection with my uncle's mystery, always made a 
 point of piling seven stray hassocks up outside our immensely 
 high gallery pew-door, and sitting atop of them to gaze 
 upon me. But John did me an injustice here ; I might be 
 vain of her constant regard, and I might have gazed on her 
 in return, fascinated to do so by her having no decent seat in 
 church of her own, by her always eating peppermint lozenges 
 during tlie service (she never offered me one), and by lier
 
 14 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 always disappearing during the sermon, sliding gently down- 
 wards from her uncertain eminence, in a doze, to the ground ; 
 but I never was in love with her, even at thirteen. I sup- 
 pose I replied indignantly to John's remark above ; I do not 
 remember ; but I recollect that I persevered in questioning 
 him about my uncle and his matrimonial short-comings. At 
 last, John, who had been dusting one of the precious vases, 
 had finished his work, and returned to his own quarters, 
 saying, to stop my tongue, and satisfy me at once, I sup- 
 pose : — "* 
 
 " You can find out the shortest way, Mr. Ernest, if you 
 ask your uncle ; he never refuses you nothing." 
 
 And so I did, — it was ever in me to blend audacity with 
 timorousness ; I asked him at dinner, for I always dined in 
 state w^ith him from my tenderest years. 
 
 " Uncle, what was the reason you did not marry ? " 
 My uncle did not even make a grimace, nor smile ; he said 
 (quite as seriously as though I were a grown man to whom 
 he " passed the bottle " ) : — 
 
 " Because, if women have deteriorated since Eve, as 
 much as men since Adam, I would rather sell myself to 
 the devil that tempted the former, — and include you in 
 the bargain." 
 
 This singular avowal, so fiercely worded, frightened me 
 not one whit : — I believe (without understanding the letter) 
 that I apprehended the spirit of its form — the ill-digested 
 memory of some deep slight or heart- wrong. My poor 
 uncle ! Never saw I a fair picture on his walls, nor a fair 
 face at his board. I often fancy, though, that as his skepti- 
 cism of the kindliness of his kind has been mildly reproduced 
 in me, that as his unbelief in human gratitude has also 
 thwarted in myself the intense power o^ feeling gratitude, so 
 it may have been, there was one face too fair for love's sake, 
 too dearly enshrined in memory's dark chamber, for him to 
 bear to let in upon it the least light of association ; and, if 
 60, here also has my doom too fatally repeated his.
 
 ALMOST A ]IKR()INK. 15 
 
 The sketch of his outward cai'eer is indeed slight, yet cer- 
 tainly not insignificant. His father, the untitled and unen- 
 dowed offshoot of a ragged noble family, married, just at the 
 end of the last century, the daughter of a corn-factor in flour- 
 ishing circumstances — mai'ried her for love, and, as she hap- 
 pened to be an only child, succeeded her father at his death — 
 thereby losing his last slender hold upon his loftier connec- 
 tions. Corn-factors flourished but mildly then, but there 
 came a time when the ports being closed and foods scarce, 
 bad men made money by basely locking the barn-door ; the 
 wise and generous — rare indeed — lost more by throwing 
 it wide open ; and here and there in a single instance — as 
 in that of my uncle's father — a few hundreds were realized 
 in return. With these (the aristocratic scent fairly out of his 
 own nostrils by that time) he pui'chased a small share in a 
 wholesale tallow-chandler's concern for his son — I know not 
 whether the august scent lingered in the nostrils of my uncle, 
 but certainly they failed to assimilate with the tallow flavor ; 
 — he hated it — but, unlike most youths disgusted with their 
 occupations, he neither ran away from his, nor slighted its 
 demands. He moi'e than worked hard — he slaved — all 
 day at the greasy books, and half the night at books whose 
 influences were at least safe to counteract any contamination 
 from the former. I have always believed that an ardently 
 intellectual nature succeeds the best even on vulgar grounds 
 and in the least exalting circumstances, for his was such a 
 one, and in a space of time, in which another youth would 
 have merely received his salary's first rise, he was taken into 
 partnership. 
 
 That very year, by a master-stroke of business (which is 
 conglomerated in my mind Avith a Russian merchant and an 
 extraordinary hai'd winter), the partners made half a million 
 between them ; next year, the senior died, childless and 
 unmarried ; my uncle succeeded to the complete command of 
 the business — then immense — sold it out of his own 
 hands in a month, and went abroad at five and twenty to com-
 
 16 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 plete (or commence ?) • his education ; not to squander his 
 princely fortune, which, except for the trifling pittance he 
 lived on, he did not touch for years. It is pei'haps only in 
 the great continental cities that a man can study ardently, 
 with every appliance at a reasonable price — for, after all, a 
 man must be wise enough to be his own master in order to 
 study. My uncle had no lyrivate tutors — his teachers were 
 the grand free libraries, the splendid galleries wide open for 
 every class, and for languages, for philology, for science, he 
 clung to, rather than attended the matchless lectures of the Ger- 
 man universities, the seminaries of Italy, and the yet classic 
 schools of Seville and Madi'id. In five years he was a fine, 
 if not a pi'ofound, scholar — conversationally, every Euro- 
 pean tongue was his ; and he stood before the world out 
 there, where such advantages tell best, as a well-born man, 
 and high-bred gentleman, about Avhom, though he was 
 thoroughly appreciated, no person made remarks, pertinent 
 or impertinent, for wherever foreign society is totally sepa- 
 rate from English, any rank may mask itself, and never be 
 called in question. But by that time the natural human re- 
 action took place in his breast — the intellectual and physical 
 repute he had attained was insufficient ; the desire to dazzle, 
 or at least to astound, that other little world at home, whose 
 narrowness and over-crowdedness he had forgotten or did not 
 know, rushed over and enchained him. People, too, who 
 have made money, (particularly in trade,) are prone to over- 
 rate its actual power ; above all they are rather inclined to 
 despise those who have inherited, not made it. So my uncle 
 returned to England ; but he came back too soon, that is, he 
 did not stay away long enough to let it be forgotten how he had 
 made his money. So he protested — for from this point the 
 rare hints of his history which I gathered from his lips are 
 instinct with his convictions — only half convictions of mine 
 then, and wholly repudiated by me now. He persisted sol- 
 emnly and unvaryingly that in the English circles to which 
 his wealth authorized his admission, he was uniformly insult-
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 17 
 
 ed, both by patrons and parasites ; reminded carefully of his 
 being so admitted on sufferance, smiled down upon by those 
 who greedily devoured his substance ; finally, disgusted with 
 society as he had been with tallow, but by no means so brave 
 in relation to the former as to the latter — he dropped out of 
 it once and forever, and, personally, was no moi'e known of 
 men. And there has always been a hiatus in ray medita- 
 tions when trying to understand and explain this whim, this 
 mystery, — this, at all events, settled fact. My uncle was 
 the sanest man alive : it was impossible to call him morbid, 
 — he so instantly detected the least symptom of that moral 
 weakness. Nor was he timid, nor hypochondriac, nor cold : 
 it is likely, however, that in society he would not have shone, 
 for, without a touch of the erraticism of genius which diverts 
 the crowd, he was too intellectual in generalities, too far- 
 seeking for motives of excellence, too self-conscious to bear 
 the uninterested stares of those who are curious where they 
 love not — who envy those they hate ! I have still a lin- 
 gering fancy that will not fly, that he was mistreated or mis- 
 understood by a woman. He was a man of a mould that 
 would harden, under such passionate circumstances, against 
 every man. As for woman, I never heard him speak of one 
 individually. No, he shirked even the reading of my moth- 
 er's letters, regular as the irregularities of the Italian mails 
 allowed. Certainly I could write a book wholly about my 
 uncle, and I fear this episode concerning him will do neither 
 him nor myself the justice we deserve ! — but he was a char- 
 acter the like of which may possibly be unique in a genera- 
 tion, or, aloe-like, the blossom of a century alone. In speak- 
 ing of his indifference to women, I allude to women in soci- 
 ety — received woiaew I might call them — only. But women 
 of the class unnamed, which the lowest christened will not 
 own — abandoned wornen they are called — by whom aban- 
 doned'l — oh! ye men, self-censors in your careless nomen- 
 clature of those your brethren have betrayed, and you restore 
 not! — those women, in hundreds, were saved from starva-
 
 18 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 tion, from necessary sin, from drowning, from child-mur- 
 der, from the cold hell which exceeds all fiery images of 
 the infernal depths — despair — by this- same relative of 
 mine, who stood aloof from men, and ignored their lawful 
 wives. 
 
 The sums my uncle dispensed in such secret charities 
 were immense ; they were secret from the world, I mean, 
 and from those they benefited, but well known to me, and 
 I may say, in all humility, that if my conscience as a man 
 is pure regarding women, if no mist defiles my memory from 
 any shame or cruelty, I owe it to one who fearlessly led me 
 to a knowledge of those who are the hest and the loorst of 
 God-created beings, by a " path the vulture's eye hath not 
 seen, and the eye of the eagle hath not discovered." 
 
 I cannot deny, with all my affectionate regard for him 
 and the admiration he inspired me with, despite of his 
 serious oddity, that my uncle was vain. For, as it has been 
 said, there is " high nonsense and low nonsense," and a 
 great difference between them, so I assume there are vani- 
 ties high and low. My uncle was vain of being a rich man 
 — the richest man in Kent, but vainer of his collection, 
 because it consisted of objects which no one (who could have 
 afforded it) had cared to buy. Of course Caucasian trea- 
 sure dealers, after one of their (never vainly-acquired) 
 experiences of my uncle's taste and means, always com- 
 municated with him privately before they published their 
 list of unpurchasables ; and of course the unpurchasables 
 were so because my uncle had bought them beforehand. 
 Of course also it was delicious to any human being not 
 wholly free from vanity to read in the Times, outweighing 
 bank-notes to-day, waste rag to-morrow, that such and such 
 a picture, jug, jewel, autograph, or model of patent process 
 out -steaming steam, had been added to the " Great Loftus 
 Collection, at the Roman Villa, Uglyville." Particularly 
 interesting and flattering to the low vanities of the myriad 
 readers of the Times, such announcements must have been,
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 19 
 
 because, until an epoch I shall have to touch on, no creature, 
 hi<Th or low, in these dominions was ever the better, or tlie 
 wi°er, or the less vain, on account of the said collection, 
 rri-eat'uudoubtedly as it was, and Loftus-belonging, as it has 
 lone: ceased to be.
 
 CHAPTER HI. 
 
 UGLTVILLE, JOHN, AND I. 
 
 It is fortunate for me that many books published the 
 last season or two have in their matter thrown so httle light 
 upon their titles ; in fact that titles (especially of chapters) 
 have become almost as little characteristic of their contents 
 as men's own inevitable surnames are of their idiosyncrasies. 
 For in my last chapter, Uglyville, its absolute cognomen is 
 little enough celebrated, and in my present it must, perforce, 
 be less. Not that I could not write a treatise (it would be 
 dry, but not didactic) upon that suburb and its inhabitants. 
 Totally as I was held aloof from them in society, they are 
 too fond of making themselves conspicuous in their very 
 characterlessness not to be distinctly realizable, how nega- 
 tive soever. Money-worship in its meanest form, and pas- 
 sionless curiosity about the concerns of those they love 
 not — these qualities, whether positive or negative, perhaps 
 do not distinguish Uglyvillians more than they adorn the 
 populations of suburbs in general ; but from my experience 
 of many another suburb since, I certainly declare that in no 
 other district exists in such frozen perfection the art of being 
 indifferent. Any musician tempted to give a concert there, 
 any astronomer yearning to electrify a lecture-room with a 
 part of his stellar enthusiasm, any poor but burning-hearted 
 patriot in exile, daring to trust for an hour to the political 
 sympathies, if none other, of an Uglyvillian audience, can 
 testify to its insolent insipidity, the ice -like demeanor of its 
 universal face — which is no mask.
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 21 
 
 My uncle, governed by so many whims, and his whim-in- 
 chief being gratified to the utmost, was pei'haps best justi- 
 fied, as a finite being merely in the least of his minor whims 
 
 — or what seemed the least, until a crisis proved it to have 
 been the dominant one. This was his indulgence of, and 
 it might almost be termed exaggerated confidence in, the one 
 attendant he suffered about his person. 
 
 I have mentioned John before. As a person he is almost 
 indescribable, for his countenance contained no more human 
 or superhuman expression — hardly more actual form — 
 than a I'ed boss of a daisy in a rustic garden. His figure 
 was as unfiguresque as his face was little facially developed, 
 
 — round and bossy likewise, set firmly on elephant-shaped, 
 not elephant-sized, feet, appai'cntly free from encumbrance 
 of muscle, but clothed to the very fingers' ends with sohd 
 fat. Indeed, to sum up in his own words, my much less 
 competent delineation, he was "all crumb and no crust." 
 
 I have spoken of his standing on his pedal proportions 
 like an elephant, but the resemblance did not cease at those 
 extremities, though it might be said to begin there. When 
 I was old enough to read natural history, I always compared 
 John's method of setting out on, and doing his duties, with 
 the conduct of that wonderful animal when trained and 
 mastered. For the simple secret of John's character was 
 that strange, strong, unswerving allegiance to his master 
 which is as much more docile as it is less sagacious than that 
 of the dog. 
 
 If my uncle had called to John to come and put his head 
 against the inside of the dining-room door, and quietly in- 
 formed him that he (John) was about to have, then and 
 there, his ear bored through with an awl, John would have 
 believed it, have gone and stood, nay, I even think, he 
 would have been disappointed if his master had not kept 
 his word. It was a mercy John had not been born in 
 actual slavery, for through his implicitness he would prob- 
 ably have lost his life. And it was a fact that this servant's
 
 22 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 conscience was in his master's keeping, for John would have 
 told any number of fibs, have perpetrated any number of 
 follies, had my uncle commanded him, only not even that 
 sovereign will could have made him dishonest. The ele- 
 phantine comparison returns on me when I remembered 
 John's business, and how it was performed. As the ele- 
 phant silently, with small, expressionless eyes, watches the 
 loads of wood laid ready for him to remove, receives on 
 his dull, monstrous brain the impression of the distance, 
 and the spot, his keeper measures and indicates, then does 
 what he has to do, once knowing it (confounding example 
 to the brightest genius of us all !), so John used to take my 
 uncle's orders (they were rarely the same in order two days 
 together). The cook dressed dinners only, and had more 
 greasy cinderbreeches to " clear up " after her by making 
 everything dirtier, than was good for any cook, but no one 
 gave her orders. She ordered our board herself, for my 
 uncle hated housekeepers, saying that they were less rep- 
 utable than mistresses in a bachelor's house. The parlor 
 maids, three of them, each idler than her sister, swept the 
 drawing-rooms with fluffy besoms, and made the dust fly, 
 and left finger marks on the white gilt walls therein, and 
 two housemaids with nothing to do, after they had made my 
 uncle's bed and mine, were eternally giving warning per- 
 force of circumstances ; no windows to look out of, " no fol- 
 lowers " allowed, and a truly fat place failing through such 
 conventual restraint. But the crown an'd glory of that win- 
 dowless and vault like abode, the Collection, that for which 
 the legitimate saloons of the architect's intention had been 
 reserved, walls pulled down, ceilings raised, and ample sky- 
 lights introduced, — the collection pertained — as solitary 
 charge — to John. He only was suffered besides myself, to 
 enter it ; he only, saving my uncle, held its mysterious pa- 
 tent key, and when I went his daily rounds with him, my 
 pet amusement as a child, I used to marvel at the precision 
 and delicacy of his difficult and minute performances. He
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 23 
 
 dusted all, handling and sepai-ating infinitesimal and brittle 
 articles for the purpose ; he wiped the picture-frames and 
 cleaned the pictures, he slipped his fingers into the cases to 
 sprinkle camphor powder, or determine, by a thermometer a 
 thumb long, whether a fire was wanted in the room or not. 
 And it may seem that his task, though exceptional, was 
 easy ; so it would have been if performed in strict routine, but 
 almost every day my uncle, who had the distribution and 
 aspect of his multitudinous and multiform idol in his mind'* 
 eye continually, was for having the position of such a speci- 
 men changed, such a group removed or remodelled, or 
 such and such a table stripped and re-covered with the con- 
 tents of the secret drawer of another. And, as the elephant 
 plucks the leaf-fan to shade his master from the heat, or 
 picks up a needle from the sand, both with his great elastic 
 feeler, so did John effect such awkward changes, without ac- 
 cident, demur, or self-gratulation. My uncle never watched 
 him nor advised him on these occasions ; he went his master's 
 way in his own manner, and if I had not been my uncle's 
 nephew, I am sure he must have hated me (if indeed John 
 could have either hated or loved), so remorselessly did I 
 follow him about in my childhood — nay, even after that — 
 and gave my small and useless advice in the most conse- 
 quential style. John was a standing myth to me in my 
 youngest days, and therefore my standard amusement, as 
 good as " a play" — John's own notion of the Ultima Thulc 
 both of enjoyment afld of dissipation — indeed, he took rae to a 
 play once .in an unknown neighborhood, where I saw the 
 " Oyster crossed in Love," and where John slept while I 
 gaped thereat. Still by my incessant and not unintelligent 
 questions, by my hints at different modes of life than oui's, 
 by niy downright infantine opinions above all, I must have 
 intensely and, though not to him, ludicrously tormented him. 
 For instance, I was always asking him why he was not mai*- 
 ried, whether he would like to be? — why he did not wear 
 plush breeches and white stockings like the flunkies at the
 
 24 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 house, a city fish salesman's over the way? — why he had 
 a red face, while my uncle and I were pale ? I was contin- 
 ually telling him that he was made of delf, and I of china ; 
 that it was very wrong to call the wicket gate " wicked," in 
 " The Pilgrim's Progress," which was his idea of all poetry 
 and religion, and which I used to teaze him to read to me 
 on Sunday evenings. To read ! Why, he hesitated at 
 every other word, and between each three left a countable 
 hiatus — while he never pronounced the simplest dissyllable 
 right — for John could only read in the most imperfect and 
 inferior manner, and could absolutely not write at all. That 
 he ever signed his name legally, he owed to my instruction — 
 but that is out of place here. 
 
 All I ever knew of John's origin, history, and circum- 
 stances, was from my uncle. I have said John could neither 
 love or hate. It seems to me that those two atmospheres of 
 darkness and of light surround only the most passionate 
 spirits, whether good or bad, on earth. But there is in 
 some passionless natures the faculty of worship ; and John 
 worshipped my uncle. If he could possibly have been in- 
 fluenced or touched by Roman Catholicism, he would have 
 been accessible through his adoration of his master, whom 
 he would have straightway stuck at the top of the calendar, 
 nay, before the Virgin herself. 
 
 My cui'iosity, which, though constantly curbed by my 
 uncle's reticence, was never repressed by him, led me, of 
 course, to question him about John. All he ever told me 
 was, that when first he went into business, a very young and 
 dissatisfied mortal, he found John, still younger, but neither 
 dissatisfied nor the reverse, sitting on the kerbstone which 
 bounded a city crossing, with a very old broom, little more 
 than a stump, in his hand. That he, my uncle, instead of 
 giving him a penny, as is the fashion with street crossers, 
 gave him a new broom ; whereupon John, the moment he 
 could realize the estate he had fallen into, wept and abased 
 himself yet nearer the gutter than the kerbstone. My uncle
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 25 
 
 did not intend to be moved by this testimony of a gratitude 
 he deemed too strongly expressed to be genuine, but found next 
 morning that, witliout neglecting his own proper crossing, 
 John had cleared a space of the narrow street in which my 
 uncle's business premises were situated immediately before 
 the door. This was not all ; the moment my uncle ap- 
 peared outside, on various errands intrusted in such cases to 
 the junior and more peripatetic partner, John, at a modest 
 and unobtrusive distance, followed him, broom in hand, and 
 made him on all occasions a clear way through the London 
 grease, wherever he paused to cross the road. My uncle's 
 then budding cynicism was checked by this behavior — only 
 for that hour, and in this instance, however — and he re- 
 solved to test his broom-bearer on higher grounds. 
 
 There was required a person to clean the windows, and 
 carry to a safe distance the refuse of the candle-factory ; my 
 uncle offered the post to John on behalf of the firm, and, 
 solely on bis own account, offered the same post without 
 wages. John accepted it with dumb delight, neither appar- 
 ently dreaming of nor desiring remuneration ; for when my 
 uncle went abroad and told John he would take him with him 
 on account of his disinterestedness (I wonder how my uncle 
 explained the word, or meaning of it, to him,) and that he 
 would give him the wages he would bestow on a personal 
 attendant who had no other work to do ; John flatly and in- 
 nocently refused to take any wages whatsoever, superadding 
 that he would much rather receive food, clothes, lodging, and 
 recreation at his master's hand and suggestion, than arrange 
 them for himself. 
 
 My uncle, thinking the man a knave who made such a 
 proposition for deeper ends than his own, gave in, hoiking to 
 detect him, took him at his word, and took him abroad ; found 
 in the end, perhaps, that the man was a fool, but certainly 
 less of a knave than his master. My uncle maintained, per- 
 haps ideally, that John protected him from sharpers, swin-
 
 26 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 dlers, gamblers, and " noblemen," in the continental career in 
 which his servant was his satellite. 
 
 After the first year, my uncle lazily, but permanently con- 
 vinced, not only of John's truth, but of his correct and simple 
 instinct, desired to refund him, and relieve his oivn conscience 
 from his suspicions unverified, by giving him a double wage. 
 If John could have " come" indignation, it would have been 
 on that occasion whereon he repudiated the little heap of sov- 
 ereigns twisted up in a bank-note. And John never did 
 receive actual wages as a servant ; gutter-bred and cellar- 
 born, as he undoubtedly was, he only consented, on returning 
 to England with his now inseparable master, to take ten 
 pounds a year, for keeping in order the mystery of his won- 
 der and worship, the Collection, then a mere nucleus, but 
 projected even then to infinite lengths, by its possessor. 
 
 It must have been proof of very great poiver of natural 
 affection in my uncle that he sent John to fetch me from 
 Italy, for John did everything for him he allowed any one to 
 do : made his coffee — aired his shirts — washed his feet ; 
 he must have been lost without John while he was away. 
 
 One word more of John, and I will rest my reader from 
 him here. I have said he could not write. Now my uncle 
 always expressed a curious anxiety that he should be able 
 to sign his name. "When I was about fifteen myself, and 
 could write about as well as I ever should, my uncle desired 
 me to teach John. 1 tried ardently, elated with the task, but 
 I suppose my schemes were too vast, for when my uncle 
 questioned as to progress, at the end of a month, I had noth- 
 ing to show in proof of my pupil's having human hands, save 
 a copy-book full of " marks " which an ape might have .per- 
 petrated as well — downstrokes and curves alike, a conglom- 
 erate failure. 
 
 " Then," said my uncle, " make him only to sign his name ; 
 I ivill have him sign his name ; it is necessary and can be 
 done."
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 27 
 
 Forthwith I stuck to the axiom that habit is second nature, 
 and coninienced by guiding John's hand with my own for an 
 lioiu- every day, and at the end of six months he could act- 
 ually do " John" by himself in printed letters, not writing, 
 thou"-h another stumbling-block occurred in the letter h, which 
 he considered superfluous, and for an immense time persisted 
 in leaving out. Then another dilRculty remained. lie had 
 no surname of his own, that he was aware of, and was an age 
 before he would fix on one, — at last taking that of Crofts, 
 as in some sense reminiscent of the name he thought greater 
 than Guelph or Caesar. This arrangement was not objected 
 to by my uncle, and remained ; only he stipulated that I 
 should make John Crofts write his signature regularly every 
 day afterwards. 
 
 Lastly — I myself. I suppose most persons like to write 
 about themselves ; I do not, and only shall so far as is abso- 
 lutely needful — after childhood. Mine was an exceptional 
 education. I know not whether it made me an exceptional 
 person, or whether anyhow I should have been one, but one 
 I am. I think that my uncle was right in never sending me 
 to school ; — at all events from my experience and observa- 
 tions since, I believe I should have died there. Premature 
 physical exhaustion would have ensued upon the duality of 
 my mental action ; that is, whatever I had been set to study, 
 and however, I should have done it with all my might, and 
 my intellect would have been working out its own impulses 
 at the same time. Under my uncle's supervision I studied 
 nothing I did not take to, as the phrase is. It was his opin- 
 ion, perhaps a correct one, that such forced application was 
 useless without fruition, and likely to create disgust even for 
 what one is naturally inclined to learn. I was therefore suf- 
 fered to drop Latin before I had mastered its rudiments, to 
 cling to Greek, to remain in the darkest ignorance of all but 
 the simplest arithmetical forms, to nurture my ideality on the 
 master-poets before I learned the standard historic data, to 
 fling up German when I had learnt it a week, on account of
 
 28 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 my hating its pronunciation, and to learn Spanish on pur- 
 pose to read Lope de Vega (a selection from whom, translated, 
 enraptured me) in the original. My uncle supervised every 
 step I took ; my masters (I had firstrate ones) never gave 
 me a lesson without his heing present, and had little enough 
 to do, in the formation of my character at least, for they never 
 spoke to me save of the subject of instruction in hand. My 
 uncle never allowed me to have a resident tutor, and I never 
 desu-ed one. My very masters interested me not as individ- 
 uals, perhaps because my intercourse with them was so lim- 
 ited, perhaps because no one of them ever happened to have 
 genius. Yet, though thus indulgently and exclusively trained, 
 I was by no means effeminately educated. Indeed, a more 
 manly companion than ray uncle, physically, could not be 
 found. He was an excellent wrestler — had studied the 
 pugilistic arts abroad, and very early brought my muscles 
 into training. He rowed and shot well. I learned both 
 easily, but detested those crack enjoyments of springing boy- 
 hood. He was a firstrate horseman — and riding I adored. 
 I do not think that any exercise, any occupation of the frame, 
 so enhances the power of meditation, so facilitates the dream 
 of thought, and therefore I loved it, more than for the exhil- 
 aration said to be caused by it, or the elasticity of mood it is 
 asserted to maintain, as neither of these results did I expe- 
 rience. 
 
 It may seem strange that cut off from my kind of my own 
 age in boyhood, 1 never hankered after such companionship. 
 In my early childhood, when freely permitted to accept invi- 
 tations if I chose, and receiving a good many out of kindness, 
 or compassion, or curiosity, I never used to visit other chil- 
 dren. An irresistible conviction invariably struck me that I 
 was superior to them, not in worldly position, nor because 
 their precocious mercenary tastes induced them, even then, to 
 do homage to my uncle's wealth in me. Nor, while so posses- 
 sed by this feeling that I locked it in my most secret heart as a 
 treasure, was I an instant vain. The sweet appreciativeness of
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 29 
 
 beauty, of grace, of tenderness, even of love, born in me, I felt 
 for as for something not myself intrusted to me, something 
 heaven-given and immoi-tal, for whose sacred charge I was 
 answerable ; and when in games with such chikken of my 
 age as came across me, I perceived their little faults and great 
 or minor follies — their thoughtlessness, their eagerness each 
 to outdo each in what seemed to me too trumpery an amuse- 
 ment to care to engage in at all, their selfishness, perhaps 
 sometimes their rudeness, I inwardly rejoiced (poor infant of 
 frailer mould than they) that from such flaws I was free. 
 And was I then free ? I sincerely believe so ; but I did not 
 then take into consideration, nor was I strong enough to com- 
 prehend, that the ignorance and weakness of humanity is not 
 measured in the eternal scale by the proportion of each man's 
 ignorance and weakness in relation to his fellow-man, but in 
 his individual relation to his Creator. 
 
 However, to be too hard neither upon myself nor my con- 
 temporaries of tender age, I do not imagine I could have 
 ever done them any good, nor did they ever any of them do 
 me any harm. As I grew into that unvenerable crisis, the 
 " old age of children," I slipped off my never-yearned-for 
 acquaintances, as I disposed of my child-dresses, and seriously 
 set myself towards the future. And here at this mid-life 
 stage of mine, come to me long befoi-e the real mid-age of 
 man, I often look back and try to realize what it was I meant 
 to do in the future. I cannot see, and I doubt if I then saw, 
 what my culmination was to be, even in my mind's desire, 
 with the glorious halo of ideal ignorance around it. All I 
 can recall, very faintly, is, that I was to have all my uncle's 
 money some day, and very decidedly not to do as he himself 
 had done. 
 
 Yet for a long time the thirst for knowledge — I dare not 
 say for wisdom — filled me and sufficed me. Arrived at the 
 period of adolescence, when the majority of boys are in- 
 tensely ignorant of all except Latin verses, mathematics of 
 the average exaltation, premature tobacco-smoking, and more
 
 30 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 than premature curiosity as to the grown-up feminine world ; 
 and when the minority of boys are cramming for college ex- 
 hibitions, choking for little examinations, or flinging their 
 hearts' bright blood upoa that stage of merciless massacre 
 misnamed the field of military glory, — at such a period I 
 was about as unfit for any kind of practical life out of my- 
 self, as a woman who has been blind from birth ; yet, Avith 
 every kind of literary information pent up in me, and with 
 an inward sight too richly satisfied perpetually with every 
 attribute of ideal beauty ; with a heart manly to the very 
 core in its passionateness, its integrity, and its anticipation — 
 the anticipation of all bliss, and bliss-imparting power in the 
 solemn surety, if yet unrealized, of ideal, which was soon to 
 be real love. 
 
 At this period, not to prose or poetise on the bare literal 
 fact of my own condition, my uncle took a fright. I traced 
 it, first dimly, then decidedly, in alternating fits of his own 
 abstract despondency and an over-earnest observation of 
 myself. I had ever been wont to converse with him unre- 
 strainedly ; now a limit seemed set to our discourse, when, 
 after digging into dark meanings of Old World books, or 
 greedily digesting strange axioms of obsolete philosophy, I 
 betrayed, as my wont, what had been my library depreda- 
 tions, my uncle looked anxious instead of amused, as before- 
 times. Above all, when I culled a leaf or two of the forest 
 of my imperfect scribblings, (as a matter of course I scrib- 
 bled to an awful extent,) having selected to my own idea the 
 best of what was not good at all, perhaps, my uncle's coun- 
 tenance fell, and not only he failed to smile — he frowned. 
 
 One day, just after I was nineteen, he observed to me : — 
 
 " Ernest, I should like you to have a peep of the world at 
 least, as I had — after your age, though ; but for you it can- 
 not be too soon. I want you to pack up your portmanteau, 
 take John, and go abroad." 
 
 He might have said more, perhaps even indicated the par- 
 ticular destination he had in view, but I interrupted him
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 31 
 
 wildly. I was seized with a morbid agony at the idea of 
 leaving my locality and mode of life. 
 
 " Oil, no, no ! " I cried. " Anything else — I could not 
 go, I am too well off, I am perfectly happy, I have all — 
 everything I wish for — and you, do you Avish me to leave 
 you, uncle ? I thought that by this time perhaps I had 
 become a fit companion for you — you have done so much 
 for me." 
 
 " You do not wish to see your mother again, then ? " he 
 interposed, but in such a forced tone that I felt sure this re- 
 mark had no connection with the first one. 
 
 " I should certainly like to see her if she sent for me — 
 which she has never done — or if she were ill ; but I am 
 quite certain that, though she has as much affection for me 
 as I deserve, she does not want me." 
 
 " I wonder whether you would trust to affection that gave 
 you no immediate proof, my boy." 
 
 This remark touched me as being quite insignificant as it 
 was obscure. I took no notice of it. I only reiterated, 
 " Unless you are sick of me, or unless I have displeased 
 you, pray let me remain here." 
 
 I remained — but in an atmosphere of intellectual luxury 
 how could I make moral progress ? I was stationary, use- 
 less, and did no harm. I knew not how to do good, and 
 failed to do the least.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 A STRANGE AVILL, AND A STRANGER LEGATEE. 
 
 One article of the Collection I must especially mention, 
 but not because it was beautiful, useful, or even rare. It 
 was an iron chest, clamped and footed with brass, not larger 
 than a lady's writing-desk ; indeed its appearance very much 
 resembled what might have represented a lady's writing-desk 
 at Pompeii, — before its lava immersion, — for it Avas cer- 
 tainly not discovered and dug out there. It was one of the 
 earliest specimens my uncle picked up in a desultory fashion, 
 because it was curious and because it was cheap ; just as 
 schoolboys buy elegant marbles of each other at reduced 
 prices, or j)urchase of old shopkeepers birdcages or dog- 
 kenneis, without having a bird or a dog to put in either. 
 Having bought this strong little box in the earliest days of 
 his mania, before it had become dominant over him, I sup- 
 pose my uncle cherished it as a sign and token of that acquis- 
 itive genius he so much approved of in himself afterwards, 
 and so crowningly gratified. However it was, he kept it 
 carefully, and at the time I first remember it, as rather a 
 blanking blot upon the fair, rare face of the collection, it had 
 no lock nor key, was simply shut down upon itself by a lid 
 which showed no crack when closed, and filled with such 
 precious rubbish as morsels of porcelain, fractured (despite 
 of the duster's tender care), from china cups too transparently 
 frail to hold their characters intact forever, or fragments of 
 bright moths' feather-dust which time had forced to share 
 dust's universal doom, and fall to pieces ; or chips from
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 33 
 
 mouldings of oldest picture-frames, or atoms rent by ruthless 
 chance from vivid enamel edges, or sparkling splinters of 
 Venetian glass. This all-refined refuse of what I valued 
 not sufficiently was not nearly so interesting to me as a plate 
 of rude willow pattern, that mystery of mysteries to a child, 
 or a real primrose-tinted common butterfly, alive and winging, 
 or a wood-engraving in the last new Illustrated London News, 
 or the fresh coat of paint with which our front door was an- 
 nually endowed. I used to wonder at my uncle for keeping 
 so ugly and clumsy a box at all, and still more at his conser- 
 vation of its contents ; and I very nearly despised John for 
 taking just as much care to clean it in every external part as 
 he took to keep the delicate and splendid specimens in order. 
 Plaving access to every volume in my uncle's library (good 
 and bad alike found place there, unless indifferent on the 
 score of power and bookcraft), I early associated that plain, 
 unfigured, brass-edged and footed chest with Aladdin's won- 
 derful lamp, which was so unpromising in its sui'face-expres- 
 sion as to require rubbing up and sand-cleaning to render it 
 decently presentable. I should, had I in my infantine days 
 been left in solitary possession of the premises, very prob- 
 ably have changed my " old lamp " for the first trumpery 
 red cotton-box or paper-lined (and paper-made) papeterie, 
 of any itinerant vendor ; there are such too remaining, 
 though the picturesque pedlar-trade be past. However, I 
 had no such chance, and in time I forgot all about the ugly 
 iron box. I scarcely ever went into the Collection-room and 
 when I did it was only to see some fresh-added relic of old 
 or new creativeness, in the material, recommended to my 
 notice by my uncle — and, strange perhaps to say, my uncle 
 fell off from his unmitigated devotion to his exclusive treas- 
 ure, the last few years of his life ; a fact, perhaps one 
 more added to a myriad of facts, of the vanity of all earthly 
 possessions, valued on their oion account. Ruling passions, 
 however, would be no proof (as they are) of the existence 
 of a soul, if they grew fainter near the end of mortal life ; 
 
 2 *
 
 ■34 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 — SO my uncle was just as greedy in his last yeai' as any 
 year before, to obtain possession of what was precious and 
 uncommon, whether old or new. But two years before his 
 death (I was just of age in law then), he conceived and car- 
 ried out a queer fancy, though to me it conveyed no signifi- 
 cant hint besides. He bade John fetch him (he was in his 
 dressing-room) the iron chest above mentioned, and then sent 
 John to town for the most renowned patent lock inventor, of 
 that date. The latter sent his foreman down directly (he 
 was never in the shop himself, only at the desk behind it), 
 and my uncle made some mysterious arrangements with him, 
 to which I was not privy, but which resulted in the iron 
 box turning out bolder than the brass that bound it, with 
 a patent lock and key, one of those miracles of simplicity 
 which baffle all the complications of curiosity and burglary. 
 Unless a thief had carried away the article bodily, he 
 could not have possessed himself of its contents — my 
 uncle seemed in his inscrutable precaution to have recol- 
 lected there was this ghost of a chance left for his bereave- 
 ment of it ; tor he not only had a patent lock and key, — 
 he not only had the box which John had brought to his 
 dressing-room left there, after its return from its needful 
 absence at the locksmith's own house of business, but he 
 had it emptied of its contents, transferred sedulously by 
 John to a Chinese tea-caddy's two quaint canisters, smelling 
 of some perfume no air would ever absorb, a mixture, as it 
 smelt, of patchiouly and sandal-wood. Not only so; the 
 ugly box must have received other contents, at least as valu- 
 able in my uncle's eyes, for there was straightway erected, 
 at the imminent risk of dragging all the lath and plaster 
 down together, a strong closet in the wall of my uncle's 
 dressing-room. This strong closet was rendered so in its 
 own strength by being made entirely of iron, an inch thick, 
 and its destiny in the history of metals, Avas to receive and 
 contain the very ugly iron box I liave alluded to. It was 
 exactly as much bigger than the said box as the box's cotiin
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 85 
 
 ought to have been, and, tliough I never in my Avildest 
 moments laid the lightest shade of a charge of insanity 
 against my uncle, I did from the moment of my beholding the 
 fire-proof case enshrining its fire-proof inhabitant, deem that 
 at once the cradle and the grave of his eccentricity, which 
 could no furtlier go. 
 
 Poet-boy as I was at that age, and dreaming lover, igno- 
 rant of love, the iron subject altogether passed swiftly from 
 my thoughts. All that my uncle did was well, if not wise, in 
 my appreciation then, for he was the only creature I had to 
 bestow my natural affection on. To imagine him other 
 than he seemed to me, or myself other tlian the most dearly 
 cherished object of his inexpressive but whole affection, 
 would have been a monstrous day-incubus indeed, which I 
 should have roused myself from, as gladly as we shake off 
 the ill dreams of night, on waking. 
 
 Howbeit, the strong box's strong concealment was not the 
 end of strange circumstances ; though its final fate of iron 
 within iron inaugurated even harder " facts." Any reader 
 of very strong imagination, of heart pure as mortal's may 
 be, of passion too deep and concentrative ever to desecrate 
 its dearest impulses by rendering their gratification a whim 
 of every-day fulfilment, may understand me, will forgive me 
 in the syrajjathy which is the charity of souls, when I say 
 that I was at three-and-twenty a harmless, useless, selfish per- 
 son, through all those advantages made nought (if not made 
 dangerous) by the luxury which hemmed me in, and which 
 I yet (had I been foretold) should have said I should die 
 without. As to my imagination, I believe it saved me — and 
 it alone. Let those skeptical of the Religion of Poetry say 
 what they will, I am sui'e that the miseries of poets, and their 
 frequent fallings from true love's lofty standard, arise from 
 their not having imagination " enough ; " — to parodise 
 (most lovingly) the wondrous assertion of the same kind, re- 
 specting love and lovers, in the immortal " Contarini Flem- 
 ing," that book which is the touchstone of all romantic truth.
 
 36 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 And again I say, it was my excessive ideality which saved me 
 from vulgar harm, though it could not save me from sorrow, 
 Avhich was not worldly nor of the world. 
 
 My uncle died very suddenly ; his constitution, always 
 delicate, had given no token of outward decay. Nothing 
 passed between us beforehand except kind words, significant, 
 on his part, of the affection I had always considered my due, 
 and on ray part, of a filial feeling not unnatural under the 
 circumstances. John attended him to the last, and I was 
 very glad to have him with me afterwards. We were sitting 
 together, the first night after our loss — for to him it was in- 
 deed losing all — when I asked him whether my uncle had 
 mentioned anything, made any request, or uttered any hint 
 of his wishes. Of his intentions towards me, a doubt never 
 crossed my brain, but I fancied he might, to spare me, have 
 confided in his servant. 
 
 " No, " replied John, without raising his eyes from the fire — 
 it was a chilly August night — and he had fixedly stared into 
 it for quite two hours before he uttered a Avord ; — this mono- 
 syllable was the first. 
 
 " Quite sure ? " I persisted. 
 
 " Quite," said John ; then very leisurely rolling his eyes 
 towards me, he observed, " unless you would like to hear 
 what my master asked me two years ago." 
 
 '' Two years ago ! " I said. " Any speech made then would 
 scarcely bear upon the present moment. He has asked you 
 something since ? " 
 
 " Nothing; but that was about you, Mr. Ernest." 
 
 " Pray tell me, then," I added, though feeling quite sure 
 that, when my uncle's will should be found and read (I had not 
 heart that night to dwell for more than an instant upon that 
 discovery), anything he had said to his servant would be 
 clearly repeated for me. 
 
 " It was one day you were out riding, IMr. Ernest, your 
 uncle said to me, 'John, would you like to be rich, as rich 
 as 1 am ? I suppose you know how rich that is ? ' ' No, sir,'
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 37 
 
 said I, 'not unless you were poor.' Then my master said, 
 'Why if I was poor?' — as if he did not know what I 
 meant." 
 
 " I do not see how he should, Jolin ; I am sure I don't." 
 
 " Yon don't know wliat I mean, Mr. Ernest?" 
 
 John held up his two fot hands in amazement ; I had never 
 seen him look astonished before. 
 
 " No ; indeed not, John." 
 
 " "Well, sir, I'll tell you, though you do know, and so did 
 my master, though he pretended he didn't, just to see what 
 words I should use (that were wi^ong) to make him laugh, as 
 you used to do, Mr. Ernest, when you made game of my 
 reading." 
 
 " Never mind that, John ; only tell me." 
 
 " ' "Well, sir,' I said to my master, ' people gives and leaves 
 their money to who they please. If I were rich, and you 
 poor, sir, I should tell you where it all was, and say to you, 
 ' Use it, all of it, sir, if you want it, and if it wasn't all spent 
 when I died, I should Avrite a will and leave the rest to you.' 
 Well, Mr. Ernest, you are bringing it all up before me, sir. 
 My master smiled in his way, so handsome, and said, quite 
 quick, 'John, John, you couldn't write a will!' ' No, sir, I 
 should a got a gentleman to do it for me, — write it as the 
 gentleman wrote yours.' " 
 
 " How did you know anything about a gentleman, as you 
 call it, making my uncle's will, John ? " 
 
 I felt a singular shadow of surprise drop on me ; yet it 
 was natural enough, and natural was the explanation. 
 
 " Because, Mr. Ernest, about a year before that, a gentle- 
 man came when you were a-bed. It was half-past one iu 
 the morning, and all the servants a-bed too, but me. I let 
 him in ; my master ordered me. He went in the library ; 
 my master was there. Presently my master put his head 
 out and called me in. I was just outside the door, in case 
 he wanted nie. 'John,' he says, when I got inside and be 
 shut it, ' I want you to sign this : it is my will. You can
 
 38 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 sign your name, you know.' ' Yes, sir ; thanks to Mr. Er- 
 nest.' So I stood up, but my master made me sit. He said 
 I should do it better, and I wrote ' John Crofts,' all along." 
 
 I know not why, but in this brief space the shadow of sur- 
 prise began to darken into the shadow of a feeling which 
 must have been suspicion, it was so sad. It shamed me so 
 to feel it, yet it " overcame me like " no " summer cloud." 
 It was as cold as winter. I felt as if I had not known John 
 could talk so freely, that he had pretended to be more igno- 
 rant than he was — nay, that his very simphcity was assumed. 
 And, alas ! though I despised myself for so feeling, the sen- 
 sation would quit me no more readily than its cold com- 
 panion shadow. 
 
 I thought I would hold him in. " Never mind," I said, 
 impatiently no doubt ; " never mind telling me all that. 
 Finish what my uncle said about me two years ago." 
 
 "Mr. Ernest, he said when I told him how I should make 
 my will to be wrote down, ' And now, John, suppose I was 
 dead and you were rich — as rich as I am, Avhat should you 
 do tlien ? ' ' Give it to Mr. Ernest, sir, of course, the same 
 as to you, and quite as willingly, because he is your blood, 
 and the nearest thing you've got.' " 
 
 Now the dark feeling, the lingering shadow, passed as 
 with a shock, and a light moi'e painful touched my mental 
 vision. I could no better define the light, or rather what it 
 showed me, than the darkness. I turned full on John — my 
 eyes, I dare say, somewhat expressive of that inward illumi- 
 nation. 
 
 " And you meant that, John ? — you really meant it ? — 
 you thought you meant it ? " 
 
 John looked at me. The elephantine expression vanished 
 wholly from his small eyes ; no goat, no mole, no cretin ever 
 looked at human creature with eyes so expressionless. John 
 was simply stunned into additional dulness by my vehe- 
 mence, and tlie reaction may also have had to do with the 
 unusual lucidity of liis prior discourse. He looked at me so
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 39 
 
 long, so dully, that I taucied him tu be acting again — my 
 hallucination grew still more intense. Still, I did not like 
 him to sit there staring at me, even with dull eyes ; they 
 rebuked me mutely, even while I mistrusted them. 
 
 " I shall try to go to bed," I observed, getting up ; " do 
 you the same." And I rose with the words ; the dull eyes 
 turned from me to the fire, and with a change in his tone, 
 from mere gravity to deep despondency — despair — such 
 despair as the eyes of a foithful dumb animal only, show 
 when it has lost its master, John rolled out of his chair on to 
 the rug, put his forehead against the hard edge of the steel 
 fender, and broke down with these words : — 
 
 " I tried to hold up for your sake, to keep up your spirits ; 
 but, Mr. P^rnest, you don't care as I do, or you couldn't talk 
 of my master. You would want to cry instead, as I do." 
 
 And then the fountain of tears, that I believe had never 
 shed a drop before, was unsealed, poured out like water. I 
 could no more have wept through sympathy than have 
 brought back my uncle's breath by sighing. Every one with 
 a particle of generosity will be disgusted, as I was myself a 
 cool hour afterwards, at the fact that John's tears hardened 
 me. I turned from him, left him lonely there, yet abased 
 and weeping, and went to my room. 
 
 It is sometimes a curse (albeit always a blessing) to have 
 an active brain. One cannot help one's thoughts, and in a 
 passionate mood of any kind, love, joy, or grief — nay sus- 
 pense even — the passion sweeps one's thoughts round on its 
 wings like a whirlwind ; thoughts momentary and phantom- 
 like, thoughts immutable and rational. I could not go to 
 bed ; my thoughts danced wildly round me, for they were 
 tliouff/ifs, being too defined for fancies, and too vague in their 
 outlines (though formed) for anticipations. I was also 
 severely conscience-pricked because my heart had not broken 
 at my uncle's loss, and there was a horrid shoot of conscious- 
 ness, which I pressed back strenuously into its proper gloom, 
 that I should be now actually free to be what I pleased, go
 
 40 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 where I would, find the love which, never having heen born 
 for me, I pined for as if dead. 
 
 To hurry past a crisis Avhich I lived through in a shock of 
 hurry — the morning came. I was weary with the waste of 
 sleeplessness ; and with the day-beams a physical condition 
 of natural woe came on me. I believe I wept incessantly 
 until John, recovered from his weeping-fit, but stupefied as 
 well as additionally dulled thereby, came for me to meet 
 the lawyers. I have already said I was not efi^erainate, 
 but I must confess I had no more worldly hioicledge than a 
 woman, and it had faced me as an abhorrent proceeding to 
 rifle my uncle's private room myself. I had therefore the 
 night before written and despatched by hand a letter to each 
 of two solicitors residing, as the " Law Directory " informed 
 me, in the immediate vicinage of Chancery Lane ; and I will 
 own that I had selected them by the sounding reputability of 
 their surnames, the one being Howard and the other Os- 
 borne. And, accordingly, at half an hour after noon I was 
 summoned to meet these gentlemen, whom I had never met 
 before nor heard of 
 
 I used very few words to explain to them my desires and 
 reasons for entertaining such : namely, that they should, in 
 my presence, open my uncle's desk and drawers and seai'ch 
 his papers, and that I respected him too much to do so un- 
 supported. They obeyed me with an alacrity which they 
 took no pains to hide, and yet preserved the most sombre, 
 the mournfullest gravity of countenance. Whenever they 
 chanced to meet my eye, each or both of them bent nearly 
 to the ground. It was the maiden tribute I received to ray, 
 of course, certain heirship, and, though I despised it, I believe 
 I sliould not have liked to miss it. There was something 
 horrible to me, though, in the business-like avidity with Avhich 
 these gentlemen (they Avere gentlemen, though professional 
 ones) seized on the keys I handed them, — all patent, and 
 yet they boggled at none ; but the most unpleasant sensation 
 I experienced was when, at the very top of the exquisitely-
 
 ALMOST A HEIIOINK. 41 
 
 chased iron cash-box 1 knew so well, and out of which all 
 my juvenile supplies had come, they both grabbed at onco a 
 neatly-written and faultlessly-folded document. I knew what 
 it was, and I know not why, but it turned me quite faint to 
 hnow it. I shut my eyes that I might not see it ; but I 
 could not close my ears against the exultant murmurs which 
 proved that document to be, in respect of drawing up, seal- 
 ing, and signing, a legal composition intact. 
 
 A curious green mist comes over my very memory (reflex 
 of a " green swim " which invaded my visual sense that 
 morning) when I recall it. Many wills have been created 
 in, or copied into, stories ; I have no mind to indite one ver- 
 batim here. But the contents of the great Loftus Will, as 
 they were read with ecclesiastical intonation in that library, I 
 for a few short hours deemed my own ; and as they were 
 afterwards commented upon, both charitably and uncharitably, 
 by the world, ai'e very simj^le in their decision of wording 
 and result. 
 
 I remember so well how we all looked. First, I sat in 
 one of the delicious reading-chairs — the most luxurious of 
 them all, too. Next, John stood at the door ; nothing would 
 induce him to take a chair, nor to come farther into the room. 
 I think he was under the impression that it was more respect- 
 ful to stand than to sit while his master's will was made known. 
 Then there was the whole female staff of servants, com- 
 manded by the cook. I seldom knew the maids' individual 
 faces, and never their names, but they struck me, before the 
 ceremony began, as being one and all devoured with natural 
 curiosity and unnatural appetite for those crumbs from the 
 golden table which the most illiterate can name as legacies. 
 Lastly, there were the professional gentlemen in the midst 
 at the leather table, and the one who looked a year or two 
 the elder, and a trifle the graver, read, in a voice which 
 never changed the least from a calm edifying tone, the will 
 from beginning to end. 
 
 For a will, clearly and indisputably worded, it was exceed-
 
 42 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 ingly short. Concise directions as to the place of his mortal 
 rest gave place to minute orders that for the three days fol- 
 lowing the day of the funeral, my uncle's pride (in death as 
 in life) should be gratified by the great Loftus Collection 
 being thrown open, exactly as it stood, to the public, on con- 
 dition that every person who demanded entrance should bring 
 a card from a certain respectable engraver and picture-dealer, 
 at the West-end, such cards and prospectuses also being 
 printed, and forwarded to the same person for the purpose 
 within four days. 
 
 This startling evidence of the passion a whim had grown 
 into moved me much, particularly as the whole arrangements 
 concerning advertisements and other needful means to insure 
 a large and general appreciation for the treasures exhibited 
 were intrusted to the testator's well-beloved nephew, Ernesto 
 Loftus. 
 
 After the three days aforesaid, the Collection was to be 
 permanently closed from the public eye, as it had been before 
 then, and no person admitted to see it on any pretence what- 
 ever. 
 
 Next came legacies to all the servants who had ever lived 
 under the roof for even as short a period as a month ; these 
 legacies consisted of twenty pounds to each, and I cannot say 
 that many of them deserved as much. Strange to say, and 
 strangely I felt it, John's name was the only one not men- 
 tioned, — the rest were all named at full length. I had but 
 a minute to look towards him, and see how he bore it. Lo ! 
 his face was turned resolutely to the door, where his back 
 had been up to that item of proclamation. Next minute I 
 was in entire possession of the final sense I sought to know ; 
 and, for that minute at least, I certainly felt as if my senses 
 had slipped from me altogether. 
 
 All the funded property, all the property otherwise invest- 
 ed abroad, with the whole amount of cash in banker's hands, 
 and which property was stated in exact estimate to consist 
 of one hundred thousand pounds ; all the furniture, fittings,
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 43 
 
 books, and wearables contained in the Roman Villa — the 
 Roman Villa aforesaid (testator's own property by purchase) ; 
 all the linen, plate, china, glass, hardware (every article of 
 domestic or cidinarj' use named separately) ; all the personal 
 jewelry of the testator; and " The Collection," were be- 
 queathed wholly and solely to John Crofts, the faithful per- 
 sonal attendant of Arcliibald Loftus ; and the vast bequest 
 was only hampered by the following conditions : — 
 
 That the said Collection should never be removed, nor any 
 part nor single article of it removed from its exact present 
 position, but that it should be kept in the same order, with 
 the same regard to its conservation and cleanliness, as Avell as 
 safety, as heretofore. That no part of the funded or invest- 
 ed capital should be recalled from the funds, nor reinvested. 
 Tliat from the cash lying in the hands of the bankers all out- 
 standing debts should be instantly discharged. That from 
 the same lialance all funeral and incidental expenses should 
 be paid. That from the loose money at present lying in the 
 drawer of the cash-box, in the library under the roof over 
 the head of the testator, testator's well-beloved nephew and 
 nearest blood relative, Ernesto Loftus, should receive the sum 
 of tAventy pounds ; the residue of the loose money above 
 named pertaining to tiie sole legatee of the entire bulk of 
 property. Finally — and even at the enunciation of the 
 final condition, the composure of the reader was inviolate ; 
 finalhj, that the iron chest, closed by means of a patent lock 
 and key, and contained in an iron safe in the testator's own 
 habitually named and considered dressing-room, should never 
 be unlocked, forced, nor touched ; nor should its containing 
 iron-safe, be unlocked, forced, nor touched with intent to 
 unlock or force, for the space of three years (reckoning from 
 the date of the day of the month of the funeral of the testa- 
 tor) after the funeral ; but that, on the third recurrence of 
 that date of the day of the year of the funeral, the aforesaid 
 iron-safe should be in the presence of two witnesses besides 
 the legatee (who was also named sole executor), one of
 
 44 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 which witnesses to be a solicitor in practice — opened by 
 means of the patent key pertaining to its patent lock, and 
 which key, with the key of the chest that contained it, was 
 to be found in testator's own private desk, wrapped in wash 
 leather. That the safe being fairly opened by these means 
 and under these circumstances, the iron chest within Avas to 
 be also unlocked by means of its own key, and the contents 
 dislodged. 
 
 Hei*e, strangely enough, come a break and stop which 
 human invention could neither supply nor continue, — law 
 being as fixed as fate. Abrupt as was such conclusion, it 
 gave no shock to the reader or his companion. They were 
 both so obviously bent upon finding between them some flaw 
 in the document that they had not even time to consider its 
 effect upon more than those immediately concerned. One 
 and twain they pored over it, they turned it every way, held 
 it up to the light, whispered ominously ; yet, without regard- 
 ing either me, the misnamed heir-at-law of the testator, if 
 intestate, or the real and rightly-named legatee more misera- 
 ble still. 
 
 In the midst of my own sensations, which I can only com- 
 pare to the most violent shock of cold water dashed from a 
 bucket upon the skull, I was fascinated to see what John did 
 or what became of him. I felt as though in his place I 
 should have bolted from the room, and in the depths of my 
 ignorant heart I despised him, because, instead of so skulking, 
 he dropped down as if dead upon the floor. High nervous 
 organizations are little apt to faint or swoon ; lymphatic, san- 
 guine ones are so most frequently attacked, above all under 
 circumstances of surprise or sudden sorrow. I did not know 
 this then (having learnt it from an after-friend of mine), and 
 such ignorance must be my excuse for my contempt for John 
 under those circumstances. Had not all the maids flocked 
 round him with intent to rouse him by fair means or foul, I 
 might have been urged, by the impulse of my really active 
 benevolence, to approacli and try to recover him. As it was,
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 45 
 
 I sat still, fastened into my chair as if it liati been part of 
 me. I could not stir, I could not speak, I only felt as I fancy 
 sweet, trusting, tender-hearted, and proud-souled loomen 
 must feel when they are jilted. I use the obnoxious word 
 for want of a better (or a worse). I foncy that in such 
 cases, as in mine, it is through pride the crowning and en- 
 during misery accrues, not through love, which, perhaps, no 
 longer exists. I know my natural affection changed in a sin- 
 gle instant in my veins to a bitterer indifference than hatred. 
 
 I suppose I looked pale and strange, for one of the law- 
 yers brought me a glass of wine from a salver on the table, 
 which I drank, and then I felt quite steady, though brain- 
 stunned yet. I was just going to walk out of the room, 
 without speaking a word, or deigning any notice whatever ; 
 indeed, I had taken four or five steps, when both the gentle- 
 men came forward from the table, hastily, and stood before me. 
 
 " Excuse us, pray, Mr. Loftus, but we think we can give 
 you some shade of hope." 
 
 This from Mr. Howard. 
 
 " Yes ; we are not altogether without hopes," said Mr. 
 Osborne. 
 
 The address on either part seemed to me actually imperti- 
 nent, but it arrested me. Did the gentlemen expect a hand- 
 some reward for disenchanting me of my hallucination ? 
 Had they expected a legacy themselves ? 
 
 " I really do not understand what you mean by hoping," I 
 replied, in the coldest accent I could assume. " You will 
 make your accustomed arrangements with the heir, not with a 
 beggar, such as I am, I believe." 
 
 " You have entirely, totally mistaken us," said one eagerly, 
 — the other looked over his shoulder. " I see the domestics 
 are all engaged with their treacherous comjianion there ; we 
 may venture to whisper." He whispered warily, " My dear 
 sir, this Will may be disputed on very extraordinarily advan- 
 tageous grounds — advantageous to you, as disputant we 
 mean."
 
 46 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 " Disputed ! — I dispute it ? /? 
 
 " My dear sir, you are young ; you speak hastily, and too 
 loud. Every one, pardon me, every one in this neighborhood, 
 ay, and many, very many, in the metropolis, knew well and 
 could even attest to your late relative's eccentric — more than 
 eccentric — character. You are aware, though not a profes- 
 sional, that no person of unsound mind can will his property, 
 and that the heir-at-law is safe in such a case." 
 
 A great gulping groan from John. At this crisis, the 
 maids were trying to pull him up by his arms, and he was 
 just returning to consciousness. See him when again con- 
 scious, speak to him, or bear him to speak to me, I could not. 
 I cut my suggestions — they might, possibly, have been 
 tempters to some youths of three-and-twenty — short oflF 
 thus : — 
 
 " Mr. Osborne and Mr. Howard — such are your names, 
 I believe, gentlemen — I thank you little for your interfer- 
 ence, which reflects little credit upon your sagacity, for you 
 must be wholly ignorant of character to dare so to address 
 me. But, as you have spoken in illustration of yourselves, 
 you shall hear myself in my response. Could I, by crossing 
 that scrap " — pointing to a torn end of paper on the carpet 
 — " with my forefinger, annihilate the document you have 
 just necessarily read, and unnecessarily commented upon, I 
 would cut that finger of mine off before I so crossed that 
 scrap. If my late relative were not only proved insane by 
 the whole body of lawyers in London, but had been insane, I 
 would not stir a foot to set his will aside ; sane or insane, he, 
 therein and thereby, having proved he loved me not. Good 
 morning." 
 
 I thrust them back with an imperious wave of my now 
 untrembling hand. I passed them — strode over John's 
 semi-lifeless body, as it yet incumbered the doorway, and 
 went to my own room, (mine that had been at least,) when I 
 locked the door and double-locked it, and wished the funeral 
 were over, that I miaht so ibrtli free fore\er.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 LOST. 
 
 I AVAS really miserable. Of course no one will believe it, 
 but it is true, that for the loss of the wealth I eared nothing 
 at first (I did afterwards though, I own) ; it was the loss of 
 the love that broke me down and made me feel old — so old, 
 so dull, so bloodless ; that stagnated the life-stream in my 
 veins, and made my heart beat languidly with lengthened 
 pulses, like one dying. No one had ever loved me, provedly, 
 except my uncle ; and now, lo ! he had loved me not, — his 
 whole life had been, with regard to me, a lie. And I had 
 been a false thing, too, to him, for I must have deceived him 
 unknowingly, and made him hate me, where I thought to 
 have excited love, by forms of filial duty. Whatever I had 
 said to escape my friends the lawyers, I did not believe — I 
 had not the cold comfort of believing — that my uncle had 
 been insane. I knew him to have been as sane as myself — 
 perchance saner than I was then ! But horrible fancies, 
 bred from a bright imagination suddenly made dark, pos- 
 sessed me the moment I had got just beyond the fact in my 
 own mind. 
 
 Had my uncle thought me a villain, a miscreant, a moral 
 monster? Was I indeed such? Had he dreaded lest the 
 possession of ample means should make me a pest and rav- 
 ager of society, instead of a mere cumberer of the ground, 
 as now I was, and must be ? Had he detected with his keen 
 mental eye, vision-sharpened and quickened by his philo- 
 sophic isolation, the germs of crimes or crime-engendering
 
 48 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 weakness within me ? I knew not. I was helpless, lost. 
 No hand stretched out to me ; no voice of friend or kindred 
 to remonstrate, reason, or sympathize with me. My very 
 mother had cast me from her cold bosom to find refuge in a 
 heart of ice. I just give my frantic trouble to the reader in 
 the fewest words, but it passed not so lightly and swiftly with 
 me. Then burst in me a great storm of indignation, like a 
 thunder-laden rack, sweeping dark and hot under the mourn- 
 ful rain-cloud. The person — the man — the treacherous 
 companion of the other servants, which other servants grew 
 into individuals meet to be respected, in comparison with 
 John, the fool, who had now proved himself the knave as 
 well, and something worse. I will not flatter myself — and 
 I will confess I thoroughly, heartily believed that John had 
 been undermining my uncle's faith in me for years, for years 
 had been heaping up atom by atom, more ant-like than ele- 
 phant there, every grain of charge against me that could be 
 collected from the four winds, until a great barrier rose be- 
 tween us, wrecking and solid as the Coraline Islands. 
 
 Again (I do not excuse myself) did I revert to my shad- 
 owy suspicions of the previous night — they were no longer 
 shadows, though substantially as black as ever. John had, 
 then, influenced my uncle, and successfully, on his own 
 account. He had, actually, not only feathered his own nest 
 efficiently, but had snatched the least feather of all that 
 gigantic nest from me, elephant-in-the-manger like. For 
 I considered — would it not have occurred to any youth in 
 the like predicament, and struck him hard too ? — that some 
 foul moral means must have been minutely and mightily at 
 work, to have prevented my uncle from leaving me just 
 enough to purchase me entrance into some profession, art, 
 or calling which should, at least, provide me bread. 
 
 It is easier to be selfish in autobiography than history ; 
 therefore I will neither prose nor poetize at this point. 
 
 At this distance of date it does not matter whether I went 
 to bed that night or not, but I suppose so, though I do recall
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 49 
 
 hearing a loud knuckle-rap at ray door next morning, and 
 getting off the bed to answer it, in my clothes, the first in- 
 stant quite forgetting what had happened yesterday ; the 
 next, remembering it in a rush of memory — arousing, if 
 not vast as Niagara — and most resolutely opening the door. 
 
 "Oh, do, please," said a voice, "do please, dear Mr. 
 Ernest, for we are afraid he will hang himself; — he has 
 gone out to the well." 
 
 The well might have suggested drowning rather than 
 hanging ; but, in fact, there hung rather cold legends round 
 that well. INIy uncle's house was named from it the Roman 
 Villa, facing it as it did exactly, and, there being nothing 
 between the Roman Villa and the well, except a dreary dell 
 of ancient excavation, patch-clad — naked gravel else — 
 with the poor puny grass of Uglyville. Yet, in fact, the 
 well was a Roman well, no sham antique nor hydraulic mod- 
 ern failure ; a Avell Avhich had been worked when CiBsar 
 entered Britain, and from which real Druids had drunk real 
 crystal strength. But centuries ago it had ceased to be either 
 a well or pump. I believe in truth it was a pump, for it 
 had an iron handle that hung down helpless and useless as a 
 dead dog's tail ; we always called it a well, though. Long 
 ago, I repeat, it had ceased to bring water from the deep 
 spring to the surface ; and it stood there, looking like a fea- 
 tureless ghost in stone, or, to use a comparison of my child- 
 hood. Lot's wife's salt-statue. Once, not so far back that I 
 could not recollect it, a poor girl, heart-worn and body-dese- 
 crated, at length deserted heart and body, had hanged her- 
 self by tying a rope and knotting a noose around the stone 
 girth of the " Roman well," and was found next morning so 
 self-strangled. She was a servant in the neighborhood, and 
 our servants knew her, I believe, at all events, they talked 
 enough about her and her fate, to authorize the most inti- 
 mate acquaintance going. I was obliged to recur to the 
 accepted character of this same well, in order to explain the 
 remark uttered in piteous, if not reticent accent outside my 
 3
 
 50 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 door. To go to the well which contained no water, was a 
 thirsty prospect indeed, but at that moment I doomed John 
 to it — I knew the voice meant " John " — with hearty satis- 
 faction. Such a fate would have appeased the angry appe- 
 tite of ray sense of justice ; and it could not be called per- 
 sonally selfish, that I felt so, for I knew not at that instant, 
 whether John had made his will or not ! 
 
 The maid continued to plead through the door-panel ; I as 
 strenuously resisted her plea — very hard to me, for I am 
 naturally benevolent, and have an enormous organ of caus- 
 ality. I would not open the door, nor answer her, nor ques- 
 tion her ; — so hours passed — for she did not stop outside 
 long — what girl-servant would ? — or I tJiought she did not. 
 I remember some one saying that men differed from brutes 
 in two essentials only — men being the only laughers and the 
 only cooks. However this may be, I was brought to a sense 
 of the absolute and soul-sickening dependence of one's body 
 on the physical being of others, by turning ragingly hungry ; 
 and, not being an ostrich or a moth, I could not eat the 
 w'ooden furniture or the woollen hearth-mg. Conquered in 
 an instant by certainly not the loftiest of our appetites, I 
 crept to the bell, and rang it stealthily, for I was most sin- 
 cerely ashamed of wanting to eat another meal in that house. 
 My maid answered the bell so astonishingly soon that she 
 must have been outside the door, if not at the keyhole, 
 through which she could have seen nothing of me, as the key 
 w'as turned ; and still more ashamed, though I assumed the 
 most exquisite indifference, I inquired for dinner, whether 
 it was I'eady. My maid, breaking down, hysterically ex- 
 claimed : — 
 
 " Oh, dear Lord, how thankful he will be ! " 
 
 This fresh allusion to John made me indignant. I faced 
 her sternly. 
 
 " I wish to hear none of your remarks," I said ; " and 
 most particularly request that you will not mention Ids name 
 to me." I could not bring myself to pronounce it either;
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 51 
 
 but, my maid's tougue unloosed, she could not, or would not, 
 mind me. 
 
 " Oh," she persisted, " we all thought he would hang him- 
 self, he did so foam and fret ; but he only wented to the 
 well because the basin was the coolest place to lay his head 
 on, but he came back in a flurry and a sudden to see if you 
 was down, sir; and, not seeing you, burst out crying like a 
 child, and ordered us all, just as like a master as like a ser- 
 vant, to obey you, and only you, and that you was our 
 master, and he stood and scolded cook for not having got on 
 with the dinner ; and then, sir, went and shut himself in the 
 little cellar — not the wine — but told me to come and tell 
 him when dinner was ready. And it was a good hour after 
 that time that it was ready, and I Avented and told him, 
 tliinking he meant to go up and sit at his table, but he 
 only says through the door, — he shot the bolt, — 'Tell your 
 young master,' and not a word more." 
 
 I will own that I have often been driven ignominiously 
 from the stronghold of pride by little words, small actions, 
 single fears. Perhaps my hunger had to do with it ; i^er- 
 haps conviction, sheathed in charity, smote through me like 
 a blunted arrow; — but I was brought down, melted, my 
 fierce pain saddened, but softened through the sadness. I 
 went meekly outside the door, my maid awaiting and follow- 
 ing me. I paused not at the door of the dining-room, but 
 turned aside into the long lobby that led to the kitchen offices. 
 My maid, following still, gave vent to her wild amazement 
 by groans and sniffs, unheeded by me. I opened the door 
 of the chief kitchen, walked across it without volunteering a 
 word or look for its inhabitants, who screamed in a universal 
 but solemn voice, across the next kitchen, floored with stone, 
 and, arrived at the cellar door, not underground, though 
 lined with stone, I proceeded to thump upon it in an author- 
 itative manner. I really could not speak just then. The 
 inmate would probably have taken no notice of my noise but 
 for my maid, who had crept behind me all the way. She
 
 52 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 called my name out lustily, saying, " It's Mr. Ernest ! " and 
 in an instant the bolt shot back, and John was lying in a 
 heap at my feet. I cannot call it kneeling, but I am sure he 
 meant it so, and he was covering my boots with embraces 
 like those of a dog or larger, weii'der creature. I was awk- 
 ward. I had meant lo face him as a human being enjoying 
 advantages superior to my own ; and in his queer new dem- 
 onstration he was scarcely like a human animal at all. I 
 tried to conciliate, without dropping the mantle of my grandeui*. 
 
 " Get up, John," I said ; " don't be absurd. I am going 
 to ask you to let me dine with you ; I am hungry." 
 
 He rolled up as fast as he could, very slowly, and showed 
 me a face, less now like the face of an elephant than that of 
 a seal, even the old mechanical instinct defunct in its ex- 
 pression. It was puffed and bleared, and the eyes half lost 
 in the head from the swelling of the lids. He had finished 
 crying, though, and, as I said, he reminded me of a seal from 
 which her offspring has been torn, stranded high on the 
 rocks, and too sick and dry to crawl down to the great salt 
 deep again for water. If a gleam of satisfaction could cross 
 a seal's countenance under such circumstances, howevei", it 
 would yet further resemble John's. I could see that my 
 apparition actually refreshed him. I had no desire for a 
 scene in the circle of the kitchen, of which we two should be 
 the centre ; and I returned as fast as I could take my steps 
 to the dining-room. I had meant, of course, to follow John, 
 but something in his aspect, seal-like as it was, made me 
 abruptly go first. Once in the dining-room with him, I 
 slammed the door ; I did not feel comfortable exactly — 
 what was I to do ? The seal saved me. I never thought a 
 voice so decided, so even dominant, could proceed from 
 John's thi'oat. 
 
 " Sit down, Mr. Ernest, this very minute, or I'll take and 
 cram the victuals down your throat. You look as if you were 
 dying. Your uncle tried his best to kill me, but he shan't 
 to-day, — not while you want waiting on."
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 53 
 
 I stood an instant stupefied (I was weak-headed with fast- 
 ing too), and then I don't 2>retend that I was not thankful 
 and ready to be taken out of my own hands. John put his 
 square boneless-looking paws on my shoulders, and down I 
 sat straight in my uncle's own chair. I was ravenous, and 
 at that moment, smelling the rich scent of the hot soup, I 
 allow myself to have been as much degraded as a person 
 possessed of pride and piquing himself on the possession, can 
 be. I could no more wait than a half-starved dog can when 
 he sees a meaty bone ; and, though John stood behind my 
 chair, though John sprinkled salt into the plate I filled so fast 
 that I splashed the cloth all over, though he inserted little 
 sippets of crisp toast into the very volume of the soup I was 
 consuming, I could not have helped devouring it for the 
 reversion of my uncle's will in my favor. John poured out 
 my wine presently, and put a fresh napkin in the place of 
 the soup-splashed one beside me; John — a new thing for 
 him, as he had never waited at table — brought me every 
 sauce and condiment correctly for every dish, and each time 
 he had served me so, always bringing me the right "things" 
 at the right " side," he fell back quite behind my chair and 
 uttered a hybrid sound between the most exultant chuckle 
 and the most despondent sigh. 
 
 I never before, and have never since, really enjoyed a 
 meal. After my stomach was satisfied, of coui'se, as all 
 physiologists tell us, my brain began to work. How con- 
 temptibly had I given in ! I thought of all the persons who 
 had starved themselves on principle, whether pride, or love, 
 or honor. I was no hero, no half-hero, nor half-bi'other to 
 a hero. I was even, in his capacity of legal hero, far and 
 far removed from John. Albeit, this very consciousness that 
 I had eaten Avhen I might have starved myself, was of use to 
 me in one way. I dared no longer despise John, because I 
 despised myself. And I am thankful to say that an agree- 
 able dream of consciousness began to visit me, that John was 
 quite as much to be pitied as myself. His innocent, ugly,
 
 54: • ALMOST A HEKOINE. 
 
 tearless, late tear-swollen face suggested it. How could 
 such a person, who was so nearly an animal, and so little 
 above a " thing," have connived at the monstrous design of 
 his master ? — and that master one whose delicate wit had 
 always been two-edged in its action, cleaving through the 
 joints and marrow of the purposes of fools and knaves alike ! 
 I have heard, or read, that high-class artists are fond of ex- 
 posing their finished paintings for the contemplation and 
 criticism of children, or persons childish in the sense of being 
 ignorant and innocent, and that they set great store thereby. 
 Some such impulse must have visited me at the moment. 
 I looked back over the chair and said : — 
 
 " Don't stand, John. I want to speak to you. You have 
 behaved well. I mean — sit down there / " — and I pointed 
 to my own chair, now vacant, as it was opposite my uncle's 
 in which I sat. 
 
 " No, sir, I won't," said John ; " but I shall be happy to 
 stand speaking. I won't sit down." 
 
 " Why not, John ? Oh, great heaven ! — Avhat does it all 
 mean ? " 
 
 '* Exactly, Mr. Ernest, what I have been saying to myself 
 all day, — that after thinking my master trusted me, that 
 after his knowing I did not care for wages, that after his 
 knowing I was so fond of you, he should have done so ! It 
 is aU reading and writing, Mr. Ernest, that done it. If no 
 one could read nor write, no one could so behave." 
 
 " Oh ! I beg your pardon, John ; you needn't read nor 
 write to make a will ; you only have to speal it." 
 
 " Lord, Mr. Ernest, it is the only comfort come to me that 
 the gentlemen said so." 
 
 " What gentlemen ? " 
 
 " The gentlemen that read it. They both promised to 
 make my will out for me any day ; and first day after my 
 master is put in the ground it will be made." 
 
 " Your will, John ! Yes, it will be a good thing ; I mean, 
 you will have plenty to leave."
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 55 
 
 " They are coming first day after that," said John, " to 
 make all fast to you, if it does not come sooner." 
 
 Whatever John meant now occurred to me no more, than 
 does the date of the next earthquake in Calabria. His dull, 
 semi-blind instinct perhaps borrowed moral clarity from the 
 very absence of physical lucidity. I only gathered, with a 
 skeptical impulse that made it delusion, that John meant to 
 leave me all he was legally worth, at his own demise, or 
 thought he did. 
 
 " Mr. Ernest," said John again, astonishing me by two 
 consecutive remarks without any observation of mine be- 
 tween, " that iron box," — he uttered the few words weightily. 
 
 " Well, John, that iron box, as you say, — we have nothing 
 to do with it at present, neither you nor I; I never, indeed, 
 can have to do with it." 
 
 " That box, Mr. Ernest ! " 
 
 « Well, John ? " (impatiently). 
 
 " I couldn't put it into words, Mr. Ernest, what I think, 
 and if I could, I didn't ought." 
 
 This obscure grammar made me wonder. Fancy John 
 making any one wonder! Still the hidden sense of what 
 he kept back in his uncouth honor forbade me to inquire, 
 or even looh inquiry. Another question thrust itself for- 
 wards, — I could not keep it back — what need ? — from 
 John. 
 
 " I wonder what you will do, John," said I, " with all the 
 money — and everything besides ? " 
 
 " What shall I do, Mr. Ernest ? " (with stolid reproach.) 
 
 " Yes, John ; you can do anything you like, you know." 
 
 " I shall do, Mr. Ernest," (very serious, though altogether 
 stolid still,) " exactly what the will commands. It is my 
 master speaks there." 
 
 " Well, John, but he has left all to you ; don't you uudex'- 
 stand ? It is not his any longer." 
 
 " So he left it to me to dust the Collection, Mi-. Ernest ! 
 He was not in the room, he was as good as dead. / know
 
 56 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 what he means, / know. If it wasn't for one thing, Mr. 
 Ernest, I should give it all up to you now, and leave you 
 master. You are master, but my master has made me your 
 servant. I should go away, and mal:e you stay here, as mas- 
 ter, which you are, but for one thing, which is two." 
 
 It is said that all human beings, reason-gifted, how unim- 
 aginative soever, have, once in their individual existences, 
 one original idea. This conglomerate and diificultly-realized 
 notion of John's must have been his : the twin-born halves 
 of two ideas at least. 
 
 " Which two reasons, then ? " asked I, curious a little, and 
 not a little astonished, at the phase of intercourse to which he 
 and I had been unawares conducted. 
 
 " First, because if I gave it to you, you would not take it ; 
 and next, because if you did, it would be bad for you to be 
 moped up here, as he did all along," said John, whose mind 
 seemed to have taken the stride from the animal instinctive 
 to the discriminating human. 
 
 I am sorry to say that this " leap in the dark," or light, did 
 not tend to reassure me, as it should have done, in all sim- 
 plicity. I again began to suspect that, under this sheep's 
 clothing, hid, and hungered for possession, a wolf, and I took 
 care to remain alone the next few days, vainly trying to sol- 
 emnize my spirit for that hour, Avhose secret shadow I ought 
 never to have crept beyond — the offering of the dust God 
 breathed on, to the dust of which he made the world.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 LYNDPIELD. 
 
 The day of the funeral came — was over — it was the 
 next morning. In cold compliment to ray poor uncle (it 
 could be nothing warmer) I had invited the two lawyei-s who 
 had read the will, and the one who had prepared it in the first 
 instance. John had insisted on leaving all the arrangements to 
 me, and for such a purpose it woukl have been monstrous in 
 me to refuse. John himself was my chief trouble in the case. 
 No persuasions, no commands, I was going to say, would 
 induce him either to go in the coach with me, nor with the 
 other gentlemen (I had, of course, asked the doctor, albeit 
 he had not attended my uncle), nor in a coach by himself; 
 but on arriving at the cemetery, there he was waiting, and 
 he liad kept watch over the spot ever since daylight. Also, 
 he walked back, as he had walked thither. 
 
 It was as I said, next morning. I had settled my purpose 
 by that time, having lain awake all night. I went down to 
 breakfast — I had eaten alone the last ^(^a\ days in my room 
 — and there was John in the room appropriated to the Col- 
 lection, dusting it with all his might. 
 
 I saw him through the door, Avhich was half open. At 
 siglit of me he as nearly rushed forward as could a frame so 
 adipose, took hold of me by my shoulders behind, and pushed 
 me into the breakfast-room. AVhen the door Avas shut — 
 
 " Mr. Ernest," he began, " they are all out at the gate 
 watching, and are to bring me word — cook is — when the 
 first carriage shows atop of tlie avenue. Tlien I shall come 
 in to you quietly ; you will hear nothing inside the baize 
 
 3*
 
 58 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 doors here. I was giving a touch-up, and just looking at it. 
 What a pity he did'nt live to see it ! " 
 
 Here John broke down again, and blubbered. 
 
 Yes, it was the first day of the Loftus Exhibition. The 
 only duty I had performed (none other had been left me) 
 had been to take care that it was announced fiir and wide. 
 But to stay there while it took place — never ! I had borne 
 a good deal patiently, a very great deal with impatience, and 
 now I didn't mean to bear any more except what destiny 
 should bring me in any shape from the future of Avhich I 
 was free. 
 
 " I cannot stay to say much to you, John," I observed, 
 snatching a mouthful or two, " for, early as it is, I dare say 
 the woidd is curious, and the house will not be quiet long." 
 
 " This place Avill, Mr. Ernest, as quiet as the grave, or," 
 evidently considering a mournful analogy might hurt me, " or 
 Jerusalem." 
 
 "I can't stop — don't talk, John — there, shake hands with 
 me, and go ! But before you go, you may, if you please, 
 give me the twenty pounds my uncle left me." 
 
 I thought John would have screamed. He did make such 
 a noise as a wounded buffalo might — it shook the very chan- 
 delier. 
 
 " Mr. Ernest ! you ai'e not going so — not without my 
 knowing your desires and commands. I reckoned you w^ould 
 let me come in here along with you, and talk it over. What- 
 ever will become of me ? Lord ! what have I done to be 
 served so ? Not by you, Mr. Ernest, not by you. You was 
 ever as kind as kind could be — but I wish my master had 
 only cut my throat for me with his razor, last day he shaved ! 
 Lord bless us, and there are the carriages too ! " 
 
 There was certainly a rumble as of distant thunder, a 
 pause, then a long, loud thunder very near, nay, at the front 
 door. The knocker, which had not been raised for years, 
 awoke. 
 
 I had appointed a wliole staff of tliose nondescript persons
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 59 
 
 who preside over public expositions of valuable objects to 
 range themselves in the hall the moment of the first arrival, 
 and follow it into the show-room, there to sprinkle themselves 
 in their accustomed fashion, and, with white kid hands, to 
 hold out and distribute, gratis, catalogues. 
 
 So John was not recpiired to be present, and I must do 
 myself and him the justice to say I had not expected he 
 would desire to be. I will not either veil that it was some 
 slight gratification to me to deprive the sight-seers of a sight 
 of me, who, of course, excited more curiosity than did the 
 articles of the exhibition, sealed so long from the most eagex'. 
 
 Now, however, that John had raised a difficulty in the form 
 of a " scene " against my exit being immediate and unnoticed ; 
 I was puzzled how to behave. His conduct, indeed, was up- 
 setting altogether ; and I began to wish he had either been 
 altogether stupid or a vast deal more worldly-wise. His 
 utter straightforwardness was most difficult to deal with, and, 
 to do so effectually, I meanly summoned to my assistance 
 every tyrannic particle in my blood, and my most educated 
 manner. As a child, I had often frightened John with long 
 words and lofty -sounding epithets. 
 
 " My good friend," I said, " I am certain you have too 
 much delicacy and refinement of heart, too much genuine 
 desire for my best interests, to keep me — to wish to detain 
 me — to dare to detain me when I say that I do not choose to 
 remain." 
 
 John turned ash-white, looked stunned afresh, then rolled 
 his eyes upwards to the ceiling and wrung his hands. When 
 he tried to speak, he stuttered ; and, bringing his eyes down 
 again to bear on me, I beheld the piteous animal-like plea of 
 the dumb uncultured soul, that the taught and eloquent have 
 so much to answer for in tormenting. I heaved a sigh of 
 blended self-disgust and annoyance ; most truly, most ar- 
 dently, I longed to get away. But there was nothing for it 
 but to dwarf and simplify my designs till they sank to the 
 level of his comprehension.
 
 60 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 " John, don't you understand me ? I am very unhappy 
 here. As my uncle turned me out of this house, I cannot 
 remain liere ; it is not out of it as your house that I go. It 
 is unkind to keep me, as you are doing ; it makes it harder 
 to go. I bear you no ill-will ; you cannot help it, but, but 
 you can help making me still more miserable. And, John, 
 to show I believe in your good-will heartily, I ask you, as a 
 favour, to take care of Hazelnut." 
 
 Hazelnut was my dearly-loved horse, very old now. I 
 had ridden him daily since I was ten years old ; he would 
 thrust his mouth into my pocket for apples and lumps of 
 sugar, shake hands by putting his fine pastern in my palm, 
 as if conscious his shoe was too hard, stand like a dog on his 
 hind quarters, and bend his proud neck to be caressed — 
 whinny — nay, laugh out when I went to the stable ; and I 
 had always saddled him myself. The chief worry I had 
 about leaving him was, that he had ever testified the most 
 restless dislike to John ; — horses always like men who are 
 either highly bred, or highly cultivated, best. 
 
 "Mr. Ernest," said John, facing me with an expression 
 Hazelnut might himself have envied for devotion and for 
 truth, " I thought about that horse the minute I came to, after 
 that horrid, that bad reading and writing. I thought to my- 
 self, ' I know what Mr. Ernest will do : he will cut away, his 
 spirit will never let him stop, and that horse can't abide nor 
 abear me; and Mr. Ernest wont take him away from his 
 warm stables, built a purpose.' So I went to the men in the 
 ' Blue Woman ' yard, and told them to get me down the best 
 groom from the Queen's own place — I mean the nobs' own 
 horses' place ; and there he is now, Mr. Ernest, and I want 
 you to go and look at him, and see he's all right. Hazelnut 
 did nothing but eat lumps of sugar out of his hand from the 
 beginning." 
 
 At this proof of my darling's inconstancy to one object, or 
 of the superlative llarey-faction of his new keeper, I posi- 
 tively (I had only negatively before) began to believe John
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 61 
 
 innocent of any part at all in the transaction between my 
 uncle and that ill-fitting spouse of circumstance from which 
 no pretence or litigation can divorce her — Law. 
 
 " Thank you," said I, " I am sure it is all right, John, I do 
 not want to see " (I could not have borne to see my half- 
 blind Hazelnut). " I don't want to see him at all ; I only 
 want to go out quietly — and I will write to you in a day or 
 two." 
 
 This merely to quiet him — I did not mean to write to 
 any one ; but the assurance gave new life to my com- 
 panion, who seemed suddenly endowed with vivacity, dor- 
 mant in him until that precise instant. 
 
 " Lord, Mr. Ernest ! " he exclaimed, most unprofanely, 
 " you will Avant your carpet-bag. I will go and pack your 
 carpet-bag ; but won't you take a portmanteau, it is so much 
 bigger ? " 
 
 "I have packed my bag; it is all ready, John, I thank 
 you. I did it the first thing this morning, and I sliall take 
 nothing but xohat is in it." 
 
 " How much, now, might be in it ? " asked John, in the 
 most wheedling way, with his head on one side. Never had 
 I dreamt that he knew there was such a proceeding as " try- 
 ing to fascinate," but he had learnt in a single lesson. 
 
 " Six shirts, a hairbrush and razors, two pieces of soap, 
 six towels, and a comb and toothbrush, with a pair of slip- 
 pers, John." 
 
 I expected some evidence of sympathetic amusement. I 
 had tried to be facetious, as a man might do on the gallows, 
 who was conscious of his innocence of all crime in being 
 hanged. But John straightway bolted without a word. In 
 five minutes he came back, very red, and stolid as a wooden 
 spoon. 
 
 " Your bag is ready, Mr. Ernest ; I tied the two handles 
 together with a bit of string, to make it faster. It is fine now, 
 Mr. Ernest, but it may rain presently." 
 
 What on earth did the creature mean ? He wanted to get
 
 62 ALMOST A HEKOINE. 
 
 rid of me after all. Certainly he was in a strange, eager 
 mood for one so meaningless and flat. 
 
 Three hours afterwards, after wandering about that part 
 of London which, fifteen years ago, was real old Southwark 
 and its core ; after behaving after the manner of all the 
 ghosts who have no rest undergi-ound, nor right above 
 ground either, until I had worn down my pride to the edge 
 of simple weariness, I opened my bag in a certain chamber. 
 I found all the items of my enumeration to John correct as I 
 had pushed them in, but a little inner pocket was curiously 
 swollen, like a pudding-bag replete with its contents. 1 
 opened it carelessly, examined it furiously ; it was full, 
 crammed to the very mouth of it, with crumpled bank-notes. 
 I did not count them, but I should say from their bulk they 
 amounted to a thousand or two. I had not shirked my own 
 legal property, and twenty pounds were in my breast ; but 
 this gain, not gotten fairly, I cast out from me with contempt. 
 A registered letter took all the above-named precious paper, 
 carefully creased out to avoid recognition on the postal 
 transit, back again to John ; of course I never had a receipt 
 for it, for, had he known how to write more than his signa- 
 ture, he was not master of my address. 
 
 The next day I wrote, very shortly and simply, to my 
 mother. I anticipated (for I knew) that she would entreat 
 me to return to her, and, as such dependence would have 
 been more intolerable to me than beggary, I told her most 
 decidedly that if she invited me I should refuse her, that 
 nothing would induce me to forego the necessary conditions 
 of my actual case. After posting her letter, I sat down and 
 thought, not for hours only, I may say for days ; and, being 
 totally ignorant of the ways, means, and passions of that class 
 called lodging-house keepers, I was brought to a very start- 
 ling and sudden blank in my meditations by the discovery 
 that if I remained in such quarters a week longer, I should 
 be without a penny in the world. Not only so ; on the tenth 
 day of my existence there, the man of the house (I had never
 
 ALMOST A IIHROINE. 63 
 
 seen liim before), came before me with an offended air and 
 avenging countenance. I bade him, hke a fool, be seated ; 
 I liad not the least idea how to behave to such a person. 
 He sat down and scratched his head, then informed me that 
 his wife was too delicate to address me on such a subject 
 (she was an immensely tall, enormously fat woman, five or 
 six times my weight) that it was impossible she should any 
 longer have the honor of " entertaining " me under her roof. 
 I asked very naturally, and rather indignantly, " why ? " and 
 would have proceeded to state that I had never intended to 
 stop, but he interrupted me with a blustering and constab- 
 ulary manner, " That I was not a proper person to have in 
 the house, if all that was said was true, even if I could pay 
 my way, which was impossible ; that his wife was very par- 
 ticular as to character; she never allowed latch-keys." A 
 lie this, for a man in the room above mine came in by means 
 of one every night, or rather morning. However, I suc- 
 ceeded, at last, in extracting that slander had not let even 
 such an atom as a penniless inheritor alone, for, besides my 
 lodging-house keepers knowing by this time my name, who I 
 was, and all that had happened to me of late, they were 
 assured, besides, that my uncle had disinherited me because 
 I was a dissipated rake and rampant idler, who had brought 
 down his gray heirs with sorrow to the grave. 
 
 I went out that night, and to a mean-looking hotel, where 
 I paid just as much, I have found since, as I should have 
 done at a first-class one. There I took care to give a name 
 as little like my own as possible ; I did not go to bed, but 
 lighted a pipe, and smoked for hours. 
 
 I do not pretend to be adventurous. I am not of a tem- 
 perament heroic or dashing, though no coward, morally. I 
 doubt not that many a brilliant youth in my position would 
 have dreamed high dreams, superb and yet not baseless, 
 have taken fortune by the forelock, instead of time. I am 
 certain few would have settled down as quietly as I did to a 
 sense of my own incapacity to create either a fortune, a
 
 64 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 career, or an effect. I was, perhaps, not unphilosoplucal in 
 my decision, seeing I had been brought up to no profession, 
 not even that of a fine gentleman, for I had never imbibed 
 from hixury the taste for little-masterhood. I was too late 
 for apprenticeship, either for profession or craft, and had I 
 not been, I had no capital to invest in the very lowest fee. 
 I had, alas ! no genius, nor even turn for art ; though I had 
 enough imagination to love it and know it as it deserves in its 
 least development. I was exceedingly well educated, but 
 had not been to any university in the world, and who could 
 employ as tutor one who had never graduated? Only the 
 head, or blockhead, master of an UglyviUian boys' school 
 might perchance have taken me for usher on nothing a-year, 
 scrag food, and dirty washing. I overlooked, finally, the 
 only purpose I was born for, namely, the use, albeit light 
 and hour-beguihng only, of the pen. It never occurred to 
 me, though I had scribbled all my life; perchance had I 
 written with less ease, I should have turned to it as an 
 earnest occupation, but perchance, also, my mind had not 
 ripened sufficiently to mature its own designs. 
 
 I had been deluged with newspapers while at the lodging 
 from which I was ejected; I had ordered them in that I 
 might examine their advertisements. How weary I grew of 
 their sameness, their vain repetitions, their universally gen- 
 eral wording, which had a slang of its own. And I made up 
 my mind to spend what was left me in advertising myself. 
 I knew I could frame an advertisement which should at least 
 possess the charm of novelty in its expression. 
 
 Failing that — I mean if no answers reached me — I in- 
 tended, literally, not figuratively, to go out to service. I 
 knew I was good-looking enough and horse-bitten enough for 
 a groom, and refined-lookng enough for a lady's-footman. 
 
 My advertisement was to the effect that I desired a situa- 
 tion as secretary to a gentleman or man of extensive business 
 requiring a correspondent both English and foreign. I 
 engaged to provide specimens of my skill as secretary in
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 65 
 
 French, Spanish, German, and Italian. I stated tliat, 
 although well educated, I had graduated at no university, 
 but that I understood Greek ; and lastly, I did not demand 
 exorbitantly high remuneration, enough, as I calculated, to 
 procure me as much clothing as I could wear out, to frank 
 me of as many subscription libraries as I could need for 
 reference, and to leave me a small surplusage for purposes 
 of charity. I demanded a hundred a-year. I know not at 
 this hour whether that is too much or too little for unremit- 
 ting attention to a business at once practical and intellectual, 
 for such, most assuredly, is real foreign correspondence. 
 However, to make a tedious time seem short in memory, — 
 though, woe is me ! I linger over it lovingly, because, once 
 past it, a gulf of blank, black agony must be overleaped, — 
 to cut off all unnecessary comment, I waited three days — 
 of course I had the sense to put my advertisement in the 
 Times at the top, and to insert it three days running — I 
 waited, I say, three days after the last insertion without one 
 answer. I waited four. I waited five and six ; and by that 
 day I had exactly seventeen shillings and sevenpence in my 
 pocket (I had no purse at all). 
 
 My letters, if any came, were to be left at a small street 
 post-office, and I had, in advising their directions, still avoided 
 my real name. 
 
 I might never — and very probably never should — have 
 received my one and crowning answer, had not the post- 
 woman (she was the letter-keeper, and her husband stuffed 
 birds and beasts in the back shop) been a woman of honor — a 
 thing how rare in persons of her occupation, let those sufferers 
 by the late postal robberies declare ! I was walking past the 
 shop-front with its tantalizing slit, in defiance of the spell 
 which had held me vainly captive so many weaiy days. 
 I would not inquire any more, when a little child ran after 
 me with a letter in her hand -^ her hands. She clasped it 
 so carefully, and gave it to me with a pretty stealthy air, 
 saying her mother had seen me pass and sent her with
 
 66 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 it. "It had only come that delivery," not five minutes 
 back. 
 
 I believe in destiny, and also in the ingratitude of man. 
 I had starved myself that day, and was light-headed and 
 faint-hearted in consequence ; this be my excuse for my in- 
 gratitude ; it prompted me to tear the late missive into scraps, 
 and throw it under the horses' feet, to mix in city mud. But 
 my destiny — it drove against my hard-heartedness a force 
 much stronger ; it compelled me, against impulsion, to open 
 the envelope — a thin envelope, with a common adhesive 
 cross-barred oval seal — a light letter inside — no waste of 
 paper here, nor of words confided to it, as I learnt when I 
 tore it open. 
 
 " Lord Lyndfield will be glad to see the gentleman who 
 has advertised three times as an English and foreign secre- 
 tary. A personal interview indispensable — at Lyndfield 
 Chase, Hirst Heath, any day at four p. m. precisely." 
 
 I had never heard of Lord Lyndfield, her Majesty's Min- 
 istry owned him not at least, and how from Uglyville could 
 I have soared into the sphere of the " named among men 
 with recollected names ? " 
 
 I walked back to my postal friend ; she was steadfastly 
 sorting letters even then, but she paused, with one hand on a 
 pile, to give me a peerage list with the other. It was no 
 sublime Bernard Burke, only a matter-of-fact statement of 
 titles, with their heirs — not even the names of the wives 
 of the titles and mothers of their heirs. I gathered there- 
 from, mistily, that Lord Lyndfield did live at Lyndfield 
 Chase, that he had no heir, consequently that he was not 
 married. 
 
 "A personal interview indispensable." Should I go that 
 day ? I thought not, next moment, for I knew Hirst Heath, 
 or rather what line it lay by ; and it was past two o'clock, 
 too late even to reach that station by four. Yet, to stay 
 until the morrow was to spend too much of what I was worth 
 to permit myself to travel first class. I would go second,
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. G7 
 
 then, and, besides, would stay out late enough for my people 
 to suppose I had dined abroad, I did so, and thus had no 
 animal food that day. I had never been ill in my life, though 
 delicate enough of habit to fall ill very easily ; I had never 
 yet committed an irregulai-ity, and knew not the probable 
 results of one. Going home very late, and perfectly ex- 
 hausted, 1 drank a wliole bottle of wine — which cost me 
 double what my dinner would have done — and went to 
 bed ; it sent me to sleep, at least, and kept me so till late 
 next morning. It had drugged me well, being well drugged 
 itself; for I woke in the last mutterings and splutterings of 
 a ti'emendous harvest storm, and I had heard nothing of it, 
 as it had been raging and deluging since four o'clock. I 
 dressed in a desperate hurry — never once thought of the 
 state of the streets — the pavement like a gutter, and the 
 gutter an inundation — but swallowed some scalding tea 
 and went out, bag in hand. Leaving my uncle's house, I 
 had taken care to carry nothing away but what was abso- 
 lutely indispensable. I spurned great-coat or umbrella, reck- 
 oning, indeed too securely, on the fair calm average of the 
 season. 
 
 Arrived at the terminus, I found that by paying first class 
 fare I should only have sixpence left ; second class fare 
 would leave me without more than a few shillings. How 
 did I know where Lyndfield Chase lay — how far from the 
 station ? I might not be strong enough to walk, for I began 
 to feel very strangely already, without knowing the least what 
 was the matter with me ; — it was the shadow of coming ill- 
 ness in which I walked. 
 
 I had not been ten minutes in a third class carriage before 
 a great rain came on, slanting down from black-blue clouds 
 to the southwest. In five minutes, I wtis wetted to the skin ; 
 in five minutes more, I was in sunshine again, with a rain- 
 bow gleaming on the rack behind. Had I then been able to 
 walk — walk briskly, I should have merely encountered a 
 warm vapor bath ; as it was, for more than three hours
 
 68 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 standing still, my skin seemed shivering in a mail of ice ; 
 the very sun heat only made me chillier by contrast, or by 
 driving the moisture inward as it dried. And, with the cold, 
 a cold pain crept about my brows, and bound them with a 
 stupefying pressure. I almost lost memory, and quite antic- 
 ipation ; the very present seemed nothing but a dream itself 
 benumbed, and if any remnant of desire was left me, it was 
 to lie down somewhere and rest ; I cared not should the re- 
 pose be death. 
 
 The train stopped, but it very nearly took me on with it 
 again, (worse fate for railway travellers than to be left be- 
 hind,) for the stoppage seemed to send on my life-current 
 too madly in reaction. I did step out somehow, but could 
 not speak ; my tongue was palsied with a singular sensation 
 of being tied down, not of cleaving to the roof of my mouth, 
 a sensation I am famihar with enough now, though I had no 
 experience of it then. 
 
 I wonder any one dares say — no poet nor painter would 
 — that country railway stations are not picturesque — more 
 than picturesque, mysteriously beautiful. Hirst Heath is one 
 of the most frequented and least noticed in England ; but its 
 charm is something far beyond the sweetest nook or corner 
 of stage-coach " change." 
 
 The little station is itself innocent and featureless enough 
 to be no blot upon the landscape ; but those high banks on 
 Avhicli it rests, Avith their bounteous wealth, as rich as ever, 
 in those far days, of fruitful brambles and flowering briars — 
 of starry, pungent-odored camomile, and snow-bloomed bind- 
 weed — of frail, dazzling poppies, standing up at the very 
 edge of the outermost gauge, as if to stare at the flying ex- 
 press — those banks are mysteriously beautiful. The beauty 
 is their own. The mystery is their close connection with the 
 greatest of realized fables, whose realization only makes it, 
 if less a fable, more a miracle than ever. 
 
 It is wonderful to stand still, with one's feet in the grass 
 and flowers, and listen to the fresh throb gathering strength
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 69 
 
 above, and see the traiu move on so softly, soon so rapidly, and 
 then to see and hear it no more. Ill as I was, I had begun 
 to fear, I stood still to feel the vibration of the earth above 
 me, to see the last of that dark flashing line. Then, for a mo- 
 ment or two, I succumbed to my utter and intense fatigue. I 
 lay upon the warm, wet grass under the bank ; but I had not 
 reached the mental fatuity incident to mid-illness yet, for it 
 soon occurred to me, not only that I might take cold under 
 such circumstances, but that I might be too late for my ap- 
 pointment. 
 
 1 dragged myself up, as if a leaden weight I was com- 
 pelled to carry, and gazed all round for some one who could 
 direct my steps. 
 
 Talk as people will of "excessive cultivation," "over- 
 crowding on building ground," and encroaching of the city 
 on the country — what do they mean ? And in which class 
 do they place those great tracts of unretrleved heath, where 
 nature riots " at her own sweet will ; " those wild gardens, 
 more like Eden than all the cultivated ones, and which places 
 are not at all rare — they are almost common — near the 
 side stations of the all-penetrating force ? I declare that I 
 gazed all round a flat (albeit fairest) champaign for a quar- 
 ter of an hour, and not only saw no sign of man, but no sign 
 of his hand in corntield, turnip-plot, or potato-patch. There 
 was not within sight a sheep, nor an ass, nor even a scare- 
 crow. 
 
 At last I saw something creeping under the long bramble 
 boughs that made wild arbors all about the heath ; but they 
 were so long and so thick with their darkening ruby fruit 
 that I could not tell whether it was a human being. 
 
 I gained on it by feverishly-hastened steps, and out of the 
 branches a head was thrust, whose unkempt hair the thorns 
 detained in multitudinous instances. It pertained to a nonde- 
 script child, impossible to be sworn to as male or female, 
 which had only a colorlessly dirty frock, and presided over, 
 if possessed not, a very broken bucking-basket. The basket
 
 70 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 was on the ground, and a few unripe blackberries strewed 
 the bottom. 
 
 All my own affairs — my very illness — vanished at sight 
 of this droll innocent. It was what the gypsies call a half- 
 and-halfer, to the very eye. 
 
 " You must not eat red blackberries," I said ; " they are 
 never good till they are black. You will make your stomach 
 ache." 
 
 The creature uttered a defiant laugh, delicious in its free- 
 dom, and, clawing the whole contents of the basket together in 
 a crushed and jam-like handful, put them into its mouth, then 
 swallowed them, as it appeared, at a gulp, rose up and stood 
 before me, leaving thick skeins of russet hair upon the bram- 
 ble. 
 
 " Mammy won't know," it observed, diplomatically, allud- 
 hig to the blackberry bolt, of course. 
 
 " Where is mammy ? " I inquired. 
 
 " Up at Lyndfield," was the reply, with a very dirty, but 
 very taper, finger put over the top of the head. 
 
 " Y''ou know Lyndfield, then ? " 
 
 " Stoppin' there." 
 
 " Stopping at Lyndfield ? — living, do you mean ? " 
 
 " No — yes — goin' to Lewiston races." 
 
 " When are the races ? How soon are you going ? " 
 
 " I don't know ; mother's got a young un." 
 
 " Shall I walk back with you to Lyndfield ? " 
 
 " When I've done," with one eye to the basket, empty now. 
 
 " How long would it take to fill it ? " 
 
 " Twenty hours," staring up at the very high and out-of- 
 reach branches, best and ripest laden. 
 
 " But what do you want to fill the basket for? " 
 
 " Sell it." 
 
 " Sell blackberries before they are ripe." 
 
 " For jelly." (Jam, I presume.) 
 
 " Does your mother get more than sixpence for them ? " 
 
 I was possessed of a sixpence (and another) stilL
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 71 
 
 " No." 
 
 " How much more ? " 
 
 " Fourpence." 
 
 " Tenpence ? " 
 
 " No ; fourpence." 
 
 "Whereby I comprehended that fourpence was the princely 
 fee for the unripe bhickberries. 
 
 " I will give you sixpence to go with me to Lyndfield," 
 I said ; " that will be fourpence for your berries and two- 
 pence for you. Will you come ? " 
 
 A moment's hesitation. I took out sixpence and put it 
 into one red little palm. The child put the other hand in 
 mine generously, and, still clenching the coin in her palm by 
 means of the thumb and first three fingers, hooked her least 
 finger into a hole in the basket, and dragged it after her. 
 
 What lovely, lovely lanes we went through ! What weight 
 of summer roses bowed the haughty hedge-tops ! What quan- 
 tities and quantities of tender hiding wild-flowers pranked 
 the lush, long grass ! My half-and-halfer was one of Nature's 
 breeding ; she never spoke, nor stared, till I addressed her ; 
 and I owe her gratitude, for she amused me so much I 
 had not time to dwell upon my deepening torment. I could 
 not translate our conversation, though it was confabulatory, 
 as between a brother and sister — she was a girl-child, after 
 all, — it would take too much time, or space, and very likely 
 no one would understand it. 
 
 Long before we reached Lyndfield, however, I became 
 convinced that there I should stay, for the excellent reason 
 that I should be able to go no further. 
 
 There was a village, but I did not enter it ; for, before 
 reaching the first cottage indicating it, we found two small 
 yellow vans, drawn up on a bit of grass sprinkled with camo- 
 miles. The horses were feeding on them, or the grass, with 
 great gusto, and, lying about under the hedge of an inclosure 
 hard by, were five or six more nondescript children, every 
 one of whom rose on seeing us, and curtseyed or bobbed to 
 me.
 
 72 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 Next moment a woman with tawny skin, blue flashing 
 eyes, and a nut-brown baby in her arms, came round from 
 the front of the hinder van, with stealthy steps — saw us, 
 and curtseyed too. 
 
 " Hope Rosella has not been sarcy, sir ? " she observed. 
 
 " Very polite indeed ; I asked her to leave her blackber- 
 ries, and show me the way." 
 
 Here Rosella held up the sixpence at her mother between 
 her teeth, and winked. 
 
 Had I been moderately well, I should have stayed to make 
 further acquaintance at the risk of being too late. As it was, 
 I only asked : — 
 
 " Do you know Lyndfield Chase ? " 
 
 Rosella's mother waved one hand consequentially over a 
 great space across an intervening common, as if including all 
 the trees, pastures, inclosure, and mansions in the distance. 
 
 " From there to there" she said, not very lucidly indicating 
 the points she referred to. 
 
 " All that ? " I answered ; " a large place. I suppose you 
 never heard of Lord Lyndfield ? " 
 
 " Never heard of Lard Lyndfield. He only brought my 
 young 'un to the town." 
 
 I was very ignorant on many important subjects, for I did 
 not understand her. I thought she meant the said nobleman 
 had picked up Rosella, as I had done, blackberrying at the 
 station, and brought her in his carriage, or on his horse, to 
 join her tribe. 
 
 " Very kind of him ; then I dare say she can show me the 
 way to his house." 
 
 " It's a boy, sir ! " — with superb emphasis of appreciation. 
 " Yes, very kind, very pretty indeed ; the Lyndfield doctor, a 
 most unhandsome man ! — wouldn't leave his bed for one of 
 us. Yes, Lard Lyndfield came at one in the morning and 
 never left till seven, and then the child was dressed ; and sent 
 me lovely Ligian corn, because I told him I couldn't abide 
 their nasty new grits they sell for gruel here."
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 73 
 
 Truth dawned upon me ! It was, then, my doom to be- 
 come attached to the households of exceptional men. Did 
 any one ever hear of a patrician being an accoucher ? 
 
 " Can your daughter go with me directly to Lyndfield 
 Chase? I will give her another sixpence." 
 
 " No, sir ! " with a superb gesture again. " Certainly not 
 accept money for doing a favor ! Rosella, put your hair out 
 of your eyes and go along with the gentleman to Lard 
 Lyndfield's — not inside, for you've not been invited to-day. 
 Show the gentleman the lodge-gate and then come back 
 straight." 
 
 Kosella parted her hair with her middle finger, and marched 
 off", running on first a few steps, then looking back to see that 
 I came right. I could scarcely see her, for the dark giddi- 
 ness growing on me. She looked like a shadow flying over 
 the grass. And what a weary way it seemed ! though I 
 don't think it was half a mile, before we reached, at the end 
 of a high wall topped with loftier trees, a pair of massive 
 iron gates — the lodge inside. 
 
 Here Rosella left me. I rang the bell. A woman first 
 appeared, and scanned me through the iron fretwork — only 
 for a moment though — and, as soon as I said I had come for 
 an interview with her master, she let me in. 
 
 I recollect nothing of that introduction to the beautiful 
 place I got to know so well, save that the broad walk I trod 
 seemed interminable, and its twistings countless. I was at 
 last, somehow, on some wide stone steps ; two wide door- 
 valves were open, and a servant stood within. 
 " Lord Lyndfield at home ? " 
 " No, sir ; he has just gone out." 
 I groaned in my heart's depths. 
 " He said he should be in at four." 
 
 The man looked back down the interior, to consult a clock 
 evidently, for he said, "It is exactly twelve minutes past 
 four, sir." 
 
 " Oh, the curse of punctuality ! " I could barely falter. 
 4
 
 74 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 "The portress at the lodge did not tell me he was out. 
 Must he not have gone through the gates ? " 
 
 " No, sir " (very respectfully) ; " he went on horseback, 
 and took the fence. I fancied he was going to Foxholme." 
 
 " Foxholme ! " 
 
 " The next place, sir ; there is but the fence between. 
 That way, sir," — coming out on the step, and pointing — 
 where, I could not see. 
 
 " Have you any idea when he will be home ? " 
 
 " No, sir ; he did not say. He does sometimes stay to tea 
 at Foxholme, and he made me bring a pot of cream, which 
 he put in his pocket." 
 
 Ill as I was, I was morbidly conscious of the curious im- 
 putations on Lord Lyndfield ; to bring a half-and-halfer's 
 baby into the world ; to " invite" a half-and-halfer's child to 
 Lyndfield Chase ; and finally, to carry in his pocket a " pot " 
 of cream. 
 
 " Lord Lyndfield did not say he expected a gentleman to 
 call at four?" 
 
 " No, sir. So many gentlemen come, he never does." 
 
 Here there was an uncertain expression in the man's 
 voice. Did he mean to invite me to come in and sit down ? 
 If he did, I disabused his benevolence of its illusion, for I 
 felt as if I should faint away on being under a roof. I forced 
 a dying gasp of dignity : — 
 
 " That will do, I thank you ; it is of no consequence at 
 all." 
 
 The man shut the door, rather reluctantly, I thought, even 
 in that extremity of mine. I did not comprehend the state I 
 was in then ; but since, I have learnt that it is a commix- 
 ture of physical illness with the nervous condition, in which 
 the nervous fluid is unequally distributed ; now ebbs, now 
 flows, and each as suddenly ; now rushes to the heart and 
 overpowers its action ; now flies up to the brain and quickens 
 its mysterious life to the delirium which learned men, old 
 times, mistook for madness ; or as often quits the stronghold
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 75 
 
 of the spirit, and it is collapsed, all the intellectual impulse 
 lost awhile. 
 
 So for the moment I became, as the door shut on me, en- 
 ergized. I could walk, I could even see ; nothing saw I, 
 however, of the new and beauteous nature around me. I 
 only looked in the direction the man had indicated when I 
 had not seen. I saw, surely enough, at the bottom of a 
 bright lawn which sloped here and there into little hollows 
 filled with amethystine shade, a light green wire fence. It 
 Avas very low, so low that, for my powers, it was much less 
 than a vaulting post, and my Hazelnut would have sneered 
 at it, and tossed aside. I had looked all round the lawn in 
 vain for a garden-seat or chair ; I knew afterwards of Lord 
 Lyndfield's prudence, as well as his punctuality, and that 
 they had all been carried in out of the morning's rain, and, 
 seeing nothing whereon a worn-out creatui'e could rest for 
 a short breath, not even on the lawn a tree stump, I deter- 
 mined, or rather determined not, but did it, to climb over the 
 fence, and go in among the dainty tender trees of the shrub- 
 bery beyond it, which at least showed a veiling shade from 
 eyes of men, or the heaven, whose sultry afternoon burned 
 its full allowance of August sunshine, cloudless now. 
 
 I do not mean to work upon the compassion of an hour, 
 by describing what I went through next, or at least by de- 
 scribing it step by step. I cannot, for I remember it, step by 
 step, no more than, thank God, I can anticipate whatever 
 more of mortal anguish is to fall upon me. But I have a 
 vague memory of soft green shadows, and delicate leaf-tints, 
 and ferny shapes ; and one, not vague but vivid, of the blest 
 home I found in that ftiir wilderness. Not very deep perchance 
 in its depths, but seeming the end of the earth to my impov- 
 erished energies just then, there was a pretty summei'-house, 
 no windy arbor, mock hermitage, nor vault above the 
 ground, misnamed a grotto. It was a summer-house, and 
 through the reeling sense of near impending sickness, I could 
 smell its summer roses and clasps of honeysuckle, though
 
 76 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 how I entered it I cannot recollect ; still I remember, or am 
 perhaps informed by after association, that it was thatched 
 outside, the tliatch covering a pyramidal ceiling within, and 
 that it was divided into two little rooms. With the first of 
 these onl}' I made acquaintance then, for the simple reason 
 that the floor -was thickly strewn with heather, perfectly sun- 
 dried, and yielding even in death a sweet aroma a dead man's 
 character might envy, and on this bed I lay down helplessly, 
 its pungent soothing odor wrapping round my brain. 
 
 I know not what happened to me next ; whether I went to 
 sleep, or was entranced (fasting breeds trance, they say), or 
 was the subject only of a prolonged swoon ; for I have ever 
 since retained the trick of passing into and spending hours in 
 a curious cataleptic calm, wdien physically or mentally over- 
 wrought. Perhaps I passed through all such phases, for, as 
 I learned afterwards, many hours elapsed before the next 
 impression of any human interest brightened my dark brain. 
 
 Lying still as death, or as those ivann underneath tlie 
 snow rest in the dying " snow sleep," I heard voices, or felt 
 them, for they were very low, though one was earnest, and 
 the other — oh, how tender ! 
 
 " Is it dangerous ? " asked the tender tones. 
 
 " A critical case, at least." 
 
 " Does that mean the same thing ? " 
 
 " It means there will, there must, be a crisis. Now, my 
 dear child, I would have you go." 
 
 " Do let me stay till you know he is alive ; do feel his 
 pulse." 
 
 " Nonsense ! I know he lives without that. Really I do 
 wish you were away, or that you had never come." 
 
 " Perhaps he would have died then." 
 
 " Nonsense ! He would not have been dead to-morrow 
 morning, and I should have been here by that time." 
 
 " Are you not the least anxious ? Oh, I wish he would 
 open his eyes ! What a beautiful shape the lids are, with 
 that blue shade around them ! "
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 77 
 
 " Nonsense ! That shade is unnatural, and thei'cfore ugly. 
 I will have you go." 
 
 " Do let me stay till he opens his eyes ! Do you not mean 
 to make him ? " 
 
 " No ! " 
 
 This setting up of the crest of another individual will 
 against my own aroused me, as it would have done had I 
 been really dying. An ancestor of mine in articido mortis 
 actually blew away the feather they held up before his lips 
 to see if his breath had left his body, and died directly after 
 the feat, in peace. I opened my eyes wide, but I closed them 
 again as hastily. What I saAV I cannot any more describe 
 than he who was caught up to the " third heaven " cared to 
 relate the " unspeakable things " he heard as well as saw. 
 
 Then commenced a whispering, whereof I caught no echo. 
 Very soon some universally warm wrap was slipped all over 
 me, and I was lifted up, laid on some resting but movable sup- 
 port, and carried somewhere. Then intervened a pause in 
 spiritual passion, filled up by the pressure of the heaviest in- 
 cubus of sickness I ever knew, sharp pains and stinging rem- 
 edies, long lapses of uneasy sleep, no consciousness of time 
 nor circumstance ; then, the more palpable but safer torment 
 of consciousness intensified in revenge for its temporary sus- 
 pension ; the bitter, stringent, or nauseous taste of drug and 
 draught, strange whitFs of chloroform, ammonia, creosote ; 
 moments ravishing as paradise (but for their transiency), 
 when I swallowed greedily delicious lemon-flavored efferves- 
 cents, or the wine of the ripe apple, sweeter than that of 
 many grapes. Presently after this, the only delectable stage 
 of real indisposition, I began to wonder at my own state and 
 the care bestowed upon me — a certain sign of rapid conva- 
 lescence. All through my illness I had been aware — first 
 indolently, and afterwards with great content — of a face 
 bent over me, I could not tell how often or how seldom ; nor 
 knew I whether I was touched or not ; but in this last state I 
 mention I felt that face a noticeable image, with its rea-
 
 78 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 soning ejes, and expression of tranquil earnestness. I can 
 use no other term to picture it as then it shone upon me. 
 
 One day my spirit Avoke up all at once ; I had missed the 
 tranquil, earnest face for long, but the hand of another person 
 held me out a cordial, delicate as fervent, something aromatic 
 mixed with wine — such wine ! It might have been bi'ewed 
 that Comet-year whose bins are waning empty now. 
 
 The peculiar sensation of being able to bend one's back 
 without breaking it returned to me ; I sat half up. Never 
 was I more amazed than when, gazing round me, I found 
 myself in a strange room ; I had actually been too ill to real- 
 ize it before. It was a delicious room, so large, with softly- 
 tempered light, my curtain drawn on one side, but on the oth- 
 er wanting altogether, and this side admitting the full current 
 of the summer air from the window, open at the top, with 
 shading blinds outside. In the window sat a woman, in a 
 peculiar but pretty dress, such as I have since seen worn by 
 hospital nurses of the highest class. She was working, and 
 in profile to me. I addressed her in a voice whose changed 
 and fallen accent surprised me as much as my new position. 
 
 " Where am I ? " I inquired. 
 
 She got up instantly, but I heard no steps, and came to me. 
 In an instant her fingers were at my wrist, and I suppose my 
 pulse assured her it was proper to speak to me, for in the act 
 of pouring out a mixture into a medicine-glass she answer- 
 ed, — 
 
 " At Lord Lyndfield's, sir." 
 
 I nearly choked in swallowing my physic. When it was 
 down — 
 
 " Who was the gentleman I have seen so often ? " 
 
 " Lord Lyndfield, sir." 
 
 " I thought it was the doctor," I returned, staring at her — 
 ray instinct had told me so. 
 
 " He is a doctor, sir." 
 
 Then waves of recollections seemed to roll over and whelm 
 my weak memory ; I could not tax it further, nor go on talk-
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 79 
 
 ing. I could not even speak when the doctor came in next, 
 that evening late, but it might have been because his eyes 
 were looking extraordinary earnest then. Nor had I the 
 chance of talking, for during many days after that I went 
 through all the paces of the proper convalescent steadily, 
 even ''speedily; was judiciously, exquisitely fed, provided 
 with all luxuries, yet I know not whether the greatest lux- 
 ury of all was not the thought, ever present, of the marvellous 
 charity, the superhuman kindliness of my treatment. For as 
 I grew stronger my memory grew fresh, I recalled each cir- 
 cumstance, even that of the second voice I had listened to 
 through my swoon of illness. 
 
 It was in vain for me to try and explain this more than 
 Samaritan behavior and immense generosity, immense in its 
 minuteness to myself. My uncle's theories of mankind and 
 their treatment of men as " one another," in which I had 
 been trained so carefully, while so easily, failed as tests this 
 time. How could the degenerate race of this mean planet 
 consist of such individuals as my entertainer? I learned, 
 time enough, that they are exceptions, who prove the celes- 
 tial rule of the Ideal, beyond all the gross quibbles of the 
 selfish self-called Realist. 
 
 Here was I, in a house that had not known me, belonging 
 to a man who knew not my very name, much less my char- 
 acter, and who must have been, unless he had proved the 
 man 1 knew him afterwards, master of the fact that I had 
 the sum of sixpence in my pocket, and no visiting card. My 
 pure, unsullied, honored host had failed to search my pockets. 
 I knew that when I searched them myself, every item being in 
 such order as that my pocket handkerchief, which I had twist- 
 ed into a trick my uncle had taught me, taught him by a Ger- 
 man conjuror, not only retained its knotted and, to ignorant 
 ones, inextricable condition, but was in the same place in my 
 pocket, that is, frothed up at the opening, with a show of 
 much property being hid beneath — a shape it must instantly 
 have lost had it been touched or tampered with.
 
 80 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 For all ray days of convalescence my gratitude was dashed 
 back in my face when I tried to express it by word, by 
 token, or by the mist of the thick cloud of tears — how sweet 
 a dew ! — that hung about my brain. 
 
 Call me unmanly, and then look at the best and bravest 
 of the " men " we recollect, the great units who redeem the 
 blank thousands of the ages in succession from oblivion. 
 "Wept they not, the drowning sailor-lions, kings of an element 
 more powerful than earth — when they sent their last and 
 their eternal loves to their dear unconscious sweethearts, safe 
 on earth ? And wept they not, the hero-martyrs of unneces- 
 sary war, when, dying for want of the blood so ravished from 
 them, they remembered the betrothed, the bride, the wife ? 
 But woe to me, for I shall expend my whole small stock-in- 
 trade of tragic images, or have called attention to such lofty 
 sufferings that my own poor passion will seem as feeble in its 
 essence as it must be, for on that I cannot descant, in its 
 expression.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 FOUND AND LOST. 
 
 I MIGHT have spared myself the last page, for it lends 
 little to the statement of the simple fact that when I tried to 
 thank my host in the most idiotical, ineloquent fashion, for all 
 he had done for me, and delivered me from, I met with the 
 decided rebuff of a back turned on me, a staring, I imagine, 
 out of w-indow at the prospect, and presently a remark which 
 bore no more reference to mine than did his dressing-gown I 
 wore, such a beauty, chocolate-colored Gros d'Afrique, lined 
 with Spanish sarcenet, to the planet Mars. 
 
 Speaking of Mars brings me to the temperament of my 
 friend and benefactor. Temperaments, in boyhood, were my 
 strong point. I piqued myself on understanding them, as if 
 any finite worm, were he blest with brains down to his 
 middle joint, could any more identify and match temperament 
 than find two leaves of the same tree, of the same forest, 
 alike. I have been a fool, dry-nursed at the breast of 
 Knowledge, believing her wisdom, I repeat, for there was a 
 time, not a hundred years ago, when I dreamed of a very 
 small party of opposing temperaments, making Up the sum 
 of universal being. To x'eturn to Mars — at that hour I was 
 bitten with those vague, commonplace, unproven fables of 
 Astrology which the miracle-goddess, skyey-queen Astron- 
 omy, has since defied in silent sphere-music and scattered 
 with one breath of her vast nostrils to space hoio intermina- 
 ble ! In those days, then, I believed in planets limited in 
 number, and corresponding to temperaments, also few ; now 
 I own both innumerable, and not for man to name ! 
 
 4*
 
 82 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 Mars, in those weedy days of mine, opposed to seedy, as 
 the forcing spring to the scattering autumn, was my initial 
 star for a " temperament " witli auburn locks, fair skin, and 
 burning azure eyes, that could lighten at their will ; so the 
 first time I left the floor I had been ill on, I baptized Lord 
 Lyndfield never such a fool as then, for at this time, writing 
 with a trifle more experience, if none of wisdom, I am sure 
 he never could have been a warrior, he was too humane, 
 large-hearted, and too sensible, brave enough for more and 
 worse than ivar, as his chosen career gave evidence. 
 
 I think he must have possessed the cream, in his, of all 
 the " temperaments '* — fair-browed as a child, with those 
 same eyes I have called in color burning blue, but Avhose 
 expression, the earnest-tranquil, never left them except when 
 he was angry or indignant at dishonor, or cruelty, or oppres- 
 sion ; he was yet hot tempered, but so just, with a delicate 
 spice of real philosophy, that he never gave way to any but 
 decided expressions of it. To look at him in a medium 
 mood you might have fancied him a slow man, one of rare 
 impulses and deliberate in fulfilling them ; — no, his mental 
 motions were rapid as the light, his intuition of character 
 was electric. His honor was blood-honor, the purest I ever 
 knew, it was unconscious honor, albeit he was swift enough 
 to detect a speck on the honor of another person. For his 
 kindness, rare quality, more rare than even honor, I have 
 given good proof of it already. 
 
 I am writing too much — I could write a book about 
 Lyndfield Chase and its master, but a few reminiscences 
 must creep in yet. I remember now well, the first day I 
 went down stairs to his library, and found him there. He 
 was writing, so, of course, I did not disturb him. Besides 
 his punctuality, which can scarcely be termed one, he had a 
 few crotchets, chips from a noble block ; he never spoke to a 
 human being in the morning till ten o'clock, he never wasted 
 a scrap of paper, and he had a passion for new milk. But I 
 walked softly round to look at the books; the lil)rary was a
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 83 
 
 light, bright room, but it contained only medical works, ex- 
 cept one shelf devoted to the finest editions of all the best 
 books of natural history, from Bewick to Gould. In the four 
 corners were cases of British birds, stuffed exquisitely by 
 himself, arranged, as I never saw them, on boughs of their 
 own favorite trees, dried wonderously so as to preserve their 
 shape, and with nests and eggs. Then I went to the window. 
 What a prospect ! Was it possible there could be such 
 sketches of green pasture and deep broad shades in this 
 small island over-crowded ? Before the sashes lay a lawn, 
 beyond it meadows with a silver streamlet threading them 
 across, and on its emerald clover-rosy shores reposed about a 
 dozen of the superbest cows I ever saw, rich-tinted, dashed 
 with dun or tortoise-shell, or auburn altogether, and one milk- 
 white. With all his passion for cream and milk, however, 
 could Lord Lyndfield, or all Lyndfield besides, consume such 
 quantities as they must produce, I thought. Before my 
 speculation had resolved itself, Loi'd Lyndfield spoke, came 
 towards me, holding out his hand. 
 
 I know not what chained my tongue, or froze my eager 
 gratitude, but I believe it was his face. I did not dare to be 
 profuse or eloquent ; we sat down, and then I said : — 
 
 " Impossible as it is for me to thank you, it is more than 
 my life you have saved ; it is my faith in humanity. I must 
 explain to you how I intruded — how I happened to come 
 here." 
 
 " I think I know how better than you do," said Lord 
 Lyndfield, smiling as he lighted a cigar, " as I carried you 
 myself. I was very anxious." 
 
 Lord Lj^ndfield's mode of address, without the least ab- 
 ruptness, was downright. You could not guess at the gentle- 
 ness of his behavior through it ; that filtered through the tone. 
 
 "I want to tell you how I came here, and who I am. 
 You answered my advertisement for a secretaryship, and it 
 was all I had to look to. I set off instantly ; you were not 
 at home."
 
 84 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 " Oh ! I have had a world of trouble with my correspond- 
 ents on that score, and appHcants too. I sent them all pack- 
 ing. I am sorry you were one." 
 
 " Sorry ! — you have not even tried me." 
 
 "But I have read you — you are quite unfitted for the 
 life, and it would wear you down. For a few months it 
 might do — we will talk of it. How was it you happened to 
 fall ill in the next garden instead of mine ? " 
 
 " Because your seats were all taken in out of the rain, and 
 I was wholly exhausted ; I chmbed over the fence to find 
 some place where I could lie down, or die ; and on coming 
 to myself I heard voices, or they aroused me ; two voices : 
 one was yours, the other — " 
 
 " Was that of the person who found you in the summer- 
 house, and came and told me — " 
 
 How very impatient was the accent here, and he went 
 on hurriedly, — 
 
 " You must have had a peculiar shock, not a pleasant one, 
 to produce such a crisis, Avith your youth and constitution." 
 
 " It was no love-affair," I inserted by a quick new impulse 
 I could not define to myself. 
 
 " No, no, — you had been made very angry, or very much 
 hurt, perhaps both ; something bitter had turned your blood, 
 and on its gall you had starved yourself — very likely over- 
 drunk yourself — " 
 
 I recalled my internal sherry-bath with comjiunction, but 
 astonishment overcame it. 
 
 " Lord Lyndfield, you are a conjuror." 
 
 " A doctor should be something more." 
 
 " But how you could tell my name is Ernesto Loftus, and 
 a few weeks since I thought little to find myself — " 
 
 He interrupted me, but very quietly. 
 
 " I recollect the Loftus will. I was so angry at it that I 
 would not go to see the Collection ; but what a silly young 
 man — no, boy you must be ! " 
 
 " Agreeable ci"edentials from one's first and only patron ! "
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 85 
 
 " Why ? " 
 
 " Not to dispute it, — think of the good you might do ! It 
 Is your duty, and down you sit like a raw girl a boarding- 
 school has depleted to zero. It is the clearest case out- 
 standing, stark mad ; and the quiet kind, so cruel quiet, 
 stealthier than death." 
 
 " Do you mean my uncle was mad ? Lord Lyndfield par- 
 don me, I am the only judge there. He was as sane as I." 
 
 " You are sane ! How many specimens of insanity have 
 you perused ? " 
 
 How a home-question, be it ever so homely, comes straight 
 home ! I had never seen a mad person in my life. 
 " How many ? " 
 
 " None — but then I have instincts — " 
 " Instincts direct you in natural instances, not in unnatural. 
 Madness is a violation — and that, oh God ! the most violent 
 — of the laws of nature." 
 
 How passionately he spoke ! — paused a little, then 
 added : — 
 
 " I might perhaps know more than you. I have seen the 
 mad by thousands, and I do see a hundred every day." 
 
 Then he rose up suddenly ; a curious sensation diserapow- 
 ered me for comment. 
 
 " Do you feel inclined to walk a few steps? — just along 
 that walk that girds the grass-plot." 
 
 I was very glad to go, when out of the house, — the back 
 I had not seen. I was amazed at its great size ; I had 
 thought it a mere country-house before, with the symmetrical 
 squareness of such modern structures. This Avas not ex- 
 tremely wide, a fair white frontage without wings, but its 
 depth ! — it stretched out such a distance that, standing side- 
 ways to view it, one felt sure it had been greatly added to — 
 indeed, there was an obvious line between the darker primi- 
 tive and the newer brighter brickwork. After I had exam- 
 ined the house, I gladly followed my host to the garden. We 
 walked slowly along the pathway next the lawn. This path
 
 86 ALM-OST A HEROINE. 
 
 had another boundary, a wall covered with flowering creep- 
 ers, but high and solid ; and I imagined this the limit of the 
 property that side. We had reached about the middle (it 
 ran across the meadows too, and shut them in) when Lord 
 Lyndtield stopped ; so did I ; he drew a great mass of passion- 
 flower from its bower, the wall, and behind it I perceived that 
 a brick had been removed — there was a small gap, oblong 
 square. 
 
 " Look there — through it," he said in a voice very 
 constrained and cold for him. And I looked long enough 
 — I could not withdraw my gaze. Beyond the wall was a 
 garden even fairer than that in which we stood. Plats of the 
 most vivid flowers (flowers to please the eye) were scattered 
 all over a piece of grass like velvet ; and all around were 
 arbors, in gay succession ; curious nooks that glittered with 
 colored windows and were pranked with blazing spars. The 
 arbors were as thick-placed, and as gaudy, as the pavilions 
 in first-class tea-gardens. On the pinnacle of eveiy one — 
 each a wholly different color — waved a gorgeous flag, a flag 
 of no nation under the sun, save the fancy kingdom of uni- 
 versal childhood. On the grass were trees, great trees and 
 little trees ; on the great ones swings were hung — green- 
 seated and cushioned, swings delectable to notice ; and the 
 smaller shrubs Avere loaded with garlands and streaming 
 knots of ribbon, rose and geranium and blue. A big rock- 
 ing-horse was placed on the lawn, also many shuttlecocks 
 and battledoors — a target was fastened to a gilded pole — 
 bows and arrows were pointed at it — the air was winged 
 with these, kites were flying, enormous kites, far up in the 
 blue sky ; people — persons were swinging, shot the arrows, 
 rode the toy-horse, picked the flowers and smelled them (and 
 threw them away), sat in the gay arbors, talked and laughed, 
 danced even to their own music, and were not children ! 
 
 Lord Lyndfield pulled me away ; when I turned and 
 saw his face, it was very pale — pale as he was seldom when 
 /saw him.
 
 ALMOST A II1:H«1NK. 
 
 87 
 
 " What do you see ? " he asked me in that passionate, cold 
 
 voice again. 
 
 « Whom do I see, rather ? " I answered. I do not know, 
 although I have an awful idea, — Lord Lyndfield — tell me, 
 
 you." ° 
 
 " You see my secret." 
 
 Four hours afterwards (how kind and self-forgetting he 
 was, he would not let me return to the subject till I had 
 rested and been refreshed) we sat together in the library. 
 
 "You see now why I said what I did about your relation. 
 It was hardly theoretic." 
 
 « You mean those people were all mad. They did not 
 look so, but it was ' darkness that it might be felt.' But, my 
 dear Lord Lyndfield, you never saw my uncle, and the sight 
 I have witnessed makes me more than ever certain he was 
 not one of those." 
 
 « It is possible we may be either right or wrong." 
 I was bursting to ask questions, and quite unashamed — 
 what proof of true gentlemanhood in my companion ! 
 
 " Would it hurt you — would you mind telling me how 
 they came to appoint you ? " 
 
 "Appoint me!" with a sharp glance from the bright 
 
 eye^'" 
 
 « I suppose it is a private Asylum ? " 
 
 " It is not an Asylum ; it is my house." 
 
 " I wish I knew." 
 
 " I know you do, and your desire is a great comfort to me. 
 The young men now are either dissipated or donkeys — there 
 seems no middle class, but you are certainly not either indi- 
 vidually. I will tell you my story ; it is brief, or I shall tell 
 it briefly. I am no purveyor of penny literature. I was 
 not born in the rank I occupy, though of blood as healthy 
 as the best. My grand-uncle was a great lawyer, whose 
 name stands prominent in the judicial history of his time. 
 He saved for a certain Irish peer (a man with seven sons 
 and eleven daughters) his whole estate, not an immense
 
 88 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 one, but all to him and his, from the damnation to which cer- 
 tain brethren of his jirofession were dooming it by the inev- 
 itable sink of costs. This peer was a grateful man, and 
 recollected my ancestor in his own prosperity, for everything 
 prospered with him, and he married every one of his daugh- 
 ters to men of substance, except the eleventh, who went into 
 a nunnery and grew into an abbess. This earl made men- 
 tion of his lawyer in high quarters ; the lawyer rose to mas- 
 tery in his own profession, and only escaped the woolsack by 
 being made a baron instead. He had saved a good deal of 
 money (we don't sow wild oats broadcast in our race), and 
 he bought this Lyndfield Chase (it was called Lyndfield after 
 him, being strictly a chase A 1 before). It was a pet place 
 of his. He had brought his wife here for the honeymoon, 
 when there was neither church nor inn nor name at Lynd- 
 field, only a tiny shell of wood cottages or two, a little farmer's 
 whose house was less habitable than his own barn, and the 
 old, old turnpike. They lodged in a wooden hut too for the 
 honeymoon, but it was the depth of summer and no foul 
 smells came between them and the camomiles and hay. The 
 gypsies, too, here was their stronghold, with a hundred tents, 
 looking like shells of tortoises, on the wide green dells. Now 
 we have no gypsies, only half-and-halfs, the Saxon half tak- 
 mg such large moiety of the rich dark gypsy out of them, 
 alas ! " 
 
 My half-and-half's invitation was explained. 
 
 " My father was my grandfather's only son, and had three 
 children, two sons, myself the second. He had a horror of 
 young men being bred up to no profession, in any rank, what- 
 ever their expectations. I had few enough, for my great 
 uncle had three sons himself. My brother went into the 
 army, I chose physic, my j^assion even then for a profession, 
 and I may say (for I am not generally educated) that I 
 studied it ardently and absorbingly, as alone it can be 
 studied. My brother died first ; he fell early in the Scindian 
 war. Next two of my cousins, bright boys at Eton, were
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 89 
 
 drowned in cncli otlier's arms while bathing. The shock 
 nearly killed their father, and he was an old man from that 
 date. I lost my father four years afterwards, and two years 
 later my eldest cousin died of cholera here at Lyndfield. 
 They used to call it an unhealthy place then, but the des- 
 troyer was in every place that year. I did not like intruding 
 on my relation, but he understood me and sent for me ; I 
 never left him till his death. It is only since that time I 
 have been able to realize my plans, formed long before, of 
 taking under my care as many of these sufferers as my 
 means allowed, of devoting myself to alleviate their awful 
 condition ; but I had longed for such opportunity for many 
 years, and almost abandoned surgery to study the diseases of 
 the mind." 
 
 The very words w^ei'e on his lips when the door opened 
 gently and some one entered, walked up to him, and spoke. 
 It was a few words about some patient or other out of doors, 
 and poor, and it was a woman's voice. I looked at her well, 
 but not for long. Lord Lyndfield almost ordered her away. 
 
 " I sent you word I could not see you this morning, that I 
 would call," he said in an accent almost stern ; I felt ready 
 to hate him ! " Did not my man bring a message ? " 
 
 " I suppose I missed him. I went out early, and came 
 here before going home." 
 
 " There, well ! It is late for your dinner, my child. Pray 
 don't let me detain you." 
 
 She held her hand out to him, with what a smile ! Who 
 could have resisted it as he did ? for he loould not smile. He 
 frowned. I did not see that she looked at me, and the omis- 
 sion struck to my heart. 
 
 But I was much too interested — interested ? — desperate, 
 to be the least timid, or to care even if Lord Lyndfield should 
 row me well for asking. 
 
 " I know," said I quietly, " who the person is to whom I 
 owe my life. It was that young lady's voice I heard. Is 
 she your daughter ? "
 
 90 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 " No, sir," almost fiercely, " I am not married, and have no 
 child." 
 
 I said so much to find out what a sweet instinct made me 
 anxious to know, whether Lord Lyndfield had over this per- 
 son to whom I had not spoken, who had not looked at me, 
 any worldly control. I felt thankful she was not his child, 
 but why — oh, why was I glad ? I wondered why then, 
 and in my saddest frames I always wonder now. 
 
 For this episode of my life very few words must be enough. 
 I cannot analyze it, anatomize the passion that was to be all 
 of suffering and nothing of reward. I must hasten over my 
 young history, whose youth grew sere before its spi-ing had 
 melted into summer, which Avas to have no summer this side 
 the gi-ave. 
 
 Lord Lyndfield did not know that his sane protected was 
 slyer than his insane ones, proverbially sly. I outwitted 
 him — and that I did, so I neither blame nor defend myself 
 for. I only inhabit in consequence what is, in truth, the very 
 paradise of pain — for I suffer not alone. 
 
 I let Lord Lyndfield think I had forgotten or was less than 
 indifferent to, the morning's incident. He watched me a 
 good while, but I fairly conquered his suspicions. After 
 luncheon I remarked that I could not remain any longer 
 under his I'oof unless he permitted me to be of use, and I 
 requested him to place before me the exact details of the 
 duties a secretary should have to perform. To nail him to 
 the notion that I was in sober earnest, I produced four or five 
 lettei's in different languages (I had penned them in my 
 room). Of course I did not confine myself to business 
 terms, but gave my imagination the rein and let it lead me 
 where it would. One letter, the Spanish, was dated from the 
 Jjscurial. I had learned it from the best books and finest 
 engravings, and in dreams had been there too. Lord Lynd- 
 field stopped half way through this rhapsody (it was pure 
 grammar and idiom though) and looked into my eyes — a 
 habit of his, and a rare one too, that of looking into eyes, not 
 merely at them.
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 91 
 
 " Young man, you have mistaken your vocation. I am not 
 generally literary, but yet I perceive it. You should be an 
 author — good thing for any one, but an excellent part for 
 you. You have great imagination and some eloquence, and 
 you are reserved^ Therefore, you would not make an ora- 
 tor, but a writer well." 
 
 " Lord Lyndfield, my uncle always said it was absurd to 
 publish too young. I have had no practice, and I have lived 
 too remotely. For the present, I should prefer to write your 
 letters, if you think I can." 
 
 " Quite sure ! I should like to have my eye upon you for 
 a little, too, poor fellow ! " — here relapsing into that ineffa- 
 ble kindness which was no more to be repi'essed, for long, 
 than his generosity. Kindlier than I had ever known it was 
 his manner, his voice, his impression on me ; as he went on, 
 there was reluctance in his accent too. 
 
 " I am going to make a condition — it is a very simple one. 
 If you remain with me — if you are magnanimous enough 
 to take up such a commonplace burden of every-day exist- 
 ence after all you have expected, and had a right to, I shall 
 be very glad. But the condition must be enforced." 
 
 " Pray let me hear it." 
 
 " That you shall never inquire of me who that young lady 
 is, or how connected with me ; the young lady you saw to- 
 day by accident — no fault of mine — I tried to prevent it ; 
 and that you shall never climb over the fence into the next 
 garden again, nor enter the house next mine, for any consid- 
 eration." 
 
 " It is quite unnecessary, Lord Lyndfield, but I assure you 
 I never will." 
 
 Lord Lyndfield was not an imaginative man, and knew not 
 the rai)idity of the inventive faculty. I could find out what 
 I wanted, most probably quite as well xoitliout questioning 
 him or getting over the fence. 
 
 Was it well I did so ? and did I Avrong ? I know not, in 
 so far as that I do not pretend nor desire to be perfect in this
 
 92 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 imperfect state. I may have caused another to suffer — is 
 it not better to suffer — better 
 
 To have loved and lost, 
 
 Than never to have loved at all. 
 
 Fragmentary must be my memories just here, a handful 
 of loose rose-leaves toni rudely from the living rose's breast 
 in agony, and flung out on the winds to wither. 
 
 I served Lord Lyndfield well. His letters were extra- 
 ordinarily many, and in various languages, for his patients 
 were, one and all, extreme and exceptional cases — cases 
 requiring minute and philosophic — while, oh ! how patient 
 — treatment. They were of many countries, and gathered 
 together durins; their noble benefactor's travels for the 
 express purpose of eliciting all the honey from the experi- 
 ences of those who tend the mad abroad. For foreign mind 
 medicinists are as much more enlightened than British ones, 
 as foreign surgeons are more artistic and acute. He had 
 selected those, the excejitional among the few who baffle 
 even the masters of the general mad ; — those whose disor- 
 ders are the most obscure or the most outrageous ; those 
 who are gladly excluded by the doctors from contact with 
 the insane more mildly stricken. The richest and the 
 poorest, and all of any grade, were received and sheltered, 
 but with the verij wealthiest a fee, trifling to the wealthy, 
 was demanded, such sums swelling the ca2:)ital so largely 
 drawn on for the comfort of the many poorer. So, as the 
 relations who confided their helpless ones to this philanthro- 
 pist were not in all instances inhuman or unnatural, they 
 desired regular information of their welfare ; wrote letters 
 periodically, which had to be replied to, while, at the same 
 time, there was an enormous business correspondence re- 
 quisite with the large dealers who supplied that out-of-the 
 way house of God. I made haste slowly, in the old Latin 
 sense, and for the few days Lord Lyndfield watched me 
 (severely, and, oh, how narrowly ! ) I pretended to get
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 93 
 
 tlirougli my clay's work in the exactest nick of time. After 
 he found me steady, and actually unvarying in ray perform- 
 ances to a minute, he left me to myself a good deal, but still 
 " popt in " upon me unexpectedly a day or two, and never 
 caught me tripping. After that he trusted me implicitly, 
 and returned to his own routine, which was, never to leave 
 his patients a single instant to the keepers, his police — how 
 choicely chosen! — from ten till four. And, lo ! I got my 
 work done (it was the very lightest labor) by one o'clock at 
 latest after he had left off watching me, and was safe home 
 again and in the library, sealing and stamping letters by ten 
 minutes to four. Lord Lyndfield never found me out until 
 — it was too late to save me. 
 
 I had grown strong suddenly, or strength had come to me 
 out of my sharp illness, — no unfrequent fact. I could take 
 long walks. The first walk I took was not long, it was to 
 the bit of green at the entrance to the village, where my 
 half-and-halves sky-housed theii" vans. 
 
 It was fortunate I went, if I was to see them at all, for 
 they were on the verge of departing for the races, whereof 
 Rosella had related to me. I found them in no confusion, 
 everything packed up and put away, whatever the property 
 or the rubbish was, and Rosella, in a clean cotton frock, with 
 actually a new straw bonnet trimmed with vivid orange, 
 matching her hair by only a few shades lighter, in her lap, 
 was lying all her length under the hedge. She, with the 
 inexplicable good breeding of her semi-race, never noticed 
 me till I spoke to her, but when I held her out a great ripe 
 " butter " pear, she I'ose and curtsied, coloring with gratifica- 
 tion. On the moment her mother appeared, no doubt had 
 had her eye upon me through the bathing-machine-like 
 window of the van. I went to meet her. She had the 
 brown baby in her arms, and his head was also adorned with 
 a bran-new hood of fine material, white, with a swansdown 
 border round it, beneath which his eyes looked out with elf- 
 like preternature, scarcely Christian.
 
 94 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 "How pretty he looks!" was my first remark — "the 
 handsomest child I ever saw — he won't come to me, I 
 suppose." 
 
 " He would be very happy, sir, but he goes to nobody but 
 Miss Hope — she brought him his hat, she made it, and she 
 tied it on herself." 
 
 " I suppose she trimmed Rosella's bonnet, too ? " 
 
 " She said it was a shame her complexion should be 
 spoilt ! My grandmother would have declined to tell her 
 fortune." 
 
 " Rosella's fortune ? " 
 
 " No, sir," — with a curtsy of compassionate condescension 
 to my ignorance — courtly low in consequence. " No, sir ; 
 Rosella has her fortune to seek herself, if she don't spoil it 
 first by over-sarciness. I meant Miss Hope's fortune. I 
 don't tell fortunes myself, it has so gone out of fashion ; it 
 was the fashion in my grandmother's time. She would have 
 said, ' No, I relate the fortune of men and women ; them of 
 angels is above me, and beyond the starses and the cards.' " 
 
 I found that Mrs. Rosella — I don't believe she had had a 
 surname, and of course her husband was permanently con- 
 cealed from me, as well as his occupation — was not leaving 
 till the next day. The first van had gone on first. That 
 very evening I saw the pretty fire of brands and perfumed 
 fir-cones flittering across the Chase, for I crept out at even- 
 ing, drawn to that vagrant's camp I knew not why. Next 
 day I went again. There was a great silence, but no soli- 
 tude. Rosella, stretched out as usual on the grass, was 
 examining a large book spread open, (such a book!) con- 
 taining no printed Avord ; but it was crammed with the 
 brightest and the best-drawn and colored of children's 
 pictures — such a book as rich men present to richer men's 
 pampered children, cloyed with toys, or as sycophants, poor 
 in spirit as in purse, would drain the latter for, to pay 
 beggarly homage to their vulgar i)atrons through their dul- 
 lard offspring. It was a big volume, all its sheets of linen
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 95 
 
 ribbon-bound, the sheets bound together with handsome 
 scarlet cloth, the pictures plain and tinted. For the uncul- 
 tured intelligent innocent a whole education w\is there, and 
 no routine one either, adapted alike to the ignorant and the 
 idiot. 
 
 All the rest, wild auburn-headed children, burnt-blond 
 women, one white haired, and a man's head issuing from 
 the door above, but pulled in directly as I approached, were 
 bent and bowed in various attitudes of the most absorbent 
 interest about Rosella, or rather over the book. I never saw 
 such enchantment, such appreciation, such generous enjoy- 
 ment. I have a quiet step, and the softness of the herbage 
 prevented me from disturbing them the least, but one stood 
 aloof from them all a little way, not as for lack of interest in 
 them, but the isolation of a being who has found no sym- 
 pathy with any — isolation the most proudly helpless, of a 
 heart most innocent and strong. 
 
 Has any reader read of Rahel Levin ? I had long before 
 that fatal day. She was the only woman in biographic his- 
 tory who had ever touched my heart in fancy. I cannot tell 
 why Erselie reminded me of her, for no brown eyes were 
 hers (my darling's), nor was she a great talker in an im- 
 mense circle of idle listeners ; I think it was the burning and 
 steadfiist passion, the instant and eternal love with which 
 Rahel inspired her husband, long, long the wanderer in the 
 desert of a world ivithout her ; so, in Varnhagen's final 
 heaven of possessing her, leaving at least a spark of hope 
 for me. 
 
 I know not how we came to know each other, yes, that 
 very day. The whisperings of the half-gypsy could scarcely 
 have been the means, though first she came to me and in- 
 formed me Miss Hope had brought Rosella the mighty pic- 
 ture-book, because Rosella had objected to learn to read the 
 story of "The Mouse, the Bird, and the Sausage," Miss 
 Hope related to her ; telling me at the same time, with com- 
 placent glances, that Miss Hope was there at that instant ;
 
 96 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 and then she went over to Miss Hope and whispered to her 
 all she knew about me, whatever it was. 
 
 That could not have been the reason, and I know of none, 
 except our destinies, tliat we walked home through the long, 
 long green lane, side by side, a longer way than straight 
 across the common. I know that we were as innocent that 
 first meeting (even /was) as the babes in the wood. Per- 
 haps we were moi-e unfortunate than those the robins minis- 
 tered to in their last sleep. I recollect we talked of every 
 subject under the sun. It is a proud remembrance for me 
 that I gave her no more alarm, even on my self-introduction, 
 than the breath of the summer air, for it proves at least that 
 my heart was virgin and my life unsullied. For she was no 
 fool. She was the wisest as well as the sweetest woman I 
 ever knew ; I do not speak of love, and had I not been as 
 ingenuous as I was passionate, and as pure as either, there 
 would have been no danger at all for her, and mine had been 
 cut off that hour from increase. 
 
 I gave her a great nosegay of wild flowers I had picked 
 out of the hedge, telling her I had no others ; and truly none 
 could have been more variously fair, for I not only informed 
 her of my position at Lyudfield Chase — I made known each 
 bare fact of my blank existence until then, I believe, and 
 there alone I blame myself, that I deceived her there, or 
 worked upon her benevolence to the exclusion of all caution 
 on her part. She had no idea of making me sujfer for her. 
 Angel as she was, even in mere physical perfection so fair, 
 she had been so guarded from eyes of men, knowing them 
 well enough in theory, that she had no idea of her own love- 
 liness, — beauty is too rude a terra. Women, chaste ones, 
 never have, until they test it beneath the regards of men. 
 
 She thought me unhappy, she stretched out the white 
 wings of her charity to cover my loneliness, she esteemed 
 me unworldly wise, I being the former merely, and she put 
 her whole frank confidence in mine, as hand to hand. I 
 mean, she returned my confidence with all the confiding com-
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 97 
 
 mentarics of a woman eloquent in a single presence. The 
 secret which was not her own she kept — until a day ! Job 
 cursed not his day of birth so bitterly as I that day of the 
 dying out of hope, the birthday of eternal love indeed, but 
 born in tears that fall not from the eyes, yet flow forever. 
 
 That day, it was quite three months after the first time I 
 met her, I said some words. I know not that I asked a 
 question ; I rather spoke only of myself, not of hopes, nor 
 fears, nor of my own unworthiness, but of the truth that rules 
 the world, or that, unobeyed, makes anarchy the world all 
 through. She made me no reply. 1 did not ask nor wish 
 one ; the consciousness of having betrayed my own dear 
 secret was sufficient. 
 
 What an afternoon ! November gusts had swept away 
 the fogs from the pui'e country air and carried them to 
 cities. The trees, for me, that morning clothed with summer, 
 stz'etched their wild naked arms against the sky, above the 
 brown deep leaf-beds lying under them. I saw them so from 
 that window when I was busily, or hypocritically, occupied. 
 Lord Lyndfield surprised me by coming in before his usual 
 hour. Never had his countenance been so severe and never 
 his voice so sweet. 
 
 " I know all, and it is all my fault, I think, poor children ! 
 I dare not be angry. What was I at such an age ? I should 
 have sent you away. I kneiv what it would be, if you saw 
 each other; at least I knew Avhat it would be for her/" 
 
 After a short pause, daring which my heart's pulse had 
 sunk to collapse almost, I was not strong when shocks 
 attacked me, though I can endure a great length of antici- 
 pated woe : — 
 
 " You did not break your word, my poor child. I grieve 
 for you." 
 
 He seemed aflPrighted at my condition — calm enough. 
 He fetched a cordial, whose glass I dashed out of his hand. 
 
 •' I care for nothing but to understand, and I tvill under- 
 stand," I said. 
 
 5
 
 98 ALMOST A hekoinp:. 
 
 He looked at me with the eai'nest, tranquil eyes that had 
 all power over physical illness, none over my mental torture, 
 because I was not mad. 
 
 " You are not worldly," I said, quite quietly, with a cold 
 at my heart like death, " and so I cannot understand." 
 
 He gasped, that rarely excited being, and looked as pale 
 as Ifelt myself. 
 
 " I would not keep you in suspense for all the heavenly 
 worlds that hang above us. That girl, it would be sacrilege 
 to call such a woman an angel, was only weak in not telling 
 you herself; but what man does not love a woman in her 
 weakness best ? What man who is capable of loving ? She 
 had not strength, and she came to me." 
 
 " Not strength to refuse me ! strange absence of a woman's 
 nature ! " 
 
 " You shall not speak till I have spoken. Were she a 
 woman with all the rights she ought to have, she would never 
 have refused you. No ! not a word ! Attend to me. Thirty 
 years ago, I was fool enough to love her mother, single then ; 
 or not fool enough to love, but fool in the faint-heartedness 
 that dared not love her openly. I never told her of it ; I 
 felt far too much her inferior. I was not, like you, with re- 
 gard to her daughter, her equal. Or I thought not, perhaps 
 wrongly, for, had I been honest, I should have saved her 
 and hers from such a fate, as, great Heaven ! now I can only 
 add to in trying to lighten. 
 
 " I went abroad in my professional career, and my heart 
 was always hers, but I did not keep my eye upon her as I 
 should have done. I had vague dreams, such as men dream 
 before manhood, of earning her love, however indefinitely 
 postponed, and, stupidly enough, fancied it might be effected 
 through my temporal advancement. 
 
 " I came home, and heard, the first thing, that she was mar- 
 ried. Tliis was a selfish shock to me, and 1 own I have never 
 recovered it. That is nothing to the purpose except to show 
 that I am not hard in not letting you know the hard truth,
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 99 
 
 hard enough for her, and the hardest lot I ever knew for you. 
 For you will never find a woman to suit you again." 
 
 Without meaning it, he was hard indeed to say so, or was 
 it the selfishness of baffled love within him so to torture me ? 
 For, after all, we arc all mortal, love we, aspire we, as we 
 may. I could not bear it, however, mortal selfish even as 
 he, my brother man, and I dragged myself up from my chair; 
 he went to the door and locked it, and held the key in his 
 hand. 
 
 T was misery-struck when I heard she was married, but 
 panic-stricken when I heard to whom. It was a good match 
 for the worldly eye, though she never thought of that, for she 
 was in rank as much above Mm as me ; but I knew the name. 
 I found out, and faMened on the family: — one cursed for 
 ages, and, by constant 'intermixture with its own blood, sealing 
 the curse more strongly on every generation, though well 
 aware of the consequences, for they had been dinned into the 
 ears of every member of it ; — a race without principle or 
 purity, so to disdain the instinct of right which inhabits every 
 breast except the idiot's. I am not eloquent in sorrow, and I 
 cannot try to describe the icy horror facing me, not yet un- 
 masked. Lord Lyndfield was merciful in saving me suspense 
 at least, for, turning his back to me, he went on with sharp 
 and rapid utterance : — 
 
 " The hind of madness in the Hope family is the cursed 
 one ; it can never be anticipated, nor prevented, nor eradi- 
 cated. Every other generation inherits it, and those between 
 are free. It is those last Avho are to blame in perpetuating 
 the curse. I, who am no hero, have existed without the 
 sweets of love ; it can be done. Of this race, too, few are 
 capable of loving ; and their marriages, with scarcely an ex- 
 ception, have been for interest. Don't think me hard again, 
 I say, for crushing the slightest germ of any hopes you chil- 
 dren might have harbored in your young hearts, any possi- 
 hiUties you might have dreamed. I know the girl is firm, if 
 left to herself; I have taken care to nurture her in knowledge
 
 100 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 at least of the crime she would commit in bearing childi'en, 
 and, though she is in her own power by this time, (she was my 
 ward,) I am sure of her, unless you intermeddle. You can 
 bear now what you could not bear if you knew her a little 
 longer, and now, while it will not kill you, you must go." 
 
 " I will 7iever go, until I have spoken to her. I have some- 
 thing to ask her to remember ; I cannot write it. There is 
 another thing. You spoke of hopes, of possibilities — " 
 
 " Which you might entertain, not I nor she, unless you put 
 them into her head ; woe to you if you do. You have not 
 heard the crisis of the story of her mother ; it may be of use 
 to you." 
 
 His voice changed deathfuUy ; I shuddered from the com- 
 ing words. * 
 
 " Her father never betrayed his madness till middle life. 
 There she was deceived, perhaps he deceived himself. He 
 was a scholar, a gentleman, a good man to the eye ; I never 
 could endure him, but that was natural. One morning his 
 man went to call him, was bidden to enter in his usual voice ; 
 he was standing before the glass looking at himself, and his 
 wife lay strangled in her bed. They would have him arrested 
 for murder, for he seemed quite rational. This rationality, 
 or, rather stupefaction of the senses, continued till the first 
 day he appeared in court. Then in an instant, he went rav- 
 ing mad, tore up the iianelling before him with his teeth, and 
 nearly throttled the officers on either hand. 
 
 " From that time he never had a lucid moment until death, 
 which broke the spell ; you could see that by his fiice. I had 
 charge of him from the earliest hours of his disease, and 
 never left him to others. I could not have made a greater 
 sacrifice for her. It was on his account I first organized this 
 place at Lyndfield ; he alone inhabited it till his death, ten 
 years ago, — no human being would come even within the 
 sound of his voice. No one disputed with me the guardian- 
 ship of the child, which her mother had desired I should 
 assume. I have as often thanked Heaven she was so crood as
 
 ALMOST A HEEOINE. 101 
 
 I have son-owed that she was so fair. For your own sake 
 I command, and for hers I desire, that you shall never see 
 her again." 
 
 " Your commands and your desires are fruitless. I must 
 see her, and then you may be confident I will go, that you 
 will soon enough be rid of me." 
 
 " There is something more I wished, much more I should 
 say rather, I wished to tell you." 
 
 " I cannot listen to anything. If I may not see her in this 
 house, I shall break my promise and go to her's. If you 
 will bring her here, you shall stand outside the door the 
 •while ; so long as you cannot hear my words. I will not be 
 half an hour." 
 
 He came and touched my pulse. It told nothing. I am 
 sure a poet, although unpublished, wrote strange true lines. 
 He sang: — 
 
 And sh-ings that tremble every hour 
 At last must break. 
 
 But not the strings that do not tremble, that endure all pres- 
 sure Avithout betrayal either by music or by sigh. My heart 
 beat regularly, while death was in it ; my being's machinery 
 did not falter, though the spring of love had dried up sud- 
 denly, leaving passion athirst forever. 
 
 I conquered ; I think the force of passion always does, if 
 pure. 
 
 I saw her, and asked hei*, — what no one else shall hear.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 A READER. 
 
 If anything could be more tedious than the Times adver- 
 tisement sheet to those who neither insert nor require to 
 respond to advertisements, it would be the history of the 
 diurnal and eternal existence of a young man eligible neither 
 by fortune nor inclination for marriage. I will not add one 
 solid grain the more of tedium to the lazy or exhausted mind 
 by any item of recollection over the dose needful to my 
 " part " of self-biographist. 
 
 I did not fall ill. My blood burned to no fever, no 
 weighty weakness crushed my muscular sti-ength to dust; 
 but my nervous vitality, too immensely and suddenly drawn 
 on, cut off its supply. I used to think those times, that it 
 was almost a blissful hallucination, that ensuing on the star- 
 vation of the heart ; as they say that the brain of the 
 starved body is strangely hghtened by gleams of the im- 
 pending heaven. I was unfit to stir, once having shifted my 
 abode ; my spine felt paralyzed, my limbs palsied ; only my 
 head survived, the natural miracle of the mind over matter 
 achieving its sweet and wondrous victory. Delicious imagin- 
 ings of such delights as the sensual blind themselves to, 
 ravishing yet nameless sensations, pertaining to no sense, yet 
 felt through its "/re " mystic entrances, as the white hght 
 breaks into its rainbow lovelmess through " seven," a depth 
 of dull sorrow underneath, like the heavy clods from which 
 spring fruits and flowers ; and overhead, too far to reach in 
 thought as hope, the ever-changing but eternal sky.
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 103 
 
 I never can express, and I never desire to express, for 
 " there's beggary in the ' gratitude ' that can be reckoned," 
 all I owe to Lord Lyndfield, that hero on a bloodless battle- 
 plain of far more than a hundred fights ; he too had suffered, 
 how nobly and exquisitely his sufferings were sustained ! I 
 often learned from him a lesson, though never abh', from my 
 feebler and less earnest temperament, to take " a leaf out of 
 its book." 
 
 I suppose great sorrow makes one humble ; it certainly 
 should, if all that has been written against pride be true, 
 which of course I deny. I do not think that modesty and 
 humility are twin terms either ; it seems to me that this 
 Anglo-British antique-viediceval-modern language of oui's 
 which is so boasted of in places high, low, and middling, is 
 the greatest detriment to a single-minded author. There is 
 scarcely one word left us which is unpervertible, — I was going 
 to say inconvertible. 
 
 Where are all the linguists, philologists, and grammarians, 
 who address short-winded epistles to the Times without ever 
 receiving any answers ? — at least in its columns. I would 
 not wish to seem to imitate Punch even on the most in- 
 finitesimal scale, yet he might have magnified my above 
 remark as the solar microscope should repeat "e?i grand" 
 the mite investigating a cheese-burrow. 
 
 I only meant, in the first instance, that though I might be 
 humble, I was not modest, so dissolving, on my own account, 
 any coequality between the terms. For, in my solitude, 
 soUtude of a unit amidst the solitude of myriads, I took upon 
 myself to do what the wisest and the least of fools, the ex- 
 tremest instances of individual wit and dulness have done, 
 with equal (or unequal) rewards of man's contempt or adula- 
 tion — I took upon myself to write a l»ook. It shames me 
 somewhat when I see, floated in upon a loose bed of waste 
 paper that would have made great stand against the waters 
 of the universal deluge, such a mass of worthless letter-press 
 thrust straight in the public eye, as not only has its "billet"
 
 104 ALMOST A HEKOINE. 
 
 like any other " bullet," but sells and satisfies (like tlie sup- 
 per of the last man who had the nightmare) for the moment. 
 It is disheartening to write one's self an author in days when 
 women who, ten years ago, would have been governesses, 
 twenty years ago laundresses, and fifty years ago good plain 
 cooks — not to speak of men who in such small spaces of the 
 past would have similarly been ushers of commercial schools, 
 foremen of small neat firms in trade, or truly-to-be-trusted 
 servants out of livery — aU write themselves the same, and 
 are in print ; whether read or not, it matters little, for they 
 are paid, or their publishers are, — it is all one to us. 
 
 I was cast abroad with only one friend — a friend sweet 
 to the heart's core and strong — and, failing the advice of 
 speculative acquaintances who would have been happy to 
 bestow that if none other alms were asked of them, I took 
 his — delivered rather as an opinion. Lord Lyndfield said 
 to me, that dai'k long day I left that blessed (though woful) 
 country-side : — 
 
 " I told you that you were very clever in expressing your- 
 self. I am not so, though I am no ass, nor do I pretend to 
 consider myself one. Why, instead of writing my letters in 
 four languages, should you not concoct some pretty tale or 
 fancy in one ? Anything new is sure to take, and whatever 
 is the matter with you — whatever scrcAV is loose in your 
 most curious constitution — your composition would be a novel 
 one. You must write something (even if it be absurd) quite 
 as fresh as this morning's day of the month ! " 
 
 I was so spent — pride and all (I suppose pride ebbs and 
 flows with the current of the blood, and my blood felt like 
 frozen water) — that I could have worshipped him for telling 
 me what to do, or rather, what to set to. I was not like other 
 young men, except that I had as much muscle, if unexpanded, 
 and to the full as much subtle and insheathed strength. I 
 could smoke, but in this my extremity it did me no good — -it 
 failed even to lull my brain. I could ride, but I had no horse ; 
 and I was innocent by will of various performances by which
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 105 
 
 young men kill time, but never care nor woe. So I came to 
 write a book, and, as it happened, I might have done much 
 worse, for though I efFectually barred with my honesty the 
 gate to the " broad " golden way of literature, I fastened on 
 the key to the " narrow," and have kept it ever since. And, 
 through the agency of my honest, small purveyorship to its 
 vast stores, I found such friends as have formed the romance, 
 if not the passion, of my life ; nor have I failed in i-endering 
 the dear dues of love to each accordingly. 
 
 I. am quite sure that Lord Lyndfield (though no man un- 
 derstands me physically except himself) would never have 
 recommended me to pursue literature as a means of living, 
 if he had not possessed a literary friend. If my most dear 
 Lord Lyndfield had a weakness, it was for literary men — or 
 persons! — just because his wonderful generosity dealt out 
 overflowing measure to all minds but his own, of meed for 
 anything natural to them to do. 
 
 He never reflected for an instant on the fact that his own 
 medical researches and the extraordinary wisdom he had 
 gathered from them, and acted upon independently, were 
 quite as much literary fixcts as (liow much more lasting and 
 useful than) the ephemera of literary facts in general. How 
 much less failures than any number of works, in any number 
 of volumes, that rush or dribble from the press ! 
 
 Lord Lyndfield had assured me that if I wrote a book, for 
 which he informed me I was exactly competent, he would 
 undertake to get it " taken." I am not ashamed to confess 
 that, in that young time of mine (no spring, although so 
 young), I believed all authors to be exceptional beings, and 
 myself such an exception as that all beings should yield me 
 dues ; 1 mean in body and m spirit, not in hard cash, for I 
 am not mercenary. 
 
 It is of little consequence wliat my book was about, nor 
 how long I took to write it. Lord Lyndfield, faultless in 
 delicacy as in heart, sent me exactly the sum I had earned 
 by " writing " all his letters for three months, and not a stiver 
 
 5*
 
 106 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 beyond it. I have since learned that light labor of the inind 
 is better paid than heavy. I cannot pretend that writing 
 gave me the least pleasure, — writing a book, I mean. I 
 was too unhappy, and it was a task, the dreariest I ever set 
 myself to, to drain away my ideas, drop by drop, from the 
 ocean of miglity grief that had absorbed them. Instead of 
 writing about trouble of any kind, I made fantastic merri- 
 ment in my book ; every person was made happy in the way 
 he or she preferred, and it was, to use a word which may dis- 
 arm the fullest mailed critic, idiotically enthusiastic. To seal 
 its natal character, it was a love story, with its scenes and 
 characters in ancient Greece, and, though I knew the lan- 
 guage pretty well, I made strange blunders, both classical 
 and dramatic, which real faults, I am bound to say, those who 
 were kind enough to review me passed over quite, though 
 they turned my romance and my reflected passions into ridi- 
 cule — unproved. 
 
 And when I had written it out much fairer than was at all 
 needful, announcing on the face of my scripture that I was 
 something fresher than green at literature, I sent my neat 
 manuscript, not to any publisher, but to Lord Lyndfield. 
 Certainly he had desired me to do so, but that was no reason 
 why I did it ; rather I should not have done it because de- 
 sired. If it had not been the fact that I had no idea how to 
 proceed myself, and was rather under the impression that the 
 gentlemen who publish books were in the habit of consider- 
 ing any manuscripts as so much paper-money. Lord Lynd- 
 field — letterless himself — saw into my ignorance, and, as I 
 before remarked, having a " literary- friend," consigned me to 
 his mercies, more " tender " far than those of any pubUsher 
 or critic. 
 
 After I had sent my MS., to Lord Lyndlield I mean, I 
 went through the customary agonies of authors who have 
 not taken duplicate copies. I thought it would be lost some- 
 how, either perish in the post mysteriously, or be sent wrong. 
 No such thing ; in four-and-twenty hours I had a due receipt
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 107 
 
 of its arrival from my best friends, and in two days more a 
 letter addressed to " A. Major, Esq.," at a certain publisher's 
 of note and influence (not that I knew he was so then), and 
 there was a scrap of command from Lord Lyndfield that I 
 should go to town directly, and call upon the same A. Major, 
 at his house of business. It was only left for me to go. I 
 had no interest in the place I inhabited then, and had no fur- 
 ther penetrated it than to look out of the window. 
 
 Arrived in town in due course, and at the very door I had 
 to enter, I was seized with that unworthy shyness which most 
 of those about to ask or to receive a favor experience, unless 
 devoid of self-respect. The aspect of the place did but con- 
 firm such a frame. It was the immensest shop I ever saw, 
 by no means exclusively devoted to the sale or exhibition of 
 literature — hax-dly any books appeared, in comparison with 
 the mountains of stationery, and three vans, bigger than my 
 Lyndfield friend's, were loading outside with bales of paper 
 and account-books. 
 
 The shop was amply stocked with young men, not one of 
 whom looked like a master or part-proprietor. I chose the 
 least sour-looking (they were all sour-faced more or less, and 
 I did not wonder) to state my errand to. He looked at my 
 letter, and after all made some mistake, or else considered 
 Mr. Major on his o\yn level, and the publisher on one far 
 higher than his or mine either, for he showed me into a desk 
 (there was no room for rooms) where, standing at the grate, 
 full dressed for evening, was a person I was quite sure never 
 had been, nor could be, a " friend " of Lord Lyndfield. It 
 was the publisher himself, as he haughtily and harshly in- 
 formed me ; and if I do not call him a gentleman it is because 
 he so pertinaciously announced in air, in dress, in style, that 
 he considered himself one, as to make it utterly impossible he 
 should either be or appear so. His clothes were the most 
 perfectly cut I ever saw, liis ornaments faultless for taste and 
 value, and he was an extremely handsome man ; also, of 
 course, he spoke educated grammar, and he was courteous in
 
 108 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 a way, desiring me to be seated (there were two stools), but 
 I think I never took such a personal dislike to any one who 
 was not wicked. I could pick out a few hieroglyphics of 
 character always, and I traced ii; him the vanity which is the 
 refuse of overweening selfism, the worldliness which prizes 
 mere money as if it were " riches," and luxury because the 
 really " great " in society live in it, — also, and most oppres- 
 sively, I detected, under his exquisite clothes, human beauty 
 and graceful manner, the most disgusting of vulgarities — 
 refined vulgarity — nauseous as the liquid (hke scented gin) 
 which perfumers who are bad chemists term violet essence. 
 
 He was too well self-trained to express what I saw he felt, 
 impatience at being disturbed (it was growing dusk in that 
 dull place), and I hastened to undeceive him as to my de- 
 siring to detain him. 
 
 The instant he heard I wanted Mr. Major, his manner 
 altered (he didn't mean it to), and I could tell he too, as well 
 as his underling behind the counter, considered Mr. Major as 
 lying at his feet, or under them. 
 
 " Our reader ? Oh, yes ! " and then he struck a tuneful 
 little gong with two notes, adding to me : — "I am expecting 
 the carriage, and I am engaged to dine. Good day." 
 
 I was aware he meant me to retreat, and I knew not 
 whither, save through the shop, down which I should have 
 gone if another person had not appeared in the desk. I saw 
 not how he entered, but there he was. The other half whis- 
 pered to him, and he turned to me. 
 
 " Pray come this way," he said, and I followed him into a 
 second desk, with high railings like the first, but not so com- 
 modious to the sight. What heaps and heaps of sheets, both 
 written and in print, lay on this writing table ! 
 
 And as I sat down on one of the two hard seats, I faced 
 my companion. The first view of him I had was that of the 
 most utter exhaustion I ever saw a human countenance be- 
 tray ; just then it betrayed none other than this dead fatigue, 
 which seemed to swallow up all expression in its own proud.
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE, 109 
 
 helpless one. The exhaustion did not strike through the 
 voice (he had not been using it), but with the very voice 
 itself the face seemed to alter — : brighten shall I say ? — but 
 that is not the word — and if it did not yield too feminine a 
 sound, I should say simply that with the voice the foce 
 changed to the " face of an angel." I had just seen manly 
 beauty, and despised it doubly now that I saw what was so 
 very different and so infinitely higher. I had also seen a 
 self-constituted gentleman — this was a gentleman by blood, 
 with the veins running clear through the whole material un- 
 derneath the polish. So far, my very earliest impression of 
 this rare person finishes, except to add that, instead of being 
 dressed unquestionably, he wore a decidedly old coat, and his 
 exquisitely outlined hands were dashed with ink. So strong 
 was my immediate interest, that I involuntarily replied to his 
 first remark. 
 
 " You come, I believe, from our good friend, Lord Lynd- 
 field ? " 
 
 " Yes, but I fear I am disturbing you," and I glanced at 
 the paper heap significantly. 
 
 "Not the least," he returned. "But you look extremely 
 tired," in such a tone as that I had often imagined a most be- 
 loved brother might have used ; and to a stranger this ! But 
 that, the very initial, was the key to his moral character. If 
 you had had the lightest fever-cold, and he the most malig- 
 nant fever, he would not only have put your case before his 
 own, but have considered it the more suffering. And feeling 
 in him was so impregnated with intellect that it roused one to 
 excite it. 
 
 " I am a little tired," I responded, " not a tenth so much as 
 you are." 
 
 He smiled a smile like none I have ever seen before or 
 since, as peculiar for its bitterness as its sweetness, blended 
 as is nothing in creation, except the sweet and bitter in the 
 flavor of the king of fruits. From the instant of its dawning, 
 I was not to him, in heart, a stranger.
 
 110 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 "We are both tired, and will agree upon it, not that I 
 should allow every author to tell me I was. By the way, 
 you are not quite yet an author, and I am very sorry, in 
 process o^ growing one, you should have come to this house." 
 
 " I am not." 
 
 Then I considered myself too impertinent, or pertinent, in 
 what I meant, that then I should not have seen him. 
 
 " I am very glad," I added, " for I see such tokens of 
 wealth all around me, that doubtless one should be satisfac- 
 torily recompensed." 
 
 This came out of me through an awkward sensation about 
 my book ; of course, the instant I remembered that, I ceased 
 to think Mr. Major disinterested, however kind ; of course 
 he had read it, and its merit made him appreciate me ! So 
 much for the wisdom of the sucking-babes of literature. 
 
 " I do not know. I have read your book ; I sat up all 
 night to do so." 
 
 I did not know, and little thought of the monotonous labor 
 for the brain, and strain on the attention, of his daily experi- 
 ence. Again I dreamed myself of imperial merit as a writer, 
 to interest him a whole night. 
 
 " I think I could persuade them to take it here, but I am 
 certain the remuneration for it to you would be small. What 
 do you intend to ask ? " 
 
 " I had never intended to ask at all. I didn't know it Avas 
 the custom ; I thought all publishers settled that themselves. 
 Would twenty-five pounds be too much ? " 
 
 I was reflecting on the only precedent my memory afforded 
 me, namely, my quarter's salary as secretary ; it had taken 
 me three months more to write the book, and, having about 
 seventeen shillings left, I considered a quarter in advance 
 quite enough to be content upon. Again, at my remark, there 
 was the smile, preceded by a sincere but momentary stare ; 
 now I know my innocence surprised him, for I suspect, hav- 
 ing had a long nose and rather lai-gely scrutinizing eyes, that 
 I looked more knowino; than innocent. I would, however,
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. Ill 
 
 had I known the result, have talked any gibberish to provoke 
 that smile. 
 
 « It is worth ten times as much, and you may get twice as 
 much even here. But leave that to me. Can you really 
 live on a hundred pounds a-year ? Have you ever tried ? — 
 even supposing you could write four such books in one year, 
 in which case, certainly, you would have no expenses for the 
 next year." 
 
 How bitter was the accent, missing all the sweetness of 
 
 the smile. 
 
 " What do you mean ? — the next year ! " 
 
 " Only of course you would be dead and need no help for 
 living." 
 
 I was, though not vain, no fool, and I knew he intended to 
 imply that to work at four such books would kill me in a sea- 
 son. 
 
 " Do you think I have any genius, then ? I do not ; 
 though I would rather possess a grain than the mightiest for- 
 tune in the world." 
 
 " I am not speaking of genius, whether it be there or not. 
 Look at Goethe, the genius he had, the life he led, the masses 
 he wrote, and the late age he died at. I mean what would 
 kill you is the feeling, not only sincerely felt, but openly ex- 
 pressed." 
 
 I was so astonished I had never reflected on the ravages of 
 " feeling " which are rarely effected, because to feel is so very 
 rare. I might have perceived them on looking in the glass, 
 for if I had gained five years of expression during the week 
 succeeding my uncle's death, I had the last three months 
 earned ten. 
 
 " But what shall I do, then ? " I exclaimed, in the sort of 
 helplessness that befalls a man who has never made a cup of 
 arrowroot nor seen one made, and whose wife, sick in the 
 backwoods, request sone. " What shall I do if I cannot earn 
 a hundred a-ycar ? I could live on that of course, having 
 lived on ;i (|n;irt('r of it a (piai-lrr."
 
 112 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 " How did you live pray ? Did you drink wine ? " 
 
 " Oh ! no ; I was always used to wine at home, and very 
 fond of it when good, but the last bottle I had (not at home) 
 disgusted me, and 1 shall drink no more." 
 
 *' Very easy not while you are so very young, and only in 
 the first flush of creative existence too. Let those rail who 
 please at authors who, living at the highest pressure, provoke 
 their weary wits with wine (or ale) or tobacco ; how many 
 of those who rail could do without their meat ? — a much 
 better thing even for the brain ; but what true-hearted author, 
 living up to the rate of the times, could write on meat ? Do 
 not think me awfully matter-of-fact, or unromantic, so to 
 speak. But you, with your unfortunately delicate nerves 
 and strength of will, can never go on bread and water." 
 
 " How singular ! I have no doubt you know best " (I had 
 not indeed), " but it is all the worse for me, then, that I was 
 born of woman, Ernest Loftus." 
 
 Mr. Major (who was in a literary and particular sense the 
 fastest of men) knew quite well all that had happened and that 
 was generally known. He simply looked as if he did recol- 
 lect the affair of the will which left me penniless, and my 
 name too, but no more interested or curious than heretofore. 
 Had the Queen entered his desk, he would have offered her 
 the accommodation of one hard stool (just as he would have 
 done to any other woman) only. 
 
 "It is a shocking thing," I went on, "for one to have no 
 profession, nor occupation, nor craft. If I were only like 
 George Borrow, I could buy a cart and a tent, and go and 
 sleep out of doors. But I always have pain all over if I even 
 breathe the damp, and I have chiefly written my book at night, 
 because I could not sleep on the mattress at my lodgings, it 
 was so thin and laid on laths. Do you know of any hard- 
 ening process, Mr. Major ? I would gladly train myself" 
 
 " There are such — but not for such as you." 
 
 Inexpressibly kind was the voice, and full of strong pity ; 
 how diihcult to accept pity from any but the strong, kind,
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 113 
 
 and pure ! It was a fact, and an awkward one for me, that I 
 had a frail constitution, with a desperate sort of courage that 
 would have availed (both together) to kill me very easily. 
 What then ? and what had I to live for ? Why was it a 
 crime to die ? 
 
 " Then I see no chance unless I go into the army — enlist. 
 There is hot work coming on to try if any fighting-blood is 
 left. I should be stunned with the noise of an engagement, 
 fall on the ground in a swoon, and be easily finished off that 
 way by the stray shots." 
 
 Mr. Major got crimson suddenly — no lack of blood in 
 him — and looked so indignant, so stern, and so disgusted, 
 that I was amazed, and rather alarmed besides. 
 
 " Do not speak of war ; do not dream of such a crime, be- 
 gotten of cruelty upon civilization." 
 
 " But the ancients fought, surely, Mr. Major." 
 
 " People who were not ancients burned women for witches, 
 hung men for forgery and sheep stealing, and tore martyrs on 
 racks ; pray do not forget that if these crimes are of the past, 
 the monster one of war should be. If men's minds were not 
 idiotized by precedent, as their bodies are enervated by luxu- 
 ry, there would be politicians instead of warriors, and peace- 
 makers instead of diplomatists. Bloodshed would be no more, 
 except to atone for murder." 
 
 " Strange views ; to go back to the very beginning." 
 
 " Poets sing that the ' Beginning ' was the Golden Age. 
 Come now, I did not mean to be so selfish, but I will confess 
 I like talking, and I very seldom get a listener I love. We 
 must not stay here all night ; they will soon be locking up, 
 and I can tell you that is a process — through all Cimbb's 
 gentle patents it makes a noise ! I do not apologize for ask- 
 ing you to go home with me to-night, because I have much 
 to say to you, and we cannot finish here." 
 
 What virtue and grace in the hospitality that forestalled 
 any confession of the fact that I had no home to go to ! 
 Lord Lyndfield in this particular fraternized with his " liter-
 
 114 • ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 aiy friend," and it must bave been on tbose grounds they had 
 sympathy — I never could discover any other. I was very 
 grateful, but sometimes it is as painful as at other times it is 
 sweet to experience gratitude. What right had I to intrude 
 on such a person ? — for already he had won what he always 
 took care (or took no care) to inspire — respect, whether one 
 dared or not to love him. 
 
 " I am afraid I shall be in your way ; I did not mean any- 
 thing of that kind, but only to visit you on business — " 
 
 " Which we have not concluded. I only fear that you will 
 find me very dull or noisy, for I have some work in the eve- 
 nings, and no one with me except three children ; they are 
 not always quiet, and, unless so, are a certain nuisance ; they 
 go to bed early though." 
 
 What a strange tone to take in speaking of his children ! 
 Such a man ! I thought. It was certainly gentle, but not 
 the least tender, and who and what was their mother ? — his 
 wife ? 
 
 " If you are quite certain I should not trouble any one, 
 only for to-night." 
 
 " We can settle that to-morrow. If we stay any longer 
 here, we shall lose the omnibus." 
 
 I had never driven in an '' omnibus." I was astonished at 
 its convenience, its discomfort, its heterogeneous contents, its 
 evil smell, and its distracting din. I was at the same time 
 so sensible of ray own degradation, through luxurious habit, 
 as to feel I deserved to drive about in an omnibus until the 
 day of doom, for objecting to it — an improvement on the 
 fate of the Wandering Jew, who wears out, not shoe-leather, 
 but his own feet perpetually. 
 
 I only mention the omnibus because I had anticipated a 
 long conversation on the way with my companion, and we 
 could not hear the sound of our own voices, much less talk 
 coherently. I was the more ashamed, however, sitting in 
 silence, to feel the abhorrence I did for the usefullest, if fright- 
 fullest, of conveyances, when I looked at 1dm, of whom, even
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 115 
 
 on that short acquaintance, I felt no situation could be worthy. 
 I cannot tell from which feature, or look, or trick, this impres- 
 sion of high desert radiated ; it was perhaps rather universal, 
 but I was the only person who observed it then and there. 
 No countenance was his to fascinate the crowd — it was at 
 once too passionate and too calm. He had the lofty incuri- 
 ous vision of the highly-bred, and I don't think could have 
 been taught to " watch " his temporary neighbors. 
 
 I thought the drive would never come to an end, (it was, 
 in truth, a very tedious one for any one to undertake twice 
 every day, as he did,) and when we stopped, I beheld, look- 
 ing out of a window, that we were stationary before an inn 
 yclept the " Angel." I know of two " Angels," one at Ox- 
 ford, and the other at Islington ; long as had been our way, 
 it was too short and slow for us to have reached Oxford. It 
 must, consequently, I considered, be Islington. Again, (what 
 a fool I was in many trifles !) I recurred to an old impression 
 of mine, that Islington^ Deptford, and Wapping were synony- 
 mous terms, (or rather places,) and held the trine in (per- 
 chance unmerited) contempt. 
 
 Now there are doubtless immense advantages for a certain 
 million, both in the second and the third, still they would not 
 suit the studious few. The first in point of quietude, cheap- 
 ness, and average architecture (no one who cannot rent a 
 mansion should be mad enough to expect good) is especially 
 adapted for the " clerkly," who are not rich, nor anything 
 near such estate. 
 
 I made these remarks afterwards, for then I had enough to 
 do in following my new acquaintance (no less a friend in 
 need) and in noticing what a change passed over the scene 
 when we left the neighborhood of the inn ; for in five or six 
 minutes we were before the door of a house in a street branch- 
 ing from a square, the street (unknown incident " quite by 
 Hyde Park ") exactly as well built as the square, only four 
 sizes smaller, and presently we stood inside a passage, quite 
 small, quite plain, but square, wall-panelled, and brightly 
 lighted.
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 ANOTHER UNCLE. 
 
 I MENTIONED the passage being square, because I hate 
 narrow passages, and they are unnecessary in the smallest 
 house. And as for the light, it was one of those finite needs 
 of a nature highly organized. If Arnold Major had eaten 
 nothing but dry bread for two days, he would have preferred 
 it to being left without a lamp outside his parlor door. It is 
 a small thing to notice, but tells, because most persons in his 
 circumstances would rather eat flesh in the dark than starve 
 themselves to buy food for a lamp. Again, from the aspect 
 of the house, little as it was, I could not guess his poverty, 
 because everything, from the ceiling to the door knob, shone 
 with cleanliness, and so did the maid's face when she opened 
 at his knock. 
 
 My heart sank a moment before we entered the sitting- 
 room, through one of the doors on either hand, for I felt 
 afraid what manner of woman his wife might be. Surely he 
 was not fitly mated ; so few men are among the best. 
 
 We went in ; there was a fire, a table on which tea-things 
 shone in its light, curtains were drawn, a sofa pulled near the 
 fire, but the room was empty, save of our two selves. 
 
 " Where are the young gentlemen ? " asked Mr. Major of 
 the servant, who was trimming the passage lamp. 
 
 " IMaster Hilary in the study, sir, and Master Effingham 
 up-stairs on his bed. He said he was so sleepy, and I put 
 him on his bed at five ; he has not rung the bell which I put 
 in his crib, so I suppose he is asleep yet." 
 
 " And Miss Pliilippa ? "
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 117 
 
 Tlie maid hesitated an instant, then added : — 
 
 " In the back-kitchen, sir, giving her cat its tea." 
 
 ]Mr. Major uttered a sort of sigli, Avhich, however, the 
 maid coukl not possibly have heard. 
 
 " Do take a seat and rest directly, or lie down on the sofa. 
 I confess I often do. I have to go up-stairs a moment. 
 Perhaps, however, you would like to see your room. Mary," 
 (to the maid,) " show this gentleman into the front bedroom." 
 
 " The front bedroom, sir ? " 
 
 "Yes," a little impatiently. Then he went out into the 
 passage an instant and closed the door. The front bedroom, 
 the best in the house, was his own, I found out afterwards. 
 
 The maid returned to me by herself, and took me up-stairs. 
 When I came down, refreshed by warm water for my hands 
 and a pair of slippers, there were in the parlor Mr. Major 
 and a boy of seven or eight. I had hardly had time to see 
 him, when, before I had shut the door behind me, I heard a 
 great crash like fallen crockery. The maid, who was just 
 coming up the kitchen stairs with the tea-kettle, heard it too, 
 for she stopped a second and exclaimed, " Bless me ! " — 
 then brought the kettle into the parlor. 
 
 " What was the noise down stairs ? Is Miss Philippa hurt? " 
 asked Mr. Major, anxiously. 
 
 " No sir — " 
 
 Again she hesitated. The boy burst out, m accents 
 strangely haughty for almost infant lips, with — 
 
 " I know what it is exactly, and I prophesied to Mary she 
 would do it, but Mary was a fool, and left the milk on the 
 lower shelf, as I saw it when I went down for my candle. 
 Philippa has got on the table and pulled the big jug down, 
 just because you said her cat was only to have one saucerful 
 of that milk." 
 
 " What strange thing is this ? " I thought. 
 Mr. Major made no answer to the child, save that he put 
 one hand upon his shoulder, and the boy directly shrugged 
 his shoulder, and flung himself into a corner of the room.
 
 118 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 " Go and see," said Major to the servant, " and tell Miss 
 Philippa we are all ready for tea, except that we want her 
 and the toast." 
 
 In three minutes up comes, the door opening as by a 
 whirlwind, a girl about six, and putting her back against it 
 to bang it to, exclaims in bold, boisterous tones, with a cer- 
 tain resemblance to the boy's : — 
 
 " I have thrown all the milk over and spoilt my frock. I 
 am very glad, for I hate wearing black, and I don't want any 
 tea, and I wont have any tea." 
 
 Here she evidently caught sight of me, stopped short and 
 tossed her hair back from her forehead, staring out of a pair 
 of splendid big eyes. I saw that Mr. Major was surprised 
 and even gratified ; he smiled, and going up to her took her 
 hand and led, or rather dragged, her up to me. 
 
 " I have brought this gentleman home to tea, Philippa. 
 He has come a long way and is very tired. I am sure you' 
 won't make a noise. Never mind about your frock." 
 
 Here she pulled her pinafore aside and showed the under 
 garment soaked with milk. Still she stared at me. She 
 was a very finely made child, robust in frame, but admirably 
 modelled, her features imperfect, but her teeth dazzling, and 
 her complexion that peculiar paleness seldom seen with a 
 vigorous form ; setting forth the beauty of her immense 
 brown eyes and soft streaming curls of black hair. Yet she 
 did not prepossess me ; but I incHne to love all children, so 
 I stooped and was going to kiss her, when she raised her 
 hand and struck me a really violent slap on my cheek, then 
 turned and ran out of the room, slamming the door with all 
 her might. I was certainly bewildered, but resolved not to 
 notice the blow to her father, as 1 supposed him to be. He 
 had left the room that moment. His wife was dead then ; I 
 considered what a vixen she must have been ! The boy, left 
 behind, never took the sliglitest notice of me, but leaned into 
 his corner, sitting on the carpet, and he had a book in his 
 lap which he seemed to bC' devouring ; his eyes danced from
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 119 
 
 line lo line. He had a noticeable face, too ; the features 
 finer than the girl's ; the forehead beautiful for its height, 
 clear temples, and alabaster whiteness, but withal unchild- 
 like ; the mouth cut as with a chisel and colored as with 
 carnation, quite painful in its expression of imperious pride 
 and stern self-will. The great Napoleon's mouth in baby- 
 hood might have carried the self-same type. 
 
 In about five minutes Mr. Major returned, with the girl in 
 another frock (a little lilac chintz one). She was evidently 
 very angry, very sullen, and not at all abashed. She sat 
 down at table, on which she put her elbows. Mr. Major 
 called the boy, who came slowly, his eyes still on his book. 
 As he slipped into a chair placed ready, Mr. Major very 
 gently, but with a decision in his manner I had not seen, 
 took away the book. The boy scowled, grew paler, a 
 haughtier darkness fell over his eyes (they were dark gray, 
 not brown), and he never looked at any one, nor spoke, all 
 the time the meal lasted ; and he ate like a prisoner over his 
 rations, hungrily, but most discontentedly. I saw that the 
 children were luxuriously treated ; they had neither milk- 
 and-water nor washed-out tea, but there was delicious looking 
 cocoa for them, with plenty of sugar and milk, white bread 
 and butter, and one piece of hot toast for each. 
 
 The girl kept her word, and would not touch her food (I 
 saw her cast longing looks at the toast), and Mr. Major, with 
 an air of desperate patience I wondered at, did not seem to 
 notice her. 
 
 He was certainly possessed of tact, for he kept my plate 
 supplied (we had cutlets, beautifully dressed), and contrived 
 to talk to me during the whole meal ; but really the children 
 had so upset me that I could not attend to him the least. 
 
 We had all finished (except the girl, who had not begun) 
 when a bell rang up-stairs — sharjjly, quiveringly, as if 
 touched by an uncertain hand. 
 
 " Hilary, you may go into the study, and at seven 1 will 
 hear your lessons. Philippa, go and play, my child, and
 
 120 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 wlien Effie has bad his tea it will be very kind of you to 
 read him a story." 
 
 Then he rang the parlor bell, turned to me, and said : — 
 
 " See how much I have to ask you to excuse me ! I must 
 go and fetch my youngest boy, who is an invalid, poor child ! " 
 
 " "What cold tones ! — benevolent and gentle, but unfather- 
 like," I thought. 
 
 Both the children went away, Philippa hooting like a 
 young owl in the hall, the boy quite quiet. 
 
 In two minutes the maid came in. She was one of the 
 freshest, strongest, and most intelligent looking creatures I 
 ever saw. She cleai-ed everything noiselessly away, except 
 the cocoa-pot, which she placed on a little tray she had 
 brought in her hand, covered with a napkin, and on the tray 
 there were a small teacup and saucer (such as children drink 
 tea from on birthdays), little glass cream-jug, sugar-basin 
 with fairy tongs, and toy toast-rack, with slices of toast, cut 
 evidently from a penny loaf; there was also a small cut dish 
 with marmalade. I wondered even more. 
 
 Soon I heard a slow step on the stairs, and in the hall. 
 Mr. Major came in with a third child in his arms, and laid 
 him gently on a couch I had not noticed, except as a second 
 sofa against the wall. The child (before I could examine 
 him) began to whimper for his tea. Mr. Major carried a 
 little table, on which the maid had placed the tray, close to 
 the couch, and the boy began to stretch his fingei's towards 
 the mai'malade spoon. 
 
 " Try and eat some toast with it, dear EfBe," said Mr. 
 Major, kindly (still not tenderly), but the child sucked a 
 spoonful of the marmalade " down " first, then lay back, say- 
 ing he was sick, then sat up and poured cocoa into his cup 
 (he could hardly hold it, and spilled some on the tray), and 
 when he tasted it, having put many lumps of sugar and much 
 milk, cried out : — 
 
 " It's the bad milk ! I cannot drink it." 
 
 "Your sister pulled down the jug by accident ; she didn't
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 121 
 
 mean it, clear. I will tell Mary to make you some arrow- 
 root." 
 
 I suppose arrowroot was a treat, as the boy grunted a kind 
 of satisfied assent, and lay back again, swallowing crumbs of 
 toast leisurely. 
 
 Mary came in. 
 
 " I thought I sent down enough milk for Master Effing- 
 ham ? " 
 
 " You did, sir ; but while I went into the front kitchen to 
 make the toast, the cat climbed up and lapped every drop. 
 She always imitates Miss Philippa, but she didn't break the 
 jug ; she was too cunning." 
 
 " You must shut her up. Make some arrowroot direct- 
 
 For a passing moment I felt I almost despised him (I con- 
 fess my own mean fault) for being such a slave to these three 
 children. There seemed something wanting in him as a 
 parent, I knew not whether it was discipline or decision, or 
 the tenderness I had missed before. I had more to learn, 
 however, and, fatiguing as it must be to the reader to read 
 about babes and weanlings, I cannot show up Arnold Major 
 without their help. 
 
 While the child on the couch Avas waiting (whimpering 
 between) for his arrowroot, Mr. Major took out of a closet, 
 sunk into the wall, a vast array of papers, both manuscript 
 and printed, laid them on the table beside a plain desk he 
 brought from the same receptacle, and, asking me to take the 
 sofa, quietly sat down and began to work. 
 
 I never saw such rapidity or such concentration. I was 
 far too much interested in watching him to look towards the 
 child. He arranged the papers under some precise spell of 
 his own, the printed on one side of him, and the manuscript 
 on the other, and his eye ran down a page of each alternate- 
 ly. I marvelled at this arrangement until I heard a single 
 knock. Mary goes past the parlor door, opens the street 
 door, comes back into the parlor with the (covered) caudle- 
 6
 
 122 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 cup of arrowroot, and says, in the act of giving it into the 
 sick child's hand: — 
 
 " The boy for the ' Madras,' sir ! " 
 
 The " Madras " (whatever it meant) was the heap of 
 printed papers. Mr. Major, never looking up, and his lips 
 moving fast the while, pushed them in an orderly packet 
 across the table. Maid took them, left the room, and next 
 minute the hall door shut. 
 
 Now the papers were placed (all manuscript) directly in 
 front. He was reading now ; I could tell that. For about 
 five minutes there was quiet, save for the sound of the sick 
 child's spoon. Then in came the elder boy, with a book in 
 his hand, still conning it, stood by Mr. Major's side, and, 
 shutting the book, began to recite a French verb first, then 
 a Latin one, and finally some short English poem. 
 
 Mr. Major never looked at the book, but I could tell he 
 took it all in, for his eye moved as slowly again down the 
 page before him as it had done when he was solely occupied 
 in reading, and when the child had finished, he said, " Very 
 well," with a kindly glance, adding — " Now go to Efiie, and 
 put his train out for him." 
 
 The boy went to the couch, and the reading continued ; 
 but, oh (not to prose) under what circumstances ! The two 
 children did not precisely squabble, but kept up a constant 
 fidgetation, dropped their toys, gave out sudden cries (mostly 
 whispering, as they had evidently been desired to do), and 
 when the girl came in, perhaps twenty minutes afterwards, 
 she brought a cat clinging with its paws round her waist (the 
 ugliest cat I ever saw). From that moment there was a 
 clamor indescribable ; for the boys were evidently the cat's 
 enemies, and the girl was its admirer and patroness. Still 
 the reader went on, only knitted his brows a little, while 
 sweeping the sheets he had perused aside. 
 
 How I longed to do something ! I felt ashamed of my 
 own inertia, and feared even to try and quiet the children, 
 lest they should become noisier on interruption. I had
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 123 
 
 leisure to examine the sick one, in the light of the candle on 
 the table. How tenderly one inclines to love sick children ! 
 and how touchingly sweet they generally are ! This one was 
 neither touching nor sweet in aspect ; he was the least agree- 
 able of the three, with an eye without lustre and the most 
 fretful expression I ever saw. I certainly wondered why 
 (being ill) he was not put to bed. It was already half-past 
 seven. 
 
 Just as I was wondering, relief came, to a certain extent, 
 for the maid entered, and the two elder ones left the room 
 with her. But Mr. Major, without one grimace of impa- 
 tience, rose from his chair and carried the little one up-stairs. 
 
 On his coming down again, there was a good half hour 
 during which it sounded as if a Poltergeist were racketing 
 overhead, (Philippa,) and the screams, dancing, bangs, and 
 jumps, making the parlor vibrate, went on just so long as till 
 she was pei'force got into her bed. 
 
 Mr. Major had given me the key of his book shelves, but 
 I should have been ashamed to amuse myself while he 
 was working. As quiet fell upon us, he changed, but still 
 not to any aspect of relief. The excitement of forcing ab- 
 straction being over, that pale shade of deep weariness over- 
 cast his face, which I had noticed on my first introduction to 
 him. I could hold my peace no longer. 
 
 •' Let me help you if I can ; indeed I must and will," I 
 exclaimed. 
 
 " You are very kind," (without raising his eyes). " You 
 cannot here. I am making all haste that we may talk pres- 
 ently." 
 
 Tlie tone was decisive. I could not speak again, and una- 
 ble, or not permitted, to be of the least use, I really could 
 not toatch his weariness and industry together. I am quite 
 certain of being sneered at for treating his occupation as 
 laborious for the mind and weariful to the frame, (copying 
 may not exhaust all lawyers' clerks, nor does reading trash 
 in clear print tire and vapor to misery all sentimental worn-
 
 124 ALMOST A HEEOINE. 
 
 en,) but, whether such occupation be, in its abstract sense, 
 wearying or not, it was the most wearying to him, as an indi- 
 vidual, that could have been devised or selected for him by 
 his worst enemy. 
 
 So, in fault of watching him or wearing out my own pa- 
 tience by the consideration of his, I took out a book. I was 
 surprised to find several exceedingly rare library volumes 
 behind the glass doors of a closet corresponding with the one 
 sunk into the wall, on the other fireside. There were the 
 most superb editions of Plato, Shakspeare, and Gall's book 
 on the Brain, all bound in violet Russia, and adorned with a 
 full coat-of-arms in gold. Inside each fly-leaf I noticed the 
 inscription, — 
 
 " My dear son Arnold, 
 
 From his father." 
 
 The type of Plato was the most exquisite in the world, 
 and for about the thousandth time I was breathing the per- 
 fume of the immortal flower of the city of the violet wreath, 
 when ray reverie, so selfish sweet, was scattered by a voice 
 that could not rudely hreak the raost delicate trance ever 
 di'earaed by fervent man or aspiring woman. 
 
 " I have finished, Mr. Loftus. I am glad. Oh, it is a 
 comfort ! " 
 
 He stretched his arras out wide and smiled, then rose and 
 locked by all his papers, even his desk, took a chair, sat down 
 in front of the fire, and warmed his hands. 
 
 " After all, one would not like a stove, except in a bed- 
 room. There it is good, for, missing the red and black bars, 
 one is driven to bed." 
 
 " Do you go to bed early or late ? " 
 
 I shut up my book and put it in its place. Now I hoped 
 he would not, that time at least, go " early." 
 
 " All times, any time. I am free to-night. You must be 
 a fortunate pei'son, for your company sent me on fast. I fear 
 you have been disturbed witli the children though." 
 
 " /disturbed ! Good heaven ! Do not put me more elFect-
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 125 
 
 ually to shame than by refusing to let me help you ! They 
 are not noisier than most children, poor little things ! But 
 what father would be so indulgent and so self-denying ? " 
 
 He turned full to me, looked at me a moment with his 
 searching, most peculiar eyes. 
 
 " I am not their father ; I am their uncle, but I have the 
 charge of them." 
 
 There was something in his tone of mournful mystery, but 
 no embarrassment. I believe single-motived persons always 
 win confidence from each other — mutual contidence, for I 
 was emboldened to speak out my mind. 
 
 " I am glad you are not their father." 
 
 " So am I ! " with the smile 1 spoke of, but scarcely touched 
 with bitterness this time, bright with a secretive and extra 
 sweetness which bade me not ask " why ? " 
 
 " I thought there was something in your manner unlike 
 what you would he if they were indeed your children." 
 
 " They are not the less mine. Oh, Mr. Loftus, you are no 
 flatterer, and I honor you for reminding me of ray exceeding 
 short-coming in that respect. I am perliaps too indulgent to 
 them because I do not love them as I ought. Alas! no 
 luxuries can atone for the lack of love to those who need it." 
 
 " Nonsense, Mr. Major ! Those children need no more 
 love than they have bestowed on them, if you mean charity." 
 
 " I do not mean charity ; there is no charity in the ques- 
 tion." 
 
 " I mean you are charitable to them in over-proportion to 
 the love you cannot feel. I am rude perhaps, but it is a 
 morbid view to take, that those little ones require the sort of 
 love you would yourself." 
 
 " The sort of what ? " with a smile tliat, whether sweet or 
 bitter, explained nothing, but was full of meaning too, but 
 veiled. 
 
 " The sort of love / should need then ! Now you cannot 
 be disgusted, nor object. I put myself in the place I gave 
 youj an honorable one too, /think."
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 THREE WAIFS OF CUSTOM. 
 
 He looked at me again ; no mistrust nor cynicism in that 
 bright but melancholy regard ; there was but the natural 
 requirement of a wise mind to fathom the depth of the pro- 
 fessions of another to which it was until but lately a stranger 
 soul. The premature " fomiliarity " of fools it is that " breeds 
 contempt." I never should have esteemed Arnold Major as 
 I did at first, nor love him as I do now, but for that logical 
 reluctance of his to sicalloio what he had not tasted. With 
 an intellect far finer and better balanced than my own, he 
 had a smaller share of imagination — a quality rather glit- 
 tering than golden, any how ; and he certainly possessed less 
 real, how much soever ideal, faith, for I was not afraid to tell 
 him my whole history, except the part which was not my 
 own alone. 
 
 I well remember his reply. " Most persons," he said, 
 "actually overrating the magnitude of your loss in their o^vn 
 minds, would assume to you that they considered it the 
 greatest blessing that could befliU you ; that it had opened to 
 you sources innumerable of self-glorification and independent 
 heroism. I do not. It is a very great misfortune, and one 
 of those which philosophy could only lighten for a very 
 healthy person, whose frame was toned to the ultimatum of 
 physical power. I should regret it, were it mine, even more 
 for its own sake than because it had happened through the 
 agency of one whom I believed to love me. I have not a 
 single doubt that your uncle meant to turn you into a great
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 127 
 
 personage by leaving you pooi* ; but that he had studied the 
 world too little is also evident. To inform ourselves too 
 intensely with one phase of truth, is to falsify all our other 
 views and to render our impulses quite useless. I am going 
 now to propose to you a plan which I hope you will not neg- 
 ative. Come and lodge in my house. There is more room 
 than I require, as I dare not have the children out of ray 
 sight. You will so escape a few of the snares with which 
 * necessity ' entangles the strongest intellect and impedes it ; 
 you will benefit me besides. No — do not say anything — do 
 not object, or I shall be more than vexed — I shall be angry." 
 
 I know not why, but I could not. It had already crossed 
 my mind that I should not like to go ; and in fact I had put 
 the idea out of my head purposely for that night's rest. It 
 showed the character of the man curiously in one particular ; 
 he had really taken no personal fancy to me (a fact I always 
 feel in any case), and yet I did not suffer from temporary 
 dependence on him, though I meant that not to last. At 
 Lyndfield Chase it had been painful to me to receive shelter 
 and protection. It was pleasant here. 
 
 I often wonder whether he would have told me anything 
 about himself if I had not attacked him ? I think not. He 
 was a man never voluntarily to confide in any but a woman, 
 but I have the trick of winning a certain degree of confidence 
 if I choose. The children, and his method with regard to 
 them, puzzled me. Just after he had uttered the words for 
 which I found no answer, he went out of the room again — 
 I fancied, out of delicacy, that I might not seek one, and when 
 he came back he had a book in his hand, which he flung 
 upon the table dejectedly. His face was anxious and his 
 brow knitted. 
 
 " Is the little one worse ? " I asked. 
 
 If I had not spoken so simply, I doubt if I should have 
 had a reply. 
 
 " No worse than usual, thank you. He is always ill, and 
 will never be better in this world."
 
 128 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 I took up the book he had thrown down. It was 
 " Creasy's Decisive Battles." In the beginning was writ- 
 ten — 
 
 " Hilary ; 
 
 From his affectionate uncle." 
 
 "Is this grown-up book that boy's? "What a wonderful 
 child he must be to understand it ! " 
 
 " He is a wonderfully intellectual child." 
 
 No pride in the accent — the innocent parental pride ! 
 
 " Ambitious too, I should think. I noticed the discontented 
 look in his face which, I should imagine, always attends 
 ambition, even in the germ." 
 
 " Perhaps — poor child ! " 
 
 " Why poor child, Mr. Major ? with such a friend as you 
 are ? There is only one thing I wonder at — hoio you can 
 bear the three with you while writing and working. Why 
 not send them to school, at least, the ^oell ones ? " 
 
 " I cannot afford it ; only a first-class public school would 
 suit him, and she ought to have a first-class woman at home ; 
 together the expenses would take my whole income, and I 
 have no property. I only spend half of it now, invariably ; 
 the rest I save." 
 
 " For their use presently, and your life insurances, of 
 
 course r 
 
 ?» 
 
 He looked surprised at me. Whenever proud persons 
 looh surprised, I pretend not to notice it. It is the only way 
 if you are bent on making them out. I looked straight into 
 the fire, and went on : — 
 
 " They are very peculiar children, and must be difficult to 
 manage ; it is extraordinai-y that you do manage them ! " 
 
 " I wish I did ! " — in the most despondent tone. 
 
 " But would it not be better to leave them to themselves a 
 little ? — turn them into an empty room and let them play ? " 
 
 " You are persistent ! " — with the smile come back. " I 
 wonder what would happen if I did ? All children should 
 be watched, however little they may (from beautiful dispo-
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 129 
 
 Bitions) need restraint. If these were not restrained — alas ! 
 Did you think me severe with them ? I am an irritable 
 wretch, but I had fought with it, and hoped it did not show 
 to them." 
 
 " It did not. I thought on the contrary you were too 
 kind." 
 
 " That is impossible. But now, this is not a peculiarly 
 pregnant theme. I Avant to talk about your book." 
 
 " I will not talk about it. I am full of those strange little 
 creatures. What a fine face the girl has ! " 
 
 « Fine — no ; I do not see that, I wish I did ; I hope to- 
 night for the first time she was conscious of some slight 
 interest, in yoic I mean, when she caught sight of you." 
 
 I reserved the slap : — 
 
 " Do you fear her wanting in feeling, then ? I should 
 have thought her a romp, but nothing worse." 
 
 " Nothing worse ! She is disobedient to a high degree, 
 but that she may have learned from the boy, who diametri- 
 cally opposes all orders. Still, I could have hopes about 
 her, but that she cares for nothing, except that cat, a creature 
 I picked up in a furze-bush on Hampstead heath, and which 
 has carried the prickles in its character ever since ; it bites 
 and scratches even her, and I think she likes it all the 
 better." 
 
 " Is the boy disobedient, then ? Perhaps it is only volition 
 prematurely developed ; there is a look of the Bonaparte." 
 
 " Bonaparte could not control himself, and it was there he 
 failed and was enslaved. He was, too, the man for the time 
 that needed him, a time little like this. I would rather see 
 that boy in his grave than think of him as yet I dread to see 
 him, and through no fault of his ! He could not help being 
 born." 
 
 " No, indeed ; I wonder how many of us would have 
 helped it if we could. I think I should, for one. Perhaps, 
 after all, it is only the oddity of genius in him, and he will 
 turn out a great writer." 
 
 6*
 
 130 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 " So much the worse if he did, and infused his own temper 
 into other men's. I often wonder whether most children are 
 .so possessingly a care." 
 
 " What does he do, particularly, besides being disobedi- 
 ent ? Is he unfeeling, like the girl ? " 
 
 " I should say so, but that he had the most violent feeling 
 for his mother, who is dead ; and such an affection in a very 
 young heart would, almost naturally, be exclusive. It is the 
 hind of disobedience that is so trying. For instance, I have 
 bidden him never to bring a book to table. The doctor 
 warned me to draw him from study as much as possible. I 
 explained to him wJiy I wished it, and that it was on account 
 of his health ; yet he invariably brings one, and scowls when 
 I take it away. The same at night. The girl stole a candle 
 for him once, and, seeing the hght through the keyhole of 
 the door, I went into his room. He was reading hard in 
 bed, with the candle in one hand and one of Bohn's ' Extra 
 Volumes ' in the other. I put that down decidedly, and 
 took care he should never have a candle (he is not nervous) ; 
 but every moonlight night he tries to read, and to-night, being 
 a full moon, I suspected, and found him reading that" point- 
 ing to ' Creasy ; ' " not only reading, but out of bed at the 
 window, kneeling in his night-dress." 
 
 " How very tiresome it must be ! " (I thought so.) " But 
 I dare say all children are as tiresome after one fashion or 
 another. The chief mischief must be that it must exhaust 
 you daily. I wonder you can work at all." 
 
 " My work is light, though sometimes tedious ; it is not 
 that ! " (Here he sighed, the first sigh I have ever heard 
 him breathe.) "We have had enough of them now, and 
 you too much." 
 
 " I cannot hear too much, unless it worries you. I won- 
 der whether I should be able to do anything with them ! I 
 think I could teach the boy, and pej-haps take that business 
 off your hands." 
 
 "I think your own business is rather more than cncnigh
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 131 
 
 for you. But some one has been born without benevolence, 
 that you might possess a double quantity, I am sure." 
 
 " Nonsense ; I should like to master that boy. What was 
 the mystery of the milk to-night, when he accused the girl of 
 throwing it down on account of the thorny cat ? " 
 
 " Merely an instance of her want of feeling. I always 
 have milk brought once a day from a farm-house for them, 
 and the sick one can drink no other. She knew this, and yet 
 persisted in mounting to the shelf where it stood — she has 
 pulled it down more than once before, and my maid is always 
 changing its place — knowing that her little brother would 
 have none if it were spilt. But truly I will confess, with 
 shame and contrition, that if this ' noteless record ' does not 
 weary you, it wearies me, because it has no result." 
 
 Certainly it had none then. I could not get a word more 
 out of Mr. Major about the children. "We had supper, bis- 
 cuits and Bass (the champagne of ales, I wonder how writers 
 got on before Bass was born), and my companion was en- 
 chanting beyond anything of companionship I had conceived. 
 The children had not made him " slow," a frequent result of 
 even temporary worry ; and he had the kind of memories 
 stored up that make a human being infinitely more entertain- 
 ing, as well as elevating, than a thousand libraries. I con- 
 sidered that this might be the result of his profession as 
 " reader," till I came to know what manner of books he had 
 to " read." The dramatic genius of Shakspeare might as 
 Avell be fathered on Charles Kean. I thought, when we bade 
 each other good night, that he was going to bed as soon as I, 
 but, on the contrary, I heard him (he did not wake me, I was 
 musing wide awake) go up-stairs as quietly as a ghost two 
 hours afterwards ; he had been finishing what he had inter- 
 rupted for me. I learned this afterwards, for I questioned 
 the maid (a maid one could question), and, without vanity I 
 may say, I slid into such assimilation with the ways and 
 means of the household so soon, tliat I never again allowed 
 such interruption. lie was as frankly highbred in all mat-
 
 132 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 ters of open fact as intensely reticent with regard to those of 
 the inward life and need ; and I am proud to say he trusted 
 me sooner (he told me so himself) than he had ever confided 
 in man or woman. He was not only " reader " for the great 
 publishing house he belonged to, but hawker — not puffer — 
 I should like to have seen them impose that profession on 
 him ! — of its new, or dashing, or slashing works, to the met- 
 ropolitan libraries. I once went with him to one of these 
 from curiosity, and it was good to behold the way in which, 
 by simple force of his innate gentleraanhood and calm im- 
 spoken, yet out-telling, knowledge, he made them buy the 
 books, and as many copies as he chose, those swindlers of 
 the small change of literature, whose least crime is that they 
 are ignorant on grounds of which all laborers this age are 
 ware ! He was also second editor, with double the duties 
 and half the pay of the first, of the Madras Correspondent, 
 a paper which was worth about three thousand a year to the 
 proprietors. These mingled occupations, undeviatingly ful- 
 filled, brought him an exact income of five hundred and 
 ninety pounds, a sum I will not split into its separate appor- 
 tionments. Half of the same he saved, the other spent — 
 how well ! — but with a helpless and touching want of par- 
 ticular and innate wisdom that, I used to think, might have 
 made a woman love him on its own account alone. Indeed, 
 I have often heard his sweet wife say to him (since), "Ah ! 
 who gave the children hot-buttered toast every night for their 
 tea ? (so economical and so wholesome at once ! ) " This, 
 however, was but one of multitudinous little errors in house- 
 keeping, which I myself was as ignorant of, and as quick to 
 perpetrate, as he, while living with him. 
 
 Next day, I mean the day after he took me to his house, I 
 was initiated into the routine of it speedily. I had, of course, 
 from what he had said about the girl, expected that she had 
 no sort of daily instruction, and when I experienced her first 
 effect, I wondered how ever any household could move in 
 routine at all with such a racket permanently deranging it.
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 133 
 
 I soon discovered my mistake, and could appreciate the tact 
 of the arrangement by which Philippa was cleared away for 
 a few hours. I had heard her, all the time I was dressing, 
 screaming and running in the hall, but when I went down 
 she was in the small back garden (one strip of grass, two 
 strips of gravel, one lauristinus, and two laurel bushes), 
 scraping out, with her hands, a grave for a dead mouse she 
 had found in the cellar, too far " gone " for her cat to relish. 
 For she could be no more kept out of the cellar than out of 
 the kitchen, and I did not marvel at her uncle's particularity 
 in his choice of a servant, nor at the £20 wages he paid her, 
 when I considered the adventurous disposition and wild rest- 
 lessness of his niece. 
 
 At breakfast the sick child was absent ; the elder boy 
 alone appeared. Philipjja was too busy, or too dirty, to be 
 presentable ; and whatever care Mr. Major bestowed, or 
 forecast he exerted, he was obliged to swallow that first meal, 
 more supporting and necessary to an all-day-working brain 
 than any, in time to be in the City at half past nine ; it was a 
 three quarters of an hour's drive, too. Directly he was out 
 of the house, I aspired to ingratiate myself with the boy — 
 at that moment I might as well have tried to raise the hearth- 
 stone. He had eaten as fast as his uncle, and, without 
 answering one of my questions respecting what he liked best 
 to play at, got out of his chair, and, leaving it at the table, 
 went across the passage into an opposite room. Left alone, 
 I thought to try my hand upon Philippa, whom I did not 
 hear anywhere, to my surprise ; and going myself into the 
 passage, I met the maid, who was coming to remove the 
 breakfast things. 
 
 " "Where is Miss Philippa ? " I inquired, as if an old ac- 
 quaintance both of hers and the family's. 
 
 "I have just taken her to school, sir." 
 
 I did not choose to question the servant further, and 
 waited till the evening to ascertain where she went to school. 
 It was to a widow lady, next door, who taught only her own
 
 134 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 little boys besides. Mr. Major informed me he had sent her 
 first to a lady who taught only her own little girls, in the 
 hopes of softening Philippa by means of her own sex, but 
 that she had so hustled and horrified those sprucer and prim- 
 mer little females that their mother herself requested her 
 removal. The sons of the lady next door must have been 
 each an infant Hercules (they were big-limbed, porridge-fed 
 Scotch children), to endure her attacks upon them, for I 
 often used to watch her in the back garden of the next 
 house, when they were playing together. She would over- 
 power all three, and if she did not actually hurt them, it was 
 because they were too hardy and firmly built. Yet I always 
 knew from the beginning, whatever her uncle said, that she 
 had some sort of heart and nature somewhere ; not that she 
 ever relaxed to me ; on the contrary, I excited her especial 
 disgust ; but not to mention the exequies of the mouse, nor 
 her tending the ugliest cat ever beheld, she always gave the 
 three boys next door a big kissing a-piece (I could hear it in 
 at the staircase window), after she had thrown them down, 
 or otherwise discomfited them. It was one of the fulfil- 
 ments of the irrefragable laws of nature that these poor 
 children loved not their best friend — their only friend. But 
 I anticipate. 
 
 Going back to the parlor, that first morning, I found the 
 boy at the bookcases ; his little figure perched on a chair, 
 and his little hands groping among the books, the largest 
 books too ; and, as I entered, he started, turned. If ever I 
 could read expressions, I read that of conscience pricked in 
 his baby-beautiful face, for he was beautiful, — I care little, 
 if anything, for beauty in either sex, — and looked more 
 beautiful because a rose-rich color had rushed into his pale 
 cheeks with surprise, or with that same conscience-prick. I 
 felt I had a sort of understanding of the strange child, (I had 
 been a strange child myself, and withal a nephew,) so I went 
 boldly up to him and said : — 
 
 " What word are you looking for ? Can't I tell it you ? I
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 135 
 
 used to read the ' fifteen decisive battles,' and to be very fond 
 of books, and, as I am a great deal older than you, perhaps I 
 have learnt to remember more ; not half so much as you will 
 have remembered when you are as old as I." 
 
 The boy searched me over with his eyes ; face first, dress 
 next, even hands and feet; then climbed down from the 
 chair. 
 
 " Are you clever ? I don't think hardly any books are 
 clever. I never can find out what I want to know. They 
 are all the alphabet." 
 
 Poor little child ! It was the huge " Encyclopaedia Bri- 
 tannica " he had been trying to master ! What grown per- 
 son has not excruciated over its columns, under protest, wlien 
 yearning for some particular meaning never evoked amid the 
 " universal ? " I thought of " Christian Henry Heinetken," 
 that marvellous babe who knew five languages at four years 
 old, died at four and a half, and had never eaten nor drunken 
 save of his own mother's milk ! Poor little child ! again I 
 say; but the poverty of this one— like the other two, per- 
 haps — was in his desiring " strong meats " before he could 
 
 digest. 
 
 " What word did you want, my boy ? " I repeated. 
 
 Again he stared over me, put his finger to his lip, and 
 stamped his foot. 
 
 " It was not a word" contemptuously, and was going to 
 
 the door. 
 
 « Stay," I said, " is it history, or geography, or arithmetic ? " 
 
 " It is not any. It is about a man." 
 
 " What man ? The cleverest, or the strongest, or the kind- 
 est ? " 
 
 " The man who lends the money to the kings." 
 
 I will not exactly repeat the next phase of our communion. 
 Suffice to say, I elicited, by means of cool, uncaressing as- 
 sumption, that the boy had heard his uncle talking to " Lord 
 Wilders," one day, " four or five days " ago, about the richest 
 man in England, who lent " mon.-y to the kings" of Euroi)e,
 
 136 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 and that " Lord Wilders " had said the name twice, and it 
 " began with an R." Also that the child had been for days 
 searching in the Encycloptedia to find it." 
 
 " They would not put him in," 1 said, " because he is still 
 alive." 
 
 " How stupid, only to put dead people ! They put about 
 live ones in the Times for I have read it." 
 
 " Read the Times ? " 
 
 " When the boy was come for it, I gave him some things 
 I saved, and while he was eating them I looked. You are 
 not to tell." 
 
 " Of course not ; I never repeat anything. It is very 
 mean. But why not ask your uncle ? He would let you 
 read anything, I am sure." 
 
 " No ; he says it would ' break my head.' Such non- 
 sense ! And I am not allowed to read those others up there, 
 and that is why I like to get at them ; and read them I will. 
 I have looked in the Times, too, for the richest man's name, 
 but it never puts." 
 
 " I can tell it you, and all about him, if you like. It is 
 Rothschild." 
 
 " What does he do with his money ? " — with an eager 
 look, and his two hands closely interlaced. 
 
 " Many things. As you know, he lends a great deal to 
 the kings, and he gives a great deal to poor people and clever 
 persons ; and he has fine houses, buys blue silk cm'tains, gold 
 plates and dishes, and beautiful tilings to look at." 
 
 " Stupid ! I would not. How did he get his money ? " 
 
 " He made some, and his father made some, and by lend- 
 ing it he gets more and more." 
 
 " Could any one make as much ? GduW I ? What is the 
 way to begin ? Did he begin when he was my age ? " 
 
 " When he was your age he was leai'ning his lessons 
 every day, and playing all sorts of games, or else he Avould 
 never have grown up clever enough in mind, nor strong 
 enough in body, to be able to work — work for money."
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 137 
 
 " I save every forthing. If I showed you my box, you 
 would never tell any one, would you ? I should like to show 
 it you, because you let me read those books up there, and told 
 me the man's name. Will you write me his name down 
 
 here ? " o-iving me a little old pocketbook out of his frock 
 
 coat pocket, and a small stump of pencil. 
 
 I \\T0te it, never commenting on his disobedience ; the fear 
 of not gaining his full confidence restrained me. 
 
 " Where is your box now ? " I asked. 
 
 He ran out of the room, across the passage, I following, 
 into rather a long room, comfortably furnished (no forms, nor 
 desks, nor school apparatus, except a strew of lesson-books, 
 and an open copy). 
 
 " Nice writing," I said, while he was fumbling in a corner 
 closet. " And quickly done too, if you only began it after 
 breakftist." 
 
 « Ifnished it before breakfast. I wrote it in bed ; I hate 
 writing ; it wastes my time." 
 
 I went close up to him, curious. He had lifted a loose 
 board on the floor, and produced from under it a small tin 
 case, such as the best wax matches are sold in. This he 
 opened ; it wa? half full of silver coins, for the most part 
 fourpenny pieces, a few sixpences, and one five-shilling 
 piece." 
 
 « A great big one to begin with," I said, pointing to the 
 
 latter. 
 
 « Yes ; Lord Wilders gave it me. I wanted to throw it 
 at him, for I hate him, but then I remembered." 
 
 He stood still a moment with the box in his hand, and an 
 extraordinary expression covered his whole aspect — resolu- 
 tion, softness, grief; and his eyes burned unchildlike. I had 
 a strange sympathy with his very holes. 
 
 " Remembered what ? " I asked. " I will tell no one, and 
 perhaps I may help you. I have been unhappy, and I am 
 poor ; you have more in that box than I have got." 
 
 A sneer clouded the softness ; the other looks remained.
 
 138 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 " If you are poor, how can you help xoorhing ? You are 
 grown up. 1 would if I only was." 
 
 " So am I going to work very hard, and I should have 
 begun this very morning, if I had not had the pleasure of 
 seeing you. Now, tell me, if you were rich, what would 
 you do ? " 
 
 He opened his arms out wide, and a wild glitter filled his 
 glance. 
 
 " I would buy the biggest park in the world, and a white 
 marble wall round it, and plant it all over with white roses, 
 and white lilies, and very black trees, and in the middle, a 
 great big, immense white tomb. With golden tops — real 
 gold," his voice rising like a breeze, " and inside, a golden 
 coffin, with precious diamonds all over it, and little boxes 
 made of gold filled all with jewels round it, and a black vel- 
 vet canopy, with gold stars, and a white velvet covering with 
 silver stars ; and no music, for I hate hymns and organs, but 
 always quiet, and birds, and doves, and nightingirls singing 
 outside, a great xoay off." 
 
 The words sounded like poetry, but they were only pas- 
 sion. His arms dropped to his sides, and he still held the 
 box in one hand, carefully closed ; he never -forgot it. The 
 gleam of his eyes had passed, not into tears, — he was a 
 child who never wept, — but into a dull, proud, withal im- 
 patient air. He knelt down at the closet, replaced his money, 
 and shut down the board over it. Just then I was foolish 
 enough to fancy I could fathom his mystery through a deep 
 sea of tenderness over which that dulness brooded. I touched 
 his shoulder : — 
 
 " And whom do you love so much as to wish to bury in 
 so beautiful a place ? " 
 
 He raised his right arm, and hit me a blow with ten 
 times the strength of that the girl had used. My jaw was 
 black with it a fortnight. Yet, had he hit me seven such 
 blows, I believe I could not have found it in my heart to 
 stay his hand. I am a bad disciplinarian, and always was.
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 139 
 
 I fancy discipline, as it is called and practised, makes more 
 hypocrites than British money worship, or French matri- 
 mony. 
 
 The moment after he hit me, he was sitting in his chair 
 again at the table, deedy over his books. I turned, after 
 watching a minute or so, to go. He turned quickly, then. 
 There was no shame nor distress in his mien, but there was 
 regret, a regret quite reasoning and beyond his years. 
 
 " I beg your pardon, I could not help it," he said, " I 
 should beat any one down if I was strong enough, if they 
 dared — . I don't beat my uncle, because I hate him." 
 
 " Why do you hate him ? " 
 
 If I had said, — "Oh, what a cruel ungrateful child to 
 hate such a kind uncle ! " or, " I love him and so should 
 you," I should never have heard a word more of the mean- 
 ing which enabled me to pluck this social " waif" from the 
 overwhelming life-drift. I spoke quite coolly, as if I too did 
 " hate him." 
 
 " I hate him because he's — because he's the brother of 
 some one I hate hatefullest." (He actually hissed the word 
 out between his clenched teeth.) 
 
 " It is a miserable thing to hate ; " I said, and then was 
 going. 
 
 " What is your name ? " stooping over a book. 
 
 " You had better call me Ernest ; it is short." 
 
 " Will you call me Ernest ? " 
 
 " Why should I ? It would make confusion — no one 
 would know us apart. Why ? " 
 
 " Because I can't hear ; I hate my own name, and I ivon't 
 write it ever, and I have not got two names. I wish you 
 would call me Ernest, just to plague uncle." 
 
 " Good-by," I said ; " I am going to work." 
 
 " So am I," he observed, haughtily. 
 
 " If I can tell you anything, come to me up-stairs in the 
 room I slept in," I added, and got no answer. 
 
 My " work " was slight enough, for at one Philippa came
 
 140 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 home to her dinner, and from that moment the " house " was 
 "out of windows." If I had not experienced it, I could 
 never have beheved that one child, with the stoutest frame 
 and strongest lungs, could so have noised herself, not 
 " abroad," but at home. Unless she was crucifying the cat, 
 I could not, even on feline grounds, conceive whence came 
 the rout, nor what it was. Mews, screams, and stamps, 
 racings up and down stairs, and jumpings overhead in a 
 carpetless garret, formed the chief proportion ; in the midst 
 of which the servant (face flushed both with cooking and 
 nursery cares) knocked at my door with " my luncheon ! " 
 
 I was very angry with my host, and bade her take it down 
 again, saying I would dine with the children. So down I 
 went, and it was a scene : the sick child tended solely by the 
 woman (evidently solemnized into devotedness beyond that 
 of the tribe of hirelings by some moral or material spell), 
 the eldest reading hard the whole time, and eating without 
 salt or bread. Philippa not two instants in her chair, but 
 now at the window Avith a huge potato in her hand ; now 
 dragging her cat on end by its fore paws, and feeding it with 
 a fork ; anon (when the maid's back was turned), unscrew- 
 ing the pepper castor's top, and showering its whole contents 
 into her plate. A tremendous convulsion of sneezing fol- 
 lowed, at which the boy sneered darkly, and during which 
 the graceless cat took the opportunity to scratch her mis- 
 tress's face and arms all over. 
 
 This was the last dinner I ate with the young lady for a 
 long time ; next day she was not there, and did not come 
 home from school till five o'clock. I conclude her uncle 
 made some arrangement about her on my account, but never 
 a word could I elicit on the subject, and as well might any 
 one expect or try to receive a reply or explanation from him, 
 unless he chose, as force the Pyramids to declare the primal 
 purpose of their archaic founder.
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 hokatia's afternoons. 
 
 * I AM not writing an author's autobiography, and will not 
 bore myself and others with metaphysical rainutiaj. Enough 
 on that point to say, in this place, that when the reader for 
 the great house of Brown, Jones, and Co. returned home 
 that evening, he informed me that they had taken my book — 
 whicli I had little expected — and would pay for it, which I 
 had anticipated less. Forthwith I went forward gallantly 
 with some short stories in French, ore British grounds and 
 outlines, Avhich Mr. Major highly approved I should execute. 
 I also had the inexpressible gratification of composing some 
 leaders (about as long as an auctioneering advertisement in 
 the Times) for the "Madras," (as we called it in brief;) 
 also I corrected his proofs and sent them off, and as soon as 
 I assured him the boy had suffered me to talk to him (I kept 
 his secret, though) he allowed me to teach him, or rather to 
 attend to his self-instructions, when overpressed himself with 
 work, as, when was he not ? So trivial, so trying, so paltry 
 a pursuit could scarcely have been meant for him, nor he for 
 it, I used to think. But just now I only revert to the earliest 
 period of my acquaintance with him, and this fell far short 
 of knowledge. 
 
 Owing to his interposition and incessant attention, my book 
 was printed in a month, and published in two weeks more. 
 I can truly say I was so sick of it by that time that I never 
 opened a bound copy, nor read a single i-eview, except one 
 in the Times, which amused me with the tokens of true crit- 
 ticism I have elsewhere alluded to, namely, the extravagant
 
 142 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 dispraise of insignificant errors, and the inevitable non-allu- 
 sion to graver faults, which even selfish 1 detected. 
 
 This valuable document (I did not cut it out, and have 
 never seen it since) appeared a fortnight after my book ; so 
 that now two months had passed since I had been at home 
 there — or as much at home as one without a natural home 
 can ever be ; as much at home certainly as my poor little 
 contemporary, the boy. 
 
 This strange creature liked me, but we had not advanced 
 in intimacy. He certainly preferred saying his lessons to 
 me rather than to his uncle, but then he eschewed his uncle 
 in every way — poured passive contempt on him. I never 
 saw a detestation at once so precocious and so inveterate, nor 
 (to me) so unaccountable, for I should have thought all chil- 
 dren would have drawn to Arnold Major's smile. Nor did 
 the boy ever revert to the strange topic of our first conversa- 
 tion. And as for Philippa, up to this period, she conducted 
 herself towards me exactly as if I had been a chair or table, 
 never addressing me (nor I her), and if ever she chanced to 
 get near me, pushed me aside as she did such articles of 
 furniture whenever they stood in her way. For the rest, 
 she increased in tomboyhood and hazardous invention, catch- 
 ing fresh tricks every day, from unknown sources (sliding 
 down the balusters, shoeing her cat with walnut shells, and 
 setting the clothes horse one Saturday night on fire, a sample 
 of them), nor ever turned a gentle eye nor smiled a loving 
 smile on the provider of all her needs. 
 
 The London season was about budding when my book 
 came out, and I owe to that fact much of its (temporai-y) 
 success. I observed just now that Arnold Major had a vast 
 number more letters (by post, not printer's imp) than he had 
 received before, also (sitting in the same room so much, I 
 could not help seeing) he replied to them in very scraps of 
 shortness — about four lines apiece. Of course, I never 
 saw their addresses, but I also noticed once or twice that 
 servants in livery brought notes, while he was in the City,
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 143 
 
 returning for replies when he came home, and such notes he 
 always pushed into the fire (impatiently but never illna- 
 turedly), whence dripped little rills of sealingwax to the 
 grate. One day, Hilary, the child, (I took care never so to 
 name him), brought me a bit of one of those notes, with an 
 enormous coat-of-arras on its seal. 
 
 " This is what makes them gentlemen," he observed dis- 
 dainfully. " I know some one I hate, who always uses one." 
 
 ^nd then he crumbled it to atoms with his finger nails, and 
 to dust under his tiny boot. 
 
 This was wliile his uncle was out (liis uncle never used a 
 seal to my certain knowledge). That night, when all the 
 children were in bed, Mr. Major surprised me somewhat by 
 a question of his : — 
 
 " Ernest, do you never mean to go out ? " 
 
 We always fraternized so when alone together, though 
 never before the children. 
 
 " I went out walking to-day, at least as far as Oxford Street, 
 and I should have gone farther, but the carriages were so 
 thick, and the people too, that I was disgusted." 
 
 " Heaven send you hate not crowds, as I do ! Whatever 
 is to become of you if you should ? " 
 
 " Then Heaven help me, for I detest them." 
 
 " But I was not exactly speaking of crowds — not of 
 street-crowds at least. Do you not mean to make, or accept 
 acquaintances ? I don't say patrons, for patronage is obsolete. 
 Now is your time ; next time you print it will be too late ; 
 you could cut a clear road through the social Alps, now ; ay, 
 the very highest ; but that opportunity soon passes, and never 
 returns. You have a minority of fierce admirers, a majority 
 of as hot haters, and both among the high few ; not among 
 the fashionable merely." 
 
 " What nonsense is this you talk ? " 
 
 I justly thought so, for I was reading " The Flower and 
 the Leaf" when he addressed me, and longing to return to 
 the cream of those days when literature, if a drug, was at 
 least unskimmed.
 
 144 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 " No nonsense ; and had it not come to this pass I should 
 not have bored you. I think nothing of a stray inquiry or 
 so, but I have had lots of questions as to whether you are 
 personally forthcoming. How they came to identify you as 
 in any way connected with me I cannot tell you." 
 
 " Lord Lyndfield, of course," I mused aloud. I had, of 
 course, forewarned my first friends of my steps onward, and 
 their result, and he had read my book (I don't think he had 
 ever condescended to a romance before). And it was good 
 to read his letters on the subject, his overweening and gener- 
 ous vanity in one he conceived himself to have ushered into 
 note at least, if not celebrity, never recalling he had preserved 
 my life ! " 
 
 " No, not he, I am certain ; he never sees any one ; he is 
 too wise, and, oh ! how far too well occupied. I fear it was 
 my fault, in the first instance, for telling one person who 
 happened to call in that I was interested in such a book and 
 its writer on my own account. I did not tell him in particu- 
 lar because of his rank, his wit, or his eagerness to benefit, 
 but simply because he has a kindness for me, and he is a 
 literary epicure, (like most epicures, with little appetite,) 
 besides knowing some persons who might really be of use 
 to you, or your writings — should you continue to write." 
 
 " Why should I not continue ? What else is there for 
 me ? " 
 
 But I perceived my question was unheeded ; indeed, I 
 could not but fancy the latter part of the last sentence on his 
 part had been uttered without volition. His eyes (rare cir- 
 cumstance) were in dream, his lips just parted, and over his 
 face played a light unlike the fire or lamp, so vivid and so 
 soft that I scarcely perceived its transiency, only the return- 
 ing shadow of care and weariness seemed to fall the heavier 
 for it when it had sped. 
 
 I instantly (this was odd) recurred to his last remark : — 
 
 " I don't want to know, or be known of, persons or a person, 
 unless I knew both beforehand. Perhaps you can instruct
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 145 
 
 mo, and save me all the trouble of making choice ? WIio is 
 the person ? Did he call here ? I never saw him." 
 
 "■ He called in the City — a rare thing for him to be there, 
 but it only chanced because he had come from Dover, e?^ route 
 from Paris, and alighted at London Bridge. His name is 
 Lord Wildei-s. I dare say you don't know it — it is new ; 
 he was a baronet before." 
 
 I remembered it — the boy Hilary had spoken it. I did 
 not say so. 
 
 " Do you like him ? " 
 
 " Such a question can only compromise your charity and 
 mine ! Would you like to know him ? " 
 
 " No. But who are the ' some persons ' who might ' be 
 of use' to me ? I really should be glad to know them ! " 
 
 He started, and looked surprised, as though he had not 
 been conscious in that utterance ; then observed it was late 
 — a hint I took immediately, for, whether intentionally or 
 non-intentionally he spoke, I had ever a horror of intruding 
 on any one — above all others, on him. 
 
 Next day the youngest child, who had been ill his whole 
 short life, was taken worse. I had seen very little of him. 
 He was not one of those seraphic little creatures whom poets 
 (and sometimes truly) delineate in delicate or dying children, 
 but one full of sick whims, with a temper naturally dull, 
 soured by disease to a morbid condition, most pitiful to behold 
 and difficult to medicine. 
 
 Every appliance of surgical skill and art was lavished on 
 the little thing — the only carriages seen at Arnold Major's 
 door were those of doctors and physicians — and it seemed 
 a kind of conscientious agony possessing him lest all should 
 not be done that could, not for its cure (by all pronounced 
 impossible), but for its relief. As so often happens, the dead 
 husk did not drop from the character until the very end. 
 Perhaps the kind guardian was rewarded for his inexpressible 
 patience and care when the child, jnst before breathing his last, 
 held out his arms to be taken to the embrace he had ever 
 7
 
 146 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 before avoided, and went there quietly to sleep. All that 
 week afterwards I kept the house for my friend (forced still 
 to go out daily), but I could not keep it quiet, for Philippa 
 was at home, and defied me perpetually to make her still — 
 amused — or sorry. The boy read, according to his fashion, 
 all day long. 
 
 At the end of the week I went with Mr. Major, at his re- 
 quest, and without the children, to one of the beautiful ceme- 
 teries out of London, and there the little one was laid. I 
 fancy I should neither have been chosen nor allowed to 
 accompany him had I been a person (however curious I am) 
 who asked questions ; for the child was laid in a grave 
 already occupied by one, and a plain but perfectly executed 
 square of marble covered it ; spring flowers were opening in 
 a bed all round it, and on one side of the square were cut two 
 simple initials and a date, a few years back. The directions 
 given for the note above the babe I heard — they were 
 simply 
 
 " Etfingham, 
 
 " Nephew of Arnold Major," 
 
 with the date and age, so that I was farther than ever from 
 
 hearing that other name of the three children which they 
 
 must have had, yet none bestowed on them. 
 
 It was only the next day that a note, with one of the ob- 
 jectionable seals, was brought for Mr. Major Avhile he waa 
 out. It lay on the table for Hilary to sneer at, wdiich the 
 child took care to do, telling me privily besides that " that 
 thing, with its ugly head and tail, was Lord Wilders'." I 
 took no notice, except to tell him that he and I might be com- 
 fortable because we possessed no ugly seals ; but his uncle 
 had not been home half an hour, and was just half through 
 dinner, Avhen there dashed some light vehicle up the street 
 and stopped short before the house, the pause followed by a 
 stujiendous knock at the front door. A moment after, the 
 maid announced " Lord Wilders ! " and in he came, before 
 hearing that he might come — a breach of perfect breeding
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 147 
 
 ■which, of course, he had not perpetrated but for the one 
 sitting-room, such persons, and most others, considering good 
 styki incompatible with small domestic arrangements. AVe 
 -were boors or gypsies to him, of course — not that we looked 
 like the former, either of us, and certainly we failed in the 
 picturesque attributes of the latter. 
 
 Ai-nold Major rose and shook hands with him, (the servant 
 had placed him a chair,) then sat down again, and so did he. 
 I had not risen at all ; nor did I look at Lord Wilders, but I 
 felt he was looking at me. 
 
 " I have come for an answer to your note," he said. " I 
 was so near you I thought I would try ray powers of persua- 
 sion in person." 
 
 " I have scarcely read it, but you would have had a reply 
 by the next post to-morrow morning, though I own I wonder 
 you take so much trouble, and give me so much. I cannot 
 come. How often am I destined to say so, or, rather, 
 write ? " 
 
 " But I think you will come when I tell you something. 
 INIiss Standish has taken a house in Wilton Crescent, and is 
 resuscitating, or, rather, carrying forward Marlborough Build- 
 ings there. I have just been with her." 
 
 I positively saw Arnold Major's lip curl for the first time ; 
 it was rare with it, for he was far more inwardly proud than 
 externally haughty, and too noble to feel contempt, unless 
 really merited. Could such slight words deserve it ? 
 
 " I knew that Miss Standish was in London, and it makes 
 no difference, or, rather, decides me all the more to keep 
 within my rule, as I cannot literally afford to waste my 
 time." 
 
 " She did not send you an invitation^ but I told her I 
 should come and invite you ; and then she said she should 
 be happy if I succeeded." 
 
 " I believe she would ; I know her kindness. Once for 
 all, pray understand me. I do not visit, or intend to do so, 
 but I think society — such as yours, for instance — a whole-
 
 148 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 some thing, as well as agreeable, for an active mind ; so that 
 I have great pleasure in introducing you to my friend, Mr. 
 Ernesto Loftus, author of that book you were speaking of in 
 your letters lately, as well as the last time I saw you." 
 
 I was more indignant than ever I had felt in my life ; I 
 was, for the instant, hurt, but some instinct forewarned me 
 not to make myself ridiculous by betraying either. Besides, 
 Lord Wilders was sitting between me and the door. I could 
 not get out of the room, and to profess myself either dis- 
 gusted or annoyed was to fasten on myself the charge of the 
 smallest vanity ; so I made the best of the circumstance, 
 bowed, and accepted with a second bow (without hearing 
 them) the necessary compliments on his part. And now, as 
 I really looked at him, he assumed not to be staring at me. 
 So, gazing on the lamp, he went on : — 
 
 " I hope you will give me the great pleasure, and do me 
 the honor, of dining with me to-morrow, Mr. Loftus. And I 
 will not hide my gratification that I shall indeed be the first 
 to mention your real name (you know not how many you 
 have besides) to Miss Standish." 
 
 Should I say I didn't know who Miss Standish was ? It 
 might be awkward, like not having been to Paris, nor kissed 
 the Queen's hand, and the Pope's toe, nor heard Messrs. 
 Bellew and Kingsley preach. Besides, I could say nothing, 
 for, to my extra indignation and consummate amaze, Mr. 
 Major answered for me again : — 
 
 " I am sure my friend will be very happy, but you must 
 receive his visit as an exception, for he is very choice of 
 companionship indeed." 
 
 Possibly I might then and there have protested against 
 this curiously summary process of being disposed of, but I 
 saw a sly gleam round Arnold Major's mouth, short of a 
 humorous smile, but certainly touched — for the first time to 
 my sight — with fun, enjoyment even ; and I liked him too 
 much to have the heart to scatter it. Lord Wilders, with 
 the air peculiar to men of his class and charactei", of having
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 149 
 
 little to do, and yet being driven to see what is " doing " 
 next, rose directly after he had gained his point, if it were 
 worth calling one, and went, shaking hands with Arnold 
 Major, and advancing towards me with the same intentions, 
 but finding them balked by my again bowing, with my arms 
 folded. I have, indeed, often wondered why one must (in 
 society) shake hands with so many persons, under so many 
 circumstances, and wished that it were not a fraction of 
 formal etiquette ; bowing and smiling are surely sufficient for 
 all the cold ends of courtesy, and to the magnetic, it is 
 positive (not negative) misery to come into personal contact 
 with tliose they love not. 
 
 But I was not considering this then ; I was simply desir- 
 ous to be alone again with Arnold Major. The moment the 
 street-door shut, I was ready to explode — by no means to 
 argue or to remonstrate — about his behavior on my behalf. 
 Again he anticipated me by his aspect — amused, half- 
 repentant, but wholly gratified. Nor did he keep me in 
 suspense. I could not even speak first, he was so eager to 
 explain. 
 
 " I dare say you are disgusted with me, and I do not won- 
 der ; I should be in your place. But it was really the only 
 thing to do ; anything like a set and prearranged introduc- 
 tion you would have revolted from ; and I had such excellent 
 reasons for wishing you to be acquainted with his set, that I 
 took a liberty, for whose magnitude I ask your pardon, but 
 which you will forgive me one day. I think you need, after 
 all, have little to do with him'' 
 
 " I want to have nothing to ' do ' with any one ; Avhat is 
 the use ? " 
 
 " Some, certainly, if it were only on account of your 
 books. How do you mean to subsist by writing Greek love- 
 stories into English ? As well poems in ' Runic,' and grind 
 out of their stones your daily bread. And seriously, my 
 dear Ernest, though no one appreciates what powers you 
 have more than I do, or more selfishly enjoys your passionate
 
 150 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 delineations of delights not meant for me to realize, I do 
 assure you that, as a writer, you will never either succeed or 
 be of use (if you aim so high), unless you mingle, at least 
 for a time, with your fellow-creatures on equal grounds. I 
 say this to you as a sincere admirer and friend, and, were 
 you my brother, I could not mean it more." 
 
 I had never heard his voice so manly or so sweet; his 
 innate nobility flowed out from every word. He touched me 
 deeply against my will, and, oh, how my will rose against 
 that master-will of his ! 
 
 " Really, with such views, I do wonder you shut yourself 
 up ; you do not care how much you expose me to — you are 
 so safely enshrined." 
 
 " Now, Ernest, do not be unreasonable. I am no author, 
 never was meant for one, and happily I did not (as such 
 thousands have done) mistake my own vocation. Besides, 
 forgive me, I am something older than you, and I do assure 
 you I have most thoroughly investigated, by experience, 
 what is called society; otherwise, I might not be so cool 
 about it, perhaps. I know its depths and their ultimate shal- 
 lows, and I am a^vare of its lukewarm insipidity after the 
 first plunge. Yet I recommend you to take it, for surely, if 
 you would not consider yourself educated without books, you 
 should not esteem yourself cultivated without reading men." 
 
 " And women ? " 
 
 " As a matter of course. If I ask you, as a favor to my- 
 self, to go to dinner with that young man to-morrow, will you 
 doit?" 
 
 " I do not understand how it can benefit you." 
 
 " Then you were not born for friendship, having no faith." 
 
 " You would consider it an act of friendship then, if I 
 
 went — " 
 
 " To-morrow, and after to-morrow, wherever he wished to 
 
 introduce you." 
 
 Impetuous accents, these ! I had never heard such eager- 
 ness expressed from his voice. There was a mystery, too,
 
 ALMOST A HEROraE. 151 
 
 one the more added to the many little mysteries encircling 
 
 jum 
 
 " I will promise to go to-morrow, and after to-morrow. — 
 To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow," I said, " if you 
 will promise me one thing, that after the last three to-mor- 
 rows — quite a sufficient scoop out of one's life to taste all fla- 
 vors and smell all savors of what you call society — you 
 will suffiir me to sit down quietly and let the world go by, or 
 rather (to walk on firm ground instead of stilts) if you will 
 allow me to do my own will afterwards, having done yours 
 until that moment." 
 
 " Safe, then," said Arnold Major. 
 
 Words, curious merely for their simplicity. I could not 
 but own they were not of simple meaning — for their tone 
 was far reached, and as an echo from tlie land of dreams. 
 
 I am not fond of obeying people, yet it was a pleasure to 
 me to do so in this instance. Little enough pleasure I ex- 
 pected in the action of another's will, and may be, for once, I 
 deserved the agreeable disappointment which ensued out of it. 
 
 Not as for as Lord Wilders was concerned, though I had 
 cause to thank him too. He dined at seven, which, to my 
 fancy, is exactly an hour too soon, and an hour too late, that 
 is, one can eat at six and be thankful for not having after- 
 wards to sup ; and one can sup at eight and need no further 
 sustenance. His house was one of the very smallest in Park 
 Lane, and at a glance I perceived him to be a bachelor, not 
 only that the sumptuous show consisted entirely of the items 
 of male luxury, but also because there would not have been 
 room sufficient to contain a lady's necessaries (?) 
 
 At least there are many needs of a delicate woman, with 
 which a man of average constitution can dispense ; and I 
 hate to see waste in high places, though I dearly love pro- 
 fusion in proper ones. It certainly struck me that two young 
 men, with health, strength, and youth at their disposal, ought 
 to be ashamed of sitting down to dinner with a man behind 
 each of their seats, a third at the door, and a fourth iuiraedi-
 
 152 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 ately outside it ; also of having such a number of dishes ac- 
 tually brought round to be untasted ; also of looking at each 
 other over a minute epergne made of Californian gold, and 
 wrought in Paris, and filled with mignonette, lilies-of-the-val- 
 ley, moss-roses, and maidenhair-fern in March. Then, as to 
 my entertainer, he did not, I do believe, ever use more than 
 one attendant on ordinary occasions, but it was his rule to 
 have everything (as he would have expressed it) " perfect," 
 if he received but a single friend to dine. For the rest, he 
 was a model specimen of a class which is less every day be- 
 coming a minority (sobering fact for those who think, for it 
 seems as though the duties of the minority increased with the 
 miseries and privations of the majority, and as though such 
 duties were less and less considered and fulfilled). I was 
 thankful when I saw Lord Wilders near, that I had never 
 been to Eton, for he had been there, and a sort of fragrance 
 of it hung about his character, not of the highest mould of 
 power, — that which forms itself, — as scholars declare they 
 can detect whether another is from Oxford, Cambridge, Dur- 
 ham, or Dublin. He had not been got up anywhere in Brit- 
 ain ; however, he had travelled : in a post-carriage, with a 
 spring-bed and a cook ! And he reminded me rather of cer- 
 tain floricultural miracles (native, not exotic), plants that 
 have been trained and enervated unto that vegetable deside- 
 ratum of running to seed, for exhibition at Chisvvick, &c. — 
 prize pumpkins, monster cabbages, gooseberries egg-sized, 
 with cometary hair ; pansies and daisies as round and as 
 plump as the face of Philippa's cat. For Lord Wilders was 
 one of the instances of that human material which is more 
 useful raw than dressed ; he was ornamental merely. 
 
 I cannot tell why all individuals of his temperament (they 
 are not rare, though seldom so higldy accomplished in mind) 
 fatigue me so excessively, and dilute, as it were, my own 
 thoughts as they spring, with the lymphatic platitude of their 
 universal utterance. 
 
 I don't suppose there was a subject he did not touch on
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 153 
 
 this first time — subjects of that date, such as at this present 
 are pliotography, the last operation at St. George's Hospital, 
 Vancouver's Island, Charles Reade's new novel, aluminium, 
 Lytton's latest speeches, big ships, and crystal palaces, all 
 political slangs, and literary public or private scandals. 
 Things he hinted at I had never heard of, visions I never 
 dreamed, theories sounding vast as Babel, facts of science 
 fixed and brilliant as fresh-discovered planets. All such 
 matter, though, frittered away, as it were, and bereft of in- 
 terest by the manner ; not that it was indiflferent — it assumed 
 the easiest optimism — but that it was spiritless. 
 
 After dinner, we went into a smoking-room like a French 
 cabinet, lined with velvet, and he offered me cigars like sweet- 
 meats, with coffee like nectar. I do not love any cigars, 
 though I glory in a pipe ; and, when I told him so, about 
 thirty pipes were at my service, each one costly enough for 
 a present to the Sultan. Up to this time he had never once 
 alluded to myself, my position, or my prospects, for, with all 
 his negativeness, be was indeed a perfect gentleman ; but 
 presently he glided into a conversation, which was, for me, 
 very selfish, and certainly showed much kindness in his prom- 
 ises and offers, however little knowledge of my feelings, in so 
 desiring to oblige. For instance, he asked me to be his own 
 private secretary (he was one of the speech-makers among 
 the peers, and, I am confident, thought he benefited his 
 country by making them ; he also " read " diligently in sta- 
 tistics). And when I refused, on the plea of being unfit, he 
 offered to initiate me himself into all necessai-y duties, " which," 
 he observed, " could not be more arduous than writing sum- 
 mary statements of the condition of insane persons." (I had 
 told him about my residence at Lyndfield Chase, possibly with 
 a kind of pride in having any credentials of capability at all). 
 
 " You really do seem unfortunate," he went on, " in your 
 choice of acquaintance, Mr. Loftus, insomuch as you are 
 evidently doomed to light upon fanatics, however far they be 
 from fools. There is Major, now, a person who has shame-
 
 154 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 fully frustrated the designs of his own creation ; do you not 
 think so ? " 
 
 " I do not know what the designs of his creation were ; 
 but I know that lie fulfils the ends of his human being admi- 
 rably in every instance I have had experience of him." 
 
 " But a man like that has no right to leave the larger 
 duties unfulfilled, for the sake of alleviating, or trying to alle- 
 viate — for it never will succeed — the petty misfortunes and 
 wrongs of persons necessarily unfortunate, and who ought to 
 be taught to bear their own burdens, not to shift them. 
 There is scarcely any eminence he might not have reached, 
 and retained." 
 
 " In what particular line would you have had him excel ? " 
 
 " Political, of course ; he is exactly a man (idol of his 
 youth's friends, now forsaken) who might have made a party, 
 and kept the head of it." 
 
 " Really, I am no politician, Lord Wilders, and the term 
 seems alone left now, without the meaning ; but for a man to 
 head a party, surely, in these times, is much like a genuine 
 turfite training a whole stud, till thoroughly amenable, with- 
 out the chance of any race-course, nay, common highway, to 
 run them on, and with no prospect save that of leaving them 
 to eat their heads off in the stable, or choke themselves with 
 gnawing their own cribs." 
 
 If Lord Wilders had been Archbishop of Canterbury, and 
 I had been setting down the Established Church as a sham, 
 he could not have looked more shocked — nay, more con- 
 temptuous. And, though he could not have known any one 
 circumstance of my past breeding or education, I instantly 
 perceived he considered both, not incomplete, but null. 
 
 I suppose, failing the usual topics of exclusive manly sym- 
 pathy, he thought a hint or two of feminine idiosyncrasy 
 might be about my level ; for he fell to entertaining me with 
 short histories of the young ladies who were marriageable 
 in his circle, and their trifling characteristics, such as what 
 color became them, and what colors they [)ersisted in wearing
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 155 
 
 which became them not, how much rose champagne they 
 drank, how httle allowances their fathers made them, how 
 many were in debt to their own maids, and how few any man 
 was really meditating to marry — a sort of modern Walpole 
 gossip, less the Walpole. As he so persevered in detailing 
 this smallest small talk, I inwardly rejoiced that he went no 
 deeper, and that he was in the main a virtuous individual, 
 well disposed towards the sex he so pitifully complimented. 
 And what was curious, or seemed so to me, not a single sylla- 
 ble did he breathe concerning that Miss Standish whose name 
 he had pronounced at least more earnestly, and with more 
 like living interest, the day before, than he had shown or 
 uttered at all this day. 
 
 I little knew that she had just refused his hand, and knew 
 it not for a long time afterwards. I suppose I never should 
 have known it but for the fact that she told some one to wliom 
 she had a trick of telling everything, and that that some one 
 had a trick of telling some things to me. 
 
 I said Lord Wilders did not breathe a syllable concerning 
 her, but this is erroneous, inasmuch as, though he had not 
 alluded to her before, he finished with her the last thing. At 
 eleven, more tired than if I had been standing for twenty- 
 four hours, I went away ; and just before, even at the door 
 of the street, to which he courteously accompanied me, he 
 said : — 
 
 "And now, you will not refuse to allow me to gratify Miss 
 Standish's curiosity ; to-morrow is her afternoon ; will you 
 let me call for you ? " 
 
 I had gone too far to care how much I went farther ; that 
 is, I had broken my resolution of never going out anywhere, 
 nor being indebted to anybody, entirely to gratify what 
 seemed like nothing wiser than a whim on the part of 
 Arnold Major. So I might as well gratify my own curi- 
 osity into the bargain l)y gratifying " Miss Standish's," what- 
 ever kind that might be. 
 
 " Oh, I will be ready for you here. Do not come so
 
 156 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 far ; it is quite out of your way. When should I be with 
 you ? " 
 
 " I will be with you at three," — with the extra courtesy 
 of one who can confer favors so easily that it is merely as if 
 he scattered the coins from the own purse of Fortunatus. 
 
 That night I shut up my own pride (it had been packed 
 away out of sight during that dinner), and asked of Arnold 
 Major : — 
 
 " Who, and what, in the name of Heaven, is Miss Stan- 
 dish ? " 
 
 " That is a question which I should consider it a pei'sonal 
 favor if you would answer to me, after seeing her. If you 
 had asked any one of a good number of young men, the re- 
 ply would have been — ' a Standing- dish.' " 
 
 " How unutterably detestable ! I hate puns." 
 
 " You will not think so when you have tasted hers." 
 
 Quite seriously this was said. Tasting puns ! What a 
 phrase from Arnold Major's mouth ! And a woman making 
 them for the " tastes " of men — a sti'anger practice still. 
 Strangest of all, for Arnold Major to like the taste of such ! 
 Why, above all, if he liked such flavors, did he never go into 
 society ? For, among other trifles, Lord Wilders had im- 
 parted to me the knowledge that he could go out anywhere 
 if he chose ; nay, that, though an eremite of several seasons' 
 standing, he was still sought after and angled for ; the mys- 
 tery of the notes with seals revealed itself herein. And, if 
 he liked anybody at all, what reason had he for not going to 
 see them ? Being a bachelor, he needed not to entertain 
 back again. Certainly he worked hardly and constantly 
 enough, but he was one of those persons who, never seeming 
 in a hurry, deceive as to the actual amount of business they 
 get through. 
 
 I thought of these things after I was in bed, and conse- 
 quently Avas too late to see him at all next morning. Much 
 self-disgust I experienced, and feared I had fatally involved 
 myself in the inextricable toils of the Demon Idleness —
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 157 
 
 nay, I made solemn resolutions not to go out any more, hav- 
 ing gone out that day, as I had promised, not only my inviter, 
 but my present jio.-t. 
 
 I continued to waste my time (having begun to do so, it 
 was easy) until three o'clock, and, precisely as the hour struck, 
 Lord Wilders drove up to the door in a single brougham. 
 Being ready, I went out directly, and such a fast animal he 
 had, that before I dreamt Ave were near the parks, we stayed 
 in Wilton Crescent. Some of the prettiest mansions in all 
 town are there, and that one before which we stood was 
 cliarming ; its chief charm, an extraordinary one for that 
 quarter, namely, that the fittings of the interior were as un- 
 ostentatious as the architecture was faultless in itself. You 
 could not tell, in passing through the hall, how it was tinted, 
 nor the hue of the stair carpet, nor even the livery of the 
 two servants, the one at the street, the other at the drawing- 
 room door. 
 
 Half way up the stairs I heard sounds — I knew not 
 whence — of singing so strangely rare, so startling when 
 listened to for the first time, that I stood still involuntarily, 
 as one would stand should a break of music breathe through 
 a vast peal of thunder — both the music and the thunder 
 from the clouds. This is a very far-fetched comparison for 
 a voice the most humanly expressive possible, but distance 
 and the unknown lent it just such an awful mystery as all 
 passion's utterance bears when heard for the first time in the 
 darkness of the inward being. 
 
 Lord Wilders humored me, or was himself stricken, I 
 thought then ; I little knew how worn-out an enjoyment all 
 music was for him, and men like him. We stood a few min- 
 utes even, and then the voice ceased, and there was just such 
 a rustle, buzz, and low conglomerate chatter on a small scale, 
 as on a large scale would cause those slow German neigh- 
 bors of ours, who study and who feed on music in the orches- 
 tra, to rise up in mutiny at a concert and turn the whole au- 
 dience out of doors !
 
 158 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 We profited by the interval, and were shown into the di-aw- 
 ing room. At first I was left standing just within the door ; 
 my companion going on up the room, which I chose not to do, 
 seeing a swarm of persons gathered there, whom I knew not. 
 There were several empty chairs just near the door, and I 
 sat down in one, and, before called on to do anything else, 
 had time to examine the room, as 1 like to examine even the 
 least and lowliest chamber which a human resident has 
 touched with his own character. Here, again, the same 
 semitone, rather than monotony, of color prevailed, and 
 when I say that, for all the neutrality of the blended lights 
 and shadows cast from furniture and form, thex-e was not the 
 slightest suspicion of a dowdy air, it may be guessed how 
 perfect was, not only the taste, but the art of the arranger. 
 No glare of gilding, nor gaudy flame of ill-painted picture, 
 nor pre-Raphaelitish flower-bunch upstaring from the carpet ; 
 no, nor even the inevitable plague of ornamental baubles on 
 every inch of table, with which the smaller housekeepers 
 afflict one in Brummagem, and the larger in costly ugliness, 
 these times. 
 
 One glance taught me so much. Now, as for what I 
 heard, everybody was talking, but one voice rose above all 
 the voices, not that it was louder than many others, but so 
 wonderfully clear. I could not detect to whom it belonged, 
 for, as I said, a swarm of persons had gathered towards the 
 top of the room, where now I could make out a piano in the 
 midst of them, and all whom I could see wore bonnets, being 
 dressed for walk or drive. I guessed the owner of the voice, 
 however, and guessed aright. So, as it befell, I heard Miss 
 Standish before I saw her — a circumstance I like to happen 
 in any case. 
 
 Who but I, I wonder, ever felt the pathos which, when 
 that voice was at its highest pitch, struck through it like a bell 
 too wildly shaken by wind or wave, to a vibration still musi- 
 cal, but cold and strong as sorrow ? I say rather ivave 
 because the first time I listened to Horatia's tones, in her
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 159 
 
 haughty but sweet-humored social mood, I thought directly 
 of the Inchcape chime, rock-riveted, irresistibly sounded by 
 the surgent tide. And this pathetic reminiscence lay wholly 
 in the voice, no topic touched on by the speaker or any 
 speaker present ; for indeed no discourse could have been 
 lighter in manner and matter both ; I was going to say more 
 frivolous, but the term would be misapplied to Horatia, she 
 was so earnest even in trifles, so passionate when most 
 careless. 
 
 I mean, though, simjily to relate how I formed an ac- 
 quaintance with her. Presently, a short ten minutes after 
 Lord Wilders had left me standing, he returned to find me 
 comfortably seated. I thought, of course, he came to fetch 
 me for introduction — but, lo ! a lady was by his side ; she 
 did not foil him well either, she was so fine and refined a 
 woman, and he so feeble and over-refined a man ! 
 
 " Mr. Ernesto Loftus," he said, in a very low voice I 
 thanked him for. Miss Standish did not wait for her own 
 name, to put out her hand to me. Such a soft, helpless 
 hand ! And such a cold touch ! — no pressure whatever 
 from it ; but a smile so cordial that the little light frost falling 
 on one's spirit from her manner melted as if it had been the 
 sun under it. Not that it was merely a cordial smile, but 
 one of the perfect smiles so seldom seen ; it not only changed 
 the expression, but the very shape of the features while it 
 lighted them. Physically, the smile was born from the 
 brightness of perfect teeth — to use the words of the poet 
 of the " Nympholept," — " more white and sleek than the 
 nut's coi-e." 
 
 The smile soon passed away — and so did she — for me 
 at least, she had so many divergent threads to keep together 
 in her hands just then. I so little comprehended the actual 
 reason why these people had met together, that it was suffi- 
 cient amusement to watch them and see what they would all 
 do. In the case of the majority, they did nothing except sit 
 round llie room, lo(jking, oh ! liow tired, and as mucli over-
 
 160 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 interested as if they took no interest at all. In fact, it 
 seemed difficult to determine precisely why such an audience 
 had been chosen, bidden, or attracted, whichever it was. 
 For it was an audience — there was so much to hear. 
 
 First of all, the commotion of tongues being stilled. Miss 
 Standish (I knew her now) sat down at the piano. To my 
 surprise, Lord Wilders, my companion, stood beside her, — 
 to my surprise — for he began to sing ; — graceful, tuneful, 
 — toneless, and meaningless, alike the voice, the style, and 
 subject. Still, one could have slept through it all — or 
 dreamed, if polite enough to keep one's eyes open — had it 
 gone on by itself only ; it could not have disturbed, it was 
 so truly nobleman-like in its calm and soothing self-compla- 
 cency. But after a certain number of bars Horatia's voice 
 leapt in, — her very accompaniment roused with it, as a 
 springing gust sweeps forward a sudden flame ; and like fire, 
 so immaterial and strong, so subtle and so forceful, swelled 
 the voice. 
 
 It was as extraordinary that those soft made and helpless 
 looking hands should draw, nay, drain, such sounds from the 
 keys' depth, as that a voice so charged with fire should sus- 
 tain and poise the listeners on its spread burning wings. 
 For in it there was neither rant for declamation, nor for 
 expression cant ; albeit through its medium outflowed pas- 
 sion, pure as its own source, in perfect freedom ; such free- 
 dom, with such purity of expression, perchance was never 
 heard. 
 
 It would have been wholly tragic, in the old Greek sense, 
 to listen to Horatia's singing, had it not been so repulsively 
 comic to hear her sing with another person — any person 
 I ever heard her sing with, at least. It seemed every mo- 
 ment as if her slumbering wrath and artistical antipathy 
 must wake up and strangle with their blended powers the 
 poor weak efforts of singing that was fashion's handmaid ; 
 for it is fashionaljle now to learn to sing, and not only fash- 
 ionable, but a fashion the aristocrat has dignified beyond all art.
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 161 
 
 The serious-stupid duets being spent, I fondly imagined 
 there would be a respite; and fancied too, that after so 
 singing, so playing, and so enduring such other singing, Miss 
 Standish would rest. Not at all so ; and in her very resolu- 
 tion — it breathed from her face in a struggle with unmis- 
 takable fatigue — to amuse others who were incapable of 
 delight or pleasure, and to humor those who had not even 
 mind to be amused, a tine temper and generous impulse 
 were displayed and wasted, which could have fed, oh, what 
 purposes and ends ! none could have been too lofty, too great, 
 or too concentrative. So thought I then, ignoring, in my 
 hasty estimate, the sweetest purpose and the deepest end of 
 all. 
 
 Every one who sang — and there were several — Horatia 
 accompanied herself, with those magnetic fingers of hers, 
 that could be positively or negatively charged at pleasure. 
 She showed herein, in an aflernoon, more amiability than in 
 one year I could have felt ; for, not only was every voice 
 inferior in infinite degrees to hers, but there was, in every 
 instance, the truly genteel (Gentile?) non-professional dis- 
 like of music, tortured into sham liking by the agonizing 
 dread of not being up to the time, or not being up to her, 
 the hour's queen ; I " thought " the latter " then," and " now 
 I know it." Horatia must have steadfastly crushed, and 
 kept under her will, her idiosyncrasy, those afternoons of 
 hers, as a fakeer pre-resolved to make his foot turn ankle 
 front, and keep so, is wont to do; for never, in any com- 
 pany, under any circumstances, have I seen a hostess, her 
 company, and her circumstances so utterly at variance. 
 And, actually, her tact, talent, or universal charity, I know 
 not which, prevented any mental collision or moral accident 
 amidst this serene chaos and most melodious discord.
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 HORATIA. 
 
 Abruptly enough I have brought Horatia's afternoon to 
 its close, but not more abruptly than, in fact, it ended. 
 With a milk-and-water meagre mimicry of concert-givers, 
 goers, and patrons, on a minute scale, the contents of the 
 room, humanly alive and attentive one quarter of an hour, 
 were scattered and dissolved the next. In plain language, 
 after a ballad of Miss Standish's, which might have raised 
 one of the dead from under the stones of Poet's Corner, the 
 company quietly (I thought gladly) got up and went away. 
 It was such company, and so conducted itself, that it made 
 me feel two sorts of shame — the one at its own want of 
 feeling, the other at my own excess. 
 
 I waited for Lord Wilders, not as a matter of course, for 
 had I not vaguely hoped to get a little more out of Miss 
 Standish on my own account, I should have slid down stairs 
 on the crowd's current. The room was empty now, save for 
 one lady (the only one, except Miss Standish, icithout a 
 bonnet), who sat in a far corner on an enormous sofa, and 
 my introducer, who was close beside Miss Standish still. 
 
 Why was I angry? — and why did I long to throw one 
 of those fair chairs beside me, " still warm with " some 
 " ample " or aristocratic " presence,"' at him ? I did not 
 know ; but I know now, and the reason is not because I 
 loved, or love, Horatia ! 
 
 There Lord Wilders stood and whispered l^y her side ; 
 whispered, albeit the room was so long and large, with only
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 103 
 
 one person now at each extremity of it. Still, to do Iloratia 
 justice, I do not think a man — any man — with, I say not 
 a particle of pride or self-respect, but with a whifF of spirit, 
 would so have stood and whispered. For, though she was 
 as free mannered as the air she breathed, and as kindly as 
 the universal sunshine, she was, as an individual to an indi- 
 vidual, cold to liim as stone. Her very manner, so easy, 
 open, yet all concealing, was the essence of indifference. I 
 could tell that afar off, and did not envy him. 
 
 Through all, she was so well-bred, (or so indifferent !) that 
 when he had finished, and set his face and his steps towards 
 me again, she followed him, instead of walking by his side, 
 this time ; so that I don't think he knew she was there. I 
 shall never forget my astonishment and curiosity at her man- 
 ner of pausing and regarding me, and, I believe, with all my 
 follies, I am modest, for I never dreamt she did it from 
 interest in myself, as perchance some youths would have 
 done, had they, even for a moment, arrested such a woman's 
 glance. 
 
 At all events — still behind Lord Wilders — she stood and 
 perused me earnestly. Her eyes were full on a sudden, and 
 in an instant, of an expression I can only call beamin(j tears 
 — instead of smiles this time ; not that they were moist, but, 
 as I have said, they had the expression, without the mate- 
 rial reality, of eyes that weep ; I never saw that expression, 
 either, in any other eyes, without the reality ; nor ever saw I 
 truly Iloratia weep, though I have seen her in a thousand 
 smiles, not all of love and joy, but many a one of sweetest 
 kindness for those who wept. 
 
 I was quite sure that she did not know I was observant 
 or conscious of her presence, for I have a knack of peeping 
 through my eyelashes, and I did so then. It was odd that, 
 knowing she had been looking me through, I should start 
 when she addressed me ; but I did. There was something 
 disconcerting in her manner until she was perfectly at home 
 with one ; the world felt it, and often named it haughty,
 
 164 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 but, haughty or not, it sprang from a timidity excessive as 
 her pride. 
 
 " Mr. Loftus," she said, " I have seen so little of you — 
 it was impossible I should see more, but it was little ; you 
 will not refuse to stay to dinner, for your company would 
 give me a great deal of pleasure. Your friend. Lord Wild- 
 ers" (my friend/), "I have succeeded in persuading, and 
 I hope to do the same in your case." 
 
 Here was I, with a perfect prescience that I should be 
 asked what I thought of Miss Standish when I got home, 
 and whatever should I say ? It had been so much trouble 
 to come, that I might as Avell take the little extra trouble 
 to stay. And, not to pretend even to the meanest sort of 
 merit, I was most curious to see more of one who, in such 
 a short time, could impress so deeply. 
 
 " I am very much obliged to you. Miss Standish, for 
 your undeserved kindness ; and I shall be most happy, but 
 you see I am not dressed." 
 
 She smiled like a gypsy ; a positively saucy smile, not only 
 (or rather not at all) arch ; it had no coquetry in it, but gen- 
 uine fun ; and how different was it from her smile of primal 
 welcome, which had been a ray of soul! In this spoke a 
 capacity for innocent mischief, the freaks of a bright mind 
 at play. 
 
 " We are none of us dressed ; I mean we are all in un- 
 dress," she said, " even Lord Wilders, who is a model for all. 
 I wish to present you to a dear friend of mine, Mr. Loftus," 
 she went on, and there was loill in her wish, — she turned 
 back up the room, and I followed her to the corner where 
 stood the enormous sofa, and on which the only lady who 
 had been without a bonnet, like herself, still sat. 
 
 " Mrs. Le Kyteler, I bring you the solution of your doubts 
 as to the authorship of the ' Violet Crown,' in this young 
 gentleman, who in his own person represents the book — Mr. 
 Ernesto Loftus ! " 
 
 How ringingly she announced one ! Like articulation
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 1G5 
 
 tlirough a silver trumpet, it made me positively shiver. That 
 was only her way when she wanted to excite more than an 
 interest, a respect in worldly natures, for any person in whom 
 she took an interest. How came she to be interested in a 
 dull-looking, pallid creature with owl's eyes, like myself? 
 
 It was not easy to take real note of another lady while so 
 near Miss Standish, and a woman who could attract away 
 from her even a ray of regard must have been either very 
 superior or very original. 
 
 Mrs. Le Kyteler was decidedly the latter, and, in a social 
 sense, the former. She was old, but I knew it not then, and 
 never should have guessed it ; a majority of the connoisseur 
 crowd would have pronounced her handsome, and Horatia 
 plain ; the British connoisseurship, I mean, for any foreign 
 arbitrant would have preferred Horatia's face, as well as her 
 figure, noble, feminine, and fluent from head to foot, to the 
 straight and august grace of the elegant Mrs. Le Kyteler. I 
 could fancy, as I gazed on her, what a star of ball-rooms she 
 must have been in days when quadrilles were danced, not 
 slurred through, and even minuets were in vigor still ; and I 
 cannot own I felt any of those melancholy qualms of imag- 
 ination which persons of primosity, or fools, attribute to the 
 contemplation of past beauty which has been " a ruler of the 
 world." 
 
 Mrs. Le Kyteler, like all beauties, whether one cares for 
 them or not — I don't — was pleasant to behold because she 
 was so picture-like, and pictorially dressed. She had a splen- 
 did complexion (or had had, and now painted one, which she 
 was no hypocrite in doing, having owned the original) ; she 
 was carnation-brown of skin, with an elegantly formed counte- 
 nance, large eyes, as bright as they were dark, with an inde- 
 scribable searching shrewdness in their gaze, and they looked 
 like eyes that had not been wont, and would not be taught to 
 weep, when first they shone forth on youth's morning, but 
 had learned the lesson since, and wept themselves out dry 
 some time, now long ago.
 
 166 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 I have spoken of her dress, and must again. She wore 
 black silk, with great damasked flowers, thick as card board, 
 and sheening back the light ; her throat was muffled in lawn, 
 folded like sculpture, and fine as gauze ; her cap was of the 
 most exquisite shape, and made of " pearlin " lace ; her hands 
 were veiled, except the fingers, by Maltese mittens ; she 
 wore no ornaments, and no gold, except a wedding ring. She 
 was married then, of course, and I wondered was she Miss 
 Standish's mother, who had married since ? It was impos- 
 sible to look at either of them and believe so. And there, 
 in contrast as picturesque for itself as it made the sofa- 
 enthroned lady look more picturesque, stood Horatia, by my 
 side, before her — I cannot say stood still, for it was one of 
 her charms that, scarcely ever in perfect repose, she looked 
 so interesting in all her various motions and tiny tricks of 
 character. Fancy Horatia dressed and preserving herself 
 and costume intact as in a frame ! No dress she ever wore 
 looked precisely the same half an hour together ; it got 
 shaken out of shape or into some new shape far more entic- 
 ing. Yet, she knew how to costume herself; I never saw a 
 woman who knew so well. This night her dress, or what 
 she pleased to call her undress (I wondered what her full 
 dress would be like), consisted of golden bronze silk, watered 
 in widest waves, and made with an extremely deep " bas- 
 quina" (fashion not then generally seen), and a lace cape fall- 
 ing every way around the throat, five bracelets on one arm 
 and four on the other (beautifully turned wrists, requiring 
 no bracelets, certainly), which said ornaments were fond of 
 becoming unclasped, but seemed, for that fact, none the less 
 ornamental ; and a head-dress of beetle-wing, that gleamed 
 like emeralds on fire. There was one fault, and only one, 
 in the mode she trained her hair too ; it was banded too 
 near the eyes, and should have been swept far back, to 
 show the temples and the forehead's breadth. This criticism 
 of mine may sound impertinent, but, in reality, it means gen- 
 uine homage to her most innocent want of personal vanity.
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 107 
 
 Just as we were standing so (Mrs. Le Kyteler, true lady 
 of the world, i)aid me no compliments, and only spoke about 
 the weather, and the difficulty of preserving an even temper- 
 ature in reception-rooms), two gentlemen and a lady were 
 announced, and after their annunciation, dinner also. To my 
 extreme gratification, Miss Standish asked me to take her 
 down, and she paired the others in her easy way — that was 
 never oflT-hand — and, as easily, let the two men who had no 
 jKirtners go alone. 
 
 With her on my arm, all my terrors at the idea of a set 
 dinner in a " fine " house vanished vapor-like, — they re- 
 turned substantial enough, when I dined at other "fine" 
 houses afterwards. 
 
 The same neutrality of tint prevailed in the dining as in 
 the drawing-room, the former being deep-toned neutrality, as 
 the latter was fair. There was no surplusage of servants, 
 and the table was laid, as the dinner served, a la Russe — a 
 style then barely known in England, and scarcely spoken of. 
 There Avas an abundance of cut-glass about the table ; the 
 very epergnes were glass (not silver), but positive vases of 
 ground and frosted glass — there were three of them down 
 the table, which was oblong and nearly oval (much graceful- 
 ler than a perfect round), and they were filled, not with 
 costly hothouse, but exquisite fresh garden and frame spring- 
 flowers ; the hardy red geranium and peach bloomed China 
 primrose, with bosses of the sulphur-yellow wild primrose, 
 and quantities of double snowdrop, and feather-like masses 
 of fern that quivered with the breath of the talkers. And 
 nothing could be prettier, in contrast with the white flower- 
 epergnes, than the cluster of tinted glasses by each person, 
 pale rose, soft green, and crimson cut ones for the fingers, 
 shaded and shaped like brilliant wide-blown tulips. 
 
 A simple Parian basket, snowy as the damask it stood on, 
 and looking as if cut from snow, filled with mixed seasonal 
 fruits (not forced), was placed between each twain of the 
 guests ; so that in no sense could the meal be called extrava-
 
 1G8 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 gant ; nor in that of the wines either, which, excellent, 
 choice, and costly, were not of endless names and vintages. 
 
 Miss Standish (curious circumstance) sat neither at the 
 head nor foot, but next to me, with Lord Wilders on her 
 other hand. Mrs. Le Kyteler was at the top of the table, 
 and at the bottom one of the gentlemen, the elder, who had 
 been announced. He was an artistic carver, and unutterably 
 at his ease. I could not, from her hands and wrists, fancy 
 Miss Standish able to carve, however willing, and I, there- 
 fore, concluded she had made this her guest of use in the 
 manner most pleasurable to himself. I had no idea, either, 
 that he was a great wit, franked so by all literary sects and 
 schools, and never had so little notion of the fact as at the 
 end of dinner, during which he had (I afterwards learned) 
 exerted his whole powder to amuse. Nobody laughed, how- 
 ever, except Horatia, who, had she possessed an atom of 
 vanity, must. have been suspected of laughing, because she 
 lauglied so charmingly, both for look and sound. For my- 
 self, I wondered how the man could go on scattering his silly 
 sallies, far-hunted puns, and jokes vamped up from patterns 
 of the old art that died not with the tongue, but lives to 
 shame the mirth of the present with the real wit of the past. 
 
 There was yet some one left, and with veins most wealthy 
 too. If it had been a singing-bird, instead of a cackling 
 goose, that laid the golden eggs, it might have been compared 
 to Horatia. I was not prepared for her extraordinary gift ; 
 no one had forewarned me. Nor was that the spell by which 
 she chained the hearts that loved her with fetters softer than 
 if flower-enwoven, or the minds of those who, like myself, 
 heart-claimed already, could so passionately and exquisitely 
 appreciate her. Dull indeed am I as a reporter, and must 
 be (dull as Hansard without accuracy), for if I were to repeat 
 all Horatia's witticisms, those bright ephemera of a brain 
 that was no more inconstant than her heart, she would in- 
 stantly be recognized. Why ? — but for the fact that she is ab- 
 solutely the only witty woman of this generation in this land.
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 1G9 
 
 I have begged the question, in order to escape the very 
 liglitest charge of character larceny. 
 
 In truth it may be said, with all admiration and regard, 
 that Horatia was as generous of her powers, nay, as prodigal, 
 as the most of such persons are jealous and reticent. If a 
 man of straw or a dummy had been her audience, and her 
 creative thought had prompted her at the moment, she would 
 have lavished just such wealth of wit on it as she did on us, 
 on me I was going to say, as the person who the best, most 
 gratefully apprized it, and the only person present who felt 
 no envy. 
 
 One more note I must make of Iloratia as a wit. I shall 
 leave that phase of her to those who are wittier than I, and 
 more competent to decide the claims of wit. I had read in 
 every kind of book (having had access to so many) about the 
 women-wits of all the social ages. Horatia answered to not 
 one of these ; she was herself. The blending of audacity 
 with animalism, of coquetry with false refinement, that had 
 struck me to be the grand deformity of all brilliant women 
 who figure in historic biography, was in Horatia wholly 
 wanting ; albeit she Avas so perfect and helpless a woman 
 that it nearly made one cry to think of her being unmated, 
 and so standing, truly and necessarily, alone. And her 
 spiritual ease seemed to enfranchise her of all claims on 
 ordinary men. I marvelled whether any man had ever 
 dared ask her to marry him, little knowing then how many 
 she had dismissed who came to her on that errand, without 
 allowing them so much as to put the question, but refusing 
 them heforehand, as only the finest and highest among women 
 are wont, or know how, to do. 
 
 I am quite sincere. No one ever appreciated her more 
 than I myself, but had I only seen her in that mood, which 
 most men only saw, I should never have truly appreciated 
 her, for she would have been a bright mystery to me, and 
 cold as woman should be if she wills to be free of all man- 
 kind ! Her dazzling i-emarks made me positively shiver (just 
 
 8
 
 170 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 as I had done wlien she introduced me to Mrs. Le Kyteler^ 
 and shut me up ; I repeat, had I only so seen and heard her, 
 I should never have opened my mind or character to her 
 more than a lilac-bud opens in January air. 
 
 I only mention this fact in leading to the change that fol- 
 lowed — change marvellous in development as summer fol- 
 lowing winter. "We four men did not stay long after the 
 three ladies went up-stairs ; and there we found them, look- 
 ing tired one and all, as I myself felt. The lady whose hus- 
 band had not been the carver, came to him very soon, and 
 they left first ; then the carver, after a speech to Miss Stand- 
 ish which referred to their meeting somewhere in public the 
 next evening. As the door shut on him, Lord Wilders, who 
 up to that moment had been talking to Mrs. Le Kyteler, ad- 
 vanced with his hand out to Miss Standish. 
 
 She amused me then ; she stood a long way off from him, 
 and stretched her arm so that barely her fingers could have 
 met his. 
 
 " You may go," she said, smiling. " I am going to keep 
 Mr. Loftus, and will send him home." 
 
 To keep me ! I wondered at myself for not bursting out 
 that I would not stay. And I wondered, too, why Mi's. Le 
 Kyteler, who had looked as if asleep in the sofli corner, perked 
 up cunningly, and flung her bx'ight glance forth as if to pierce 
 some motive of some person's. I could not tell if it were 
 mine. 
 
 Lord Wilders gave a short shrug to his shoulders. 
 
 " Oh, very well ! You are indisputable, we all know, to 
 our cost. It must, however, be of his own will and pleas- 
 ure that Mr. Loftus stays. I was going to invite him to take 
 a room at my place to-night — it is so much nearer for him 
 than to return to the region I fetched him from." 
 
 " I am much obliged to you, Lord Wilders, but I must go 
 back to Islington. Not to speak of the distance, which is tri- 
 iliiig, being nothing to me, I believe Mr. Major would be 
 good enough to be anxious, and, indeed, he might sit up,
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 171 
 
 which I never could forgive myself for, he has to rise so 
 early in the morning." 
 
 Again — that singular soft-brimming glance ! — quickly 
 withdrawn this time, I could not help thinking, because Mrs. 
 Le Kyteler's eyes were fixed so searchingly on Horatia. At 
 all events, she put on the coldest and most careless manner I 
 had seen her wear yet, which she preserved even after Lord 
 Wilders had departed (he was much too highly-bred to be 
 persuasive or pressing). She led me by her gestures up to 
 the other lady's sofe. 
 
 " Now, Mr. Loftus, we must not weary Mrs. Le Kyteler 
 with our lucubrations, and I have so much to say to you 
 about your book — I dare say you think I didn't care about 
 it ! You and I will go into my little room just there," point- 
 ing to a door in an arch near one of the corners of the larger 
 saloon. 
 
 " My dear," said Mrs. Le Kyteler, " do you mean to keep 
 the young gentleman up all night ? Better, surely, bid him 
 come to-morrow to luncheon, and he shall go back directly in 
 the carriage." 
 
 How that woman hated me ! I never saw detestation so 
 strong produced on so brief an acquaintance, and I knew it 
 directly, yet did not care for it the least, because conscious I 
 was not detestable to Horatia. The old lady adored Horatia ; 
 I could tell that, too. I could even read she was jealous of 
 the slight interest Horatia took in me. 
 
 But Horatia stood up and stretched her throat as resolute 
 as Pauline Garcia in " Tancredi." 
 
 " Indeed I shall not let liim go, my dear madam. I have 
 set my heart on getting him for half an hour, which I won't 
 exceed ; nor am I so heathenishly ignorant of the ways and 
 means of authors as to doubt that, one and all, they love to 
 roost as late as possible." 
 
 Mrs. Le Kyteler (could she have any power over Horatia? 
 I thought) positively scowled at me after this speech, and, 
 takin"- the cue as well as I knew how, I bowed lowly to her,
 
 172 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 as if to bid her good night and farewell at once. She hardly 
 acknowledged my salute, but bade Miss Standish ring the bell, 
 adding, " I shall not be in your way, my dear, I am going to 
 bed." And on the entrance of a maid she went. 
 
 Horatia stood in front of the fire until she had gone. I 
 was, I own, a little surprised at her pertinacious detention 
 of me ; I did not know how little time she had strictly to 
 herself. 
 
 " It is not always pleasant to take one's own way ; is it, 
 Mr. Loftus ? " she began suddenly. 
 
 How astonished I was ! I should not have recognized her 
 voice, it turned so soft and breathing, from being so high and 
 ringing, and so cold ! The question, too, was odd, but it posi- 
 tively put me at home with her ; for, if not marvellously apt, 
 I am not wholly stupid. 
 
 " You do not like to oppose those whom you love or who 
 love you. Miss Standish, I suppose you mean ? You did not 
 hke keeping me, after your friend Mrs. Kyteler expressed 
 her desire I should be dismissed, but you kept me because 
 you were afraid I should be hurt, and you would not hurt a 
 fly, much less a MS. grub-worm." 
 
 She laughed out, but low — a sweet laugh, like May morn- 
 ing breezes — as changed from her society-laugh as was her 
 voice. Truly, I may again assert, I muat be modest, for I 
 did not take to myself the interest with which she was evi- 
 dently warmed and filled, though quite ignorant of its real 
 cause then. 
 
 " Well, it is not exactly agreeable to cross one's friends," 
 she added ; " but I was selfish enough to-night to do so, for I 
 did not know tchen I might have the opportunity to see you 
 thus. It was very kind of you to stay to dinner, for there 
 was no one I should have asked to meet you had I seen you 
 first ! I had no idea you were so exactly like your book. 
 What a charming book it is, and how I thank you for writ- 
 ing it ! — but yet I am disinterested enough to hope your 
 next will be very unlike it ; as little laborious and as light as 
 possible."
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 173 
 
 " May I ask why, Miss Standish ? " 
 
 I fancy I spoke rather seriously, for she looked up at me 
 (I was a great deal taller) with an air half-timid and half- 
 excited, wholly, though not idly, curious. 
 
 " May I ask a question in answer ? " she replied. " Have 
 you known Mr. Arnold Major an immense time, that you 
 have quite fitted yourself and formed yourself with his habits 
 and opinions, nay, with his very manner ? " 
 
 She turned her back on me here, and pulled a screen down 
 from the mantle-shelf, which she began to wave before her 
 like a fan. 
 
 " I assure you .1 have only known him very few months. 
 I would they had been years ; but had they been the longest 
 mortal period, I could not have regarded hira with more 
 depth of gratitude and affection than I feel for him and owe 
 him now." 
 
 Sideways to me by this time (she had wavered till she was 
 in profile again), I again caught the firelight in a dewy gleam 
 upon her glance. I was standing rather back, and am cer- 
 tain she knew not I could see her eyes ; however, had I been 
 able and had she known it, I believe it would have made no 
 diffei-ence. It was one of those moments (rare with her then, 
 but now the pulse of her life's harmony), in which she suf- 
 fered her true nature to have its way. Like all the pro- 
 foundly passionate, however, she could restrain herself at all 
 times, and recover herself in an instant. So she turned full 
 to me again, still trifling with the screen — one of those ges- 
 tures of hers that are indescribable to those who never saw 
 them — and without the least light or shade of tears or mel- 
 ancholy left. 
 
 " Come, now, and sit down, for the short time you will stay. 
 Do not be ashamed to sit on the most comfortable sofa, Mr. 
 Loftus ; it is much fitter for a student than a lazy woman. 
 And I should know (from your book) you are rather a stu- 
 dent than a writer, though your genius enables you — " 
 
 " Now, Miss Standish, once for all, I cannot have any
 
 174 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 conversation about my book, my studies, or, what you call 
 (falsely, I think, and you know not whether truly) my genius. 
 Still, you may tell me, if you will be so kind, tvhy I am to 
 write ' light ' works, requiring no ' labor ; ' many words will 
 surely not be wanted ? " 
 
 " As you are so frank, Mr. Loftus, you will excuse my 
 equal candor. I wish you to get rich, as you ought, and 
 may, after a beginning as successful as yours in every way. 
 We will speak ill neither of the dead nor of those whom we 
 have ever loved ; therefore, I make no allusion to your case, 
 as most would do ; but it would doubtless be much more de- 
 lightful to you to enjoy wealth earned, than by mere acciden- 
 tal right inherited." 
 
 She was up to the will then ! But I could tell quite surely 
 that she thought I had made more, much more, by my book 
 than I had. If she had thought me jiositively poor (as I 
 was), I know how she would have behaved exactly, for I 
 have been told, A literary acquaintance of mine, and a 
 writer also, fell upon Horatia much as I did, and she has 
 often related to me how Miss Standish treated her in the first 
 instance, when she visited her in an obscure, tiny, really poor 
 lodging, which circumstances had driven her into a while for 
 shelter. At that time, my friend informed me. Miss Stand- 
 ish inevitably conducted herself, not only so as to place her 
 companion at her ease, but as though nothing were wanting 
 of luxury, pleasaunce, or perfect appointment, in the little 
 closet of a room she was entertained in, and where there was 
 truly nothing but heart-wealth to welcome her. 
 
 Some short space afterwards, this authoress received a 
 worldly lift from hands beloved, and richer than her own ; 
 also she began to make head in the stream of literary cir- 
 cumstance herself a little. And then (she has confided 
 herself to me) Horatia began to persecute her to go on faster 
 to grow rich, just as she commenced with me, gave her ad- 
 vice, inquired into her affairs, and informed her how she 
 (Horatia) managed lier own expenditure. This literary
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 175 
 
 friend of mine swears by Iloratia, and, I believe, affects her 
 too, notwithstanding she is a person who, beyond anything 
 besides, abhors interference. 
 
 This small episode is out of place, perhaps, but I wanted 
 room for it somewhere. 
 
 " I believe you give me credit for being more unselfish 
 and industrious infinitely than I am," I answered to her last 
 remark. " I cannot say I was glad to lose the inheritance 
 I expected ; it made me very unhappy, and noio it makes 
 me worse than unhappy — miserable at my own powerless- 
 ness to help those I love, those only left to me to help, I 
 mean, for my blood relations, to whom I am really nothing, 
 are amply provided for, and want my aid no more than they 
 care for my company." 
 
 An ungrateful speech this, but I had not (then) received 
 a kind letter from my mother, which was long delayed by 
 post. However, when it came, kind as it was, it made no 
 difference in my desires or designs. 
 
 Miss Standish started a little at my words, " those I Zore," 
 and then looked at me somewhat stealthily, but witli incom- 
 parable interest, I wish I had not the knack of reading 
 persons' meanings before they choose to express them — but 
 I possess it — a very minute stray ray of the great light 
 which enveloped the seeing soul of Heinrich Zschokke. I 
 instantly perceived Horatia's thouglit, and it shows, better 
 than any delineation, what manner of woman she must have 
 been, that I did not mind it, nor mind indicating my per- 
 ception. 
 
 " You are very kind. Miss Standish, and I thank you for 
 your kindness. But I don't mean that I am engaged and too 
 poor to marry." 
 
 She started openly now. I suppose it ivas an odd speech, 
 but it came so naturally to me, and her tact, or her intuition, 
 was, at least, equal to my unconventionalism. 
 
 " I am glad of that, for your best life is then to come," she 
 said, in a sweet manner, which suddenly grew strange ; "yet
 
 176 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 it is di'oU. I should have fancied, from your look — that — 
 at least — it makes one sorry that the experiences are false, 
 because they touch one's sympathy — and one does not 
 like — " 
 
 All the latter part in Horatia's own halting, hesitative 
 manner when she was annoyed, disappointed, or not at ease. 
 I perhaps was suspicious beyond any right of man I had — 
 but I did fancy she was afraid I was, or was going to be, in 
 love with her. I did not wonder, for she was made to upset 
 the equilibrium of men's being, whether intellectively or 
 personally ; nor was I vexed ; but I could not allow her to 
 remain in ignorance which destroyed our mutual comfort, for 
 a curious, nameless necessity prevented me from departing 
 abruptly. I could not tear myself away." 
 
 " I do assure you that whatever experiences of feeling I 
 ever expressed, are sincere. Nor did I say I had never 
 been in love. I was born unfortunate, and shall perhaps die 
 so, but have no fear that sorrow will last forever, though I 
 am sure love will. When I spoke of helping people I loved, 
 I was thinking of my dear noble friend, and those children 
 who are draining all )iis vitality out of him in worry, though 
 I know they cannot be blamed, but must be pitied, if one 
 cannot help them. Now, if I were rich, I could, I believe, 
 help one" 
 
 If Horatia had touched me with surprise before, she now 
 transfixed me with curiosity. At the beginning of my sen- 
 tence, which, cold as it may sound, it cost me some hot enei'gy 
 to utter to a stranger, she had looked at my f:ice with that 
 wonderfully tender glance of hers, that I have compared it 
 to the gleam of tears. The moment I spoke of my friend 
 she turned away as if indifferent. Her gesture was so, but 
 I could not see her eyes. Next, the moment I spoke of the 
 children, a flash of eagerness filled her face ; she fronted me, 
 but when I said that they were draining his vitality, (an ex- 
 treme expression, perhaps, but of a subtle fact,) I thought 
 her eyes would have come out of her head with the strained
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 177 
 
 anxiety that rushed into them — no tears nor tearful soft- 
 ness — but a woman's agony, wifely and maternal in one, 
 if any person besides myself can comprehend my mean- 
 ing thus. This, however, was not the end. Conquering — 
 as by a moral impulse one alone rules over the physical, or 
 spiritual, for the matter of that, quite as much — conquering 
 and controlling her very countenance, (something for a person 
 infinitely too natural and too little vain to do so habitually,) 
 she gazed long at me — or for what, under her severe and 
 singular scrutiny, seemed a long time. I know I felt my 
 cheeks turn hot and cold for many changes, while she gazed. 
 Yet it was not the manner of her looking that excited me, 
 it was only what always fevers and oppresses me more than 
 any other mood — suspense. What could she mean — be 
 going to say — and would she say it then — before I went 
 away ? 
 
 " I wonder," said she presently, with a trifling air, rather 
 wild, too, as if distraught with strangled emotion, " do you 
 keep your friends* secrets, Mr. Loftus ? " 
 
 " If my friend gave me a secret to keep. Miss Standish, 
 you even should not know I had one." 
 
 She tried to laugh, but failed, plucked at the screen with 
 her helpless-looking hands — and I saw them tremble — did 
 her heart tremble too, I thought? — and what could make a 
 head so much concealed tremble thus before a new acquaint- 
 ance ? Again my intuition served me. 
 
 " He has never told me a secret, Miss Standish. I wish 
 he had. It is the only fault I find in him, that he is so mad- 
 deningly uncommunicative. And I — I can't ask questions 
 (can I ? ) of a man who took me home when I had no home to 
 go to, no kin to care for me in this enormous cruel land of Lon- 
 don — yea — and no money either, to make of me 'a man.' " 
 
 This was the way to treat her. She rallied, flung down 
 the screen, and kicked a small round hassock, lying at her 
 feet, across the room, yet seemed neither vixen nor coquette ! 
 
 " I am well aware, better than you can be, of Mr. Arnold 
 
 8*
 
 178 . ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 Major's merits. But, once for all, as you can be trusted, I 
 wish you to know that it would disgust me if he knew I gos- 
 siped about him or inquired into his affairs — nay, I suppose 
 he would object to my asking after his health — I will tell 
 you. I knew him well, through an acquaintance formed be- 
 tween our families (his is far better than mine), and I had a 
 friendship for him such as you, who appreciate him, will un- 
 derstand. Circumstances, which no one could help (can ever 
 one help them or foresee them ? ), made it difficult for me to 
 continue an intimacy with his family, and then, soon after- 
 wards, he separated himself from it, and if his family could 
 not gain access to him, how could his friends ? So, I have 
 not seen him for five years, and as he chooses not to mix in 
 society, — he might frequent the very highest, — of course 
 we, who are held by our position, and even our duties, in a 
 certain circle, can know nothing of those who deign not to 
 enter and who despise it. They all think, too, that we have 
 no thought or care for any one who is out of, perchance be- 
 yond our sphere, and never consider that they may possibly 
 have forsaken society, rather than it, them." 
 
 This peculiar and somewhat incoherent speech was jjoured 
 forth (albeit in tones carefully kept down) with all the jeal- 
 ous pain of passion starved. I forewent all my own poor scru- 
 ples of mortal pride to meet it generously ; for I understood 
 her and her history (past, which was not her final fate) that 
 moment — only then. 
 
 " I know not anything of Arnold Major's antecedents ; I 
 never heard him allude to them ; and fancy any one else 
 daring to do so ! But it is enough to contemplate his daily 
 life, which, so circumscribed, apparently holds so many good 
 deeds, great in performance if little in contemplation, done. 
 Of course, he would be very angry if he knew I talked so of 
 him — but he won't know, for neither you nor I will tell him. 
 He certainly is neither as prosperous as he deserves to be — 
 which is, perhaps, impossible with his aims and actions — 
 nor as happy, which }s iiqt only possible, but natural, I think."
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 179 
 
 No reply, at least to my remark. In a moment or two she 
 said, rather bitterly, I thought, for her — I even so early de- 
 tected her oj^timism — and with decidedly a jealous ac- 
 cent : — 
 
 " I suppose you know that Mr. Arnold INIajor is by no 
 means perfect. His failings are obvious to those who have 
 known him long — as you have not. But, with your poeti- 
 cal idealism, of course all your friends, nay, your fresh ac- 
 quaintances (if formed with your own will) are perfect." 
 
 " I do not long for perfection, nor love it ; as I now exist 
 earth is not heaven. As for poor Major — well, I don't be- 
 lieve that even his temper is perfect ; I have seen it ruffled, 
 chafed, fevered alike at morn and evening — no hard words, 
 nor hot, nor deeds either ; still, what would he be worth if 
 he could not control his temper ? Certainly neither the 
 moral hero nor the gentleman he is ! " 
 
 " Oh ! you are ideal, and whether you care for perfection 
 or not, you expect it. It is, I believe, quite moral perfection 
 to control one's temper ; those who have tempers, at least, 
 find it so — or, rather, don't find it so, for they don't conti'ol 
 them." 
 
 " What do you mean, Miss Standish ? — your temper or 
 mine as uncontrollable." 
 
 " My own," — quite ingenuously. " I was not speaking 
 of temper when I spoke of his not being perfect ; I meant 
 disposition." 
 
 Arnold Major faulty in disposition ! AVhy, it is the finest' 
 and the gentlest possible." 
 
 " He has indeed some one to sound his trumpet for him ! 
 Seriously, do you think he does right to deprive those chil- 
 dren of the friends (and they are many) who would do, at 
 least, something for them ? " 
 
 (The '■'• friends ! " — there was but one friend, and that 
 herself) 
 
 " I thought the children were left specially to his care, or 
 that, for the sake of some one he loved (one or other of their
 
 180 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 parent?, perhaps), he desired to provide by working for them, 
 in which case I could well imagine he would brook neither 
 assistance nor inquiry." 
 
 " Oh, it was for the sake of no one he loved ! " exclaimed 
 Horatia, with Avhat energy ! " You mean, then, to tell me 
 actually that you know nothing about those children ? Is it 
 possible ? " 
 
 " I only know the children through themselves, and though 
 he has spoken of them and of his anxieties about them, freely 
 to me as to a brother, he has never told me their story nor 
 their exact position, not even after I had been with him to 
 bury little Effie." 
 
 " Effie dead ! " 
 
 She turned her eyes on me — oh, with what woful earnest- 
 ness and passionate surprise — sad-heartedness, too, to bal- 
 ance both — a look of lonely pride, as if her woman's sym- 
 pathy were driven inwardraost, uncared for. I understand 
 all lonely moods. 
 
 « Why, Miss Standish, did you like little Effie ? " 
 
 " That matters nothing. He was his mother's babe and 
 darling, as the elder was her son and pride." 
 
 " Hilary ? — and did you know him ? " 
 
 What a glance ! — merely a glance, neither llush nor fea- 
 ture, convulsion nor gesture ! It expi-essed such cold horror 
 — such helpless detestation, and, oh, such self-contempt ! 
 But the last expression faded directly almost, leaving the 
 other twain to wrestle with each other, as it were — for she 
 was too much possessed of some passionate secret to hide 
 that she possessed it. 
 
 I take no credit to myself that I ministered to this her 
 moral misery. I can cdways medicine sorrow, if it be gen- 
 uine, — but sorrow, true sorrow, is just as rare as love. She 
 has some reason for loathing that child, I thought, or his 
 name, — it was at his name she turned so desperately towards 
 me. 
 
 " It is odd. Miss Standish, but that poor little man detests
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 181 
 
 his own name, and begged me nevei* to call him by it, even 
 asked me to call him by my name instead. I am glad to say 
 that he in some sort took to me, and to a certain point con- 
 fides in me. But then I always respect him as though he 
 were a grown person. 
 
 " Did he care about his mother so much as you imply she 
 cared for Mjn ? and who was this mother ? " 
 
 With exceeding earnestness she answered : — 
 
 " Mr. Loftus, if you really wish to know because you love 
 the little things, or their guardian, I will some time tell you, 
 if you will come again ; but not now, for look up there ! " 
 
 She pointed with her screen's handle-tip to the Genevese 
 clock on the high mantle-shelf, and that instant it sang out 
 two, like silver tongues. She seemed positively to wince at 
 the soft chimes, and looked back, over her shoulder, down 
 the dim, long drawing-room : the chandelier had long been 
 quenched, only the wall sconces flimraered still. 
 
 " Ghosts, Miss Standish ? " 
 
 " No, Mr. Loftus ; something I dread more, though I am 
 no heroine in supernaturals. Sometimes Mrs. Le Kyteler 
 comes down in peignoir to fetch a book, to take a stroll, for 
 she is one of your nervous wide-awakes, — or to find me." 
 
 She laughed in conclusion, but not comfortably : — 
 
 " And if she found me as well as you, she would think I 
 was making impertinent advances." 
 
 Horatia stared at me a moment. 
 
 « Wonderful ! " said she. " No wonder ! " 
 
 "What is wonderful?" 
 
 "Your simplicity, innocence, unsophisticated kindliness 
 rather." 
 
 " Charming testimony ! But ' no wonder ' what, Miss 
 Standish ? " 
 
 She went down the room putting a chair or two aside, 
 reached the door, opened it wide, then said in a low tone, all 
 but a whisper, yet as clear as frost : — 
 
 " No wonder you are Arnold Major's friend ! "
 
 182 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 Then, as I hastened after her and stood just within the 
 door, just opened for me : — 
 
 " Mr. Loftus, is there anything I could do for those chil- 
 dren ? " she added, still in the low but thrilling voice. 
 
 " How, anything ? — is their uncle to know ? " 
 
 " I should not care if I could bring them any good, but I 
 should prefer he did not, because he shuts them and himself 
 up so sedulously." 
 
 I saw her generous heart was half bursting, like a rose-bud 
 in a chill June day, that cannot open for want of sun, yet 
 yearns to yield the sweetness of its bosom to the summer air. 
 
 " Miss Standish," I whispered, as she held the door in her 
 hand, " I wish you would give me a new half-sovereign for 
 little Hilary. Don't mind the name ! That poor dear boy 
 is hoarding a secret store to make a tomb in a fair place for 
 some one he loves ; he never told me, but noio I know it must 
 be his mother." 
 
 I have said I never saw Horatia weep ; I never did, but 
 possibly it was because she rushed so precipitately back 
 down the dimness of the drawing-room (the sconces mere 
 wax-taper-fed, the gas-chandeliers were out, and the former 
 had burnt low). For when she came back to me with a 
 small peach-tinted portemonnaie in her hand, her eyelids 
 were positively, in that short moment, swollen. She drop- 
 ped it on my hand out of her fair, helpless-looking fingers, 
 and it would have fallen to the carpet had not my other 
 hand caught it and pressed it back for hers. 
 
 " There is very little, Mr. Loftus, but you might perhaps 
 make it of some slight service for the child." 
 
 " Miss Standish, Arnold Major knows every item of those 
 brats' expenses (I mean, he superintends all), from the boy's 
 minced veal, when he won't eat cold, to Philippa's last tear 
 in her frock. You could do good by giving me the light, 
 valuable coin I mentioned; but if I carried this lilac thing 
 home and bestowed it, why, the child, who has only new 
 ' tanners ' from me, would scream out straightway that he
 
 ALMOST A HKUOINK. 183 
 
 had a golden ' tanner ' or, rather, from the feel of the f dry 
 pouch I should say, many golden ' bobs.' I have no doubt 
 you think me vulgar. I hope so indeed, since one cannot be 
 fashionable without." 
 
 " Do not jest, Mr. Loftus," (and truly she fell funeral 
 grave). "You asked for a new half-sovei-eign, and I had 
 not such a coin." 
 
 At this juncture, I heard (so did Horatia, though she 
 assumed not merely indifference, but an air of noontide com- 
 placency) a very soft rustle and infinitely softer step-fall, as 
 of a pair of feet slippered with quilted satin on thick-piled 
 stair carpet. I was ready to break out laughing, but Horatia 
 looked distressed, dull, worried, — one link, and not the first, 
 with Arnold Major. So I put my finger on my lip, tiptoed 
 down stairs, (my tread is light, if my heart is heavy,) and 
 soon reached the street door, where a man-servant, cosily 
 asleep in a straight-backed, mediasval, walnut-wood chair, 
 started up, and, in undrawing the bolts as softly as if they 
 were oiled, bowed half way to mother earth. I read in that 
 quietude, that homage, two facts : Miss Standish was a 
 woman whose dependants honored her as well as served, 
 and Mrs. Le Kyteler was an orthodox bugbear of those 
 identical menials. Further : about two doors down, or up, 
 Wilton Crescent, stood in the road a brougham — item, 
 driver asleep — as his brother of the uncomfortable hall-chair 
 had been. For the latter went up before me to the said 
 equipage, touched driver as quietly as though Mrs. Le 
 Kyteler could hear, and whispered I know not what ! Al- 
 beit driver roused, without descent from his box, and chair- 
 man opened for me the brougham door, — what a delicious air- 
 stuffed seat and back ! I went to sleep, albeit very easily 
 kept awake, and dreamed worlds of luxurious rest before I 
 got home.
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 MOUSE AND LION. 
 
 Home ! What manner of person must it be wbo makes a 
 home vei'itahly homely for a fellow-creature, almost a new 
 stranger ? Also, what manner of woman, with whom a mau 
 can converse, freely, openly, deliciously, after the lapse of 
 an hour or two's acquaintance ? I put both these questions 
 to myself in one, as I stopped at Arnold Major's door. 
 
 I thought of course he was in bed, though I gave him 
 credit for being tolerably curious, too ; but he never sat up 
 after twelve — how could he have worked so long before 
 noon, if he had ? I was not surprised to find the lamp in the 
 ball still lit, for fancy him allowing his worst enemy to come 
 into a dark passage out of the dark night ; I meant, there- 
 fore, simply to fetch one of the chamber-lamps from the table 
 at the end of the passage, where they always stood ready, 
 and to go up-stairs creeping. I was not the least faint, be- 
 cause my fair companion had rather renovated than ex- 
 hausted me, — rare fact, and rarer temperament. 
 
 " Ernest ! " called a voice (not a very bold one) from 
 within the parlor. " Don't do — " 
 
 I could not distinguish the rest of the words, though the 
 voice went on. I opened the parlor door ; Arnold Major 
 was sitting with his back to me, and kept it so. 
 
 " Don't do what ? " I asked. 
 
 " Don't do — I forget what I said ; but I meant, don't go 
 to bed without your supper ; I have waited for you, and, by 
 Juno, I am hungry."
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 185 
 
 " Why Juno, not Jove ? " 
 
 " Because I have been reading a young lady's first novel, 
 in one volume, whose heroine is called Juno, though she 
 rather resembles Venus in re Adonis. Such stuff ! I was 
 obliged to negative it, and tell her to Avrite us the tale of a 
 wash-tub instead ; she has a little fancy, with abundant 
 lead to balance her stage-Avings." 
 
 There was the precious " reader's " portion in the form of 
 an awful school-girl's scrawl, piled on a chair next him. 
 Still, I thought it a droll topic to begin with. 
 
 The tablecloth was laid, and all its paraphernalia. 
 
 " I don't want any supper," I observed, " and shall only 
 keep you up." 
 
 " Yes, you do ; you want oysters, shell-roasted, the living 
 flavor extinguished in a nobler, if not immortal destiny." 
 
 He knew I had persisted that I could not eat fresh-opened 
 oysters raw, because I could not be certain they were dead. 
 He had told me also that his forte was oyster-roasting ; still, 
 the recreation of cooking was a very extraordinay instance 
 of his " shredding time." He pulled the bell, then stretched 
 his arms over his head, — still did not turn his face. 
 
 In came the maid with the dish, the oysters between hot 
 napkins, smelling like sea-game, and small brown rolls, with 
 butter cream itself. 
 
 " Great heavens ! where did that butter come from ? " 
 
 " From Highgate-rise. I took the children out there this 
 afternoon, and they had their share at tea. Item, for sup- 
 per oysters ; but Philippa gave hers to the cat, with results 
 I will not take away your appetite by mentioning." 
 
 " Don't you mean to do your own honors, Mr. Major ? " I 
 exclaimed, for still he remained with his face to the fire. 
 
 He turned round slowly at my voice — took a chair — now 
 I could see him. What a change ! For the habitual weari- 
 ness of expression there was a glow, a light, a vivid life in 
 every lineament ; above all, that air which denotes that one ia 
 occupied and excited at once by Jnimcui interest : an air com-
 
 186 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 monly absent from his splendid countenance, and which it made 
 one sad and dark to miss, where it should ever have beamed 
 and ruled. It was a most exceptional dissipation, also, for him 
 to come home early enough to take the children for a walk — 
 it had certainly not happened since I came. 
 
 " Is any one dead at Brown, Jones, «& Co. then ? as you 
 were here before dark." 
 
 " No one, I am glad to say. But the senior was out, has 
 
 been for three days, and one can ask a favor of , so 
 
 I begged him to excuse me, and he was most courteously 
 pleased to give me a holiday, saying that he wished I took one 
 oftener. Kind as he is, he would not have been able had the 
 bead of the firm not been out." 
 
 " And you sat up for me ! " 
 
 " I had a good deal to make up, you know, nor were you 
 very late." 
 
 " Not late ! Miss Standish was horrified when the clock 
 struck two, and packed me off. I floated down stairs, like 
 thistle-down, and she had sent her brougham two doors off 
 for me, for fear of Mrs. Le Kyteler." 
 
 Oh, tell-tale eyes ! The hungry — no, thirsty — look that 
 leapt into them like lightning, but remained, and filled them 
 with such fierce and subtle fire. 
 
 " It is ridiculous cant to call women angels, — and yet, if 
 it were not, one would not like to call Miss Standish so." 
 
 One of the lightning rays flashed my way. 
 
 " I should never have called her one. I detest angels." 
 
 " Well, certainly she ought to be something so much better, 
 sweeter, and more satisfactory (in a mortal sense) that the 
 word but serves to exjiress the want in her, which, cutting 
 her off from human perfection, makes evident the void angel- 
 ical of her unmated being." 
 
 " You have been talking and imbibing nonsense, then — 
 pity too ! In one evening, in an hour, to let you know her 
 history ! " 
 
 " Her ivhat ? "
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 187 
 
 " She must have told you a great deal'about herself." 
 
 "She talk about herself! Why, you ungrateful churl, she 
 was talking about you and yours — and me, me principally, 
 and my affaii's." 
 
 I slipped in the last clause, suddenly recollecting, or by in- 
 stinct feeling, I ought not to betray her very predominant 
 interest in him. 
 
 Had she not spoken of keeping " secrets ? " ■ Howbeit, I 
 feared immediately I had let one of those winged traitors 
 free. For Arnold Major smiled like a lover, like a bride- 
 groom. I can only use such similes to express at once the 
 sweetness and the passion of his smile. I pretended not to 
 see it, did not notice it, of course, but knew what subject to 
 cling and keep to, noiv. 
 
 The smile, however, faded like a sunset rose-beam, leaving 
 a twilight melancholy as soft, if not as sweet, and possibly 
 more passionate, if that could be. 
 
 " What a creature she is ! People, authors rather, have 
 raved about women as mistresses and wives, and sentimental- 
 ized and pi-osed of them as mothers ; they always seem to 
 think the reality of the maternal virtue must annihilate the 
 romance of wifehood. What awful nonsense ! — fit to have 
 been dictated by fiends to apes ! Do you know that my 
 uncle knew a clever woman who always persisted that mon- 
 keys were ' illegitimate devils ? ' Now, Horatia — one must 
 call her Horatia, though she is as unclassical as she is un- 
 Saxon — is a woman who would be as romantically delicious 
 for her husband, as fascinating and tender to him as a 
 woman, and as exquisite and soft as a mother, when she 
 was — " 
 
 He got up hastily, pushed his chair with such violence 
 backwards that it fell against the wall. 
 
 " Be silent, Ernest," he muttered, low but hoarsely ; then 
 he tried to rally, and did, so far as to say : — 
 
 " If I had calculated on your being so late, I would have 
 made different arranscements."
 
 188 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 " Whatever do you mean ? " 
 
 " My dear boy, I should have gone to bed, and ordered 
 your little chasse-diner to be served you solus ; but here we 
 have been talking. I thought and hoped to hear that you 
 had advanced your own fortunes a mile a minute. But, as 
 it is so, as you are so disinterested, we must discourse no 
 longer, fastly or slowly, but to bed." 
 
 " Good night, then," I said. 
 
 He always shook hands with me when we were goino- to 
 bed. This time he passed me clear — but, oh ! what a flush 
 was burnt into his cheek, one side, with the whitest pallor on 
 the other. What eyes ! — anxious, strained, reaching into 
 what far depths of light, and finding there no human ray of 
 consolation — he took away with him alone! 
 
 Who wrote — said — knew — it was not good, therefore 
 was evil, for a man to be alone? Worse fate for men, 
 man knows, than for women, who always, if genuine women, 
 kindle into some sweet flame of love or charity. Besides, 
 there is the Hebrew truth that he is to rule over her, which 
 true women of every rank are always so ready to prove by 
 their passionate patience, tenderness, long-suffering, and love. 
 Not that women have not been badly treated, shamelessly, in 
 ten times a thousand instances, but they bury their sorrow — 
 which to a woman veiled with virtue is her shame. 
 
 But what mystery was this? Here were two persons, 
 positively %vorthy of each other, in either sex, and I — wheth- 
 er honorably or not, perforce of nature, had detected their 
 absolute suitability. I had not imagination inflamed by 
 worldly excitements, nor enervated by their consequent 
 exhaustion. Besides, to a certain extent, they had each of 
 them confided in me. Had I been asked, I should have said 
 they must love each other as a matter of course ; at least, if 
 I had been asked, I should not have said anything, but have 
 kept my own counsel ; but I should have believed their doom 
 was to be one. 
 
 Half through breakfast next morning, a note was brought
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 189 
 
 to me, — now, we were about half an hoiu* later than usual, 
 or we should have finished breakfast. I did not know the 
 handwriting, but Arnold Major did, from upside down. I 
 knew it from his face, and I saw that he was excessively 
 vexed that he had seen it, yet that he could not help it. 
 That writing, so clear, nohle, but dashingly fast, no one could 
 help recognizing, having once seen it. 
 
 My vexation at his vexation made me fumble in opening 
 the note ; and so awkward was I that I let some little article 
 that it contained slip out and fall on the floor. Philippa, 
 who was next me and had reached the dregs of her bread 
 and milk basin, jumped down in her wild way and picked it 
 up — tore the paper from it (it was folded in white paper), 
 and, lo ! there was Hilary's half-sovei'eign, bran-new from 
 the mint. I took it forcibly from the child's tight grasp, but 
 too late ; her uncle had seen it was a gold piece. How 
 horrified I Avas. He looked awfully angry : the pale wrath, 
 not the red, froze all the brightness of his countenance. 
 
 " Go to your lessons, Hilary," he said, with an accent 
 quivering but stern ; " and, Philippa, you have finished ; go 
 also and get ready for school." 
 
 Both children lingered ; their difficult dispositions always 
 set up a hundred prickles against volition — and there was 
 more than volition, inflexible resolve, in the order. They 
 lingered, but not long, for he took them each by a hand, and 
 put them out of the room, then locked the door inside. 
 
 " It is not agreeable to meddle ; particularly disagreeable 
 to me to seem to interfei-e with you, but one word : — is that 
 money intended as a present for the children, or is it the 
 fruit of some private arrangement of your own ? — in which 
 case forgive me." 
 
 " Forgive you ! I should think not ! for those savage eyes 
 and that murderous visage. I did not hiow you. As for 
 the iutei-ference, I wonder you dare to interfere certainly, 
 between myself and a third person, who is both ' fair and 
 kind.' I should have given you credit for more pride — at 
 least more 8i)irit."
 
 190 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 " You don't know what you are saying, you don't know 
 what you are doing. If you have any inmost secret you 
 respect, pity one, slight enough, but miserable enough, of 
 mine." 
 
 " I was only in fun. Truly and honestly Miss Standish 
 asked if she could do any little thing for the children, and / 
 asked her to give me a new half-sovereign for Hilary." 
 
 " You asked for money for them ? — for him ! How 
 could you ? — how dared you ? How dared she to be- 
 stow it ? " 
 
 Mr. Major, would you like to knock me down ? Would 
 you like to unload your revolver at my ear ? — you are 
 welcome. I am tired of life, especially if you mean to 
 quarrel with me. Miss Standish was right — you are not 
 ' perfect.' " 
 
 " I forget, you do not know. I beg your pardon. I am 
 sometimes even now two thirds desperate ; but I don't show 
 it till I am overdriven. She might have spared me — and 
 herself." 
 
 " Mummery and mockery ! I don't understand, nor want 
 to do so. There is the miserable money — take it ! " 
 
 I threw it on the table ! I loas astonished ! He picked 
 it up, held it but long enough to cast it into the fire, then 
 jammed it down with the poker into the red-hot middle of 
 the coals. 
 
 " Much use," I remarked (I really felt wrathful now). 
 " Gold is gold, despite of necessaiy alloy, and it will only 
 reappear among the cinders with a lustre as of a lily among 
 thorns, or as its generous bestower among the daughters. " 
 
 I really thought he was going to break my head with the 
 poker, but he threw it in the bottom of the grate instead. 
 Then stood up in front of me like a commanding officer. 
 (He ought to have been in the army, but he hated war.) 
 
 " I beg, I desire — I order you, to take no money for the 
 children from amj one. I don't allow them to accept it." 
 
 " You let the boy take Lord Wilders's five shillings."
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 191 
 
 He bit his lip, but looked now (instead of angry) so seri- 
 ously annoyed, so put vpon (as tlie phrase goes) that I took 
 compassion on him. 
 
 " I promise to take no more money from Miss Standish, 
 until authorized by yourself, but I must explain to her how 
 it was her bounty never reached its destination." 
 
 " Oh, that they had never been born ! " he groaned. " Will 
 you — you have been kind enough to call me your friend — 
 will you show me an act of friendship for which I will thank 
 you eternally — which will never free me from obligation ? 
 It is, not to mention the matter to Miss Standish, except to 
 say that I do not permit my niece and nephew to take pres- 
 ents, and have begged you to return it." 
 
 " With no ' thanks ? ' " 
 
 " /could not thank her " — he said, and ground his teeth. 
 
 " Good heavens ! Why, j'^ou yourself wished me to make 
 her acquaintance." 
 
 " I did not desire to renew my own." 
 
 "I am much obliged to you for giving me your cast-off 
 habiliments, ' old clothes ' of dead and buried friendship ; I 
 require an entirely new suit to fit me, and 'tis not yet made. 
 Then you order me to return the new half-sovereign to Miss 
 Standish, and, to use one of her fascinating little forms of 
 speech, — ' I have not such a coin.' Am I to pick the same 
 in its transformed condition out of the ashes, or will you 
 bring me one in with you ?" 
 
 " I will bring you one. I suppose you are not in a hurry 
 to answer that note." 
 
 Despite of his white-faced anger (scarcely spent), he sur- 
 veyed the little missive hungrily. 
 
 I tore it open. 
 
 " Let us see," I said, " whether I need to answer it. You 
 shall have it directly." 
 
 But, lo ! — 
 
 " Dear Sir," it ran : " With respect to one subject we
 
 102 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 both referred to, and on which I half-i3romised to enlighten 
 you, I fancy I did wrong to promise, and will beg you to 
 absolve me. Being no angel, neat as heaven-imported, but 
 a very (sometimes) foolish woman, and, I fear, never wise, 
 I do not object to cast myself on your mercy, nor to confess 
 my tongue was, last night, too free. I regret much that we 
 spoke so little of your books, past, (present?), and future; 
 but if you will kindly visit me at any time, I shall be truly 
 gratified. I said one word about secrets, may I say one 
 other ? Burn this scrap (not that you would keep it, except 
 to light your pipes with), but it would be better burnt at 
 once. 11 rCy a que les morts qui ne reviennent pas. — Yours 
 ever, — Horatia Standish." 
 
 " I cannot show it you," I exclaimed, involuntarily, and 
 threw it into the fire after the half-sovereign. I watched it 
 consume, so did not at first detect that my words had been, 
 hoio interpreted I could not tell ; but there was something I 
 could see, and that was the black shadow of the blackest of 
 all dark demons, yet, perchance, an angel fallen — jealousy. 
 His whole face was gloomed over and writhed with it. I 
 had never conceived such an influence could overcome him ; 
 but then I never saw a being so passionate, with passions so 
 marvellously under self-control. He was conscious of his 
 giving way this time, for he rushed from the room precipi- 
 tately, and out of the house. 
 
 For nearly an hour (it must have been) I stood and turned 
 the matter, which was immaterial mystery enough, over and 
 over in my mind, and, like an ass, settled at last (temporarily) 
 that he was a rejected lover of Miss Standish's, and that she 
 had refused him prematurely, ignorant of his merits, or of 
 the possible fusion of her own heart on his account ; also, 
 that she now regretted her refusal ! I did not like this solu- 
 tion, but it was romantic enough to serve for a little time. 
 Then Hilary came to his lessons, and it entered into me that 
 he might be of some slight use, the " mouse " to the " lion," 
 peiliaps.
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 19^ 
 
 « My dear boy," I said, after he bad read bis Keigbtley, 
 and construed bis Caesar, " I wisb you would tell me how 
 heavy your money-box is getting ? " 
 
 " I shan't," turning restive directly, though be was very 
 gentle under intellectual rein with me by now. 
 
 " Why not ? I might be able to make it heavier." 
 « I wouldn't take it ; I shall wait till I get to the dig- 
 gings ! " 
 
 He had picked the word, and meaning too, out of the 
 Times. But directly I saw bis mood, I felt certain of " dig- 
 ging " no more out of him. A being more pertinaciously re- 
 served than the little creature was never created or develop- 
 ed. And now, here comes, or rather came, a question. Why 
 did I brood so intensely and unvaryingly upon the certainly 
 then separated fates of Iloratia Standish and Arnold Major 
 during all that day ? As there is camera obscura as well as 
 camera lucida, is there dark-seeing as well as clear-seeing ? 
 1 have a blind but feeling instinct which clutches me now 
 and then, and dumbly bids me follow it. When it strikes me 
 thus, and I neglect its impulse, or rather neglect to obey it, 
 I always find some fine chance missed, some error perpetra- 
 ted, in the long run, which would have been gained or avoid- 
 ed had I followed my spiritual scent and let it lead me where 
 
 it would. 
 
 Here was I, lonely, without ties, without means (the last, 
 if possessed, may to a generous heart yield wealth enough 
 of joy, without the beatitudes of love and sympathy of 
 blood), and what had I to bestow on others — to be —to do 
 for them ? To intermeddle in any person's private policy, 
 whether needful or assumed for prides' sake, is ever a disin- 
 terested action, for no person likes it — except those who 
 like interfering themselves — and no one cares for such 
 enough to interfere in their concerns. 
 
 How idle — lazy — I was all that day! I wrote not a 
 word, and could scarcely attend to the child, who, with his 
 precocious vigilance, looked up in my face continually, to find
 
 194 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 what possessed or stupefied me. The impulse all the while 
 held me tight, would suffer me to pursue no occupation nor 
 train of thought in default of its own determination. And 
 this impulse was neither more nor less than to acquaint Ar- 
 nold Major with the contents of Horatia's note. Had she 
 not written of secrets in the same breath with the order to 
 burn it ? True, and I fancy myself honorable in my way, 
 but I had not promised to hold my tongue about its contents, 
 though I had fulfilled the command to consume it ! Cole- 
 ridge has told us how a lie is in the intention, not the utter- 
 ance, and how, sometimes, a false statement may absolutely 
 tend to truth. On this ground I acted, when I was fool — 
 or wise — enough to say, the very first thing Avhen Arnold 
 Major came in, and while Philippa was racing up and down 
 the passage on his umbrella : — 
 
 " I have been considering, and I have come to the conclu- 
 sion that I will tell you what Miss Standish's note contained 
 — if not in her very words, yet her meaning intact." 
 
 " Oh, Ernest — Ernesto Loftus ! " he exclaimed, bitterly 
 and coldly, " I did not think you ungrateful ! " — with such 
 a piteous accent too. 
 
 I did not care ; his speecli did not w^ound me ; I more 
 than half understood it. 
 
 " And why am I ungrateful ? Nay, tell me truly, and do 
 not spui-n an honest man's faith, as you would not spurn 
 a dog's attachment. Why am I ungrateful ? To you, for 
 bringing me home and making me at home ? " 
 
 " Hush ! " that was inflexible. " You are, I think, a little 
 tormenting about Miss Standish. What is she to me? 
 Nothing. I thought she would be of use to you, and there- 
 fore I requested you to accept her acquaintance." 
 
 <' Accept her acquaintance ! — you must think it precious 
 then ! " 
 
 " She is certainly the most fascinating person in all the 
 world, if that is ivorth, — " he said, and his the pause. 
 
 " Worth indeed ! Why, I should have said, — and I quite
 
 ALMOST A HEKOINE. 195 
 
 appi-eciute the iii^ force of her fixsci nation — that her worth 
 is precisely the most extraordinary thing about her. She is 
 good, goklen, — a finer and purer nature never breathed hfe's 
 breath, nor London air. And hear me. I am no fantastic 
 fool, intoxicated by her like a fly fallen into a honey-trxap. I 
 will tell you, I know her so well as tliis. She is perfectly 
 unworldly, but she is also vain of being so ; and only so far 
 is she vain at all ; her fascinations and her passionate sweet- 
 ness she is alike unconscious of." 
 
 I must have been inspired by a genius-angel — perhaps 
 sincerity is one, he looked so strickened,so quickened with sur- 
 prise ! And it was easy to see, from his glad, yet sad sym- 
 pathetic dwelling on the subject, how dear was that subject 
 to his soul — not only to his soul. I had never seen him 
 look so weary, nay, so utterly exhausted, masked with white 
 fatigue, as when he came in first. And now there was the 
 flush so intense and warm on either cheek — the glory m 
 the gaze, which only passion, and passion fed by love's sweet 
 madness, lends the aspect of manhood whose passion is m- 
 corruptible as its love is fast and constant, not faultless. I 
 know not, and little believe, that women adore angelic per- 
 fection in what is human. This little parenthetic statement- 
 is not dramatically ivrong, for it was several minutes before 
 he answered — could answer — me. Then he said, — 
 
 " I beg your pardon for calling you ungrateful ; perhaps, 
 it was I myself who Avas ungrateful rather. But I will not 
 be so to you. I will tell you, that it does not do for me to 
 trust myself to speak about her, or think, in reference to my- 
 self. For, whether she is good or bad, fascinating for sweet- 
 ness or evil, an angel or a worldly woman, it matters not ; I 
 have nothing, shall have nothing to do with her, though I 
 have known her — have seen her — too often ; I mean " (here 
 he grew incoherent to my heart's content) ; " I wish I had 
 never seen her ; then might I have lived in peace ; or else, 
 that I could hioio her, — then I might, at least, die so." 
 " Most assuredly you might know her if you chose."
 
 196 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 I spoke dryly, and felt disgusted, or half disgusted. It 
 seemed horrid to tamper with a woman so tender and so 
 strong ; horrid for two men in conversation so to seem to do, 
 at least. 
 
 " And if you donH know her, it is most likely because you 
 are not worthy," I added, angrily. 
 
 " Good God ! " he exclaimed, " if she were only worthy 
 to be remembered as she seems — " 
 
 Here he gave one of those deep, dry sobs which men can 
 pity in each other, as women each other's hysteric agonies, 
 and which alike denote the spasmodic crisis in which physi- 
 cal endurance is spent — crisis that the spirit in a swift reac- 
 tion remedies, but which leaves on the brightest brow its lines, 
 beneath the loveliest eye its shadows, and which, through the 
 richest hair, passes like a sweep from the reaper's sickle. 
 
 " I wonder why you do remember her if she is unworthy," 
 I said. " But that is nothing to the purpose. I wanted just 
 to tell you about tlie note which disgusted you so. AYe had 
 been talking about the children — if she had borne them, she 
 could not be tenderer over them — and particularly of Effie. 
 She remarked that he was his mother's babe and darling." 
 
 " His mother ! She spoke so ? She said the woi-d — the 
 name ? Horrible ! — unnatural ! I could never have be- 
 lieved that of her." 
 
 Passion and reason shared his accent : there seemed a sort 
 of logical conviction that she had not so spoken. Yet I knew 
 she Itad. It flashed on me that some ignorance, through pride 
 or resolute self-will, possessed and held him flxst. It was an 
 oppoi'tunity, and I seized it. 
 
 " If anything could be unnatural, it would be to call her 
 so. A person so strikingly, wonderfully natural could not be 
 found, whatever her faults may be, and I have not detected 
 them, though I dare say they exist." 
 
 I do not know how it is, but I am always frank with the 
 noble charactered, though reserved beyond fathom Avith those 
 I neither esteem nor understand. It was too much, I do not
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 197 
 
 doubt, to expect such openness from a man like Arnold IMa- 
 jor, with his wisdom and experience so far greater, if his 
 passion were not more earnest and intense than mine. But 
 yet, it worried my pride and chilled my heart that he did not 
 respond fidly and instantly to it. 
 
 I forgot then that it was the core of his confidence he with- 
 held, that precious fruit which ripens slowly in all friendships, 
 however soon it flushes into maturity and sweetness under 
 the sun of love. And, blaming him, I forgot besides that he 
 was, in point of fact, as ignorant of my secret as I of his. 
 It may seem strange that any one, with that eternal care, 
 which is the eternal treasure too, ever possessing him, should 
 have taken so profound, human, and sudden an interest in the 
 histories of two souls which ought to have been one. I can 
 only say that the truth which struck me and held me on to 
 interfere (?) was this : how could two who have a right to 
 become one, and the desire, lose or destroy the chance ? Was 
 it not ingratitude to do so — ingratitude to Heaven ? 
 
 For not one word or look, on either part, of theirs had 
 convinced me that necessity separated them. And if pride 
 kept them apart, it should be slain like a moral monster ; it 
 mattered not who slew it, but he would be victor worthier 
 than many " crowned with carnage." 
 
 As I said, I had not gained his confidence ; I had rather 
 frightened him away from the very borders of it, by my im- 
 patient sympathy. I knew that by his exceeding self-posses- 
 sion, now restored. He took out the unlucky half-sovereign, 
 bran new, a very twin of hers, and tendered it me coolly, then 
 added in a tone that would have been indifferent, if the voice 
 could have ever been so : — 
 
 " We have — you and I — enough to do Avith our own 
 fliults, at least I have with mine, without examining those of 
 others. In this case, too, there really is no blame. Miss 
 Standish, brought up as she was, is not answerable, would 
 not be, even did she positively err." 
 
 " Brought up ! Who brought her up ? "
 
 198 ALMOST A HEEOINE. 
 
 " The woman you saw with her. I suppose you saw her, 
 as you spoke of her." 
 
 " And that woman — lady I should have called her — 
 well?" 
 
 " Do not speak of her any more. I have been absurd to 
 do so ; in fact more absui'd to discuss the matter at all, which 
 belongs to me no more than heaven, at present. I had no 
 idea you would fall into such sudden love with it, or I should 
 have been more cautious in self-defence. For talking, above 
 all chattering, about women, when one has nothing to do with 
 them, is impertinent, and wastes one's time." 
 
 This was true ; we had both wasted a good deal, more 
 than ever since we had been under one roof. For the 
 matter of that, we were both behind hand too, and wrote 
 desperately all the evening. Despei-ately, I say, for Philippa 
 was particularly noisy, and her ordinary self-expositions 
 were wild enough. The child grew stronger, larger, hand- 
 somer, and more omnipresent, every day. She seemed 
 created without the need of rest, and yet the spirit of mis- 
 chief was not subtle enough to keep her quiet while she did 
 it ; her possession was chiefly an exuberance of health and 
 animal vigor which never had enough room to expand itself 
 in, nor sufficient change to absorb it. Her uncle felt this so 
 strongly that he never found the least fault with her — only 
 made excuses for her few parents would have formed ; and 
 hore her as I don't believe any would, for she was well 
 enough and unsensitive enough to have been sent to school 
 entirely without harming lier physically. But Arnold Major 
 detested schools for girls, and the temper of his conscience 
 was so fine that those he loved not were safe, in his keeping, 
 to be treated better than those he loved ; at least, while those 
 he loved were not in his keeping at all. He would only re- 
 gret (about Philippa), that he had not a great garden for her 
 to race in, or, at least, a large roomful of toys ; but she certainly 
 had toys sufficient, though few, for they were all of the kind, 
 one of which satisfies a really intelligent and hearty child for
 
 AL]\[OST A HEROINE. 199 
 
 hours. She did not care for toys, nor for play, save romp- 
 ing only, and turning things into playthings which had not 
 been invented for the purpose ; and, as far as I could detect, 
 the leant in her was, that she cared for no human being in 
 a human way. Over Hilary she rode rampant, without 
 ever testifying towards him even boisterous affection, and 
 the only thing she ever kissed was Fuzz the cat (corruption 
 from Furze, said cat having been picked up in a furze-bush 
 on Hampstead Heath), and Fuzz always scratched her in 
 return. The only historic or poetic comparison I ever found 
 for Philippa was Kate, the shrew of Shakspeare; but I 
 doubted if in modei-n times, on British soil, a hero with the 
 nerve and the valor of Petruchio would turn up. Besides 
 this KateJcut's " uncle " was not " very rich, Hortensio," but 
 decidedly poor. 
 
 I speak of Philippa in this place, because, precisely at this 
 place, she began to play her small strong part of semi- 
 heroine ; she helped romance and love, that loveless, un- 
 romantic little mortal, and was actually to the royal netted 
 " lion " the " mouse," quite without the benevolence and 
 gratitude of the mouse in the fable, though. 
 
 It was nine o'clock (the same night, I mean), and Philippa 
 would not go to bed. The maid made double racket in the 
 passage, trying to persuade or coei'ce her. 
 
 " I don't believe she is sleei>y, or tired either," observed 
 her uncle, in a tone she could not hear. 
 
 " But it is nine o'clock. Such a time for a child to be up !" 
 
 " She wakes with the sun, you see, despite of my darken- 
 ing the window, like a chanticleer in a stable. I would give 
 anything if I dared afibrd her a pony — a rough little beast 
 — that she could manage by herself; but I must not this 
 year." 
 
 " And you wouldn't allow any one to give her one ? " 
 
 " Certainly not, except the person who can aftbrd it no 
 more than myself — " 
 
 " You mean — "
 
 200 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 " Yourself; I tell you that is a compliment from me." 
 
 " I think so ! " 
 
 "We said no more then, but two hours later, — "I have 
 been thinking that I must go over to Uglyville," I remarked. 
 
 " Go to Uglyville, my dear boy ? " 
 
 " Yes, to see John. I have a horrid, obtuse presentiment 
 that he is doing something to himself. I have finished my 
 'Album d'Enfance ' even this afternoon, and I want you to 
 let me take Philippa — she can have a good run at least, or 
 a ride on an ass in the very Eden of ' Jerusalem ponies.' " 
 
 John was no secret between us. 
 
 " You are very kind, but would she go ? " 
 
 " I doubt it not ; she is like a spirited terrier, or terrier- 
 ess, and will go with any one to go out. Only give her a 
 holiday to-morrow, if the sun shines." 
 
 " Give her a holiday. Yes ! What ever am I to do with 
 her, Ernest ? She learns nothing next door, no not even to 
 be still. And a girl who is to be a woman ! And suppose I 
 die before I have made up to her for — " 
 
 " I will not hear another word of that description." 
 
 It was the only subject that, to dwell on, visibly excited 
 him to burning fever. The hectic came to his cheeks at the 
 ver}-- thought, and his pulses, to the very eye, grew wild. 
 
 " There is one thing : a woman such a Philippa will be 
 will command any price in the market, independent of rise 
 and fall in female stock." 
 
 " Don't speak so ; you don't know — " 
 
 " I know you are dead tired — let us go to bed." 
 
 But I knew by his eye next morning he had been awake 
 half the night. I had myself kept watch an hour or two, 
 meditating. I decided not to send back the half-sovereign 
 to Miss Standish, whom already I knew well enough to fear 
 wounding beyond remedy if I icrote, but to take it her in a 
 day or two, and explain exactly wliat had happened, as much 
 as I had, or considered I had, the right to do. So I was 
 ready, as the sun shone, to hear Arnold Major say : —
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 201 
 
 " Pliilippa, would you like to have a whole holiday, and to 
 go out to-day? " 
 
 " Not in the square — the square is deuce ! " 
 
 Arnold Major looked at me appalled, but did not show her 
 any displeasure. As for rae, I laughed aloud ; I could not 
 help it. 
 
 We never, either of us, ever found out who taught her the 
 word (Miss Standish evolved that she had picked it up in 
 overhearing a three-sentenced conversation between the 
 newspaper boy and a chimney sweep, while she stood on the 
 step next door before it opened.) 
 
 As for the limit of the square, its garden was open to our 
 children through the mother-heartedness of a spinster occu- 
 pying of the square the best house. She had seen a number 
 of children in our street from time to time — Hilary and 
 Philippa among them — and made them all free of the gar- 
 den with her own key and right of entrance ; and, being sofa- 
 ridden, it was the pleasure of her life to watch them play 
 there. To Hilaiy it was a great boon, for the boy really 
 was too finely strung to bear jostling in the streets, and I am 
 pei'suaded, but for it, lu; would never have had any fresh air 
 at all ; he would walk up and down, round and round it, two 
 hours at a time, reading. None of the others molested him, 
 they shrank from him, and left the walks to him much as 
 their grown contemporaries would have behaved in the case 
 of a madman. But Philippa, that child, went once in the 
 square (the tradition was preserved) ; it was in the time of 
 carnations, the pride of Islington gardens, and the central 
 beds were all abloom. She found the trees — she tried on 
 them first — too tough to pull up by the roots, and fell on 
 the pinks straightway ; all of them she dragged up and made 
 a heap in the middle of the lawn, amidst screams and dep- 
 recations from the other children ; and, from the two nurse- 
 maid'^ present in the gardens, she received a more personal 
 check. One of them she kicked, and scratched the other, 
 till they were glad to get outside the gate, and she was finally
 
 202 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 carried home by a policeman, who delarecl her to be a " hand- 
 ful for Goliath, and a match for a mad bull." Howbeit, this 
 is all too far from the present mark. 
 
 " No, not in the square, — a long Avay in a cab, and a train 
 up a hill — oh, a very long way, with Mr. Loftus ! " 
 
 " I want to go by myself." 
 
 " But you would lose your way," I put in, " and hurt your 
 feet on the stones, and get very hungry and cold, and all sorts 
 of dreadful things. I shan't talk to you unless you like it, 
 nor even take hold of your hand. And perhaps you might 
 see a donkey you would like to ride on." 
 
 This mythic luxury settled the question ; not that she as- 
 sented, either with grace or without. But Arnold Major was 
 no sooner gone to " business," than a great knock (no tap) 
 came at the door of the room I slept in, and in which I was 
 arranging some small matters ; the door flew open, before I 
 could say " come in," and Philippa appeared all dressed for 
 walking. 
 
 " I'm ready, uncle ! " she exploded. 
 
 " I am happy," I returned, " but not your uncle." 
 
 " It's just the same thing. You're both men." 
 
 Such was Philippa's logic, but — thanks to a woman bet- 
 ter and greater than she — I don't think she will quite so far 
 favor the Latterday Saintship in respect of men as hus- 
 bands. 
 
 She was a bore. I had not had her five minutes before 
 I wished I had never undertaken her. For speed, I took a 
 Hansom to the train, and nothing would suit Philippa but to 
 emulate the immortal " Lettey Larkins " in respect to her 
 seat. She excelled her, however, for she positively preserved 
 her equilibrium, sitting on the edge, and I dared not stop the 
 driver, for fear the shock should fling her in the road. Next, 
 in the train, she tried all the seats one after another (we were 
 in one of the Uglyvillian genuine slow steam coaches, and 
 for two miles had it to ourselves). On the entrance of one 
 stolid gentleman, she asked liim why he put his hat " up
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 203 
 
 there," meaning between the leather straps that crossed the 
 carriage roof, and when he nothing answered lier, save with 
 a grunt, she phicked the same hat from its position before 1 
 could foresee her intention — the owner of it having shut his 
 eyes after the manner of Ugly villians en route — and threw 
 it out of the window ! 
 
 Fancy ray horror ! The Uglyvillian opened his eyes in 
 the very nick of time, beheld the performance, could not 
 speak for fury, and would accept no apologies of mine, but 
 got out at a station before Uglyville, having yelled to the 
 guard like a nightmare from the moment of the train's slack- 
 ening. 
 
 Philippa glorified herself, and I was obliged to take out 
 my pocket handkei'chief, cover my mouth with it, and frown 
 at her over it, for I was near dying with laughter, the child 
 was so strangely self-possessed in her impertinence. 
 
 Between that last station and Uglyville (the hatless gen- 
 tleman had not changed his carriage, but disappeared through 
 the shed of a station's door) I literally had to hold her down, 
 or she would have burst, I believe, the door open, so impa- 
 tient had the fresh air and motion made her, and, oh, so 
 strong ! 
 
 We emerged in the very heart of Uglyville village, for I 
 wanted to procure an asinine steed for my charge, on the 
 heath. I knew, if I let her go, I should lose her, and I had 
 positively to gripe her hand (she twisted it out of its glove in 
 her energy), and she was exactly like a weaned co\t turned 
 out the first time to grass. Her great eyes swept over the 
 heath with animal ecstacy. 
 
 As soon as I perceived a stud of them, I hailed one of the 
 donkeys, a fine large one, with a good breadth, and clean 
 wiiite cover to its side-saddle. A boy brought up the same, 
 rather superior to the average of his freckled class, lifted 
 Philippa on the donkey's back, — lo ! she instantly and 
 quite naturally assumed the attitude in which Lady Hester 
 Stanhope rode her celebrated Arab. Such a commotion the
 
 204 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 girl-jockey excited on the heath ! All the donkey boys were 
 after her, full shout, admiring too ! 
 
 Arrived at my uncle's house — how httle it looked like 
 one ! — I told the boy who was at Philippa's donkey's heels 
 (giving a fourpenny piece in advance) to keep her ass going 
 steadily, and take care of her while I went into the " Roman 
 Villa." How the boy grinned ! He knew its dull history, 
 I could see, and deemed it fun in lieu of any real amuse- 
 ment. 
 
 " Bring her to the door in half an hour," was ray final 
 ordinance. 
 
 The door ! Curious it is to see a place, any place, wheth- 
 er palace or log-hut, one has inhabited, any time within a 
 three months' lapse, afterwards. It ever changes, or is 
 changed, to the mental vision. In my case, there was no 
 actual change, save that a great cobweb was woven exactly 
 across the entrance-portal — sure proof it had not been 
 opened or passed through by any inside habitant ! 
 
 I rang the bell immoderately ; it had a rusted tinkle, 
 unlike its old clear iron sound. The house was " haunted." 
 Sti'ange steps echoed from far within, came slowly to the 
 door — slowlier it opened, but a very little piece, and there, 
 peeping through to get a view of me intrusive, I saw a face 
 that was as the face of a ghost. 
 
 " John," I cried. I was just going to say " how ill you 
 look ! " but he gave me no time ; he opened the door wide, 
 dragged me into the hall, went down on his knees, kissed 
 mine, sobbed till I thought he would choke, and chuckled till 
 I thought he would sutfocate. Man Friday lived again in 
 him that hour. He went rather too far for me, however. I 
 was rather puzzled when he screamed so that the whole 
 house echoed : — 
 
 " I knew you would come back — no one told me, but I 
 knew it — to take your own out of my hands." 
 
 Then went off into a fresh hysteric of choke and chuckle. 
 
 I pulled him up from his knees ; he was lighter than he
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 205 
 
 used to be, he had grown so thin, and looked even more 
 comical lean than fat. 
 
 " I have only come to sec how you are getting on, Jolm," 
 I said, without noticing his violent emotion. " I don't know 
 what you mean by losing your looks so ; how ever is the 
 Collection to keep dusted if you get weak ? " 
 
 He toddled before me to the door of the room containing 
 it — threw it open. Behold a misceUaneous of sarcophagi, 
 fashioned out of canvas, and looking like mummy-cerements ; 
 the Collection was free from dust, at least. Then John tod- 
 dled out, with me behind him, into the garden ; we came to 
 the stable door — he opened that too. Hazelnut's smell ; 
 who could mistake it ? But Hazelnut had gone blind with 
 age, and John informed me he had " taken no notice " for 
 some weeks. lie knew me, smelt me before I touched him, 
 and reared till his fore feet felt out my shoulders — rubbed 
 his nose into my mouth, and so forth. He was too fat, 
 though ; I told John so ; as much so as John was too thin. 
 
 " Law, Mr. Ernest, he won't suffer no one to excise him ; 
 how is he to keep down his fat ? The groom, he tried to 
 get on him, and he kicked him over his shoulders before ever 
 he tried." 
 
 A rather Hibernianesque explanation ; but I was satisfied 
 with Hazelnut's fidelity, and liked him so well as an old 
 friend that I did not care to stay with him long, unless I 
 could have stayed near him always. 
 
 " I wish, John, you would try, for my sake, and enjoy 
 yourself a little. I thought I should find you very happy." 
 
 " Mr. Ernest, master left me the will, but he didn't leave 
 word I loas to be happy." 
 
 " Nonsense ; it would be the only thing to make vie hap- 
 py, i£ you were so." 
 
 " I don't know, Mr. Ernest. I always was till since. I 
 had ever a plenty to eat and drink, and some one to serve ; 
 both's gone now, for, since I have no one to wait on, I am 
 never in a way to eat or drink. Even pipes is not what
 
 206 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 they used to be ; I don't seem to want them often, and when 
 I want, I don't hke them ; they're gone oiF. After you was 
 gone, Mr. Ernest, that was not hke tlie gentleman you are, 
 but your uncle was not like the gentleman he was, as it 
 turned out. When you went, lots of people tried to get in ; 
 they nearly beat down the gate, and would have got over the 
 "wall but for the spikes. I didn't want to have none of them 
 near me, for all the time I am thinking, and did from the 
 beginning, ' Well, if I die before three years, all right ; if 
 not, why in three years, that box! I worship that box, like 
 the Catholics the crucifixion.' " (Crucifix ? ) 
 
 " Why, John, you have been getting up in your reading? " 
 
 " Only the martyred foxes, Mr. Ernest." (Fox's Martyrs ?) 
 
 " Well, I am glad to hear that. Nice pictures ! " My 
 uncle's " Fox " was the very earliest edition possessing big 
 plates. 
 
 " I took the liberty, sir, of reading them, I was so lonely ; 
 but it is hard, and the cuts are all fires, and the foxes being 
 roasted alive." 
 
 Just tribute to the artistic genius or black letter print and 
 illustration ! He could not positively make out enough either 
 of the one or the other to know the martyrs as men ! And, 
 as it would rather have horrified him than amused him to 
 know it, I let it pass. 
 
 " I have brought a young lady with me, John ? Do you 
 think you could find her a bit of Indian preserve, in your 
 store-room, or have you eaten it all up by yourself? " 
 
 John grinned immensely. I knew his thoughts were un- 
 duly excited. 
 
 " A young missus, Mr. Ernest ? " 
 
 " No, no, John ; I can't afford to have a lady Avife, you 
 know. It is a very young lady indeed, and her uncle is the 
 best friend I ever had. Pei'haps I shall get rich through 
 him, John." 
 
 " A young and handsome gentleman, Mr. Ernest, and 
 rich ? "
 
 ALJIOST A HEROINE. 207 
 
 "A great deal younger and hand.somer than rich, John. 
 How about tlie preserves ? " 
 
 " If they arn't gone mothery, Mr. Ernest ; but I should 
 have, I'm sure, if a death had been in the house, and nobody 
 had ever come near me." 
 
 " To eat you ! But, John, preserves have not such tender 
 hearts, they hold their own under all circumstances ; at least, 
 Indians do, so go and see." 
 
 John went, and returned laden with a tray covered with 
 soup plates, every one filled with a diiferent sweetmeat, and 
 spoons ; also a bottle of the oldest tokay in the cellar, and 
 another of pale brandy, thirty years of age. Had Philippa 
 been left to herself with these varieties, therefore, she might 
 have died either of a surfeit or intoxication. But she was 
 so long coming back that I went out to look for her, and 
 there she was, tearing round and round the heath, having 
 disarmed the boy of all power over the donkey by coaxing 
 out of him his knotted stick. At last, in my sight, the ass 
 kicked, and precipitated her over his head on the grass. I 
 picked her up and carried her (she was too tired to kick me) 
 to John's mansion. She was, however, too hungry for the 
 spread before her to suffice, and I had much difficulty in de- 
 taining her while John went to fetch her some bread and 
 cheese. (He lived on nothing else ; no wonder he was 
 lean !) She had not spent herself a bit, and after a huge 
 luncheon, set oiF all over the house and garden, I following 
 her close, lest she should do or receive mischief, so that I 
 actually had no time to talk to John until it was time to go. 
 
 Again I should never have got Philippa back to town if I 
 had not allowed her to go to the train on a second donkey, 
 which John fetched willingly. I think the eclat of appearing 
 on it to the folk outside the station satisfied her finally, for in 
 the train she fell asleep, and was most horribly cross at being 
 woke up when it stopped ; so that before I restored her to 
 the bosom of her family I was foin to repent I had torn her 
 from it.
 
 208 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 How that child Hilary sneered at me that night ! I could 
 not exactly tell why, until, just as Philippa had gone to bed, 
 nearly an hour earlier than usual, he looked up, and, before 
 his uncle, said : — 
 
 " It is a pity the ' Arabian Nights ' are not true." 
 
 He so seldom made a remark on his own account that both 
 of us encouraged him by exclaiming : — 
 
 " Why ? " 
 
 " Because then she could have been turned into a donkey, 
 and gone to feed amidst the thorns and thistles ; she is fit for 
 nothing better." 
 
 I perceived Philippa had been reciting her experience. 
 Arnold Major would have shocked educationalists, I'm sure. 
 I have said he never scolded or punished the children, but 
 at such speeches from Hilary he ever looked so mournfully 
 compassionate as though — I know not what. Now, he did 
 so. I don't think the boy perceived it, as he never raised 
 his eyes from his book, but he went on presently, in a voice 
 half murmur, half an accent of surprise: — 
 
 " I don't care for Ernest's friendship now. I did at first, 
 because I thought he cared for me ; it is not worth a half- 
 penny. He cares for her just the same. I Avill never have 
 another friendship all my life." 
 
 We men looked at each other as women might. I was as 
 much pained as Arnold Major was made anxious. I had 
 lost my hold then, unknowing that I had one, and he had not 
 pressed it either ; but the chance of winning the little heart 
 to love from "friendship" had then passed away, — was it 
 indeed so ? Sometimes now I can promise to myself a 
 brighter certainty that such a wayward being may have 
 found root in my own, so dull and barren save for the poor 
 droppings of heart-charity, which fall on the " stony ground " 
 by the " wayside," " among thorns " — how seldom on good 
 ground, for that is rare as love's own seed ! 
 
 Next day I settled in my own mind (and had settled the 
 day before) to go to Miss Standish. I had not the least fear
 
 ALMOST A IIEKOINK. 209 
 
 of this fashionable creature, for fashionable she was to such a 
 high desrree that her fashion was absolute fame. I should 
 not have minded calling on her out of calling hours, and that 
 is something to saj, for one whose horror of intrusion, or not 
 being welcome, is only equal to his disgust of pork, and 
 dishes fried in lard. Howbeit, I had designed to go to Wil- 
 ton Crescent in proper calling hours ; even if I could not 
 find an opportunity of explaining the return of her gift to 
 her until after such season, I would only have been glad to 
 stay so long. But it happened, by some curious chance (was 
 it chance ?) that my young companion of the day before {i. e., 
 Philippa) got up with a cold this morning, most likely bred 
 of over-warmth, induced by her dual donkey ride ; and 
 Arnold Major, poor fellow, was as anxious as a cock with 
 one chick, whose mother hen has died and left it to buffet 
 alone with the rough and tender mercies of the dunghill. 
 He entreated me to remain beside her and keep her quiet 
 (she would if kept in her bed), and I dismally promised, for 
 I felt as if I had no power to keej) her " quiet," unless she 
 chose. I also felt sure he overrated any possible danger 
 from her cold ; she was so sti'ong, and her aifection that way 
 was so slight, though she made the worst of it, sneezing, 
 coughing, and breathing hard, because she delighted in it. 
 Her poor uncle ! He went off to the city with such a pale 
 face, and an extra thorn in his side. 
 
 Perhaps I was imprudent ; perhaps no mother would ever 
 shake hands with me on the score that I was ; but when I 
 beheld that the child, after her twelve o'clock dinner of a 
 poached egg and Indian corn pudding, as large as a break- 
 fast cup would contain, and all of which she ate, Avas only 
 fevered by being kept in bed, she was so strong, I permitted 
 lier to be dressed and to come down stairs into the parlor. 
 There she was wonderfully edified for an hour or two by my 
 making her fly-cages, ships, boats, barges, bread-baskets, &c., 
 out of the writing-paper I ought to have been treating differ- 
 ently. So I presumed too much on her being quiet while
 
 210 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 she played, and after three or four hours' devotion to her I 
 observed : — 
 
 " I want to go out, Phihppa, for a little. You will be a 
 good girl, and stop here till I come back ? " 
 
 " AVhere are you going, uncle ? " (This novel style she 
 seemed to fancy.) 
 
 " I can't tell you, my dear. Shall I bring you anything 
 back ? Would you like a muffin ? " 
 
 She made her eyes look like dark saucers : — 
 
 " No ! " 
 
 I came down stairs, meaning to walk, just in that nick of 
 twilight which no good house wives illumine. In fact it was 
 dark in the hall. I called to the servant that she was to tell 
 her master I had gone to Miss Standish's (she was a servant 
 possessed of the rare gift of remembering names), and then I 
 let myself out. 
 
 I thought I heard a door slam behind when I had gone 
 about a dozen paces, but took no notice, as there were so 
 many other doors besides the one I, had just shut myself; 
 and presentl}', I cannot deny that I did hear sounds behind 
 me as of feet, but in London this is no exceptional fact, and . 
 I am fond of pressing forward when I walk, hating to look 
 behind me. Soon, too, I was in a dream, a state, I think, 
 town engenders more than country, and by the time I 
 reached Wilton Crescent I had enough to do to rouse myself 
 out of it. There was but a stray carriage outside the door ; 
 Horatia's " afternoon " was in its decadence. 
 
 In the very act of my ringing the bell, the man inside 
 opened the door for some one, the habitant of the carriage, I 
 presume. Dusk as it had become without, the bright fresh 
 light inside poured forth in dazzling contrast, and, for a 
 moment, I could see nothing except the moving figures of 
 two or three persons coming down the stairs. They were 
 lingering ; I knew why, for I heard those cold, rallying, yet 
 over-enticing tones. Horatia was above them at the stair- 
 head, and held them so.
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 211 
 
 I licard some words from her to the effect: — 
 
 " Oh, he had his cash checked instead of his cheque cashed" 
 
 Then a laugh ; and then, by all the powers of elfdora, 
 
 good and evil,' I beheld beside me, on the very mat inside 
 
 the door, Avhieh was still held open for the descending guests 
 
 — Philippa ! 
 
 I don't know whether I swore, screamed, or shouted ; but 
 she burst out laughing, which laugliter passed into a cough, 
 and ran past me up the hall, turned into the dining-room, 
 whose door was ajar. I thought I should have swooned ; 
 my heart did "knock my ribs," my whole impulse was to 
 get at the little wretch and carry her out again, wrapped in 
 my greatcoat. But, lo ! before I could get half as far as the 
 dining-room door, two ladies swept down stairs, largely cos- 
 tumed and widely skirted, and a man after them, whose 
 whole attention was directed to not treading on their gowns 
 behind — for his own sake, not theirs. On they came, all 
 three, and if I had not stood like a scutcheon against the 
 wall, the perfumed draperies might have carried me into the 
 street on their waves of stiffness. The fair obstruction past, 
 I said to the man, — he remembered me, I saw : — 
 
 " There is a young lady who came with me, and has run 
 into the dining-room. Can I fetch her out, or is any one 
 there ? " 
 
 " Oh, certainly, sir," — goes before me. 
 " Maurice ! " (Miss Standish, her foce put over the balus- 
 ters, and the hall light beaming up on lier face showing well 
 a weariness almost equal to that I was accustomed to in Ar- 
 nold Major's). " Maurice," she went on, too tired to perceive 
 me clearly. " Does he want anything, that person ? Don't 
 send him away." 
 
 " Oh, ho ! " I thought ; " you don't send ' persons ' empty 
 away then ! " 
 
 But, before the man could reply, though he had run 
 speedily to address her, she saw me — knew me in a moment — 
 expressed by her intensely-recalled self-possession how des-
 
 212- ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 perately she was astonished, perchance something more than 
 pleased ; but, as I was not vain, more than a grain of mus- 
 tard seed is salt (no merit either to the mustard-seed or me), 
 I knew very well she did not care, exactly on my own ac- 
 count, that I was there. 
 
 The self-possession I have alluded to scared arid settled the 
 man ; he came down stairs abruptly, and sat in his chair hke 
 an image originally carved with it in the middle ages. 
 
 " I am delighted to see you, Mr. Loftus." 
 
 (Really she looked so). 
 
 " But I am not delighted, though I thought to be," said I. 
 
 She took this as a weedy compliment. 
 
 " Come up-stairs, pray," she said. 
 
 " Certainly not. You have to act queen, for I have to 
 throw myself at your feet, or, rather, on your clemency." 
 
 " All the better ! Do come in here, then." 
 
 Didn't I know she thought I had come to ask her for soyne 
 substantial favor on my own personal account ? — for " in 
 here " was the dining-room, now turned into a " den of 
 thieves " by the good-for-nothing little torment. 
 
 I whispered : — 
 
 " Miss Standish, you know Arnold Major's little niece ? " 
 
 " No, I don't ; I wish I did," she whispered, reciprocally. 
 
 But, oh, how her eyes smiled and her mouth shone in 
 . gladness ! I felt no fear after that. 
 
 " Well, the little monkey — I never dreamt of it, though 
 she had plagued us all enough — followed me to-night with- 
 out my being aware — cunning imp ; for I took her out with 
 me yesterday, and I fancy she desired a repetition." 
 
 " What ? How ? " — impatient a little. 
 
 " ' The creature ' ran by me like the substance of Wes- 
 ley's ghost, and is at present in your dining-room. But, Miss 
 Standish, that is not the worst, for 1 read in your countenance 
 you would esteem the presence of no child a bore. She took 
 cold yesterday, and all day I have been nursing her by her 
 uncle's command. I ought not to have left her, but I was
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 213 
 
 certain she was safe, and how ever she followed me, or she 
 got out, or what she has on, I know not ! " 
 
 " We will see," said Horatia, with a smile, — oh, such a 
 smile ! — half gentle pleasure, half vivid passion ; and leav- 
 ing me, as it were, she went into the dining-room. I fol- 
 lowed. 
 
 There was my mischief, not huddled up, not modestly 
 posed in any chair ; she was sitting on the dining-table, which 
 was already half covered with a snowy substratum of dam- 
 ask and silver and delicate mats ; eating salt out of a frosted 
 shell containing that condiment, with the fan-lipped spoon that 
 fitted it. 
 
 Miss Standish broke into one of her genuine, glorious 
 laughs. Philippa turned at it, and looked surprised, yet en- 
 chanted, as a child of her age at a peal of Christmas bells. 
 But only the chime was of Christmas ; there was summer in 
 the air. 
 
 Philippa, now I had time to see, had nothing warm on ex- 
 cept her little high-neckeil winter frock, and tlie hat (one of 
 those brown hats that never looked either new or old) in 
 which she went to school. Staring at Miss Standish, or the 
 salt, made her cough. In a moment Horatia was at some 
 mysterious closet or bureau, and came back with an oval loz- 
 enge in her hand, held it up cunningly, then slipped it into 
 the monkey's mouth. 
 
 " Now," said she, but I could trace an indefinite and deli- 
 cate uneasiness in her ease, " we will go and see all the little 
 fishes in their green groves, and the flowers that live in the 
 water and pop up and down to peep at them." 
 
 She took hold of Philippa, but did not lift her off the table, 
 for the simple reason that Philippa would have dislocated 
 her wrist, or rather broken her arm ! Philippa took to her 
 by miracle, — I can only call it so, — jumped down of her 
 own free will, and positively put her hand into hers to go out 
 of the room. 
 
 " Will you come, too ? to see there is no foul play ? " said
 
 214 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 Horatia to me, not looking at me tliougli, and the second 
 phrase so unconcernedly concerned ! 
 
 I followed. 
 
 Miss Standish led her charge (for the first time led) into a 
 little room behind the dining-room, and not opening into it 
 by any door ; one of those nondescripts -which, in fomilies 
 who are standard for mid-class respectability, are devoted to 
 old books, old tables, with no fire in cold weather ; in fast 
 families with no sons, but with daughters, to literature and 
 the private easel ; and in fast flimilies with sons, to tobacco 
 and penny newspapers. In this case, quite well fitted and 
 furnished fully with many books, a set of steps to attain to 
 the higher shelves — some old chairs and an old table cer- 
 tainly, but a very new and handsome aquarium in the long, 
 bright window. 
 
 Here comes a slip-note of somebody who has learnt there 
 is wisdom out of his own sphere of observation, or that of 
 others he has vast trust in. Arnold Major had a disgust for 
 popular science. (I had a dislike till he turned it to disgust 
 by sympathy !) We had mutually agreed an aquarium was 
 a disgusting object, an intolerable dissight. Those who very 
 poetically idolize the sea for its own sake (a taste, I believe, 
 much more rare than it seems to be) never could sincerely 
 love the chamber-aquarium ; but for certain minds of vivid 
 if unimaginative growth, it is a wonderful assistant, a charm 
 as softening as it is innocent. If I had been amazed to see 
 Philippa take to Miss Standish, I was more so to see her 
 fasten on the aquarium. She was fixed, fascinated, and 
 when Iloratia brought a lamp close over it, and the forms 
 of tiny life began to rise, start, undulate in their crystal 
 circle, she was indeed touched, and held as in a fairy ring. 
 
 Totally absorbed, nearly bi'eathless, she did not fail to 
 stare now and then up at Miss Standish, with a smile that 
 nearly reached from one ear to the other. In a few minutes 
 I whispered, for the child not to hear : — 
 
 " I must take her home, indeed, Miss Standish ; I shall be
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 215 
 
 awfully bullied if I don't ; in fact, I am appalled at my own 
 prospects anyhow. May your s(?rvant call me a cab ? " 
 
 Pliilippa heard — at least she called out, " I won't go 
 liome. I want to stop here and see the fishes all night." 
 
 '• I wish I might keep her," said Miss Standish, " for in- 
 deed she should not go into night air with that bi-eathing. I 
 suppose I must not ? " she added, wistfully, half questioning 
 me. 
 
 But, before I had time to answer, a long, low, but ex- 
 ti'emely impatient ring ! I knew it, and so did she. I 
 cannot tell whether I turned as she did — pale to her lips, 
 while a quiver — no, a shudder, only visible, not audible — 
 passed through her from head to foot, like the lightning-shock 
 or the frost-blight for swiftness, for instancy ; but I know 
 that I did not recover myself, as she did, in a moment — a 
 second or two — before the guest, unbidden, had touched her 
 inner threshold. When I say she recovered herself, I don't 
 mean she settled into studious apathy, or lofty indifference ; 
 she was too natural. All the dread passed with the mo- 
 mentary shiver, and left her. I know not how to express it, 
 but it was as if, starved long and long from her being's 
 proper nourishment, its fountain had sprung fresh at her 
 feet. Such pleasure brimmed her glance, and the calm of 
 passion suddenly appeased, so grateful for the respite, how- 
 ever short, from pain. 
 
 I had never, for my own part, felt so like a coward. I 
 actually stood stock-still. I knew not what to do or how to 
 meet him, if at all, for I will not hide I was downright angry 
 with him, until I saw — well I saw this, that if he bullied 
 me till that day next week, or cut me permanently dead, he 
 was immensely thankful to me for breaking that mysterious 
 barrier, cold as ice, and which had seemed as hard as ada- 
 mant. 
 
 I had not time to collect ray faculties, for, promptly as if 
 there had been a curtain on fire to extinguish, Miss Standish 
 went out into the hall. I did not know at that time what an
 
 216 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 effort of moral courage, nay physical self-constraint, it must 
 have cost her to meet him so, and all I thought was, how 
 inexpressibly sweet, and expressively cold, was her manner 
 of address — sweet as March hyacinths smelling in frosty 
 air, and expressively cold ■ — how it desired to thaw, and 
 dared or chose not ! I didn't wonder when I heard his an- 
 swer : — but it was so timid, too ! Had he not loved her, he 
 would have felt this. 
 
 " Mr. Major," was her beginning, half way down the ha;ll, 
 as he stood at the door (I took care to peep out at them), " I 
 don't suppose you will forgive us, but I hardly think either 
 Mr. Loftus or I are to blame. The little thing followed him 
 without his knowledge, and, behold ! has taken a fancy to 
 ray marine store, in there, of limpets, shrimps, periwinkles, 
 &c., all alive, which, I hope, if you don't allow her ever to 
 come and see me again, you will permit me to send home for 
 her, or after her," 
 
 I am no woman, but did I not feel, without perceiving, the 
 hysteric gasp that she strangled, the loving sob that she held 
 her breath to smother ? If he did not, he was more or less 
 than a man, Avhich I believe all good, fine-natured men 
 must be until they are made one with and through a perfect 
 woman. 
 
 His answer made me in a rage ; it was, I thought, both 
 commonplace and ungrateful, till I saw his face. And let 
 me just note that neither the one nor the other attempted to 
 shake hands or approach each other near. 
 
 "You are very good, but Philippa is very naughty, — there 
 is no excuse for her. I have never yet punished her for any- 
 thing — but for this — " 
 
 " You should punish me," I exclaimed, quite bold, now the 
 lady had borne all the brunt of it, " It was ray fault for leav- 
 ing her. You bade me stop with her, and so I did, until I 
 thought I had spelled her for an hour with my previous ex- 
 clusive devotion, and you know I could not come to explain 
 to Miss Standish your objection to your nephew and niece
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 217 
 
 taking presents while you were in the house, for you are such 
 a tyrant, you insist on knowing every one's business, or, at 
 least, you discover it, under your roof." 
 
 " Am I a tyrant ? " said he, jealously. 
 
 He did not like me to throw a stone at him before her ; 
 and, good powers, his face ! If she looked pale with passion, 
 and pride, and sorrow, he was " on fire within ; " his very 
 features seemed sublimed in a flame-like tracery ; and if his 
 brow was pale, it was as if a blaze shone through it, only 
 veiled and tempered by the tortured flesh ; his cheeks were 
 ardent with a burning hectic I had never seen except in fly- 
 ing fits ; only and always when we spoke of her. His eyes 
 did not flash ; they were too melancholy in their meaning, 
 and they alone looked, in the flickering lamp-liglit, like points 
 of shade. Yet, through all the intense warmth of his tem- 
 perament, he was calm and steady as the mid-day sun in 
 heaven. This is by the way : they both made too striking a 
 picture to leave unnoticed. 
 
 To return to facts : — 
 
 " Am I a tyrant ? " 
 
 " Yes," I said. " I dare say Miss Standish knows it, as 
 she knows you. You are hard upon that imp in there ; she 
 never showed a penchant for a thing or person, even my 
 adorable self, and she has fallen in love with the aquarium." 
 
 " Hush, Mr. Loftus ! " said Horatia, with a woman's in- 
 stinct ; " Mr. Major must do as he pleases, and I would not 
 for the world have interfered with the children, but by acci- 
 dent that made it needful. The real truth is " (here Horatia 
 grew fashionable and fast) " that the child may be made ill 
 between us three, because she has a croupish sound in her 
 breathing ; is quite strong enough to have croup very se- 
 verely, — it rains, and the child has not pi-oper clothing. If 
 you like to leave her here (she is truly so wedded to the 
 fishes, that it seems hard to tear her from them) till to-mor- 
 row, I will take care to send her home the warmest and driest 
 hour of the day, well wrapped up. But if you must take 
 10
 
 218 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 her now, I will wrap her up as well as I can, and you, not I, 
 must take the consequences." 
 
 As if to us both, and mutually, she spoke. If she had not 
 put the responsibility of the child being possibly ill upon him, 
 I believe he would have torn Philippa from the marine joys. 
 But he was morbidly conscientious over the children's health, 
 — perhaps she knew this. I ventured to strike in : — 
 
 " Do let her stay, — it would be so much better ; " and 
 then seeing in his face that lost and yearning look of pride 
 which seems to be wild for want of some one to step in and 
 interfere, or arrange, I added audaciously, in the meekest 
 tones : — 
 
 " We shall be very much obliged to you, Miss Standish, 
 and I will fetch her to-morrow morning. I am always at 
 home and idle, he is always abroad and at work." 
 
 If Arnold Major bad not been quite so much in love, nor 
 so long without the least ray of communion with its object, I 
 am quite sure I should not have dared to say so, or he would 
 have knocked me flat with contradiction. 
 
 He could not endure to stay, or he would never have gone. 
 He had passed beyond his own control, inwardly — most 
 dangerous crisis for the most outwardly self-possessed, be- 
 cause the internal yielding always precedes a physical break- 
 down. I saw this — he knew it. 
 
 " C4ood night," he said, quite simply, still with his cheeks 
 on crimson fire, and his eyes passion-darkened with " excess 
 of light." 
 
 And Horatia as simply — her action brought tears into my 
 eyes — held out her hand, or rather those finger-tips she was 
 apt to present helplessly instead ; so helplessly now ! as if 
 she asked pardon and feared it would be withheld, for some 
 crime she knew not she had committed, yet of which she was 
 silently accused. 
 
 And Arnold Major held out his hand an instant — 
 snatched it back — but I am afraid he hurt her fingers, for 
 she flushed.
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 219 
 
 She (lid not shake hands with me, but ahnost turned her 
 back, and the moment the servant returned (he had retreated, 
 most properly, in the first instance) she went into the room 
 after Philippa, and I heard her voice as cold, as clear, as 
 lin^ht as ever. Perchance she was lighter-hearted, for a very 
 slender beam Avill console and bless the prisoners who are 
 bound by treachery in the darkness, or by misapprehension 
 — most mysterious treachery of all — in the " places which 
 love doth not li^ht."
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 WONDER. 
 
 I HAD a scene that night. Arnold Major fiainted dead 
 away, almost the moment we got into the house, he having 
 maintained a dead silence all the way back, at which I did 
 not wonder. But I was awe-struck, never having seen a 
 man faint in my life. His fainting is as unlike a woman's as 
 his structure ; it is profounder, and far more nearly like to 
 death, than her evanishment of consciousness. I was quite 
 an hour getting him to, or, rather, he was so long coming 
 to, for I fancy nature had the most to do with it. How pas- 
 sion, let loose a moment, had ravaged in that short space ! 
 He looked as if he had just risen out of a long, dangerous 
 illness — wasted, pallid — with, oh, such a heart-rending ex- 
 pression of mixed tenderness, exhaustion, and despair ! 
 
 " I am. not worth a pinch of gunpowder, I am a coward, I 
 am an ass ! " were his first words — little tragic enough — 
 and he tried to smile, but it was a convulsion. I took no 
 notice for awhile, but made him sAvallow some brandy (better 
 than wine on such occasions), and left him alone. I had 
 carefully kept the maid away, as if we were occupied in 
 business, but noio I had not been out of the room ten minutes 
 before the bell rang for dinner, and she was sent to call me, 
 also the boy Hilary, in whose room I was. 
 
 We worked as usual all the evening ; that is to say, we 
 sat at the table in the same positions, but I wrote a mass of 
 dream stuff that the Minerva Press would have disdained to 
 publish in its insanest hours, and Arnold Major read and
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 221 
 
 wrote in fever-fits of restless and emergent haste, with alter- 
 nating moods of melancholy, slow suspension. 
 
 The boy Hilary watched us both, watched me furtively 
 and his uncle haughtily, and I do not think he tidded to the 
 comfort of the latter by his presence. How thankful was I 
 (my companion, too, I saw), when his bedtime arrived ! 
 
 " Good night, Ernest," said the wayward creature. 
 
 I held out my hand and shook his ; but he had only so 
 behaved to me tliat he might throw into relief his neglect of 
 his uncle, whom he took no notice of, but spurned with his 
 young eaglet's eye. 
 
 " That is really a bad child, I do fear," was my involun- 
 tary expression, I was so angry with him. 
 
 Is it not a like impression that seizes us about a very in- 
 fant who cannot be coaxed to stroke with its soft hand and 
 say " a-poor ? " 
 
 " Oh, please do not give him up, for Heaven's sake ! I 
 look to you to save him," said Arnold Major, earnestly, (it 
 must have been very earnestly to strike as earnest through 
 the passion that wrapped him like the thunder-cloud, melting 
 down in moisture when the electric force is spent). 
 
 " I give him up ! What do you mean ? I, who have so 
 little power, and am so poor, save in good intentions ! AVhy, 
 I mean to look after him all my life ! " 
 
 " Tliat is good of you, lor he is trying to the patience ; 
 and, oh, how diihcult to do one's duty by ! But, truly, 
 Ernest, I hope you do not think him had." 
 
 " Well, Mr. Major, you must frown on me as you please, 
 but if he does not love you, he cannot be good, and, being 
 imgrateful to you, he must be positively bad." 
 
 " No ! You and I have both at times, I have no doubt, 
 been ungrateful to God, as if He were man ; yet we are 
 neither of us bad." 
 
 " But why does he — how can he dislike you ? " 
 
 " Can we govern likes and dislikes ? I do not wonder." 
 
 " Don't you wonder ? I do. AViiy does he, then ? "
 
 222 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 I did not expect an answer ; probably should never have 
 got it but for the event of the afternoon. 
 
 " The poor child dislikes me because he thinks I am like 
 his father, -tt^iom he hates." 
 
 I recollected the boy's saying something of the kind. But 
 this opportunity must not elude me, for it might — most 
 pi'obably would — never occur again^* I put on the brazen 
 mask forthwith. 
 
 " I do wish you would tell me something about yourself," I 
 exclaimed. " At the very first of our acquaintance, I told 
 you everything., except w^hat I can tell nobody." 
 
 " Ah, but that's it." 
 
 " No, that is not it ; for my secret is concerning my love, 
 and your love-seo'et is no secret to me. You revealed it soon 
 enough ; it is safe, — trust that." 
 
 " How dare you ? " he began, — then in a minute, — "I 
 wish you had no secret of that kind, for, in that case, perhaps, 
 it would be your fate to cut short my life-long drag and 
 weariness — my eternity of suspense." 
 
 " Not at all ! If I were free, 1 should never fall in love 
 with Miss Standish. We are both too peculiar, she and I, to 
 wear ready-made shoes, much more to fit ourselves with 
 chance suits of that chain-armor yclept wedlock. And, 
 really, on the whole, I should beg, at any rate, to decline the 
 transfer to me of a woman you would not marry yourself! " 
 
 Any other man would have explained two thousand phra- 
 ses, I think, when Arnold Major only flashed a look ; but 
 such looks were those ! — hot and ardent as the fire of the 
 sun beyond the flame of earth-brands, and chaste in their 
 utter loneliness as the sun-rays that hold all heaven in thrall, 
 and shut the stars out with their light. No similes yet suit 
 them, they were so human ; and the sun is not quenched in 
 utter night, as they when spent. There were no stars behind 
 his perpetual shadow — must it therefore be eternal? I 
 thought not. And I think there must be a point in passion 
 (seldom reached) which, like death, scatters all frivolous
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 223 
 
 conventionalisms and fantasies of morbid vanity. I believe, 
 too, we reached that point just then: he, overborne by soli- 
 tary endurance and sudden, if swiftly-passing, excitement ; I, 
 brimmed with longing to minister the sympathy the proud 
 never ask nor claim, yet do not reject inevitably, if sincere, 
 and which the rich in heart yearn to bestow if they are poor 
 
 — in means — and grateful, 
 
 " I did not intend to be rude," said I, suddenly (he was 
 drooping over his papers again), "but I have often wonder- 
 ed, seeing you don't morally and heartily trust me, that you 
 leave me in the house alone with such triiles as the children 
 
 — your plate — your private papers." 
 
 " You knoio that the second item I don't possess, and I am 
 sure you don't know I possess the third. 
 
 " Of course you do. Are you not a ' gentleman, and a 
 man of honor ? ' No, you are not to sink into that passionate 
 apathy again." 
 " The what ? " 
 
 " Never mind ! I was intended for a poet, and I always 
 knew it. You are not going to do anything else to-night but 
 talk to me. Surely, if you don't choose to tell me anything 
 of yourself, you can tell me something of Miss Standish — 
 social facts that everybody knows, because they know her, 
 but I don't know because I have not known her long enough. 
 For instance, is she very rich ? " 
 
 He didn't like her to be rich at all ; I could tell that. He 
 put his pen down, though, and was, oh, how delighted to have 
 dragged out of him anything concerning her ! 
 
 'a believe so ; she ought to be, to keep up the style she 
 lives in honestly." 
 
 " Honestly ! I never saw such an honorable face — such 
 honorable structure. She knocks you down with it ; it ra- 
 diates from her all over, hands and all. Fancy her hands 
 picking and stealing, or her tongue slandering! It is a 
 shame, though, that her voice should never be tuned to love- 
 inakiiig, fur a sweeter never breathed."
 
 224 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 This was the treatment for him ; if he had not been so 
 miserable and ill, though, I would not have indulged him. 
 He liked me to paint her in the loveliest colors, to cover her 
 with praises, and to abuse her or negatively disapprove her 
 himself — a droll raood, peculiar to a very strong and jeal- 
 ously tender temperament when empassioned, and absent 
 from, or not belonging to, the beloved. 
 
 " She is rich, then, we will agree, and that she is generous 
 as the summer-time I need not ask you," I continued ; " who 
 does she belong to ? Is she the only one of her race ? " 
 
 " I believe the last of her own family." 
 
 " Don't be so curt and cross-grained, — I wan't to hear her 
 history, as far as you know it fully, and no subterfuges nor 
 hints. It is mean to treat such a person so ; and I can only 
 learn from you — I should not choose to question others, and 
 have it repeated to her I had done so." 
 
 " No ; and, besides, you might hear tvorse than the truth," 
 he said, in a dreamy, painful undertone. 
 
 " No truth about her could be bad, or anything but good." 
 
 " You think so, of course ; you have every reason ; but — 
 unfortunately, it would make no difference — " 
 
 Here I was thankful to see him get up from the table and 
 walk to the fireplace, turning his back to me. I knew I 
 should make some little way at least, by the token that he 
 would not show his face. 
 
 " What would make no difference ? — and what is the 
 difference ? " I asked directly — did not give him time to 
 rein in. 
 
 " If you passionately, desperately, entirely loved a woman, 
 — that is if I did, — it would make no difference if she were 
 worldly — dishonorable — a thief — a liar, — if she were 
 branded on her body — if she lay in chains in a cell, con- 
 demned for muixler ! " 
 
 The words too measured and distinct to be impetuous, yet 
 passionate as his quiet voice. One could not doubt him, even 
 if one did not understand. I did, most perfectly.
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 225 
 
 " Do you know what you remind me of? You recollect 
 that fine unique scene between Lavengro and Ursula under 
 the hedge, in ' Romany Rye.' ' Money and fine clothes 
 would induce you to do anything, then ? — to chore — to hoh- 
 hawar — in fact to break the law in every thing ? — to play 
 the thief — the liar — the — the — ' " 
 
 I don't think I am dramatic, but he flung round, facing me 
 i-igi(i — white as ashes — dark with frowns his brow — his 
 bosom heaving like a sea whose shore an earthquake rends. 
 I laughed — the only thing to do — and went on quoting : — 
 " ' Why, I tell you what, brother, you look as though, if 
 you only had something in your hand, you would do me 
 a mischief.' " — 
 
 " No, no ! It is not that ! Has any one told you anything 
 more than you have told me ? — or than I know ? " 
 
 Mortal jealousy, immortal love, these two sensations only 
 could have struggled so strong together in such fraternal ha- 
 tred ! But it was a good thing. 
 
 I had reached the crisis of superferainine curiosity, when 
 that ivill be appeased, and it lent me double audacity — a 
 powerful moral agent, a mental magnet, if not a spiritual 
 one. 
 
 " Now, Arnold Major, sit down, or stand if you are pleased ; 
 but listen. I have told you I would not ask any one about 
 Miss Standish but yourself. How then can I have heard ? 
 And let me tell you, besides, that, though you are so mad as 
 to assert you would love a woman who was a mere worldling, 
 a liar, a branded thief, a condemned murderess — all save the 
 word you stopped me short in using, and for that I think you 
 uncharitable — " 
 
 " Only in respect of the woman one loves — no other. 
 Any other I would tend and raise before a host of suffei-ers." 
 " Metaphysical muddle? — not only to say it, but to feel it 
 or pretend to — for you don't. It is very easy to say it : for 
 the woman in question is precisely the woman incapable of 
 any one of the above charges being founded on the remotest 
 
 10*
 
 226 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 phantom of fact regarding her. Of course she is no favorite 
 with men in general. I should know that — " 
 
 This was a bow drawn at a venture ; the arrow sped and 
 smote as sweetly and cleverly as any in " Dan Cupid's " 
 quiver. 
 
 " I beg your pardon, you are not to be supposed to know, 
 and are far too inexperienced in society to understand how 
 she has ruled men in general — how she impresses them and 
 enchants them ! " 
 
 This was excellent ; I had not hoped so far. 
 
 " I am to be pitied, then, and if you, being my intellectual 
 godfather, mean me not to be despised in society, you had 
 better enlighten me a little ; and I don't see ivhy I am to in- 
 quire of one of her enemies, when I can hear from one of 
 her friends. Enemies tell lies always, friends sometimes dis- 
 tort truths from an over-ideal notion of the perfections their 
 friends ought to possess, and don't — or do, quite as often — 
 in this case, I am sure." 
 
 " Ernest, don't talk nonsense. It is unworthy of you." 
 
 " Sense then ; and do you give me of your overplus. Seri- 
 ously and sincerely, I won't go to bed till you have told me 
 all you know of Miss Standish." 
 
 "All that I know, but there are many things I don't 
 know." 
 
 " I said all you hioiv, — how pi'ovoking you can be ! 
 First, we will go back a little, ' she is the last of her race.' 
 No, her family, not her race. What next ? Did her parents 
 love each other desperately ? Did they delight in her ? " 
 
 " Her family is one of the best of the oldest — rare now — 
 for the old ones decay in mind, or waste away to scrofula — 
 the Saxon curse." 
 
 " She says yours is better — your family. Little Saxon 
 in either, I suspect ? " 
 
 " Absurd ! — it is futile nonsense, — but she is touched 
 with the ' black book,' just a little." 
 
 He lilied it, though, because she had spoken of him. How
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 227 
 
 curious he looked ! But I wouldn't enlighten him, though it 
 Wild very tempting. 
 
 " Very good ; her family was one of the best old ; now for 
 her parents? " 
 
 " Her mother was very beautiful, of a curious gypsy bril- 
 liance scarcely ever seen. I never saw hei", she died too 
 young ; but I have heard my mother — my mother was one 
 of the pale, fair De Claverings, celebrated for their excessive 
 loveliness of complexion, with plain features it disguised and 
 veiled with what seemed beauty — she thought the then Ho- 
 ratia Standish — christened Horatia after Horace Walpole, 
 who was a worshipper of her mother — I mean, my mother 
 thought Mrs. Standish the most beauteous and vivid thing 
 alive or created. Her eyes, my mother used to say, were 
 like crystals of brown quartz, her hair black satin, flinging 
 out the light in amber reflexes. Her cheeks were 'cleft pom- 
 egranates,' her lips ' a thread of scarlet.' " 
 
 It was glorious. I had whipped him up, and would apply 
 the lash again, remindingly. 
 
 " You speak of Miss Standish's mother — you said ' gypsy 
 brilliance ; ' but gypsies never have color, and are never bril- 
 liant — regularly." 
 
 " That was the wonder — the color, all carnation, tinting 
 the darkness, soft yet keen ; but both were there. Miss 
 Standish used to have a splendid miniature of her mother, 
 and perhaps she would show if you asked her. But her 
 father ! — that was a man ; you never see such a one these 
 times. 
 
 " He had not a large estate, but few, if ever any one, dis- 
 pensed such gentle hospitalities with such genei'ous charities ; 
 none, I dare say, ever regulated their lives so well. My 
 father adored him, though he knew him personally scarce at 
 all. But every one who came in contact with him, or was 
 within the remotest edge of his sphere, adored him too. His 
 temptations were immense, and he never took advantage of 
 them, nor paraded them ! Imagine how the old wits, or the
 
 "228 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 new make-shifts for wits, would have yielded themselves up 
 to such ! He might have been in the closest intimacy and 
 contact with the person ' closest to the head tliat wore a 
 crown ; ' but his independence was only equal to his purity, 
 or his wit and fine gentleraanhood. I don't think we shall 
 see such a gentleman again. My father used to say so, and 
 though no more modernly witty than his own ' Elzevir 
 Horace,' my father was also a gentleman ! Who shall noio 
 see such a thing out of the trained and taste-pampered no- 
 bity? 
 
 " Major Standish deserved every epithet of appreciation 
 lavished undeservedly on the scholars who became court- 
 fools, and the wits who lent themselves to lampoon-fashioning 
 for the fools who had no wit. Him would have suited the 
 terms of Goldsmith's epitaph, and the lovelier termination 
 of that on Walpole's mother, (whose monument redeems all 
 his vanities, and gives his history a gentle pathos that covers 
 all his follies ; even had he committed many sins). But yet 
 it would have required something more, in or out of an epi- 
 taph, to describe Major Standish's merits, goodness, sweet- 
 ness, or deserts. What he ivas, all words would have been 
 * too weak ' 
 
 ' The glory they transfused with fitthig truth to speak.' " 
 Arnold Major was not a man to quote Shakspeare or Shelley 
 in common with counter-jumpers and literary baboons. What 
 he quoted he meant, just as he meant much, how much more 
 than he originally said, not quoted ! 
 
 " How kind he was to authors, authors who deserved it ! — 
 for he had wits as well as wit, that man, and could not be 
 deceived on any literary pretence." 
 
 Here he smiled, and pleasure warmed his face all over ! 
 Was it such joy to speak of the man who had begotten her ? 
 
 " Are you cousins, the Standishes and you ? Major Stan- 
 dish, you said — " 
 
 " Oh, no ! he was in the army. No such fair fortune for 
 me as to be related to such a man by blood ! "
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 229 
 
 Perverse! He might have been — might be, I thought ; 
 but perhaps he knew it not ; perhaps, said I ? — surely no. 
 
 I was afraid he would not go on any more if I let him 
 muse. 
 
 " Miss Standish was an only child ? " 
 
 He started — already in a reverie ! 
 
 '' Yes, oh, yes ! an only child." 
 
 Then he sighed, so deeply, such a weight of passion ! — 
 the breath lifted, and let fall again upon his heart ! It was 
 real suffering this time, apart from love. I felt the dif- 
 ference. 
 
 " He didn't send her to school, I suppose ? " 
 
 They say matter-of-fact comforters are best, at least the 
 most successful. I was so cool he didn't suspect me, or, 
 more probably, was only too glad to have the stone rolled 
 from the sepulchre of his memory, perforce of another will. 
 
 " No, never," with energy ; " he could not bear her out of 
 his sight, he worshipped, idolized, appreciated her, kept her 
 absolutely as an ewe-lamb in his bosom, till he died. But just 
 before that, in the excess of his benevolence and through the 
 whiteness of his charity, which covered all men and their 
 motives as with an angel's wing, — that time he erred, or I 
 do in thinking so, — he left her in that woman's charge." 
 
 " That woman " was Mrs. Le Kyteler ; I was sure of that. 
 
 " Is there any harm in her ? Really I don't think so. She 
 seems fond enough of her charge." 
 
 " That is not strange ; fond enough, of course she is, and 
 too fond ; but I believe she was in love with the father, and 
 though he was far too natural a person to remarry, we are 
 none of us quite flattery-proof — vanity-proof, rather, I 
 should say ; and, may be, the love of an imperious, worldly 
 woman would flatter any one of us, provided we knew she 
 had no power to suffer." 
 
 Now, " I saw in my dream," that Mrs. Le Kyteler, though 
 I didn't like her, had the power to suffer, though in what 
 degree I knew not ; nor did I think she hud the air of one
 
 230 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 with any alloy of interest in her fondness for Horatia, which 
 was the simplest sign of character she gave, and even touch- 
 ing ; it was tinctured with a kind of reverence one had not 
 suspected in her nature. Howbeit I dreaded of all things to 
 quarrel with him and to divert hi«i (outwardly) away from 
 the subject, evidently his inward whole delight. 
 
 " She went to live with Mrs. Le Kyteler ? " 
 
 " Directly. Major Standish's estate had been purchased 
 by him as a residence, and he had immensely improved it in 
 every way, especially the house (which -was in his own taste 
 throughout ; and that is revived in her). Still the tenantry 
 were poor and the rents small, and his private property was 
 not enough for a woman's life of luxury — that is, for the 
 necessaries of a very refined and extremely delicate woman. 
 Knowing this, he arranged in his will for the estate to be sold 
 by auction, and it realized a splendid sum. I need scarcely 
 say he had insured his life besides. The guardians were 
 men of honor, and acted for the best ; and, to give the woman 
 her due, she would not suffer a penny of her fortune to be 
 applied to her education, maintenance, or even clothing, till 
 she became of age ! " 
 
 Always her (without a name), and she. 
 
 " That was generous," said I. 
 
 " Generous — with her own fortune ! Mrs. Le Kyteler 
 had two thousand a-year, a house in Bath, and no children, 
 scarce a relative." 
 
 " Still own, not everybody with two thousand a-year would 
 have done it. You or I would, of course ; but never mind. 
 Did they live in Bath after that ? " 
 
 " I don't recollect. I have only heard up to that time. I 
 was at school myself, at St. Omer, and after that I travelled 
 several years, and very nearly settled — a victim to foreign 
 jurisprudence — in Germany. 1 was saved, however, for a 
 smaller fate, certainly a more rational one, by my dear fa- 
 ther's illness — a slow and lingering one, not painful, I am 
 glad and thankful to remember. I n^ceived news of it and
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 231 
 
 went back to England instantly. He was surprised to see 
 me, because — well — for a cause that cannot interest you. 
 However, it was my own old nurse who had written to sum- 
 mon me — not my brother." 
 
 There was a very curious calmness now in his voice and 
 mien. He drew up stiffly ; his strong wrists (strong, yet tliin) 
 clasped close around each other, and his fingers clenched as 
 if to deaden the pulsation I had always felt so vivid there, 
 when shaking hands with him. I did not speak. I knew a 
 breath articulate would break the spell of his so rare commu- 
 nicativeness. 
 
 " My brother was in attendance on my father day and 
 night, and another person was often there. My father idol- 
 ized her almost as her own had done, and truly she was very 
 good to him. I don't foncy any one can tell what she is who 
 has not seen her in a sick-room. And it seemed more re- 
 markable in her, because she is so nervous — always was — 
 extraordinarily tender-hearted, abhorring even the dream of 
 pain, and thought of bodily suffering. Besides, she was the 
 star of the county, its idol, its renown at the very time. And, 
 whatever Avas noised abroad with truth, it was a lie that she 
 did not so tend my father out of her great heart, her com- 
 passion, her kindness — she never had a double motive in 
 her life, I know, whatever she was obliged to do." 
 
 Singular hints these ! — and how was I ever to gain access 
 to the facts of which they only served as symbols ? 
 
 " If she has preserved as much of her genuine self as I 
 thinh, she is a marvel — a miracle — after the life she has 
 led, or been taken through, for I believe, I ever shall believe, 
 that woman did all the mischief Even my father thought 
 her acquaintance an acquisition, — he was but a simple 
 burgher once, though he man-ied the blood they call old 
 in England. Yes, it was a wonder it did not turn her brain. 
 Actresses create tempests of popularity, which are laid as soon 
 as summer dust ; beauty-roses, who have no claim to the lau- 
 rel, last perhaps six seasons. Poetesses have been famous, —
 
 232 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 have hungered afterwards a little for repute, and died — for 
 lack, or in consequence. I have seen female literarians in 
 full masquerade costume of borrowed wit ; but I have seen 
 her with all such, and all such pale, wane, lose form beside 
 her. Her fascination was as pure as it was unspeakable ; it 
 was cold, and how electric swift ! — albeit through it she 
 never corrupted a soul ; it never palled on any, nor satis- 
 fied, for why ? — she had a secret one woman in a thousand 
 does not own." 
 
 " I think I know what you mean." 
 " No, you don't." 
 
 I did, though, for he repeated aloud the whisper of my 
 thought. 
 
 " She never permitted men to make her offers personally 
 
 to go so far, — all women could prevent it, if they chose, 
 
 — that is to say, considering her position and her popularity, 
 it was wonderful that she had but one actually made her face 
 to face." 
 
 " Good powers ! How can you know unless she told 
 you .'' 
 
 It did strike me as so strange, so amazing, for him to 
 hiow so much, and yet hold himself aloof, grateless too, un- 
 less — Here the ugly phantom presented itself, that had be- 
 fore intruded, of a notion that they had been betrothed. Was 
 he the " only one ? " 1 did not care ; he could but negative 
 or knock me down. I said quite quietly : — 
 " And that offer of course you made yourself? " 
 I expected certainly something else than what happened, 
 for to myself there came no mischief, mischance, — not even 
 a harsh word. 
 
 How fond people are in books of making catastrophes 
 everi/where, on the shortest notice and the smallest pretence, 
 — women faint, men swoon, either of them shriek, rend hair, 
 at least fall to the ground and groan, have to be picked up 
 and scanned by friends and servants, &c. Now there are 
 such ; once or twice, even the great outward calm of a na-
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 233 
 
 ture passionately pure, whose being is unshareil, may yield 
 entirely the soul from self-possession. But if it happens 
 constantly, it is not worth more than common hysterics, and 
 we know how cheap they are. The real, rare hysteric of a 
 sublime nature overwrought is awful, and in its agony most 
 beautiful, because so true. And yet, in some instances, there 
 is a strange bland mood, more awful still, of feeling, positively 
 magnetized through fear of its own strength, — of love with 
 its natural tide froze fast and utterly suspended, — " death in 
 life" — by the great cold of a proud conscience, that holds, 
 will hold till death or deliverance, the heart in thrall. This 
 was his mood now — with that supernatural softness, like 
 muffled bells rung stealthily through velvet for some heroic 
 funeral, his voice was toned. So few, few words ! — and 
 they left behind them, as it were, a phantom of perished 
 hope on the long silence, hovering in love-forgotten loneliness 
 over its own grave. 
 
 Yet his accents were simple. I should have been glad to 
 know his sutfering was as vague as they. 
 
 " No, it was not I ; it was my brother — the father of the 
 poor children." 
 
 He was incapable of making (or meaning) an effect ; yet 
 what pathos in the words " the poor children ! " But more : 
 I was pierced through and through with the conviction that 
 upon no brother of Arnold Major had Horatia Standish ever 
 smiled, betrothed. It w^ns not the time to say so. I might 
 have turned his blood to illness, if not his brain to a terror 
 still more di-ead. 
 
 " She was engaged to your brother, then ? " 
 " I suppose so ; they said so. That was nothing to me, of 
 course ; but she forsook him, — no wonder ! Still, after that, 
 all went wrong. What could he he, forsaken by her ? what 
 do ? Oh, God, I am so tired, so very, very tired ! I wish it 
 would be right to die ! " 
 
 Very sharp and sudden the last few words. He stretched 
 his arms towards the wall gropingly, as if darkness had
 
 234 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 fallen on his vision — then staggered. I went up to him and 
 seized his hands in mine ; they were cold as ice an instant — 
 the next the blood rushed back to them like a wave of flame, 
 — the pulses throbbed countlessly, a thread of fire in each. 
 But would his spirit desert him ever after this ? For, taking 
 my gesture as though I had intended to bid him farewell that 
 time, he looked up proudly pale, but strong as love or death. 
 
 " I have talked great nonsense, I am afraid. All is safe 
 with you, and you will forget it. Good night." 
 
 And he was gone, leaving me, far the less self-possessed, 
 behind him. 
 
 I did not lie awake all night. I don't think people who 
 are accustomed to occupation by day ever do, except in 
 books, but I did stay wide awake an hour or two, perplexed, 
 interested, wildly curious, not idly so. I could not doubt 
 that Arnold Major, in speaking of his brother, meant neither 
 more nor less than that Miss Standish had jilted him. A 
 monstrous improbability ; even had I not heard her speak of 
 the children or of my friend, I should have deemed this, and, 
 having heard her, I was convinced it was impossible. It 
 seemed wonderfully strange that Arnold Major believed it. 
 Still, I did not know his brother, and it was likely I never 
 should. 
 
 Morning came ; no dreams had dissolved my doubts, and 
 the white light dazzled, as it ever does, the visual nerves for 
 an exhausted brain. I went down, trying hard to look and 
 feel unconcerned. He was there. We greeted without 
 meeting each other's eyes. Presently Hilary said, very 
 suddenly, — it started both of us : — 
 
 " You look as you did the day mamma died." 
 
 This was to his uncle. 
 
 " Perhaps I do, Hilary," was Arnold Major's answer. " I 
 have been thinking about her." 
 
 '' I don't hate you when you look so, because he never 
 looks that way." 
 
 This was half whispered, but with no inviting, childish
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 235 
 
 smile ; yet, actually, it brought consolation, — a very little 
 light does that, in utter darkness. I only mention this, be- 
 cause, metaphysically, this trifle had its link in the chain of 
 circumstances. 
 
 " How glad I am ! " said Arnold Major, directly the boy 
 had left the room, " If I only could feel that boy's heart, I 
 might be able to doctor it !" 
 
 lie was yet speaking, when I heard wheels — so did he — 
 very light wheels, rolling as if on moss. The children were 
 to play a certain part that day. I ran to the window, of 
 course ; he remained where he was, with his back to it. 
 
 " Oh, that monkey ! " said I, to relieve, at least, his sus- 
 pense ; " there she is, in solitary state, and swelling like a 
 pouter-pigeon. Do come and see her." 
 
 Directly he knew she Avas alone, he came. But — oh, 
 humanity ! — he actually looked disappointed. Would he 
 have been better pleased if Miss Standish had brought the 
 child ? At least, if he expected it, he didn't know Iloratia as 
 well as I, even in my short, clear-seeing acquaintance. I 
 wanted to laugh, for it was so like her pride to send the child 
 back the very earliest moment it was safe ; and safe this day 
 it would not have been an hour after sunrise, though now 
 bright, and warm, and clear. Philippa, swathed like a 
 mununy, was exceedingly unwilling to be lifted out of the 
 brougham ; the coachman put her down inside the door, then 
 brought divers parcels and gave them to the maid. Arnold 
 Major — of course, he was too perfect a gentleman to seem 
 ungrateful — unfastened Philippa's wraps. I suppose he 
 was not in love with his own niece ; but how he touched her, 
 as if she was his dearest earthly treasure of preciousness, in 
 handling tliose ! First there was a swansdown " pussy." 
 riiilippa's own term ; he did not lay it down, but put it on 
 his arm — no — pressed it with one arm to his breast, while 
 unfastening an Indian shawl, as soft as cream, that deep red 
 tint so rarely seen amidst the scarlet and the ambers. From 
 its folds gushed in faint whifls, fliint as scent pressed from
 
 236 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 myrtle leaves, that peculiar odor which only abides in such 
 fabrics, and of which they never can be freed ; an Oriental, 
 delicate, strange perfume, that penetrates the very brain for 
 subtilty. He turned dead white, but he would not give up 
 that privilege, of touching what had once touched her. He 
 absolutely trembled while he folded it, still kept it close ; and 
 then appeared Philippa, like a quaint German doll, in a 
 knitted jacket with ermined edges, reaching to her knees. 
 
 " She wore that when she was smaller than me, and not 
 half so pretty," said Philippa, " and she made it herself, and 
 dropped ten stitches in the front," added the mischief, poking 
 her fingers through. I hadn't the least doubt that she was 
 repeating Miss Standish's words. 
 
 " And the moth got in it, and she put camphor, and the 
 moth ate it," (the camphor?) "and I am to keep it for Fuzz 
 when he is cold, and it" he has kittens " (this is a report ver- 
 batim), " it is going in the cradle, and I've got a cradle for 
 them, and seven little pillows ! People never have more 
 than seven kittens at once, she says." 
 
 It really would have been amusing, if it had not been so 
 tragic, to see his face of dismay at this arrangement. He 
 forgot all his pride ; in the longing to possess the woollen 
 relic himself, he almost struggled with the child for its 
 possession, but she was triumphant, because she was rough 
 and strong ; he, only powerful, and trembling with excite- 
 ment. It was well she was no " Mignon," who would at her 
 age have hioum all, if not understood it. I was really afraid 
 of the boy Hilary coming in, and I took the shawl, &c. from 
 him. I nearly tore them, he had grasped them so fast and 
 fondly. 
 
 Then I delivered them out at the parlor door, and came 
 back again in time for a little bit of comedy, that inspired me 
 with gratitude on his account. He was ohliged to be di- 
 verted, and late for business too ! This was the opening of 
 Philippa's treasures. The parcels were large, but the con- 
 tents heterogeneous, none new, none valuable. I noticed
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 237 
 
 this extreme and touching delicacy, and, poor fellow ! so did 
 he. There was absolutely nothing he could return to her, 
 nor object to the little animal's appropriating ; and the little 
 animal was fascinated to tameness in a night. 
 
 First she produced the cradle ; a large doll's cradle in the 
 good old wicker fashion. Then a string of amber — several 
 beads missing, and the snap tarnished. 
 
 " That was her grandmamma's, a beau-ful lady, who went 
 to Charlotte's drawing-room, inside a hoop, and she played 
 with it when she was a baby, and swallowed one," (a bead, I 
 presume, and which Avas the nominative case ?) " and had 
 some medicine to make her sick, and it came up whole." 
 
 Next was half a box of pink tooth-powder. 
 
 " I rubbed it on my ftice, and she told me not to put any 
 on my forehead, but to roudge my doll. Oh," cried Philippa, 
 warming with her subject, " I said I didn't care about a doll, 
 because it was so small, and she gave me this with all the 
 hair on, and a comb to do its hair," — a toilet dummy with 
 much of its coiffiire run to seed, and an ivory tailcomb 
 " without a -tail." 
 
 Finally, there was an enormous bundle of old Illustrated 
 London JVeics, Punches, French fashion-books, out of date, 
 and those pretty passed toy pictures, "changeable ladies." 
 Nothing that could offend or hurt the pride of the person 
 most sensitive to presents was there, but a bazaar-full of new 
 playthings would have been dust and ashes of interest to 
 Philippa in comparison. P^rom that date she ceased to be a 
 household torment, and became, what so many troublesome 
 things become under proper management — a favorite, if still 
 a trouble. 
 
 Philippa, unconsciously grateful, threw her little light upon 
 the subject too. Very soon her uncle went, too late for him 
 to have any repose (not bliss, that is different) in his thoughts 
 that day. 
 
 The child had never warmed to me at all, though she had 
 not slapped my face again, because I had not given her the
 
 238 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 chance by going near enough. Howbeit she did me the 
 honor of confiding to me the wonders of Miss Standish's 
 dressing-room ; beginning: — 
 
 " She didn't send me the fishes, because she was afraid 
 they would take cold " — (or because Ihey cost something 
 and were new, oh, tender hypocrite !) " But they are to be 
 mine when I go there, and she will take care of them. They 
 eat little bits of red meat. Oh ! I had a hot roll for break- 
 fast, and I like it much better than toast. She whistled to 
 me a real tune ; it was like the birds in the Pantheon. She 
 has got lovely, beau'ful candles on her table, and a tall glass ; 
 I could see my feet. She has got so many clothes ! I 
 stood up in her closet with doors, and she shut the doors a 
 minute, and when I came out she told me a story ; not a bit 
 like the stupid, silly stories about being good and turning 
 into fairies — but about a woman who was going to be mar- 
 ried, all in a white gown, and they played at hide-and-seek, 
 and she got into a box, and it wouldn't open any more, and 
 she stopped there always, and no one came to open her, and 
 one day somebody found a skeleton in it ! " 
 
 The idea which would keep a tender, timid child awake, 
 ghost or bone haunted, for nights, had but served as a slight 
 stimulant to Philippa. The woman who dared to tell her 
 such a story should have had the training of all children 
 whose mothers are fools or loorld bound. Her own, alas ! — 
 who should train them ? Who love them ? Where was their 
 father, and where their mother, if lie existed not ? 
 
 The child prattled, or rattled, all day. I could do nothing. 
 
 And that child Hilary — student-stuff such as cemented 
 Academe's columns — such as keeps Oxford and Cambridge 
 colleges one stone upon another — that child worked hard 
 the while. His glory was in books, and his po-wer of abstrac- 
 tion, at his tender years, shamed mine. That " knowledge " 
 was " power " he believed implicitly, as German babes the 
 Christ-child, but he thouglit, too, it was " gold." That mar- 
 vellous precocity of intellect, so unlike the precocity of genius,
 
 ALMOST A HEROINP]. 23D 
 
 which is always passionate, did not touch me ; the softening 
 of a savage thing hke the girl affected me far more. I had 
 been gathering strength from purity of motive all day, for my 
 mind was made up, if only I had means to carry out its im- 
 pulse. 
 
 I could not rest, not live, without seeing Horatia. Had 
 she not, indeed, invited me ? Had I not excuse, besides, in 
 Arnold Major's commands laid on me to return that luck- 
 less coin ? Truly ; but, after seeing tiiem together, nothing 
 would have induced me to wound, to insult her by returning 
 it. 
 
 It was Saturday — the Sabbath of the Old World — golden 
 age ! I knew Arnold Major would take the children out 
 next day, after church-time, and I determined to wait till 
 he had gone, and then do my own will. But he came home 
 awfully late ; he always did on Saturday nights, because 
 they put so much upon him, that they ought to have paid 
 others to do ; but this was worse than usual, through his 
 morning escapade. I only saw he was so utterly exhausted 
 that those who loved him could but show their love in letting 
 him alone. 
 
 Next day, after two o'clock, I said very quietly, without 
 consulting him, to Philippa, rather than to Hilary: — 
 
 " Put on your very warmest things, my child, and I will 
 fake you to feed the Queen's chickens in the Park." 
 
 Truly Horatia had sent the cold packing with her magic 
 one night's influence ! 
 
 " Has the Queen got fishes, too? I like feeding the fishes 
 best." 
 
 "Hasn't she? She has got everything — a black swan, 
 with a red bill, that swallows almond-cakes whole. Now, 
 Philippa, make haste, and be sure you put on that beautiful 
 warm jacket Miss Standish made, and I have some almond- 
 cakes ready for you." 
 
 Talk of sudden conversions ! — here was one ! She was 
 changed like March in the old proverb, when, coming in " like
 
 240 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 51 lion, it goes out like a lamb." Philippa rushed away. Then 
 I said to Hilary : — 
 
 " Go too, my boy. I want you to tell me about the book 
 you began last night." 
 
 And the boy sauntered away, too. 
 
 Left alone with Arnold Major, " Ernest," he said in his 
 own exquisite voice, lovely for its intense truth and hidden 
 tenderness, " I do thank you ; you are very kind ; you ai'e 
 like a brother, and better — better ! I thank you." 
 
 Words to use to a creature he had saved, saved from the 
 life-long uselessness of woe — whom by his advice and wis- 
 dom he had saved from literary fixilure ! Yet it is ever so 
 with natures that will have no strugrjle in dying — so near 
 they are to love's heaven, its universal charity, save and only 
 the struggle of having what they love. 
 
 And how vulgar is the gentlemanhood of England, depend- 
 ent on a few foreign tricks, infinite tact in idleness, a number 
 of other person's houses which they are franked of, and dissi- 
 pation for which they run in debt, and for Avhich they care as 
 little as for their wives, if they have any, or for any woman 
 to whom they are not married. Such men do not have leave 
 of nature to taste the luxury of love. Arnold Major made 
 a palace of a room a few feet square. I know not that any 
 one ever, in his own person, so glorified poverty. 
 
 I remember once asking him why purity of manners and 
 life are so rare ; why to ordinary and average men so diffi- 
 cult ? 
 
 " Personal purity is not more difficult than faith to the 
 soul. But who believes, and who persists in loving ? " he 
 said ; a half aphoristic sequence to my question, but scarce 
 an answer. It was his fashion ; he was too passionate to en- 
 dure long, tedious self-illustrations — too sensitive, too strongly 
 and determinedly preoccupied. 
 
 His sweet, grateful words, so undeserved, about my ridding 
 him of those day incubi, the children, entered my very heart ; 
 and, though I knew myself, I was half ashamed to deceive
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 241 
 
 him in the veiy least degree. I did, though, for I asked 
 him to let the maid go too, urging that I was frightened 
 to have charge of both the children mjself. He consented 
 gladly. I knew he would feel the lapse of perfect solitude 
 within the house as soothing as the tide-wreath melting round 
 the 
 
 Hebrid Isles, 
 Placed far amid the melancholy main. 
 
 Maid had her best bonnet on of course. Philippa never 
 would wear a best bonnet, and only appeared in her brown 
 hat, with the big black ringlets tumbled round her face. The 
 boy Hilary kept his little yellow gloves on — a faultless chev- 
 alier in embryo ; his style was always perfect. I had not 
 seen his father then, or I shoidd have seen the wonderful 
 resemblance between the two. 
 
 I took the triad in an omnibus as far as the Marble Arch. 
 As we skirted Park Lane, Hilary pointed to one of the 
 most superb houses, and plucked the maid violently by the 
 sleeve : — 
 
 " That is my fether's house, which ought to belong to me.'^ 
 
 The maid pretended not to hear, and hid her perfect un- 
 derstanding in a cough ; I did not notice ; and as for Phil- 
 ippa, the Marble Arch might have been her immediate 
 ancestor, for all she cared. 
 
 It was well I took the maid, for Philippa ran far and wide. 
 She was wild with the green grass and sweeping breeze, and 
 if she didn't pluck the flowers, it was oidy because there was 
 so much room for her animal excitement to effervesce in. 
 And I did think she would have thrown herself into the pond 
 after the royal water-fowl. I gave her a bag of cakes, and 
 Hilary another of bread, ready broken ; then I said to the 
 servant : — 
 
 " Keep them hei'e until I come back. I shall not be away 
 more than an hour." 
 
 And the marplot Philippa exclaimed : — 
 11
 
 242 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 " You are going to Miss Standisli's, uncle ; I shall come 
 too." 
 
 Do we ever go exactly as we mean along any path ? — 
 and does not circumstance direct us best ? That very mo- 
 ment, a great April cloud, heavy with its burden of delicious 
 rain and cleansing hail-shower, broke directly over our heads. 
 The pond was dimpled with immense drops — the ice-kisses 
 crackled as they fell on the gravel-walk, and Philippa tried 
 to pick them up ; I swept her away. 
 
 " Take her, carry her ! " I said to the maid, " and run ; 
 put her into the first cab you see ! " 
 
 But it is a nice thing to be overtaken by a rain-storm 
 in the great gardens of the west of London, they are so 
 wide and exposed ! Philippa was wet through, of course ; 
 such children always are, where a frailer and more spiritual 
 make would dash off the moisture like a single-bloomed 
 wood-anemone. Hilary walked with me quite composedly, 
 letting the hail whiten the whole fi'ont of his dress, and 
 behaving as though his own " trap " awaited him at the 
 Park-gate. 
 
 Here were my arrangements set aside and negatived. 
 It was hard to disturb Arnold Major from his rare repose 
 of solitude ; but, of course, he tvould interfere, and see 
 that the strong thing was undressed and put to bed — her 
 bed warmed too, and the slighter creature, who could not 
 be put to bed because he would not go, made as comfortable 
 as he could be ever, with a volume out of the forbidden 
 bookcase. 
 
 Circumstance directs us best : have I not said it ? If I 
 had gone to Miss Standish then, I should have found her in 
 full drawing-room of all sorts of persons who had the least 
 fag-end of a reason to boast her acquaintance — people 
 wearied with the church services in which they found no 
 meaning, and people who would never have found out a 
 meaning where there w^as the deepest — a cui'ious and satur- 
 ninely silly throng of
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 243 
 
 Toadies young and toadies old, 
 Toadies hot and toadies cold, 
 Toadies tender, toadies tough, 
 Heaven be thanked, I've had enough! 
 
 Miss Standish miglit certainly have quoted the last line of 
 this adaptation, whose primitive poor sally has perished with 
 its use.
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 LONDON NIGHTINGALES. 
 
 I DO not think I am a moral coward, though physically, I 
 shrink from urgent action or endurance ; else I should never 
 have done what I did that night. It was past seven, and 
 both the children were disposed of — Philippa, tired with 
 her late cold, fast asleep, and Hilary still reading his dear 
 book in the long room opposite the parlor. Arnold Major 
 (I suddenly discovered, from receiving no reply to a trivial 
 remark of mine) had dropped asleep, in the dead, deep sleep 
 of a worn-out, spirit-spent being, on the sofa. How glad I 
 was I couldn't wake him ! I got up noiselessly, went up to 
 my room to comb my hair, that I might not look like a Fury 
 announcing a Fate, and quite as noiselessly went out of the 
 house, for I went by the backdoor, and frightened the maid, 
 who was washing tea-things in the back entry, almost to the 
 extent of her taking me for a gentleman of light manners 
 and conversation. I reassured her in a twinkling. 
 
 " I am going out a little way," I said, " and came through 
 the kitchen to prevent waking your master by shutting the 
 street-door. Mind you don't disturb him either." 
 
 " No, sir," half sighing. 
 
 Was she angry with me ? If I am not " slow," I suppose 
 I am very simple, for I never detect the hidden meanings of 
 undei'bred persons. 
 
 I did not walk, because I desired to be very cool, and I 
 got to Wilton Crescent about eight. It was all but dark — 
 a fair spring evening, full of stars, but no moon. I Avonder
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 245 
 
 wliat makes me feel more romantic by night in town than in 
 tlie country ; but I do ; not in the daytime ; that is another 
 thing. 
 
 How astonished the man looked ! I didn't ask if Miss 
 Standish was at home, for she was singing, and her voice 
 swept out and mingled Avith the night-air. I only said, 
 " Could I see her ? " and sent up my card. 
 
 The man came down and said I might. 
 
 Still more amazed. It wvas evident she was breaking 
 through a rule.' The moment I began to ascend the stairs, 
 the singing ceased. This was cruel of her, because she was 
 singing a contralto solo from the " Stabat Mater," of 
 
 Kossini's luscious lamentation, 
 
 which she, of course, preferred to Pergolesi's. 
 
 I was certainly surprised to find her in the dark, the long 
 drawing-room windows showing each an arch of deep blue 
 evening and a shy twinkle of the brightest among the risen 
 stars ; one ray, besides, from a gas lamp beneath in the 
 street, poured in across the centre, and showed the shapes 
 of chairs and tables like phantoms in strong relief. Horatia 
 was standing at the middle table, her hand resting on it, and, 
 whether she knew it or not, the lamp light just touched her 
 face into a phantom, pale as all the other shapes were dark. 
 IIow pale, how awfully alarmed she looked ! And before I 
 got up to her, ^feJt the reason. She thought something was 
 (he matter with Jiim — that he was ill — that he was dead; 
 all love leaps first to this last conclusion. 
 
 " I have come on my own account — the most absolutely 
 selfish intrusion," I said directly, and in an instant the terror 
 passed to pride, as water into ice. Glacial cold was her 
 greeting, her fingers might have been*snow-drop stems for all 
 warmth or sentiency they gave, and her voice took that tone 
 I never heard in any other, of vividly clear height, like Al])ine 
 echoes. Passing strange in a voice whose singing was deep 
 toned and fiery — all summer — all midsummer too. That
 
 246 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 tone could not be kept uj) however ; her heart was too bounti- 
 ful and warm. 
 
 " We will have lights directly" she said, " and if you can 
 find a seat meantime, without breaking a limb, pray take it." 
 
 " Please don't have lights for me," I pleaded. 
 
 The terror touched her heart again. 
 
 " Is anything wrong ? " 
 
 " No, nothing ; it is only a whim of mine. I am going to 
 ask a favor, and am mean enough to prefer doing it in the 
 dark. Nor is it dark either." 
 
 " You always talk of asking favors, but they never come 
 to anything. I wish they would ; and by this time I must 
 say I expected we should have had some conversation about 
 yourself entirely. That is what I wish." 
 
 " I do not wish it. I have not come with the slightest 
 intention of the kind. But I have come to beg the revoca- 
 tion of your queenly edict." 
 
 " Oh, me ! I queenly ! What a notion ! Sit down here. 
 I have felt out this chair thoroughly, and it is a comfortable 
 one. I will go back to my old place." 
 
 That was the pianoforte stool, in the darkest corner. She 
 touched a chord or two, as low as possible. 
 
 " Of course, Miss Standish, you won't honor me by singing 
 the rest ! " 
 
 I thought she would sing herself into a state, perhaps, in 
 which she would be easier to manage. 
 
 " AVith the greatest pleasure. Why did not you send me 
 word, and I would have had out something new ? These are 
 all old things. Mrs. Le Kyteler likes them, and I generally 
 sing to her on these occasions. She never leaves her room 
 on Sundays." 
 
 Before I could reply she went on, — what into, I don't 
 know ; but to this hour I know I never dare to hear her 
 sing when I am in certain frames, and I cannot tell what 
 power it is she possesses — it certainly resides not in her 
 voice — to draw out of one every reminiscence of passion, of
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 247 
 
 pain, of agony, of love ; just as if it was all new, not past 
 anil hidden, if not forgotten. 
 
 She magnetized me physically, too, and I crept nearer, 
 nearer, till I stood behind her ; tlie full volume of her strain, 
 interfused with her fervent finger-music, wrapped about me. 
 When she ceased, and perceived me behind her, she was not 
 the least angry. To confide in Horatia oiice, to demand her 
 comprehension of you and her compassion for yourself, was 
 enough. She never misjudged you any more; no little 
 vanity excited her on small occasions, wherever she knew 
 herself appreciated. Nay, if she made your heart beat faster 
 (and she always knew it if she did), she was all the warmer, 
 kindlier, freer, for the fact. 
 
 ,She had a sort of wild vivacity about her now and then, 
 which yet was sad to contemplate ; it was so like a finely 
 trained bird, brought up from the nest, finding the use of its 
 wings on a sudden, and feeling its wires at the same instant, 
 — that yet disdains to beat its plumes against its prison, but 
 flutters them witldn, plucking the feathers from its breast in 
 that strong, passive rebeUion against its fate. Strong and 
 passive — that is what a woman's longing for her proper life 
 should be. Howbeit, this is nothing to the purpose. 
 
 " Have I pleased you, Mr. Loftus ? I sing pretty well 
 sometimes. I hate German songs ; am I very wicked, or 
 only very stupid? I can't be ignorant, I was taught so well. 
 Viardot taught me once, and hated me ; under the circum- 
 stances, therefore, she showed herself all the more Christian." 
 " Is your friend, that lady, a Jewess, Miss Standish ? as 
 she keeps her room all Sundays?" 
 
 " No, she is not ; she keeps her room because she lost her 
 husband on a Sunday. Voila tout ! " 
 
 " Dear ! — she was very fond of him, then ? " 
 " She loved him, as women ought to love their husbands, 
 Mr. Loftus ; and, as he loved her equally, I presume she has 
 the right to regret him as much as ever she pleases." 
 
 " Oh, certainly, Miss Standish ! Do not be angry with
 
 248 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 me. I only did not think she looked either very unhajDpy or 
 very much in love." 
 
 " Because she Iddes the first, and does not show the last. 
 Fie ! It is easy to see in what school you have graduated. 
 I do not approve — " 
 
 (Here Horatia grew futilely in earnest, as women do when 
 logic will not serve their end, and yet they choose to hold a 
 certain opinion no logic caii sustain.) 
 
 " I do not approve of the exclusive charity you idealists 
 and scholars indulge in ; we were sent into the world to 
 make others happy, and through lightening their cares to do 
 them good ; but you seem to consider it the privilege of the 
 few — only the very few — to be liked, consoled, or amused." 
 
 She knew she was talking nonsense. I liked it. 
 
 " Miss Standish, then you think a charming and noble 
 woman, with a heart full of concealed sweetness, is to dis- 
 tribute her feelings as well as her faculties, so as to go the 
 farthest ? — like crumbling a single loaf, and giving a crumb 
 to each of a million persons starving; you would not break 
 the bread between two mouths, or give it all to one, for the 
 one might be saved by it from death, yet it might not be 
 enough to preserve two." 
 
 " I was not speaking o? feelings." 
 
 " You said our ' exclusive charity.' I suppose you meant 
 me and Arnold Major ? His principles, however, harmonize 
 more with yours than mine do, for I never let him take any 
 pence out in his pockets, because he gives all the sweepei's a 
 help, and there are a good many sweepers in the city." 
 
 " Mr. Loftus, you spoke of a favor ; I don't perceive it ; 
 and of revocation of an edict, — some nonsense, — still let us 
 know it ? " 
 
 " You wrote me a little note." 
 
 " Did I ? I really had forgotten it clean — I write so 
 many little notes every day." 
 
 " Perhaps ; do you require them all to be burned because 
 they speak of secrets ? "
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 249 
 
 Slie put down a great chord, made it die a lingering 
 death in a winding and wandering arpeggio. I went on 
 through it bravely. 
 
 " You can't have forgotten, Miss Standish, because you 
 can take no eartlily interest in me, and ^jet you wrote — 
 wrote on purpose. I have nothing to lose by plain speaking, 
 and plainly I shall speak. The reason you wrote was be- 
 cause you Avished, in the least troublesome fashion, to break 
 your word, for you p7-omised you would tell me about the 
 mother of the children, if I 'really loved the little things.' 
 And, behold, innocent as I am of any occult motive, you 
 write, and as good as refuse to tell me ! I therefore thought, 
 being truly very innocent, that you had heard something 
 against my character." 
 
 " Against your character ! Don't speak such cant ! " 
 
 " It is your fault. Why did you show me so much kind- 
 ness — gracious friendliness — in the first instance, if you 
 did not mean me to trust you ? " 
 
 "Oh! if it is anything about yourself — that can benefit 
 you" — vivaciously cold. 
 
 " Whether it be or not makes no difference, — you prom- 
 ised. Now, I have a very deep reason for wishing to hear 
 all I can about this case, and, in the name of all human 
 gratitude and delicacy, can I ask my friend ? " 
 
 " I do not think it would be very useful to you if you did. 
 He is truly obstinate. I don't use the word in a bad sense." 
 
 " Will you tell me, then ? " 
 
 " I don't know you, Mr. Lofus, though I do believe you 
 have as fair a share of honor as of talent — only — " 
 
 " Only you cannot divest yourself of the impression that I 
 am a young man, — in common with all young men — how- 
 ever worthy (I know you are immensely charitable in re all 
 your inferior fellow creatures), and you are certain that our 
 universal motto and direction is ' Gaudeamus igitur,' &c." 
 
 " It is in worse taste for a man to use Latin than for a 
 woman to quote French," she observed, reticently, jealously. 
 11 *
 
 250 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 I took no note of that. 
 
 "But if it does not concern you, how can it matter 
 whether you tell me or not ? Who, exceqyt Arnold Major, 
 would be interested sufficiently to inquire about his brother's 
 illegitimate children ? " 
 
 " Gracious ! you know so much." 
 " No more than I showed I knew before." 
 " But it Avould do good — and it might be misrepresented." 
 " Scarcely, if it were never repeated. I assure you it is 
 most unlikely I should repeat it to the only person concerned 
 (certainly the father of the children is not), for I love him, 
 and unless we ai-e fiends or monsters, we men, we don't 
 make our best friends needlessly suffer." 
 " But I cannot imagine why — " 
 
 " Why I want to know ? What, you who have a circle of 
 about ten hundred individual acquaintances, and are inter- 
 ested in each of them personally, cannot fancy my being 
 interested in two children no one cares for, save one — but 
 for whom they would be destitute ! " 
 
 " If it is really only on their account, I do not mind telling 
 you, but it is a dull, sad story, one of the old pattern, never told 
 in booh, — only I should not like it repeated, because — " 
 
 " Have I any one to repeat it to ? Have I not told you I 
 refrained from asking him ? Would it not have saved me 
 some time and pride to do so ? " 
 
 " It might have saved you time, but I do not see how it 
 could have saved your pride." A sweet concession, in a 
 sweeter voice. 
 
 " I had a very loving and beloved father, Mr. Loftus. It 
 made me fastidious, I confess, for when I first entered the 
 world I saw none like him." 
 
 I was just going to say I had heard about her bringing up. 
 It was well I stopped myself, or I should have effectually 
 stopped her. 
 
 " i\Iy kind friend, Mrs. Le Kyteler, took charge of me at 
 bis request, and I never can express what I owe to her. A
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 251 
 
 sensitive and odd child, quite without personal charms, she 
 saved me at once from myself and others, by educating me 
 in every way, and introducing me in every place, till I was 
 totally self-possessed, andfi-ee of the society one must be used 
 to if one is to bear up on its element without fiiilure or ex- 
 haustion. It always seemed to me like learning to swim in 
 troubled water against the tide. Heigh-ho ! I don't know 
 why I improvised this auto-prelude, for the story does not 
 affect me, except that I knew of its happening among friends. 
 It was some time after Mrs. Le Kyteler went back to her 
 house in Bath, taking me with her, that it happened. We 
 had been abroad, and in all sorts of country-houses of friends 
 of hers, till we, I at least, were glad to have a little breathing 
 time at Bath, for that, if not passes, is slow these days, you 
 know. She was always an invalid, never having, as I told 
 you, recovered her husband's loss. One day, I don't recol- 
 lect the year" (fair falsehood !), " a message came to Mrs. 
 Le Kyteler to lend a certain prescription for the gout, which 
 had been preserved in her family for generations (the pre- 
 scription, not the gout.) It was wanted in a hurry for a 
 gentleman, the head of one of the best families in the shire, 
 in fact the father of the father of those very children." 
 
 "Arnold Major's father, too? Or was he a half-brother?" 
 " Certainly, his father also, but I thought you wished to 
 hear the children's antecedents. Well, the prescription was, 
 in fact, an embrocation, had to be applied in a peculiar fash- 
 ion, and, being dangerous stuff" to handle, Mrs. Le Kyteler 
 had been used to let me apply it myself where it was wanted. 
 She gave quantities away, though a mere moth of fashion, as 
 you ideals would call her. She could apply it of course, but, 
 being so delicate, could seldom get out to do so. So, this in- 
 stance being imminent, she sent me to Mr. Major in the car- 
 riage, and I was fortunate enough to be very successful ; in 
 fact, he took a fancy to me, having very much admired my 
 father ; so that was the beginning of my acquaintance there 
 — having been away so much, I had lost many traces of old
 
 252 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 acquaintances. Not the very beginning, though — I had 
 met the elder son at balls a time or two, but the beginning 
 of intimacy, for I liked old Mr. Major desperately ; a sweeter 
 creature never breathed. He had the loveliest temper, and 
 was excessively literary ; only, it was a pity, he was rather 
 weaker than his wife in the first instance — dead then, but I 
 had heard of her ; in fact, she was notorious for her maternal 
 injustice. She doted on the elder child ; her second she de- 
 tested. She actually would not nurse him, and he would 
 positively have died, but for a good woman who was nursing 
 her own baby at their park lodge, and took him, wrapped up 
 in a blanket, through the cold there, just in time. Of course 
 a wet nurse had been provided in anticipation, but she had 
 taken a fever the very day before he w-as born. Then he 
 was only seven, a mere baby, when he perceived exactly the 
 state of the case, and asked his father to let him go to school 
 abroad, ' that he might not be in the way nor make quarrels,' 
 as he said. It was done ; he was packed off to France ; the 
 elder child went to Eton, and had a private tutor, a doctor, 
 and a horse ; the younger — well, I don't know — for foster- 
 mothers are invariably jealous over their nurslings, but the 
 woman paid her own way over there to go and see him, and 
 came back to tell his father he was half starved. Then they 
 sent him to St. Omer. In fact, he never came to his proper 
 place at all until his father's illness, and, at his death, lost it 
 again. I think he carried his pride, if it Avas not the fear of 
 man, too far." 
 
 She didn't think so. I could tell that by her voice. How 
 she adored the little details, how intentionally indifferent, yet 
 lingering and explicit, was her tone ! 
 
 " Of course it is not necessary to tell you that VaUiance is 
 the nom de plume adopted from the last of his several names, 
 for, of course, you know his works; no one has not read them." 
 
 " Good powers ! " 
 
 A curious light flashed across me, lurid as a forked electric 
 beam. I did not like if at all.
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 253 
 
 " Do jou mean Arnold Major, that he wrote Valliance's 
 innumerable romances ? Why, my uncle, who let me read 
 anything, never would let me touch tliem. He said, one might 
 as well take nitrate of silver in an overdose, yet allowed he 
 was awfully clever." 
 
 " Nonsense ! I never said so, Mr. Loftus ; I mean the 
 Right Honorable Hilary Philip Effingham Valliance Ma- 
 
 How she flouted the names in very acclamation of disdain, 
 not scorn ! I don't think the waspish quality could have de- 
 fded the honey of her disposition, only she was very riglit- 
 eously indignant when she chose. 
 
 " A privy councillor ! — and leaves liis only brother so ? " 
 
 " Stay ; let us be just. He would have advanced his 
 brother in his own line. Certainly they did say he preju- 
 diced his father so bitterly as to preclude Jiis being just; 
 and to persuade him to cut that brother oflf with a single, 
 poor hundred pounds ! But, as I abhor scandal, never, so 
 help me God ! will utter it, and seldom believe even its 
 founding fact, we will not speak of that. The wrong he 
 committed against his children was certainly unpardonable, 
 though it seems another has been so infinitely blessed in 
 making it irrepaj-ahle." 
 
 " Would have advanced his brother ! Advanced ! I sup- 
 pose he would have grabbed a miserable consulship or pitiful 
 attache-ship from his enormous perquisities for him ! — for 
 him ! And you can misbelieve what you call scandal in this 
 case ! What if it were truth ? Arnold Major told me that an 
 old nurse called him to his father's death-bed, — not his 
 brother." 
 
 " But I did not know that. I could not help it. I am 
 glad, though, for it explains some things. However, he was 
 some time with his father before he died." 
 
 " So he told me. But if you mean that he had time 
 enough to plead his cause, as an excuse for the other, why 
 you don't know him much."
 
 254 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 " I didn't mean it, and I know lie never even touched that 
 hundred pounds his father left him ! The mother left her 
 whole fortune — not large, but something — to the elder ; 
 the father left the other (besides the above hundred) a few 
 choice library books — I dare say he refused those, too, but 
 didn't ask. My informant in the other case was a solici- 
 tor, who happened to be concerned in the refusal of the 
 legacy, and told me, — he is very honorable, or I would not 
 have attended to him. As for the estate, that is strictly en- 
 tailed ; it is a magnificent place. Champion Valliance it 
 used to be called ; now they call it Castle Valliance. It 
 came quite unexpectedly to the Majors, only two generations 
 back. The grandfather was, in fact, a Belgian Jew, and his 
 name was Van de Meyer, hence the corruption, which the 
 son's wife insisted on." 
 
 " Indeed ! I thought as much. At least, I knew. — "Well, 
 about this many-named individual ; is he in person at all like 
 his brother ? " 
 
 " No, no. Well, a stranger might see it — not a friend. 
 I mean you would not, being a friend of the latter." 
 
 " The child does ; but then he hates his uncle. What a 
 horrid thing it is ! " 
 
 " More horrid was his desperate cruelty to the mother. 
 Mr. Loftus, I don't know how you feel about women, but I 
 should fancy you wise for your years as well as kind. She 
 loved him so, it broke her heart. She was nothing but heart. 
 She had none of the ^ne\y -expressed instincts or intuitive 
 poetry of such persons as Marion Lyle." 
 
 " Marion Lyle ! " I thought — " oh, I begin to under- 
 stand." Then aloud I ventured, " Marion Lyle is, even in 
 poetry, an exception." 
 
 " So was this woman ; loving natures are exceptions al 
 ways, and one so excessively innocent, so ignorant, was an 
 exception greater yet. However, she was his mistress for 
 years, and devoted to him as few wives have ever been to 
 any husband. During the time, after his father's death, that
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 255 
 
 he maintained towards her a shoxo of fondness, (it was all 
 like heaven to her if he was only there), it happened to be 
 convenient to him to do so, because he was waiting for a 
 certain heiress, too young to marry, to be free. Directly 
 that happened, he left the first one straight, or rather crooked- 
 ly, and it was a very little time she lasted after thatr 
 
 Whatever did this mean ? Arnold Major had implied that 
 her forsaking her troth-plight's design towards his brother 
 had sent him wrong. And the " heiress " could not have 
 been herself ! 
 
 " Did he marry the heiress, after all ? " 
 " Oh, yes, some years ago ; nearly five ; and has a child, 
 a deaf and dumb creature, more than half an idiot, a son, 
 and none since. But we need not dwell on that point. I 
 wish women might take a lesson out of that extraordinary 
 innocent woman's book, I mean the first. People used to go 
 and tell her she had done wrong ; try to make her confess 
 it ; that always fired her. ' He could not have made me do 
 wrong, nor asked me,' she invariably said. She lived in 
 such retirement ! — cared nothing for fine things. The day 
 he sent her word he should not see her again, she put on 
 mourning, wore it till she died, was huried in it. He sent 
 her a cheque for a hundred pounds, and she tore it in two 
 bits and put it in the fire. I was there when she did it. 
 That sickly babe, the last one, was her idol, because it teas 
 the last, and I believe it sucked its death out of her veins, for 
 she was dying then." 
 
 " Do you know, Mr. Loftus," (in a changed tone, mystic 
 and secretive, but very eager too,) " I cannot comprehend 
 the best of men. I believe your friend to be one of the 
 best, and yet, can you imagine it ? He who took the child- 
 ren and the whole weight of their support — not that the 
 father offered anything for them — and who gave up every 
 prospect of his own for them — he despised or disdained 
 that dying woman, their mother who had borne them, and 
 borne such infinitely heavier burdens."
 
 256 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 " Miss Standish, are you mad to speak so of Arnold Ma- 
 
 jor 
 
 ?" 
 
 I felt on fire. Some wrathful and relentless lie was to be 
 rent or burned away. I frightened her. I made her shiver. 
 She quailed from me in the dark. I think she thought me 
 mad for a moment, but she was too perfect a woman not to 
 be sympathetic as soon as she could perceive or think. The 
 2)assion I had shown and felt, alone won the secret from its 
 deep of deeps. 
 
 No other, or inferior, emotion would have roused her to 
 self-oblivion sufficiently, or to oblivion of her pride, so dear 
 to her. 
 
 " Well," she said, " it was cruel, for when he met me at 
 her bedside, — it was only by chance, and through his foster- 
 nurse's telling me of her sufferings and her illness, that I 
 went there, — when he met me there, he treated me as though 
 I wei'e degraded, sunken, fallen, by the very contact with a 
 woman quite as good as I, and far more innocent, ybr- she knew 
 less and ' loved much,' ah, how much after she was forsaken 
 too ! — which I could not. I am by no means good enough, 
 and don't pretend to be. And if he despised me and trampled 
 on me for tending her in all woman-heartedness, what could 
 he have thought of her2 What must have been his daring, 
 to dispute such sorrow, and to call it shame ? If he be in- 
 deed an angel, he deserves, and ought to fall." 
 
 Arnold Major despise her, and trample on her! — the one 
 fadeless rose of his deserted fancy, bis bride-dream of eternal 
 longing, his passion's queen and tyrant, alike his love and sor- 
 row ! What a good thing it was I had an end in view, or I 
 might have ruined all my hopes for him by blurting out just 
 the above. The other question gave me means of an escape, 
 and something to say too, needful indeed, for if I let tliat 
 darkling romance-time elude me, never might such another 
 happen. 
 
 "I am sure. Miss Standish, there is some absurd, probably 
 wary trivial, error somewhere. I know no man so wonder-
 
 ALMOST A HEHOINE. 257 
 
 fully tender to those the world calls fallen, and esteems 
 ashamed. He does but exaggerate, if that may be, the evil 
 we men are able and apt to do. I am very open, you see ; 
 and, indeed, it amazes me to think how you could have so 
 misunderstood one you profess to have known so long." 
 
 '' I did not know him a long time ; only a long time ago. 
 Certainly I had not seen him a good while, and perhaps, 
 therefore, that was the reason he would not speak to me, nor 
 shake hands." 
 
 " Mr. Loftus " (kindling suddenly into such indignant sense 
 of injustice) " no bigoted sectarian, ice at heart and strait of 
 brain, could have shown such speechless contempt and dis- 
 approbation. He was rigid, stern, unbending ; I dare say I 
 was a coward to rush away and leave her with him, but I 
 could have been of no use to her while he stayed." 
 
 " I think I can explain it." (I spoke with the quietest in- 
 difference, just as though it had struck me without surprise, 
 or association of herself with Mm.) " I recollect hearing 
 Arnold Major say you had been much admired by his brother, 
 who had proposed to you, — in that case he might have had 
 some curious comjiunction, which I can excuse, though I don't 
 quite comprehend." 
 
 I never shall forget her then ! In an instant, her nature 
 spoke forth — so natural a person I never saw. Her pride 
 beneath it Avas like fibre that marks out and braces the frame 
 from head to foot, clothed over with the warm and vital flow- 
 ing life. 
 
 " I never had an offer of marriage from Valliance Major ; 
 if I had, at one time I might have been vain of it. I was a 
 girl, and no wiser than my years, but no merit to me ; he 
 never made me one. Heigho ! JNIr. Loftus, what an extra- 
 ordinary conversation we have had — infinitely dull for you, 
 too, and little else for me ! We will have the gas, and I will 
 show you some new books — nice books, not the dead aver- 
 age — that have been lent me." 
 
 I would have endured anything, any mood from her, or any
 
 258 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 ill chance whatsoever, now I had such a treasure in my keep- 
 ing — beyond all gold — the priceless key to open two pure 
 hearts. 
 
 I sat quite quiet. She glided from her corner in the dark, 
 and rang the bell ; pealed it twice. In an instant there was 
 dazzling and blinding brightness — all the jets at once. 
 
 Straightway she went to the table directly under the vivid 
 chandelier, and, f;xce full front to me, selected a whole heap 
 of volumes wrapped with different pale-tinted papers. 
 
 " You read French, Mr. Loftus ? " 
 
 " Of course." 
 
 " Italian ? " 
 
 " Certainly, Miss Standish. I was Italian boi'n." 
 
 " And Spanish ? — German ? Well, I can't either, de- 
 cently. But you can, I dare say ; you should, if you are to 
 write ? " 
 
 " Hard on us ! " 
 
 I shrugged my shoulders. How I wanted to be gone ! 
 
 " If you are good enough to lend them to me, I will take 
 good care of them," I added. 
 
 "I will send them, of course." 
 
 Then a shy, annoyed expression crossed her face. She 
 had forgotten she must send them to his house. But her 
 generosity conquered. 
 
 " They shall come after you, to-morrow, by twelve ; will 
 that do?" 
 
 " Perfectly." 
 
 I was sure she knew he Avould be out at twelve. Then 
 she put a piece of paper round the books, sealed it absently, 
 directed it, with full knowledge of the address, for I saw two 
 lines. I got up then. I knew better than to apologize for 
 taking up her time. I only said : — 
 
 " I thank you for your music. There are London night- 
 ingales." 
 
 " In cages, certainly." 
 
 She gave me her finger-tips in the act of ringing the bell,
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 259 
 
 and, withdrawing her hand, said very earnestly, and not at 
 all warm!)/ either ; — 
 
 " Remember, though, what I have told you is a trifle ; 
 yet ' trifles make up the sum,' — you know the rest. It is 
 all sacred, and must not be recurred to between us." 
 
 Between us two I never cared it should be ; and sacred, 
 — what a good thing she didn't say secret, out and out this 
 time ! 
 
 " Sacred," I replied, quietly, " of course ; and I will trouble 
 you with no more tete-a-fetes." 
 
 I was so afraid she would go further, extort some promise 
 extra, that I was in misery to get away. Fortunately I 
 heard Mrs. Le Kyteler's haughty highbred voice, 
 
 " Horatia ! " 
 
 " I must go to her," Horatia said uneasily, and ran up- 
 stairs."
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 MAGNETIC SLEEP AND WAKING. 
 
 As firmly as in the blessed sun and moon and stars, do I 
 believe in the fact of Magnetism, but I do not qualify the 
 term, nor say it is animal, spiritual, or odylic ; it may be, 
 perhaps must be, all. But as true as attraction in love it is, 
 I think — indeed, have known ; and hearts in harmony, 
 albeit not in unison, affect each other, I am sure, both to 
 pain, to agony, in proportion as they are untuned, or not 
 together stricken ; or to tlie ecstasy of peace when in accord 
 they Aabrate, whether near or far. 
 
 Else wiiy, for the two hours I had been away, had he 
 slept ? The maid opened the door, for I came in the front 
 way, not fearing any longer to be prevented going out. I 
 opened the parlor door; having knocked and received no 
 invite to enter, I concluded the room was empty. The fire 
 was out, the darkness visible ; still I thought it empty. I 
 fancied he had gone out. I moved forward a little, and saw, 
 to my amaze, that there he lay upon the sofa, still in that 
 deep sleep. For an instant I was alarmed, but felt my own 
 folly the next, for I heard him breatlie, not like " an infant," 
 as the favorite phrase is, but with the profound, long, even 
 respirations of a grown man exhausted, drinking, wave by 
 wave, great draughts of delicious rest. I sat down like a 
 mouse, or, rather, much quieter than ever a mouse behaves, 
 and stared at the blank shadows ; listening to the deep 
 breaths as to the "sacred" music I had lately heard! 
 
 Presently the clock struck on the mantel-shelf (a little
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 2G1 
 
 clock, ^vith a loud, shrill tongue, like a shrew's) struck ten, 
 he never stirred, and the great soft breaths Avent on. Ala?, 
 for my want of feminine forecast ! with ten o'clock com- 
 menced a jingle in the realms below, like nothing to which 
 grand persons, with large establishments, are exposed — a 
 jingle of glass and crockery — in fact, a supper tray; and 
 while I was debating whether I should go out and stop it, in 
 it came, with light, a moderateur-lamp ; worse glare, in the 
 small space, than all Miss Standish's gas blazing high above 
 one's head. With the glare, of course, he stirred, gave a 
 start that showed how deep had been the sleep, and in a 
 moment sat up. Pure and strong ! — what words has one 
 to paint certain looks in certain faces ? His forehead was 
 bathed with that dim dew of slumber which gives such 
 excessive mildness to all the lines ; his very hair hung round 
 it, softened by the tender moisture fi-om its rather rigid curl ; 
 and his eyes gleamed as if their glory were fed'from some 
 large star, by the wondrous influence of rest, which gives 
 one's idea of heaven itself a real meaning. But his mouth — 
 who does not know what the mouth reveals ? All illness, 
 care, all sorrow, all oppression, write there unfailing record ; 
 and also bliss blooms first from its expression — confesses the 
 sweet mystery before the eye reveals it, long. 
 
 " I never had such a sleep before ; never was I so thank- 
 ful. It was delicious ! I feel made new." 
 
 Then, his anxious nature re-arousing: — 
 
 " Why, surely, you have not sat there all this time ! You 
 have not been watching in the dark for me, Ernest ? How 
 truly kind you are ! How happy you deserve to be ! " 
 
 " Spare your praises, my dear fellow ! I should have kept 
 watch with pleasure, but I have been doing something better 
 still. Now sit down and eat, this moment." 
 
 " Oh, I can't eat," with infinite disgust. 
 
 I gave him a glass of wine — it was worse ; he pushed it 
 away, and looked quite sick. He threw himself on the sofa 
 ajiain and murmured : —
 
 2G2 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 " I wonder if it is right ? " 
 
 I burst out laughing. 
 
 " Right to sleep on the ' day of rest,' when you work hard 
 all the week ? I did not expect that from you." 
 
 " Not to sleep — to dream" — the last word with vehement 
 emphasis. " Because, if not right, it must be wrong. There 
 is nothing between in such a case." 
 
 This was more serious. Yet a hope stix'red in me, as a 
 bird fresh fluttering from the shell. 
 
 " You dreamed, then ? Odd, to dream in such a heavy 
 sleep ! One generally dreams when the brain is half shut 
 only. It must have been a magnetic sleep." 
 
 " My eyes were not open ; were they ? Tell me," more 
 eagerly, " did I speak ? Did I say anything ? " 
 
 " No, no, be tranquil ; or if you did, there was no one to 
 hear you. I was out. I did not say magnetic trance ; I 
 said sleep,'in which case most likely you were actually mag- 
 netized without knowing it. Perhaps 1 did it, perhaps she." 
 
 " Perhaps who ? Oh, Ernest," very bitterly, " don't torture 
 me. Indeed I don't deserve it ; and it is not like your nature 
 to take advantage of your brother's weakness." 
 
 He got up, hastened towards me with such a look of des- 
 perate distress — such self-compassion, so rarely to be touch- 
 ed in him I 
 
 " Nonsense," I smiled. " I only mean it must have been 
 Miss Standish ; she has been talking about you." 
 
 He could not speak ; he was stoned with suspense, rather 
 than surprise. 
 
 "I will tell you something, if you will confess to me 
 whether your dreams were of her." 
 
 " Yes, yes, they always are. But not like this. They 
 come, and wear me out. I am blind and thirsty in my 
 dreams, and they make me blind and thirsty all the day. I 
 cannot do my duty for them with my heart. But now ! — oh, 
 that I miglit ever forget it ! It is like remembering the fresh 
 water out at sea, it is like the scent of grapes in fever, it is
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 2G3 
 
 like a nightingale hidden in one's bosom, and singing against 
 one's heart." 
 
 " It was certainly magnetic, then. We have been speaking 
 about nightingales. Was she sinfjing in your dream ? " 
 
 But he made no answer. 
 
 " Now," said I, " I have too much regard for you to let 
 you kill yourself, and you have too much virtue to do it. 
 Let us have supper ; I, for one, make a vow not to speak till 
 it is over." 
 
 He made no vow ; but I knew him pretty well, and I sup- 
 pose he knew me : he never in(iuired what the " something " 
 wTis — no, not after we had finished and were standing near 
 the fire, side by side, just before going to bed. I had only 
 waited tor that moment, for he always put the lamp out first. 
 The fire was low ; no light came from it, nothing but a glim- 
 mer. 
 
 " It is something very particular I have found out," I said. 
 " Miss Standish never was engaged to your brother, and he 
 never made her an oflEer." 
 
 He staggered back in the half-darkness, half fell upon the 
 sofa ; for a moment there was dead quiet, like a pause in 
 life ; then strong breathing — quick and sharp — not deep 
 and slow this time — more like gasps than sighs — still not a 
 word. 
 
 " I should not have told you if I had not heard it from her 
 own lips. I was alone with her, and she said quite simply 
 — I will repeat her very words — ' I never had an offer of 
 marriage from Valliance Major. If I had at one time, I 
 might have been vain of it. I was a girl, and no wiser than 
 my years ; but, no merit to me, he never made me one.' 
 Then she twisted the conversation round to some new books, 
 which she is going to lend me, by the way, and to send while 
 you are out to-morrow." 
 
 " Are you sure? are you sure?" he murmured. "It can- 
 not, cannot be ! Oh, I must be dreaming, as I did before. 
 You have come to tempt me. You know not what you do."
 
 264 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 " I will swear, I do sweai' ; and may I nevei' speak again 
 if I have deceived you." 
 
 " Open the window, quick." 
 
 I flung back the shuttei' and threw up the sash. The 
 strong spring gust, waking shiver-like, then sobbing wild with 
 the summer promise, poured in and filled the room — not 
 only with itself, for it was heavy with the night sweetness of 
 the blossoms in the Square-garden round the corner — the 
 white lilacs, guelder roses, and briar sweetest of the sweet. 
 Well has it been said, in certain cases, that only what excites 
 will soothe. Perfumes ever excited Arnold Major, as music 
 excites those who worship it ; and he adored them. This 
 time they soothed at once. 
 
 " It is like lying on a cloud above the country, far from 
 any smoke. Oh, thank you ! Are you too tired for me to 
 tell you something ? Stay there by the window, please. As 
 for thanking you, I can do that no better than I can reward 
 you. But, poor gift as it is, you shall have my confidence." 
 
 I hardly knew his voice ; it had faltered from his eager- 
 ness ; it fell gentle as the dew, and just as penetrating. 
 
 " And that is more valuable to me than the whole world, 
 except one thing," I said. Presently he went on, more ar- 
 dently : — 
 
 " It is not needful to explain being in love, any more than 
 to apologize for it when it is hopeless. But there is one thing 
 strange to me — how any man can like his wife to be the 
 centre of a circle of petty adorers who cannot or dare not 
 love her — how he can actually exult in the power she may 
 have, innocently, over other men — how he can hear her to 
 be long enough away, and far enough off from himself, to en- 
 able others to approach her even in homage." 
 
 " I am shocked at your jealousy. It is super-refined, but 
 nothing better. Diamond is charcoal, I believe, though white, 
 not black ? " 
 
 " Nonsense ! I am not jealous ; no man ever was less so. 
 If a woman could give me cause for jealousy, I should not 
 love her."
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 265 
 
 "Just SO — allowing you could feel its very keenest tor- 
 ments ! But pray go on." 
 
 " It was only to excuse myself. I have not, however, ex- 
 actly explained. I should not like a woman I embraced to 
 have kissed another man, or received his least caress." 
 
 " We none of us, true men, should like it, I suppose ; but 
 it might have happened to the sweetest and the truest woman 
 before she tvas a woman, and most girls marry so — more 
 pity ! " ^ _ ^ 
 
 " Well, in general cases you might be right. But it you 
 knew a bad man had even passing power over her, or had 
 touched her very dress, if he had breathed on one of her fin- 
 gers, it would have been the same to me." 
 
 "I don't think you could test yourself so. A woman is 
 always noble, as well as pure, if she breaks off with an un- 
 worthy man she had to do with ; and in such case it is no 
 question of honor for her, but she is simply true to nature — 
 therefore right." 
 
 " But it was not so — it has not been. Oh, Heaven ! the 
 sweetness of wakening from such a dream as that! You 
 don't know what I was before I knew her, for to see was for 
 me to know her as well as to love. She was transparent to 
 me even where mysterious, as an astronomer reads the heav- 
 ens that yet are mysteries to him. Whatever I have endured 
 for her, she has made me what I am. I was born one too 
 many, so I was taught to feel ; before my spirit budded it 
 was crushed, all but the germ, that cannot die. It is mourn- 
 ful for a child to despise itself, — it is awful for a man. I 
 did, as both, and, though I felt my own gifts, humble as they 
 were and are, and diligently cultivated them, it was rather to 
 escape the gnawing agony of my solitude, the eternal hunger 
 of the void of natural affection. When passion came, and 
 the time for it, there was no hope ; the mood next to despair 
 clutched fast and held me. If I had not steadfastly believed 
 in my Creator, and in his unfelt love for me, and unseen 
 vengeance on behalf of those He loves, whom man oppresses, 
 
 12
 
 266 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 I should never have come back here, for I should have 
 quietly drowned myself, far enough out at sea, somewhere, 
 for my body never to be reclaimed. But enough. The time 
 came. It was hard to me to go to my father when I had no 
 sign from him I should be welcome, and was fully rewarded 
 for doing so by his taking one of the feio moments we Avere 
 unwatched, to tell me he had begged the old servant to write. 
 But Miss Standish, — she was there. 
 
 " She had no idea of doing me good, and was wholly un- 
 conscious of the tremendous hold she took on me directly — 
 I had not been a day with her in the house before her 
 extraordinary attraction pervaded me as a spell. It was 
 strangely genuine and tangible. I dared not sit next her for 
 fear I should touch her hands, her hair, for fear, indeed, she 
 should hear my heart beat, for I could myself, — for fear I 
 should forget mygelf in her, so as to betray my secret by a 
 word — a sigh. For it Avas a secret, and soon, alas ! I knew 
 it always would be. Purely physical was her first and finest 
 influence, the emanation of the spirit through the body ; the 
 rest came afterwards, but was all in keejnng. There was no 
 deception in her ; she was neither siren, goddess, nor angel 
 — hollow wonders all. 
 
 " She was spending the day there, and went home rather 
 late. "When she was gone, I was appalled at the vacuum she 
 left in me after those few hours. She had scarcely spoken 
 to me either, though she looked at me pretty often ; and in- 
 deed I was a strange looking creature, and used to being 
 stared at without interest. My brother had been at a mem- 
 ber's borough meeting, and came back just in time (he said 
 on purpose) to take her home. This she would not permit, 
 and even lie could not enforce his escort. She came again 
 next day. She was nearly always with my father ; in flict, 
 he could bear no one else to touch him, and she allowed none 
 other in the day-time. Before he died, indeed, she always 
 sat up half the night — but she was always sleepy at night, 
 like a child. Soon every room was haunted with her, and,
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 2G7 
 
 as you accuse me of magnetic tendencies, I will confess to you 
 that I have seen her sitting where she was not, standing Avhere 
 she had not been ; she rose up hfe-tinted, to tantalize and 
 torture me, and vanished as I went near. Her voice often 
 woke me in the night with speeches she had uttered during 
 the hours she had actually been present. As for her singing, 
 1 never heard it more than once. 
 
 " That once I was in the room alone. She was singing 
 for my father, who lay in the room above, and both doors 
 were open, that he might hear. I am little susceptible to 
 music generally ; that is, I care for little Avithin my means 
 to hear. She was singing a very insignificant ballad, the 
 words positively weak, the air little better. But the pas- 
 sion ! With it she wrought forth a strain seraphic, fiery. 
 I listened as a being breathing an unknown em2:)yreal ele- 
 ment ; my temples throbbed, my hair shivered, my hands 
 and feet changed cold as ice. Then again — I recur to your 
 magnetic accusation — I either fell asleep or swooned on the 
 chair I had taken when I crept into the room. I came to, 
 with a horrible shock of hlanJcness — there was no more 
 voice! Perhaps also the pungent odor of some half- 
 medicinal perfume helped it. Whence came that f It was 
 about my person. I put up my hand ; my forehead was wet 
 all over with it — even my hair. No one was in the room. 
 In another instant my old nurse came in ; she was very 
 ignorant, but very fond of me. 'Where did you come 
 from ? ' I asked, for she was generally at the lodge, though 
 just then retained up-stairs as an extra hand in nursing. 
 She bathed my head again, gave me some mixture with 
 camphor and spirit in it, still did not speak. ' Who could 
 have sent her ? ' was my next idea, and then I remembered 
 the singing — the swoon of ecstasy — the perfume on awak- 
 ening. Had she healed me Avith her touch, and left me ? 
 So she hated and despised me — as all despised and hated." 
 
 For all his magnificent pretence of Horatia being as 
 " transparent " to him as the sky to an astronomer (by the
 
 2G8 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 way, an unanalogical fancy, worthy of a lover), he could 
 have known her large charity very little, her great maternal 
 instinct still less, to think she would have left a fainting man 
 alone because she despised or detested him! One reason 
 only (and that one I had no right to hint at) could or would 
 have driven her away and made her send other assistance in 
 such a case. 
 
 " I shall tire you to death, Ernest ; yet I have hardly 
 begun, it seems. I must finish shortly. I can't talk about 
 my after-glimpses of her, for they were wild, maddening 
 flimpses. I had to see her in parties, with other men, if I 
 was to see her at all; and yet I could not help going then. 
 
 " The first time I saw that woman with her was at a ball, 
 where I was asked as a matter of courtesy, because I had 
 come home alive, I put up with anything if I could only see 
 her. That woman hated me, as a serpent a poor fluttering 
 bird. I scarce knew it at first, so wily was she ; but I was, as 
 I am now, a -man, and I never could suspect a woman of tell- 
 ing lies. She drew me to her side, spoke to me of her dear 
 charge, tried to sound me ; but the water was too deep, be- 
 cause I did not like her, and I never trust any I cannot love. 
 
 " Of my brother I cannot much speak — not from any 
 idea of its being wrong to acknowledge one's blood-relations 
 in the wrong, but I might go too far. My brother was 
 eternally paying attention to her; he was point-device in 
 gallantry. I had heard enough of him abroad, she might 
 not have known anything ; and as for his attentions, why, 
 she had so m-a.ny from so many, it could be nothing new to 
 her. And though it was that woman who told me she never 
 permitted proposals from those she did not affect, I do be- 
 lieve it, for I saw her conduct. She was not only high with 
 all men -^ she was cold as marble, but without the least 
 hardness ; indeed, she was free as air, but there seemed a 
 veil between them and her, whose tenuous strength no look 
 could pierce — a halo flung from the external chastity to 
 enwrap the inward fire.
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 2G9 
 
 " I had little communication — no communion — with ray 
 brother, he never told me his intentions. I have not de- 
 scribed liim to you because I cannot do him justice, as I 
 don't admire him, but his personal appearance, let alone his 
 genius, as it is named, bewildered, dazzled women. After 
 my father's death there came a lull which to me Avas a 
 blank space in time, like total darkness in separate confine- 
 ment. I did not go out anywhere, consequently never saw 
 her. What my brother did is of no use to recall. Howbeit, 
 he was a great deal out directly afterwards. One day, I was 
 walking along a dull path near the house, when a carriage 
 passed me in the road ; my impulse made me look into it ; 
 there was that woman, and she was there also, my brother on 
 the back seat talking to her. Oh, I remember that time ! She 
 was looking out of the window, not over-comfortable. I 
 thought she saw me — she bowed — she smiled. Such a 
 smile ! the carriage passed swiftly, but the smile stayed — 
 it was mine. Alas, for me ! that I was mad or fool enough 
 to mistake its sweetness for other than compassion, than 
 sympathy. Worldly I knew that woman to be to her heart's 
 core, if heart she has, but I thought her unworldly, of stuff 
 society can neither imitate nor spoil, nor lessen in its value, 
 like gold itself." 
 
 Not one word of his being left unmercifully poor, save 
 such a hint as this might give, and which would have been 
 none but for Iloratia's prior explanation. 
 
 " I made up my mind tJien. I had not then been told she 
 never ' permitted proposals,' — an absurd term. 
 
 " I could but be rejected, if she chose, but if I did not 
 confess my love to her, and have one chance of flinging my 
 passion at her feet, I felt my heart would burst. It seemed 
 scarcely an evil to contemplate that she might, most likely 
 would, refuse me ; it was so dehcious to think of telling her 
 my life's life out ! I was new to love then, knew little of its 
 sorrow, nothing of its sweetness, but gloried in its power. I 
 was punished for that pride.
 
 270 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 " I went to the house. Of course she could not live alone, 
 but I hated that woman to live with her. I asked for Aer, 
 not her protectress, as she called herself. Whether the 
 servant had been taught a cue I know not, but he showed me 
 into the dining-room. There sat that woman, and I could 
 not escape her nor her greeting. It was very bland this 
 time, and almost cordial. She would have made me sit 
 down beside her, but I took a chair as far as possible away. 
 I had brought myself to it, and required no courage ; my 
 impulse was enough. Never have I understood how genuine 
 love could make of a man a coward ; so I said, quite calmly, 
 'Is Miss Standish at home ? ' 
 
 " ' I am very happy to say yes, and also that your brother 
 is with her at this moment, up stairs. I dare say that I need 
 hardly tell his only brother the nature of the interview. 
 And, indeed, when I look at you, I cannot help thinking you 
 were so amiable as to come and beguile me in my suspense.' 
 
 " The strength of some feelings has an ebb proportioned to 
 their flow. I was perfectly quiet, understood her completely, 
 resolved not to go till I saw my brother out of the house. 
 
 " ' I suppose you mean that Valliance is making a declara- 
 tion of regard to Miss Standisli, Madam ? He never has 
 confided to me his intentions, still I can guess as much.' 
 
 " ' He confided them to me. Had she been my own child, 
 he could not have been more honorable and open. But he 
 ovglit to appreciate his success (as certain as his design that 
 must ever be) for it is the first actual declaration she has ever 
 permitted. Her sense of propriety, her breeding, and her 
 feminine dignity, all these have always preserved her.' 
 
 " I never thought what jargon this might be ; I scarcely 
 listened to it, but only heard. I commenced a trifling con- 
 versation, with which I took infinite pains, but she was re- 
 solved I should not stay, and would not keep it up. Then 
 it struck me I was an idiot to remain there, merely, perhaps, 
 to miss sight of him as he left the house, when I could watch 
 outside. I rose, bade her good day hastily, and went.
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 271 
 
 " I -walked up and down, avoiding the dining-room win- 
 dows, for half an hour. Then the door shut. I saw Val- 
 liance — determined to clench my destiny, that it might 
 become my support instead of my destruction. I walked 
 fost after him. I recollect how his hair looked, as I was 
 behind him, (of the curious cruel color history tells us 
 Lucrezia Borgia had,) bright yellow, thick as Absalom's. 
 How women worshipped his rich locks ! I came up with 
 him ; I governed myself perfectly, though I am a miserabh; 
 actor ; and far too natural to be ever fortunate. 
 
 " ' Have you succeeded, and may I congratulate you ? ' I 
 asked — ' Ernest, you are as simple as I in some things, 
 though we are neither of us fools.' I was certain of a sin- 
 cere answer. 
 
 "He started a little — recovered — and with his faultless 
 manner, he exclaimed : — 
 
 " ' I thank you, Arnold — I never knew your kindness for 
 me. She is an angeV 
 
 " And he hurried on. Who would not have been deceived ? 
 He was flushed — his cheek crimson. You have seen that 
 peculiar flush in little Hilary. His lips quivered — or he 
 made them quiver. In my place, would you have believed 
 him ? Would his words have sufticed as well as simple yea 
 or nay ? " 
 
 " Certainly in ijour place, because in that case I should 
 have been yourself. Now, I am different. I should have 
 bolted back to her — seen her — ashed her." 
 
 " Not if you bad been crushed and unconsidered since 
 your birth — not if you staked all on the one chance of a 
 woman caring for you, before you showed you cared for 
 her ! " 
 
 It seemed to me he had shown it pretty well, though ; 
 but I would have perished before I went against him then. 
 
 " But, seriously," I said, " you believe her, don't you, 
 when she says she 7iever had an oifer from him ? Or is it 
 my statement you don't believe ? "
 
 272 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 " Should I have told you all this — have madly opened the 
 floodgates of the past to drown myself in misery — if I had 
 not believed you, and thanked you as in words I 7iever can ? 
 I was a wretch just then, a smile raised me to heaven, a 
 tcord could hurl me to despair. It was the fault, not of any 
 accident of education, but of my innate temperament. I have 
 had experience since, sure as it was slow, and it has cooled 
 the hot metal in me — hardened it, I hope." 
 
 I could not perceive it was hardened ; as for its cooling, I 
 had not the means to judge. 
 
 " I went to London directly — got something to do." 
 
 Got something ! as if it slipped, for the asking, into his 
 hand. Never should I have hnoivn his personal extremities, 
 but for his wife's generous friendship for me, in the which 
 bonds she deemed me worthy to hear of them, to a certain 
 point. But that it Was the struggle of the exceptional^ who 
 cannot turn their hand to anything, as the phrase is, and are 
 not free of any common means of livelihood I know. 
 
 " By chance," he went on, no need to prompt him now, " I 
 met one of the men who had been invited to our best balls to 
 make up deficient numbers. He was one of those beautiful 
 heroes, a life-guardsman. He offered me a cigar, I recollect ; 
 he was a well-born fellow, and the real drill would have made 
 him something hetter. I was shabby enough, and he asked 
 me to go home with him to dinner ; I refused, being very 
 busy. Then he said, ' If you have not been home lately, it 
 may be news to you that it is all off between your brother 
 and Miss Standish. Every one is astonished ; Avho would 
 have believed Iter a jilt ? ' 
 
 " I ought to have had the spirit to ask him then Avhether 
 they had been really engaged, for I never heard from any 
 one, my fault that. I sent no address anywhere. But I was 
 exhausted with days and nights of restless and sleepless sor- 
 row, — I will not call it love, love is all warmth and sweet- 
 ness, wliether slumbering or awake. I had no spirit left ; at 
 least it was chained fast with ice-links to a rock of ice. I
 
 ALJIOST A HEROINE, 273 
 
 had hitherto heheved my brother's condition and their con- 
 nection, now I seemed to hioio it. But it is awful to lose 
 uiorslnp — esteem is a mere cant phrase, invented by love- 
 less rationalists — to lose worship, in forfeiting its object. I 
 left off adoring her because I thought her erring and unfaith- 
 ful, but all the more love rushed in to fill its room. Mind 
 me, it Avas not that I blamed her for changing her mind, on 
 learning hira better, but that I had imagined her a woman 
 who would never cease loving had she begun, and would 
 never have promised herself in marriage unless she loved." 
 " No more she would, I am quite confident." 
 " I know, I believe — I abhor myself. And liear, it is my 
 only comfort to confess, how shamefully I wrqnged her. I 
 knew my brother shortly afterwards fell back into the old 
 track from which I had fancied she reclaimed him. But I 
 did not think him systematically a seducer — the very dissi- 
 pated shrink from such a bi'and — yet there it is upon hira. 
 In the case of that unhappy innocent, it would have been like 
 expecting a lamb to refrain from cropping the fresh herbage, 
 to imagine slie would have resisted ]dm. 
 
 " Tlie fiiculty of adoration was all she possessed to any 
 purj)ose, and the master-scent, — the slave fealty — of the 
 dumb animals themselves. She was soul and body his ; his 
 must answer for her. However, it happened quite by chance, 
 I heard of her as ill, near death. The nurse I told you of, 
 and who alone Iiad my address, came to me. I went with 
 her, that day and many days. I promised her to take the 
 children, but even that instinct was dead in her. She only 
 cared to see hini, and that I could not compass. With ex- 
 cessive economy I was able to help her somewhat, for from 
 no other would she accept aid. One day — that was the last 
 time until the other day — I met Horatia there. I could not 
 speak, I should have broken down, and the woman was dying 
 under my eyes. 
 
 " It is all explained. Oh, mercy, how sweet art thou ! I 
 did not leave off loving. No, the glimpse made me frantic 
 
 12 *
 
 274 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 for weeks and month?. But it cut ine to the core of my 
 heart, and love, quick-bleedinj? till exhausted, turned to sor- 
 roAV. I told you truly I should love her were she the lowest 
 criminal, but I might not humanly desire a mortal union in 
 such case, because of the future in my children. Only so. 
 And how miserable is our judgment of women ! How poor 
 are our causes ! How insane our tests ! I fastened on her 
 blame lor non-comj)letion of a marriage which would have 
 broken my own springs of life and faith, and made her useless, 
 if not wholly wretched ; and I deemed her the cause of the 
 sad and piteous wreck of womanhood that lay there dying." 
 
 " It was not strange," said I. " But some person or per- 
 sons must have told, or acted, lies, and I should like to trace 
 and understand them." 
 
 " Soon I shall." With exultation. 
 
 I could scarcely follow him in such a daring frame. It 
 showed how strong had been the inmate of the prison, that, 
 seeing through a chink cleft open on a sudden a single beam 
 of light, it plumed its wings to fly, — it foresaw the gates 
 burst open in the everlasting morning that little ray foretold.
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 UNFOKBIDDEN FKUIT. 
 
 We talked no more that night, we two — I should indeed 
 think not. 
 
 Next morning he was gone when I came down ; I half 
 wondered whither, half guessed, for it was not later than 
 usual. 
 
 Guessed wrong, of course ; else, at twelve o'clock, almost 
 on the stroke, the parcel of books had surely not arrived as 
 it did, fastened together as I beheld the night before. I did 
 not open it then, for I had no time to read, — I wrote all 
 tlay, — with such interrui)tions as were salutary, if incon- 
 venient, till four o'clock, and then Philippa ran in, an hour 
 too soon from school; in fact, her instructress had a sick 
 headache, and had sent her prematurely home, fearing, or 
 not able to bear, her noise. 
 
 There was no quiet in the house, for it was a lovely 
 afternoon, and everything, with Philippa, was precedental; 
 she required me to take her out, and I obeyed. Coming 
 back as dusk was falling, there was no one there yet, save 
 Hilary, who had resolutely refused to accompany us. Tea 
 was over, Philippa enwrapped in hairdressing once more 
 (the dummy never failed), and the boy in the other room, 
 alone, — no Arnold Major. I was not alarmed, of course, 
 only anxious everything should go straight, and, for the first 
 time and the last, I rifled his writing-desk for the sheets he 
 had been upon latest. It was " Madras " night, and just as 
 well I was there, for, I doubt not, had the proofs of the Ori-
 
 276 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 ental ephemera been wanting once, he would have lost his sit- 
 uation. I corrected and enclosed them, and, after they were 
 fetched away, went on with the next number in manuscript, 
 finished an article ad libitum, without an idea what it was 
 about (I never heard my part of it called in question), and 
 then commenced where the reader's mark was set in the 
 middle of the second volume of a romance in blue letter 
 hieroglyph, which I translated in a short written digest as 
 easily as I could, that he might be sure I had read it, for 
 when he particularly hated a book, he was always over- 
 scrupulous to do it justice. Then I sent the imps to bed 
 (Pliilippa much exhiharated by its being an hour later than 
 their usual time), and having done all I could to anticipate 
 the following day for him, I sat and watched the fire, med- 
 itating, of course. Still wondering and wondering, for my 
 first guess had passed into supposition, and now the supposi- 
 tion seemed incredible — it was surely not like him with his 
 pride — the strictest, while the purest it was possible for 
 pride to be — to rend its veil intact abruptly. How little I 
 understood him ! — how little could I appreciate the im- 
 measurability of something in him that was not pride ! There 
 may be a class of persons with his temperament, but I ques- 
 tion if there ever existed an individual character like his 
 own. No wondrous certificate, perchance, to bestow on a 
 'mortal whose very humanity is Heaven's making; but Avhere 
 variety is infinite, the finite cleaves to the finite first, per- 
 haps. 
 
 Ten o'clock ! I could bear it no longer. I took a book 
 and stared at it, and wished I knew how to make fishing- 
 nets, or to build ships with straws (like the French jn-isoners 
 in the last war except how many ?), or to copy Jullien's 
 studies in double crayon, whatever that may be, or to write 
 little sets of verses in common metre, with only two rhymes, — 
 the second line and the last ; none of these accomplishments 
 were mine ; I was, though well educated, a very dullard at 
 accomplishments, magnificent or trivial, and at last I took
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 277 
 
 an egg-glass and turned it continually on the table before 
 nie, watching it, — never let ladies be accused of " spilling " 
 time again, — till just eleven. 
 
 At last he came, and then I haidly dared to face him. 
 The cruel fimcj seized me, that perhaps I had eri-ed — had 
 allowed my imagination to deceive me — had lured him, 
 even him, to the gates of that grave whence there is no res- 
 urrection — despair. 
 
 Fantasies absurd and worthless as the half-dreams that 
 flit with waking, uin-emembered. Not so easily, if ever, can 
 I forget his fiice, his aspect, his address. No angel now, nor 
 any transfigured mortal clothed on with superhuman glory — 
 but for the first time a man, a perfect man — his power and 
 will made one ; his love his life — both free. 
 
 I had not looked, before I knew — before he even grasped 
 my hand ; and with the knowledge, all surprise, all wonder 
 vanished ; whatever he had done seemed natural as its result. 
 
 For a few^ minutes he uttered not a word — nor I. In 
 fact, had he not spoken at all, I should have been quite con- 
 tented, because convinced ; not that I was not curious, but 
 I was not going to show it ! First came this wayward ob- 
 servation — his pride, by her defeated, revenging itself on 
 me: — 
 
 " It was all your fault, you know ! " 
 
 " I am only too happy to bear the blame." 
 
 " Do you think me wicked ? Selfish I am — I must be." 
 
 It would not do to spin out long answers, he was too 
 excited and too glad to bear them. 
 
 "In what way wicked? I can better understand the self- 
 ishness." 
 
 '■ Those children — such a burden ! I thought of them the 
 whole time, too ; reckoned all the sum of their annoyances ; 
 yet it made ?<o difference" 
 
 The exultant air, the tone of triumph, the regal brow so 
 lately drooping, how strangely they made me feel ! Our 
 fraternity of sorrow dissolved forever !
 
 278 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 "No, I should tliink it made no difference with her — 
 another difficulty would have struck me first, I own." 
 
 This was ill-timed of me, and ignorant — to suggest that 
 there could be a difficulty now the hill difficulty was melted 
 into a wide and blooming valley — the only difficulty for 
 him — the doubt of her. 
 
 He flushed and frowned — looked splendid, with his eyes 
 dilated and deep-sparkling, but very angry, too — a rufUing 
 gust one never sees disturb the ice-bound, as the summer-sea. 
 
 " Any difficulty you could suggest, might have been sug- 
 gested lefo7-e, I think," he said — fancy him so irritated? 
 " I wonder at you, Ernest ? " 
 
 " I wonder at myself that you mistake me, for I must have 
 been stupid indeed. Don't you know how exquisitely glad I 
 am? I only meant — no, I won't say that — that were to 
 bungle worse." 
 
 " Do tell me — quick." 
 
 His jealousy woke quickly, too. I dared not refuse to 
 tell him. How like a puny half-enchanted changeling I felt 
 beside his glorious manhood, sudden blossomed as the cereus 
 at its midnight bridal, or the aloe of a hundred years. 
 
 " I was only thinking of her being rich, and you — " 
 
 " And I poor ! Why on earth do you hesitate ? Am I 
 not poor just the same — in money ? " 
 
 " You know what people generally say about jjoor men 
 marrying rich women. I only thought — " 
 
 He laughed heartily. I had never seen him do such a 
 thing. His tone was half amused and half caressing — wholly 
 and superbly manlike — veiy strong ; he was like one whose 
 bonds are broken, who feels liis strength and glories in it. 
 Was that grand mood to last ? I thought not, even then. 
 
 " Ernest, you are a very child in some things ; don't you 
 know the very alphabet of the law ? You have suffered 
 enough from its letter." 
 
 " I shall understand if you choose to explain, Mr. Major." 
 
 I think my voice untoned his perfect bliss — just for a mo-
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 279 
 
 iTicnt — he was so benevolent ; tlioiigli I should have despised 
 him sufficiently, could I have enticed him, for more than a 
 moment, away from that long-earned joy, so largely paid 
 with interest now. 
 
 " There is not the slightest necessity for me, or the two 
 
 children, to benefit by Miss . Her money," with such a 
 
 smile, " every farthing, can be forced on her, and she can't 
 force me, or them, to take one ! She has always lived in 
 comfort, and will still do so — do as she pleases in all re- 
 spects. We are perfectly independent, she and I, of each 
 other's affairs, or income, or expenditure; so shall remain; 
 only we shall be one in life. I should not yield an iota of 
 my priceless rights, for she is mine, because she gave herself 
 to me." 
 
 He stretched his arms and smiled again — as if the warm, 
 delicious magnetism of touch had left the phantom of an em- 
 brace within them. I did not doubt it had. 
 
 " You mean you will have her money tied up to her ; but 
 suppose she rebels ? " 
 
 " She rebel ! She knows her real power, and would dis- 
 dain to essay a false position, even for an hour. There is not 
 one woman in the world who is so difficult to convince, and 
 who, when convinced, believes so heartily. She will know 
 my will, and do it." 
 
 " Royal style ! Well for her you are no tyrant. But still, 
 if she chooses, she can make the children — " 
 
 " Ernest, do not provoke me ; it is unworthy of you. She 
 can't make the children anything I don't choose." 
 
 " I was only going to say, ' make ' them presents.' 
 
 " And provided she did not spend enough on their presents 
 to inconvenience herself, or deprive herself of anything she 
 desired, I should thank her more heartily than the children 
 would for such tokens of her goodness, for I doubt their 
 gratitude, but not my own." 
 
 He was incorruptible — worthy of her; not a false or 
 worldly motive infected either. I thought how different I
 
 280 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 should have been myself. And yet, was I not penniless when 
 I once loved ? 
 
 " You don't ask me anything, Ernest. You don't want to 
 hear. I can't tell you much ; but I should like you to know — " 
 
 " Oh, tell me ! how could I ever ask ? Who cares, if not 
 I ? Who wants to hear ? " 
 
 *' I do7i't forget you, though I seem as if I forgot your kind- 
 ness — it is because I am no woman ; I cannot express to 
 you. Some day she shall thank you for me. I tell you 
 she is grateful too, and she says there is not another man or 
 woman in the world, young or old, wise or foolish, who would 
 have drawn from her what you did. I know not your secret. 
 She says it is your sympathy — I say, your passion." 
 
 " It was only my power of loving, if that is sympathy and 
 passion too. I thought it was sad you two should not be one. 
 No decree of heaven parted you, and man's (to me) are as 
 tow in a redhot furnace — that was all." 
 
 " It seems impossible — that this morning — Well ! Ernest, 
 I was more miserable and self-disgusted this morning than 
 ever, and I thought I Avould try to annihilate my own desires, 
 by cutting off dead my hope. I had not the slightest idea, 
 when I went into that room this afternoon, that I should not be 
 refused. I wanted her to refuse me, reject me, disdain me, 
 rather than not see her again, for since that night I have been 
 starving for her ; I think, rather, I was like those who die the 
 thirst-death in the desert. I have never felt so inhuman in 
 my life as this day. And yet my humanity never so far pre- 
 vailed. But when I saio her, it was enough ; her distant 
 greeting, so alarmed, so cold ; her pride that sprang up, and 
 covered her all over as a woman-wari'ior, whose sex is 
 mailed. I must have been a demon or a brute, if I had pre- 
 served my craven self-contempt before her. I thought of 
 God and my own soul, that not only my soid he had created, 
 \>nt me, my body — that if he made me, and was all love 
 Himself, surely it was my right, in so far as I knew myself 
 pure of purpose, to speak my love as well as feel it.
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE 281 
 
 "And I did — it all came out — before I explained or pre- 
 pared her the least. I could not have apologized; it would 
 have been mean. And she — oh she ! — I don't think she 
 was surprised ; how miserable I should have been to have 
 surprised her ! then she could not have been thinking of me." 
 Not surprised ? Oh ! woman, thou art the only holi/ hypo- 
 crite, for thy deceptions are ever born of love ! 
 
 He had fallen into a delicious reverie — his eyes were 
 feasting on the unseen ; his lip looked as if yet tasting kisses. 
 Only Horatia, of all women, could have suited Arnold Major, 
 because none other would have behaved as a wife to him be- 
 fore espousal, in everything but marriage. I don't believe he 
 would have borne the effete absurdities of a lingering court- 
 ship, regulated step by step. 
 
 Had he died after their first kiss (returned as freely as re- 
 ceived), she would have been his widow in her own esteem, 
 for life. 
 
 " She is brave ; I don't know that I could have sent such 
 a message, in such a tone — that Avoman sent upstairs when I 
 had been there half-an-hour about, to fetch her down to dinner. 
 This was in the middle of — Oh, Ernest! If I had been 
 killed, I could not have uttered a word. She went to the door 
 and said (her very clearest) : — 
 
 " ' Tell her to be so good as not to wait for me, for I can- 
 not come. I am engaged with a friend on business.' 
 " Then she came back to me, and trembled like a leaf. 
 "I must tell you one thing — that, too, I know no other 
 woman would have confessed. In her oivn voice, too, not the 
 voice her acquaintance know for hers, nor her admirers think 
 so charming, but which speaks into one's open heart. I never 
 forget her own words, either. We had been talking a long, 
 long time, (how dreadfully famished she must have been — 
 how awfully selfish I was !) and had spoken of course about 
 the celebrated proposals that were never made. 
 
 " ' One hears curious things, you are aware, about one's self 
 — things that might have happened, and things that never
 
 282 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 happened and never could ; but now and then it is droll to 
 hear the truth, and does one no harm, I fancy.' " 
 
 Horatia's exact trick — I knew it — and he actually had 
 caught her accent. Were they not already — 
 
 " Distinct in individualities, 
 But like each other even as those who love ? " 
 
 " ' I admired your brother very much, when I was a mere 
 girl — he was very beautiful, and I own I was flattered by 
 his little notices. I thought him a genius also, and I had the 
 over-regard for genius Avhich 3'oung persons are apt to enter- 
 tain. But long before the time you speak of, I had lost even 
 admiration for his genius. I might have avoided the honor 
 he had in contemplation to do me, but I was wicked enough 
 to uiish to refuse it. I knew he was not formed of stuff to 
 hurt. In due proportion was my punishment — I never had 
 the chance ! Yes, Mrs. Le Kyteler had prepared me for it 
 — he had spoken to her and she to me — but I began to re- 
 pent, long before he came, that I had allowed him to come. 
 What I passed through is indescribable. He did not know 
 she had spoken to me, but when he came in I thought I 
 should sink into the floor. I knew I should not find the 
 words I wanted — I didn't want them though ! 
 
 " ' In a few minutes I got quite straight, and began to won- 
 der when it would come. It was a strange thing to do, but 
 he began to question me rather freely about certain opinions 
 of mine which I never withhold, but which he had not hap- 
 pened to hear me mention, because he was not a person I 
 ever felt at home with, or sure of. On this occasion my good 
 genius impelled me, and I talked out an immense time, — to 
 me it seemed ages. Then suddenly he got up and went 
 away ! 
 
 " ' Mrs. Le Kyteler questioned me closely. I told her the 
 simple fact ; she absolutely would not believe it ; to this day 
 I fancy she does not. But she was truly very angry with 
 me, and according to her views of the subject, I deserved it.
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 283 
 
 « ' It was droll ; but sometliing must have been said some- 
 where, foi- I was told I was positively engaged. Several 
 persons would not believe I bad not, as I tell you, had the 
 chance. 
 
 " ' Then they said presently ivhat you know, and I won't 
 repeat. It was useless for me to contradict that report, 
 because I had contradicted the Jirst one without being 
 believed.' " 
 
 " Yes, Ernest," — I quite started at his relapse into him- 
 self — "she was too proud to say so, or at least, I cannot 
 repeat her words just there, but I do believe that brother of 
 mine pretended he was engaged to her ; gained the credit, 
 without the trouble, for a little time." 
 
 " The trouble ! " I exclaimed. It was dark to me, that. 
 " I forgot I have not told you all. I can't act any more. 
 I must be myself, or I shan't come to at all ! There was, 
 of course, the usual — no — twice the usual amount of disa- 
 greeable gossip, and it had almost died out, when my dar- 
 ling's godfather — " 
 
 How the sweet word thrilled from between his lips ! He 
 stopped a second, as if listening to it himself. 
 
 " He is a noble old man, her father's great friend, Sir 
 Verveyne Waters : she was a wondrous pet of his, but he 
 had been in India some years, only returned after Rangoon, 
 hard wounded. Then he could not do enough for her. One 
 day he went to see her — as he was always doing indeed — 
 and asked her point-blank whether Valliance had proposed 
 to her. (Now he hated Valliance's political pretences, I say 
 not himself, and was known to have mainly contributed to 
 the overthrow of some intention the Government had half 
 assumed to send my brother to India.) She answered quite 
 simply ' never,' and then he urged her a little, and being so 
 dotingly fond of her, perhaps he had as much power to win 
 her friendly confidence, at least as any woman. She told 
 him exactly what had, and had not happened — her protec- 
 tress's hints, all — in fact, not concealing her intention of re- 
 fusinjr him.
 
 284 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 " Sir Yerveyne then explained his motives for inquiring 
 — that he had heard it broached, and never believed her to 
 have jilted Valliance. ' Now, my dear child,' he said, (she 
 told me,) ' I should have honored you far more for jilting 
 him than for marrying him, if you had ever promised. But 
 I think it due to you to tell you, that I heard from his own 
 lips tohy he never declared to you. I found it out myself. 
 I bamboozled him a bit, flattered him overmuch, and whee- 
 dled monstrously.' 
 
 " ' I will tell you," at last he exclaimed, with one of his 
 dainty oaths. " I was fully prepared to do so — what an es- 
 cape for me ! I was treading on a perfect volcano, in a state 
 of non-eruption ! How could I have guessed it ? — For a 
 Avoman to sustain me in society, to rivet my friends and fas- 
 cinate my foes ; to take a high place on her own account as 
 my wife, and keep it on my own ; and to preserve my male 
 diners in excellent humor, and make my lady-guests less 
 scarce ; to bear me an heir or two, in case a single specimen 
 should foil to flourish — why, she seemed perfect — the very 
 pattern. For I could not have been bored with a beauty, to 
 trail all the youths and bachelors at her flounce, as a magnet 
 attracts steel-shavings ; nor could I have endured a woman 
 for my wife, who could not hold her own in conversation, 
 and soar above the average in entertainment. Absolutely I 
 was all but sold ! I never imagined her with the remnant of 
 a heart, save the calcinated ember such an education as her's 
 is meant to reduce all such hysteric nonsense to. And I 
 IouikI — why, at first I thought she was acting — on the 
 stage one miglit even have bravaed her, and thrown her a 
 bouquet — but for a woman in her senses — a woman born 
 for any social end, it was terrible — tremendous ! Her 
 views and her ideas ! why, they drag her to the very verge 
 of vulgarism ; and vulgar she ought to have been — not fash- 
 ionable as she decidedly is. A wife with feeluicj ! Give me, 
 with such a bargain, a halter of the ancien regime round her 
 throat that at least I may sell her on the shortest notice."
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 285 
 
 " The heart is better than the liead soinetimcH, then, and 1 
 always thought so. But there must have been a tolerably 
 elear head to i'uresee the need of the heart's ageney." 
 
 I said this only to say something, for he stopped just so. 
 Is not the exhaustion from ecstasy or enthusiasm greater and 
 more sudden, if less subtile and intense, than that from sor- 
 row or endurance ? Surely, for he sank down all at once. 
 He would not have confessed it, I suspect, but iiave talked 
 all night in fits of forced reanimation, fed by too frequent 
 draughts of intoxicating reminiscence. 
 
 I pretended, therefore, to be overtired myself. 
 
 " I am so desperately done with your recitals, that go to 
 bed I must." 
 
 " Oh, don't let me detain you ; how hateful of me ! I 
 wonder if I shall ever feel tired any more." 
 
 " Don't fear to feel sleepy at least, for now your conscience 
 need not forbid your dreams." 
 
 He was no more a thorough-bred hero, than she was a 
 perfect hei'oine. Fancy a hero man-ying a woman with 
 money when he himself has none ! Perhaps something 
 sweeter for this world, and better stuif for spirits and spir- 
 itual bodies in the next, was in them both. Was not Knowl- 
 edge the forbidden, and Love the unforbidden fruit ?
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 FLOWER TIME. 
 
 They say a marriage makes greater change in a family 
 than death; and so it ouglit, but only those distraught beings, 
 who dwell on the threshold of courtship's temple, know the 
 consequent and emergent chaos created in a small respect- 
 able establishment whose head is " within the veil." I do 
 not love taking upon myself, but was obliged during the next 
 month or so. Certainly it was flattering to be confided in, 
 (or would have been, but for the reason of the confidence.) 
 Arnold Major told me " he left everything to me ; " and so 
 he did, even to the keys, and I Avas a week learning up the 
 locks they fitted. I have often heard the domestic menac/e 
 of university dons lauded, but never believed in their econ- 
 omy, though readily in their regardlessness of expense ; and 
 I put to the test now the superexcellence of that excellent 
 thing, a good housekeeper. I was not one — could not be, — 
 the week's bills were all a pound higher than the average of 
 the maid's reckoning ; though that was only the tenth part 
 of " Mr. Glashier's " celebrated " forty -three years." She 
 and I ever were in consultation, and could never tell how it 
 happened. I am sui'e she didn't spend it ; she couldn't, for I 
 paid for everything as it came in, just like her master. How 
 I marvelled he could do it, and yet keep his head clear ; I 
 could not : and attempted not a single literary or scholastic 
 experiment all that Io)i(f short time. 
 
 I recollect, a very few days after the engagement so inter- 
 esting to me, but which I had not thought it possible could be
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 287 
 
 even imrticnlarhj known as yet, Arnold INIajor came in for a 
 ^cw moments at six o'clock, instead of going straight to lier, 
 as was his wont, for nothing couki tem})t him until freed in 
 the afternoon, I knew that. He had a letter in his hand, 
 Avliich he handed to me, a regular business formulary, written 
 in the middle of a square blue sheet, stamped Avith the pre- 
 I^ossessing " mark " of " Brown, Jones, and Co." I was 
 horror-stricken at first, fearing he w'as dismissed from the 
 situation he had gained so hardly and filled so well. It 
 was a direct oifer to raise his salary two hundred a-ycar 
 more. 
 
 " "Whatever is the reason ? — anyhow it is a good thing — 
 but Avhy just now ? " 
 
 " Because they have heard. That exalted gossip, Sir Ver- 
 veync Waters, deals Avith them, and indeed was the means 
 of their Madras connection, Avliich is immense ; he could not 
 hold his tongue, and this is the result." 
 
 " Is it possible ! I never shall knoAV worldly people to the 
 bottom." 
 
 " HaA'e dregs any bottom ? " 
 
 " Of course you Avill accept it ? " 
 
 " Of course refuse." 
 
 " Why, do you mean to say you don't earn it ? " 
 
 " Possibly ; but tliey AA'ould subtract the extra sum in 
 driblets from five or six of their other underlings. Did you 
 fancy it would be a fresh scoop from the mine ? I knoAv 
 them better. Will you ansAver it for me in my name, and 
 say ' no ' in my Avay — you knoAV hoAV ? " 
 
 " Of course I Avill, and imitate your hand, too." 
 
 This Avas the only time he came in till near eleven ; and 
 hoAV angry he used to be Avith Mrs. Le Kyteler, because she 
 drove him aAvay at ten. 
 
 " She A\'on't let us alone ; she always sends Avord that she 
 has gone into her room — and of course that is my signal. 
 She used to be up all night at parties, and often sits awake 
 for hours now. There is one debt of gratitude I owe
 
 288 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 lier ; she will enable rae to ask Horatia for herself the 
 sooner." 
 
 I know it is the flishion, in romance, to make courtship the 
 Ultima Thule of romance — to pour out on it the full libation 
 of authoi'esque means ; to rarify and sublimate the condition, 
 as though marriage after it were tame and cold aivahening 
 from Paradise to platitude. False utterly, in essence and 
 expression, this misrepresentation. A progressive state of 
 any kind is decided on and receives its character from the 
 end which crowns it ; and in such a sense, perhaps, this fash- 
 ion of writing is correct (if not true), for their Active mar- 
 riages are as unlike true marriage, as their " romance " is 
 unlike poetry. Courtship, exquisite as it must be, fraught 
 with delicious emblems, and " breathing spring," is merely 
 valuable and substantially a treasure of the being, in propor- 
 tion to its fixed results. Therefore, to a looker-on, who is 
 desperately interested and sincerely sympathetic, there is 
 something painful in it, while so tender — the greater the 
 chance of perfect happiness in union, the more the passionate 
 suspense is overwrought to fear. 
 
 I was not singular. I recollect his saying to me, one night 
 about a week after that glorious one he came home changed. 
 
 " Oil, Ernest ! I tvish we were married. I should not 
 care how long I courted afterwards — but one of us might 
 die ! It is not ingratitude — but life is short anyhow, and 
 love makes it shorter ; — time at least. Nothing that hap- 
 pened then would matter ; but now I cannot bear sometimes, 
 yet must, to leave "her. It is unnatural, when love is per- 
 fect." 
 
 I thought so, too. I had thought so often, when musing 
 on that, the 07ilg subject eternally fresh, and from which 
 springs Wisdom in an everlasting fountain, free to all — of 
 which few taste — and those Avho taste drink deep, and drink 
 forever ! 
 
 " My dear friend, why do you not strike a blow at con- 
 ventionalism, which, it seems to me, a brcatli could break
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 289 
 
 down, like a house of caixls ? You could many ivlien you 
 choose." 
 
 " Aud never give her time enough to find out that — truly 
 
 — she does not detest me." 
 
 Oh, jealous ! did I not know it aforetime ? Well for him 
 he had found her ! 
 
 " You really do mean to say that is your reason ? " 
 
 "■ Tlie only one. I torment myself awfully for fear she 
 should find out she cannot personally like — not only love 
 me ! " 
 
 Poor, dear lioratia ! I felt certain she was fretting on 
 ])recisely the same point — reversed in her, of course — lest 
 she too should fail to please. But women are the only proud 
 ones after all ! and the only faithful ; — not more constant 
 than we men, for I do think men and women divide the 
 laurels there. 
 
 This end of conversation was one among many ends, most 
 shorter. I had rather too much tact to plague him with 
 " dowdy " details of my domestic non-success. And working 
 so liard all the bright daytime (as romantic to true lovers as 
 twilight, star, or moonshine) he did deserve his evenings — 
 besides there is a " time to love " — and were love made the 
 chief business of life, all living truths Avould flourish better, 
 whatever might become of 
 
 " Gold and Clay." 
 This, by-the-bye. It was (I suppose as is usually the case) 
 the doom and glory of the servant to enlighten the children 
 
 — for I never told them, not exactly knowing how to do it, 
 and dreading Philippa's delight as much as Hilary's dis- 
 pleasure, of the latter feeling sure beforehand. About the 
 end of the first week, the boy came sauntering in, with that 
 listless elegance very peculiar to men of letters, men of uni- 
 versal modern literary dilettanteism (not learned men) — and 
 wliich sat upon this child as upon a man. Generally, I took 
 no notice of him when he entered so, a very uncommon thing 
 in the forenoon, when he was wont to be chained to his books 
 
 13
 
 290 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 — and Avhen he only came, if he wanted a word in a dic- 
 tionary or lexicon ampler than his own. To my amaze, he 
 stood still at the table, leaning his angular little elbow on it. 
 I was trying to unconglomerate a nucleus of items in a gro- 
 cer's bill, which were inconceivable to realize, because the 
 children had had neither tart nor pudding, only boiled rice 
 the whole week, after their daily dinner. 
 
 There must, I suppose, be a dcavn of the magnetic gift, either 
 affective or receptive, but the wondrous quality in Arnold 
 Major's gaze that had so often fixed and made me quiver, a 
 look he had no idea of possessing or using, (he made the very 
 least of all his own charms always.) that quality had been 
 inherited in very diminished quantity by his brother's eldest 
 son. 
 
 I w^as writing figures, as I have said, and quite without in- 
 tention was drawn to look at him. 
 
 I noted the bright, steadfast point, the speck of attraction 
 in the pupil of each eye — next instant it had passed — flit- 
 ted like lightning. A heavy dimness overspread the poor 
 babe's vision — he half reeled to my side — and, oh, strange 
 fact, passed his little arm about my neck, and bowed his head 
 upon my shoulder. His tears, few and big as the sultry heat 
 drops that never I'efresh the earth, fell into my very bosom. 
 I had never seen this child cry a child's tears, so wild and so 
 wetting to the full, any more than I had seen him laugh the 
 laugh of childhood. But I knew better than to inquire. I 
 waited rather. 
 
 He did not sob, his temperament Avas too reluctant, too re- 
 served. Soon he was tearless as the drought. 
 
 "■ I want to go and live with you. I won't live with them" 
 he said. 
 
 Can it be believed that my o-Kn false position in the future 
 home of Arnold Major had never struck me ? I take no 
 credit to myself; no innocent expletive will serve to mask 
 my folly ! I believe I was at once too unconventional (Oh, 
 curse in this strait Britain, over-peopled and overworked !)
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 291 
 
 to reflect on my own future at all. How tliankful was I to 
 the child! For, thougli integrally as poor as a gentleman 
 could be, I made enough to be able to pay for two rooms, and 
 keep them clean besides. 
 
 Selfish as those wrapped in comfort and in custom (the 
 highest luxuries of the ideal, whose minds can only act per- 
 fectly in a physical calm) — selfish I had truly been. But 
 now I saw, perceived, and felt. 
 
 « Don't you like your uncle to be so happy, Hilary ? " 
 " As he pleases. I don't care about that, but I don't 
 choose to live with a woman, since mamma was laid out ; 
 and I won't. If you will take me to live with you, I will 
 work hard. I will copy all your books, and clean the grate, 
 and go out and beg — anything ! Not that I particularly 
 like you, but you don't look happy, and I hate happiness." 
 I thought a moment. 
 
 " Then my dear child, if your uncle alloios you to leave 
 him and live with me, you certainly shall. I am very poor 
 — you don't know that." 
 
 " Oh, yes I do ; but you are far cleverer than he, and can 
 teach me, if you will." 
 
 Not a particularly available cleverness, thought I. 
 " As for his allowing me, how can he do that ? He has no 
 power over me — no one has — in law." 
 " What can you know of law ? " 
 
 " The woman told me, and mamma too. It was only be- 
 cause she told me she desired me to come home with him 
 here, that I came ; she would have liked you better, if she 
 had seen you." 
 
 Then he relapsed back, impracticable as are Druid re- 
 mains. 
 
 It was detestable to intrude my own affairs on Arnold 
 Major ; but I knew the breach would have to be made some 
 time, and the present was the best. That very night when 
 he returned, I exclaimed, athwart tlie sweet, warm dream 
 which flushed his very face yet, from his fancy : —
 
 292 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 *• I can't bear to bore you at tins moment, and I believe 
 you know it ; but one thing I must say, rather ask. You 
 have often trusted the boy to me ; will you do so entirely for 
 the future, making whatever arrangements you please, of 
 course ? " 
 
 " What do you mean ? " 
 
 The dream was troubled with his real surprise. 
 
 " Only that he asked me to-day whether he might live Avith 
 me when I leave you." 
 
 A perfect storm of expressions swept over his face — per- 
 plexity, distress, annoyance, generosity. 
 
 " How unutterably clumsy I am ! How ungrateful I must 
 seem ! Forgive me, if I don't explain to you to-night — only 
 do not speak of going." 
 
 And (perhaps to prevent it effectually) he went himself; 
 and came down stairs no more that night. 
 
 Next morning there was a little note, very short, and I did 
 not expect to hear its contents. Howbeit, after breakfast, he 
 said to me, just as the children had vanished : — 
 
 " She wishes for Philippa to spend the day there ; in fact, 
 she wanted me to promise last night, and I persisted in re- 
 fusing, knowing the trouble it would entail. Now I dare not 
 — the command is peremptory." 
 
 " Will you tell the child ? " 
 
 " I really cannot." 
 
 I could quite understand that he coidd not. I am sure I 
 could not have named " my love " to Philippa. As soon as 
 her uncle was out of the house, I informed her she was to 
 go, to be fetched at eleven ; and at eleven she was fetched, 
 to her wildest glorification, in the brougham. Thus early had 
 she been glorified, because she was to be returned at four. I 
 wondered, till I saw her back again, where she would be dis- 
 posed of by her hostess in the evening, and her good-humor 
 was sustained by the memories of a visit to the Zoological 
 Gardens and a real ice in a confectioner's. Also the posses- 
 sion of a pack of playing-cards, with a deficit of five, a stuffed
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 293 
 
 humming-bird without a glass, a pocket-book of 1830, with a 
 quantity of silkworms'-silk in skeins between its leaves, a 
 nutmeg in its native mace-sheath ; and last and best, some 
 easy knitting, begun with large pins and very bright scarlet 
 wool. Only a woman would have devised this blessed expe- 
 dient for keeping such child out of mischief; and for the 
 next week she was " seen and not heard," so intensely was 
 she occupied in making, as she expressed it, soldiers' garters. 
 
 The very day after her visit, behold, 1 was sent for. 
 Never had I been more astonished, for what could Miss 
 Standish want with me ? I said so to him, for he gave me 
 the message late at night ; no more little notes for me. 
 
 " I suppose you will allow it to be a gratification to see 
 one's friends at all times," was his answer ; " if you do not 
 intend to go, why, it is for you to say so, not for me." 
 
 " I should like to go ; I have been dying of curiosity, as 
 women say, to see her ever since — still I cannot fancy — " 
 
 " As curious as a woman, too. I think," he said with a 
 wise smile — a smile that breathed admiring pride. 
 
 " Do go, if only to gratify me." Sufficiently gratified he 
 looked already. 
 
 " What time ? " 
 
 " About five. I shall come an hour later on purpose." 
 
 " Dear ! what ceremony ! (I wonder if you ivill.) How 
 can it take an hour ? " 
 
 " It may, if you are obstinate — take more — one word, 
 Ernest — you do not know how sensitive she is. Pray do 
 not hurt her ; I could not hear it." 
 
 " Good powers ! how could I hurt her ? /.' " 
 
 Not a word more could I ehcit, and these few words made 
 me very nervous I confess. 
 
 At five I went, next afternoon, not less nervous. I was 
 more so than ever, and my heart throbbed with suspense. 
 The servant who opened the door looked so disappointed at 
 me. I liked this — it showed that her kindness to her de- 
 pendants had won its just reward, so seldom given, because
 
 294 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 so rarely earned. Tlie man was disappointed that I was not 
 bis mistress's " sweetheart ; " — sweet word, that ever it 
 should grow wild, and be used at random ! — vulgar it can 
 never be. 
 
 Horatia was alone in the drawing-room ; one glance at 
 her attitude (few figures have such extraordinary expres- 
 siveness as hers) before I saw her face, restored my proper 
 equilibrium. She was thrice as nervous as myself; I went 
 up to her, and bowing, said : — 
 
 " It is very kind of you to allow me the great pleasure of 
 seeing you — of congratulating you, Miss Standish ■ — you 
 will understand me. I do truly understand him and hig 
 happy fortune ; he is almost worthy of it, if one man may 
 say so of another." 
 
 I had better have held my tongue — I hardly " under- 
 stood " her. She scarcely touched my hand — but just ges- 
 tured towards the sofa. I took a chair near it — then she 
 sat down, still turning her eyes from me, but I could see her 
 face in full. 
 
 The most beautiful and original of all Lady Eastlake's 
 similitudes struck me then and there as true to nature. She 
 speaks of the mysterious, almost bewildering foscination of 
 the " orchidaceous countenance ; " rare in humanity as its 
 type in flower-life. Horatia's face had this strange charm ; 
 expressions rived one's sense in her, that would have merely, 
 in instances of prettyism, touched the eye and vanished as 
 unseen. So, bathed in tlie soft glory of intense yet unper- 
 fected happiness — the morning twilight, as rosy-dusk as the 
 evening's is purple-gray — she struck me in a new and 
 touching fashion. What blessing that he not only passion- 
 ately longed for, but immeasurably loved her ; mere pas- 
 sion would have drifted her from a rock of loneliness to a 
 whirlpool in which she would have been whelmed like a 
 weed, and yet a heart brimful of calm affection, such as 
 Saxon Avomen are wont to crave as love — would have to- 
 tally failed to bind her, or to bless, — nay, it might have
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 295 
 
 stirred up a spirit in lier which no man could have held in 
 check ; from which rather he would have been glad to ily. 
 
 These thoughts, mere foncics after all, passed swifter than 
 "a summer cloud." Meantime, it certainly was three or 
 four minutes before she deigned, or was able, to speak. 
 
 She wore black silk ; nothing became her so well, I know 
 not why, for a less nun-like or sad-like person I never saw. 
 It pointed her characteristicalness, however, like a very deep 
 " tone-bath " a fine photograph. Two ends of amber ribbon 
 in her hair behind, her only bit of color, except that she had 
 a little ring, simple and inexpensive as possible, a narrow 
 flat gold one, on a certain finger. She had been fond of 
 sporting a great many rings, — she was a very Jewess in her 
 taste for jewelry, — and they became her ; now she had put 
 them by ; and I think her singularly gracefid hands looked 
 gracefuUer without them. 
 
 I was idiot enough to dream of carpet-knighthood, and 
 began to speak of sundry circumstances, stale, second-hand 
 as strawberries two days old. The season (much I knew 
 about it), operas (what would I not have given to know out 
 of the " Athenaeum's " critiques), plays at the dear " Prin- 
 cess's," which, known to me by heart from childhood, were 
 Paradise after the gates were shut to my experience. She 
 took her very easiest tone, and coldest too, in answering all 
 my observations ; and I was growing frightened rather than 
 once more nervous, when she exclaimed, — 
 
 " Mr. Loftus, I should not have taken up your time for 
 nothing, believe me. I have something to say, and fear to 
 annoy your pride. I don't say hurt it, because you know 
 I think it does want pruning very much, and only you your- 
 self can doctor it aright. We are all more or less depen- 
 dent on those we love ; and no difference of opinion among 
 us can destroy that fact. Do not be vexed if I say that I 
 think you, and one who is more dear to me than you can 
 either of you imagine" (what an inclusion!) "are not the 
 very best comnanions for each other, without another, or
 
 296 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 third person, wholly devoid of your super-social idealities, to 
 mediate between you, (not keep the jieace), but to preserve 
 your bodies from being starved or rarefied into uselessness." 
 
 What a tirade ! I knew it was but the introduction to 
 some benevolent design of hers which she was ashamed to 
 announce oiF-hand. 
 
 " I thank you, Miss Standish, for coupling my name with 
 his at any rate, it is an honor I always strive my utmost to 
 deserve." 
 
 This speech pleased her ; I saw her face kindle. 
 
 " I dare say you have been pretty comfortable together, 
 you two," with her rather saucy smile, not looking at me. 
 
 " I have been something a little better than comfortable, 
 Miss Standish ; but as for him, I don't think he ever was 
 comfortable in his life." 
 
 " For the rest of it, I hope he will be." 
 
 Quite simply, but very tenderly ! Suddenly she flung her 
 hands together and interlaced the fingers, turned desperate, 
 took her haughtiest tone, wliich, strange to say, was often the 
 kindest possible. 
 
 " You see, he repeated some nonsense to me yesterday of 
 which I should have believed you incapable. Once for all, 
 if you refuse to share our house — I don't say our home, for 
 you shall be as solitary and independent as you think proper 
 — why, it will make a very serious difference to us, for I 
 will not marry if I deprive you of such a friend." 
 
 O, Horatia, it was well for you you were not put to the 
 test ! As a peroration, it was, however, very charming. 
 
 " What do you mean, Miss Standish ? Do you suppose a 
 man like Arnold Major w^ould endure a third person between 
 or near him and his ? — forgive me, but I was startled. There 
 is no difference — will be no loss to me, except of his society ; 
 and that I must, I suppose, give up if he marries ! I should 
 rather think so." 
 
 " No, no ; you don't understand. I told you stupidly. I 
 mean that you should do exactly as you have hitherto done
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 297 
 
 •with respect to him as ix friend. I am quite aware that you 
 have made your own arrangements mutually, of which I 
 know and shall know nothing. It will be always the same ; 
 as hitherto, this will be his hdkse, and everything in it in 
 subjection to him ; he cannot avoid that, the law of nature. 
 You will speak to him — only promise me — please promise 
 me ? " 
 
 " What, Miss Standish ? " 
 
 " That you will not thwart him — tease him — about it ; 
 he has been worried and tormented till " 
 
 " I understand ; you wish me not to thwart or tease him, 
 and you know I have already given him ' a turn ' at both. 
 Is it not so ? " 
 
 She laughed like a fair gypsy. 
 
 " He was very anxious — he is much attached to you." 
 
 " But you see, Miss Standish, though I might trust you, 
 and, indeed, feel no wound to my pride, if you felt my pres- 
 ence under the same roof no plague, there is the boy ; he 
 has himself declared to me he would not live with any one 
 but me." 
 
 " I am not vain," she smiled, " but I fancy I myself could 
 obviate that difficulty. I have a knack with children, par- 
 ticularly odd ones. Otherwise you might make him under- 
 stand (if you were so kind) that he need not, to all intents 
 and purposes, live with any one but you. I will arrange so 
 that you shall be as ifjow were in the next house ; there is 
 a certain wall " 
 
 A thought struck me. 
 
 " Miss Standish, — pardon the question, — it may save 
 some worry. Did the boy know your name when you 
 used to visit his mother ? " 
 
 " No ; I didn't mention it, I think (there was no need) ; 
 a dear, good woman (she had nursed our friend Mr. Major) 
 told me all the sorrows of the other poor dear ; and so I 
 went — not much good, I fear." 
 
 Half blushing, as if angry or ashamed. 
 
 13*
 
 298 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 " The child saw you ? " 
 
 "Yes, the boy ; he was always there — never would leave 
 her. I never saw the girl till lately, because, as you may 
 imagine, she made too much noise for a sick-room, and her 
 uncle had sent her away — this very foster-nurse of his had 
 charge of the wild thing." 
 
 " It will do — I am so glad — there won't be any trouble," 
 I murmured, half to myself. 
 
 She looked inquiring. 
 
 " I do hope not. You really have had (and taken) so 
 much trouble for me — I mean, for us." 
 
 No hesitation in the award — as earnest as the tone was 
 light. I don't know whether she would have said more — 
 scarcely, I think — but there was an interruption. She rose 
 and took a few fleet steps towards the door — his knock ! — 
 had she not known it ? — and certainly he had not come " an 
 hour later on purpose ; " it was barely twenty minutes. 
 
 / was annihilated forthwith, or as good. I might have 
 been tliin air for all the effect remaining in my presence. I 
 saw them fly into each other's arms; it was enough — no 
 power could 'part tliem now. 
 
 I tried my experiment on Hilary that very night, and 
 with marvellous success. I asked him (in the dusk) whether 
 he recollected a lady who went to see his mamma when she 
 was ilk 
 
 " There was only one lady came," said he. " The rest 
 were vulgar women," briefly. 
 
 After a second or two, I said again, — 
 
 " What was she hke ? " 
 
 " I don't remember her face, but she had nice eyes, that 
 looked soft and sorry. She had a white bonnet and a red 
 shawl ; she wanted to kiss me, and I wouldn't till she kissed 
 mamma. She stroked mamma's hair, and said it Avas so 
 pretty, and asked her for a bit of it, and cut it off ; and next 
 time she came — " (half choked this, but no soh) " she 
 brought a gold locket with that hair, and gave it to me for
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 299 
 
 myself; it liad a black ribbon. I used to wear it till I came 
 here, and then I huried it," — with a gulp, — "buried it in the 
 cemetery, because I wouldn't let him see it, for fear he should 
 touch it or take it away. 
 
 " I liked her ; she had a sweet smell from herself, and she 
 washed mamma's forehead with Eaii de Cologne and some- 
 thing cold ; and she sent her strawberries, and flowers, and 
 wine — beautiful wine, and a great big pillow, and little books, 
 with large prints and pictures ; she never talked any non- 
 sense, and she always made mamma laugh a little. She told 
 mamma she was as good as herself. I heard her. 
 
 " One day uncle came in, and, after that, she never came 
 any more. But she sent flowers and things still." 
 
 " Hilary, that very lady is Miss Standish. "What do you 
 think now ? " 
 
 " Miss Standish ! and she is going to marry Jiim. Well, I 
 will go if it is only to jdague him, for I know he wants me 
 dead." 
 
 Oh, perversion of love and sweetness into bitterness and 
 hatred, tlu'ough the nonfullilment of love's first law ! I 
 could no more scold the child than I could blame. All that 
 could be done for him must be in the training of the future, 
 slow as a sapling springs into a tree. 
 
 He could not get over the mystery of this marriage, how- 
 ever; and it remained a puzzle to him long and long. That 
 any one should love his uncle he could not actually believe. 
 
 How I wondered what Miss Standish would do with — 
 rather ho^v she would ever manage Mrs. Le Kyteler. I did 
 not ask Arnold Major about it, for the simple reason that I 
 had neither the time nor the chance ; as after the inteiwiew, 
 of which he forewarned me, with her, I did not see her again, 
 and him only in such flying glimpses, as precluded any but 
 the shortest greeting on both our parts, the children being 
 present at breakfast, or at least one of them, always ; and 
 both when Miss Standish did not send for Philippa to 
 "breakfasts" with her, which happened about twice a week,
 
 300 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 and wliicli matutinal event struck thrice the awe and gratifi- 
 cation into the imp's breast that the most elaborate dinners 
 and expensive suppers would hj^ve done. She always came 
 back from them in time for school at ten, and chattered the 
 whole evening of their ravishing enjoyments to me. This 
 notice, by the way, is merely inserted to show Horatia's hind 
 of delicacy, — it was the only meal she was alone at. Mrs. 
 Le Kyteler always breakfasted in bed. And while touching 
 the above point, let me add, that those who accused Miss 
 Standish of humoring Mrs. Le Kyteler's whims, and endur- 
 ing her constant supervision, for the sake of that fortune of 
 hers, which she had no heii's of body, or of legal nearness, 
 to inherit, were strangely at fault in the event. Mrs. Le 
 Kyteler, a hot-headed, haughty, untender, but passionate 
 woman, could have scarcely been expected to die very old ; 
 her life burned out too fast. And before three years had 
 passed, she died, leaving to Mrs. Arnold Major — nothing 
 save her dying acknowledgment (a loving one too) of Hora- 
 tia's long forbearance, sweet temper, tried and tormented for 
 years, but neither soured nor made bitter, her generous con- 
 cealment of every folly or weakness in her so-called protec- 
 tress, and her real unworldliness in regard of that very van- 
 ished fortune. For at that truthful time — the last hour 
 before repose — it came out that, on Horatia's marriage, 
 she had persuaded — forced Mrs. Le Kyteler to purchase an 
 annuity with the whole of her remaining capital, diminished 
 from its primal value very much through ill-management, 
 unequal expenditure, extravagance, — " extravagant gener- 
 osities to myself," Horatia always called them, — and the 
 bursting of a financial scheme or two, in which portions of it 
 had been invested. So one end was gained, — the world 
 deemed Mrs. Le Kyteler richer than she was, because she 
 removed, on her charge's marriage, into an establishment 
 fully equal, in means and style, to that she quitted, — and 
 another end to another person — Gain — was lost. 
 
 Howbeit, (willi full knowledge of Horatia's undying ob-
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 301 
 
 jection to the phrase, if not the frame, ideal, and her per- 
 sistent protestations against lieroicism in every ideal form,) 
 I will confess that I am quite sure she would not have liad 
 the phantom of an objection to receive a large worldly por- 
 tion by legacy from any one who could have afforded to 
 leave her such, without denuding themselves of comforts in 
 life, or depriving others of the least item of their rights after- 
 wai'ds. 
 
 This by the way. No one besides her husband and my- 
 self ever knew whether Mrs. Le Kyteler left her anything 
 or not, at the time ; for, fashionable as she certainly was 
 always, her style's scutcheon had one flaw which could be 
 got over no better than a bar-sinister ; she had no gift of 
 gossip, high or low ! and if she occasionally dealt out of her 
 deep nature too earnestly and passionately with trifles, never, 
 never could she be accused of " trifling with serious matters." 
 
 Sliall I ever forget that wedding-day ? Scarcely — when 
 it never faded, but reminds me of its soft spring morning 
 every hour I see their perfect life. 
 
 Certainly, in books and out of them, people make marriage 
 end when it begins ! Little wonder, when one considers 
 what they have to hide, and what assume. 
 
 If Miss Standish had been going to be mari-ied from Mr. 
 Major's house, (not the usual precedent,) that domicile could 
 scarce have been in greater confusion. No one did anything 
 for days, except that the maid dusted double — she was a 
 good dust-hater — in revenge for the universal strew. Of 
 course Philippa played at enough weddings to provide the 
 parish with " marital appendages," (a phrase Horatian.) She 
 was so beheaded (a pln-ase of our servant's, who of course 
 meant the child had " lost her head ") with her own coming 
 a2-)propriate bridal costume, simple as it was, that she turned 
 white Avriting-paper into every possible fragment of mimicry 
 that bore upon tlie subject. I made her about a hundred 
 favors, and fringed out a dozen feathers, all from the best 
 " cream laid letter," of which she ravaged her uncle's desk,
 
 302 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 having broken the lock first. Also, I liad to provide endless 
 square dishes (she was disgusted because I could not contrive 
 round ones) for bits of bread, coifee-beans, pounded sugar, 
 uncooked currants, rice, arrowroot, (in powder,) which had 
 been begged from the kitchen for the " breakfast." This 
 mania in miniature lasted till her clothes came home, the 
 very night before the day. 
 
 Had I been born a woman, a nurse, a governess, a mother, 
 or an old maid, I could not have been more deeply concerned 
 in that costume and its results. Her uncle, whether proud 
 of her or not, was too pi'oud of some one else, not to have 
 the elf bridesmaid --— the only one, that was a stipulation of 
 the bride's — in perfect order. Philippa would have looked 
 as out of keeping in silk, as a wood-nymph in moire-antique. 
 He had given her a Dacca muslin frock and trousers, with 
 just a beading of fine -work to border both ; a white china 
 crape sash — the frock made high and basqued, with long 
 sleeves — requii-ed neither scarf nor mantle ; the sash very 
 broad, and tied behind in fluted folds ; a little white plush 
 hat, the prevailing (then the new) mode, with a very thick 
 full wreath of white narcissus twisted round it ; also, for a 
 bouquet, she was to carry a great bunch of fresh narcissus 
 in her hand. This once — not for his own sake — had 
 Arnold Major given his peculiar, if very fine, taste its way. 
 The maid, as proud, if not as vain, as Philippa, arrayed her 
 in full rehearsal, and then called me to look at her. Pier 
 uncle had certainly made of her a picture, if nothing bettei-. 
 Sir Thomas Lawrence might have come out of his grave to 
 paint her — even without the living flowers that were or- 
 dered from the country for the next morning — as " Early 
 May." I didn't mean to show her I admired her, but the minx 
 saw it in my face, and instantly a wave of the old mischief sub- 
 merged even her vanity. She plucked the soft creamy-look- 
 ing hat from her head, danced on a chair, and stuck it on 
 the top of mine, ruthlessly crushing the delicate narcissus 
 (made at Michell's, in Oxford Street) in her two little rude
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 303 
 
 brown hands. Then she leaped oft" the chair, twisted the 
 broad soft waist cincture till she got the tie in front, and of 
 that she made a conglomerate knot. Tiie maid (she and I 
 were in league for the hour, by the force of circumstances) 
 asked me to hold her still while she " undid " the knot, and 
 half succeeded only. For the instant the sash was loose,- 
 Philippa was off — had flown down stall's ; and the emer- 
 gency engrossed the entire attention of the maid and my- 
 self — duiilly responsible for her appearance at church next 
 day. For well I knew, neither I nor any other should com- 
 mune that night with Arnold Major face to face. 
 
 In default of the orthodox bridesmaidenhood, I must prose 
 on this, my woe and final triumph. Had not the bridegroom 
 relied on me to present her perfectly in statu quo ? For I 
 was to give Philippa my arm, at all events. Certainly she 
 was not more than two feet my " shorter," — but oh, the 
 wriggles of her inconstant temperament ! who could so well 
 have appreciated their possible results as I, subject to her 
 these last dying hours of her uncle's " single life, half 
 death?" 
 
 I was as awkward as an unaccustomed male creature who 
 is neither a French stay-maker nor English purveyor of rid- 
 ing-habits, — endeavoring to help the servant, — for she pos- 
 itively cried, wiping her eyes by stealth with her knuckles, 
 at the disorganization of the perfect little effect, — the hat 
 with its soft nap " brushed the wi'ong way," the scrunched 
 flowers, the undue limpness of the china crape delivered 
 from its own bonds. 
 
 She was doing, and I watching for several minutes. Then, 
 Avhen she had positively retrieved all injury, we both thought 
 of Philippa, and the frock she still carried on her person. 
 
 Every one will be exhausted of her, as I was that time. 
 But there were in fact certain premises on the top of the 
 house, and to it pertaining, commonly called " leads." Ar- 
 nold Major, with his half morbid terror of injury to the 
 children, had forbidden them that domain, and the region
 
 304 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 that led to and communicated with it, a space about three 
 feet and a half high, with cobwebs and a low set of steps to 
 fiirnisli it. To make a dull story short, there existed in the 
 heart of Philippa a yearning for the leads, because forbidden. 
 So when the maid and I, after screaming all over the house 
 for her, finally explored, we discovered that she had broken 
 the neck of a bottle of Bass in the cellar, drank half its con- 
 tents, and was then dancing on the leads in a state of semi- 
 intoxication. The unfortunate frock was dyed with the de- 
 posit of smuts and dust up there, and the maid sat up till five 
 in the morning, washing, clear-starching, and " springing." 
 
 The daylight settled her a little, and if she had been going 
 to her own coronation, she could not have given herself 
 grander airs. She wanted to be dressed before breakfast, 
 and I only quieted her by strict injunctions how she was to 
 behave in church. I did not see him, nor desire to do so 
 then. But lo ! at the eleventh hour, the boy came to me, 
 entreating, supplicating, that he might not be made to go. I 
 had hardly been prej^ared for this, — I tried to reason, and 
 then his nature broke out bleeding in its mother wound. 
 
 " I won't go ! " said he violently ; " I will go to no mar- 
 riages, — my mamma was not married. You cannot make 
 me." 
 
 And he rushed into the garden and banged the door. I 
 did not follow, — under the circumstances I resolved to obey 
 my impulse, and leave him at home. If Arnold Major or 
 his wife should scold me afterwards, it Avould be too late to 
 matter, and I did not greatly believe that either of them 
 would miss him. 
 
 They did not. There is little poetry in most marriages, 
 and in every-day weddings even sentiment is vulgarized by 
 precedent. In this instance (to me, the rest did not per- 
 ceive it, I am sure) there was poetry in the very ceremony, 
 circumstances, and custom. Iloratia, in an innocent over- 
 anxiety to do him more than honor, had invited I cannot say 
 how many of her " highest " and most influential friends.
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 305 
 
 Such an array of fine people, finely clothed, I never met ; 
 it was a mob of exquisitely dressed ladies and got-up men ; 
 round the railings, it was as though 
 
 " A wind-waved tulip-bed," 
 
 framed, quivering, rustling, and blazing-tinted — two shadow- 
 statues in the midst, so pale and quiet stood they both, so 
 utterly absorbed. As for feeling the crowd, the stares and 
 smiles, the silkly-burnished atmosphere closed round them ; 
 it was no more to them either than the world is to the dying ; 
 yet were they held in thrall by the fact of not being alone, 
 and magnetized through great suspense. 
 
 I had to make various grimaces at my charge to induce 
 her to bear being entirely overlooked by the bride, who was 
 quite past presenting her handkerchief, bouquet, and gloves 
 to her attendant. In truth (just like herself) Horatia car- 
 ried nothing in her hand except her gloves, which she had 
 pulled off quietly, rather wearily, the moment she had taken 
 her place. She was most perfectly dressed, however, with 
 dead white silk, thick, soft as fresh fallen snow ; a shawl, 
 drooping to her veiy feet, of Lisle lace, the smallest centre 
 pattern and the richest border (neither Honiton nor Brus- 
 sels), and a bonnet of the same lace, small but hood-formed, 
 with a fall ; no flowers, nor artificial " love-herbs," no orna- 
 ments, no "fuss." 
 
 About half through the short service, I " was ware " (and 
 made ware by so many of the idlers near me looking up to 
 the gallery one side) of a gentleman leaning along the red 
 front-cushion with his elbows, and sneering down on the two 
 lovers like a Mayfair Mephistopheles. The* likeness, an- 
 gelic-diabolical, to Arnold Major ; the hair such as the lat- 
 ter had described it, — nay, the very unveiled surprise of 
 the wedding-guests confirmed my first flash of a suspicion. 
 What a mercy the child Hilary was not there ! As for 
 Philippa, she was far too self-engrossed to notice — or if she 
 noticed, to know — her father.
 
 306 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 And there were many joined the festivity that day, and 
 had enjoyed Horatia's wit and hospitality often and again, 
 besides, who declared her unwomanly, unnatural, unfeeling, 
 because one child was present whose father did not own it ; 
 whose father had not been invited ! Let that pass ; Horatia 
 could afford to be stuff for scandal now and then, she was 
 rich in all humanities, so large in heart, if so exclusive in 
 love and liking. 
 
 The banquet was perfect, — not the least superb, but every- 
 thing on the table was eatable and drinkable, — the rarest 
 facts in wedding-breakfasts and ball-suppers now. There 
 was nothing to do but eat and drink for the guests, as the 
 bride and bridegroom went straight away from the church- 
 door together to a country corner, the brightest within ten 
 miles of town ; I have often seen it since, and so have they. 
 By three o'clock the house in Wilton Ci'escent was deserted 
 as Gerstacker's " dream-house " again ; every guest gone ; 
 even Mrs. Le Kyteler, who would not take off her bonnet in 
 it ! (noble exemplar of personal pride), but had her carriage 
 waiting at the door, and whirled off to one of the sweet little 
 slips of lesser houses in Upper Brook Street, where (I had 
 it on unquestionable authority — her own maid's through our 
 servants) she cried the rest of the day, went into hysterics 
 at evening;, and never went to bed all night.
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 SUMMER CLOUDS. 
 
 I SHOULD not have drawn even a vignette of the wedding, 
 but for the fact of its being the initial to certain after-scenes 
 and facts. I had a kind, noble-worded note — quite as dash- 
 ing as heretofore, and not a whit the warmer than the old 
 ones, from her, and about five lines of his across it, to beseech 
 " me to do them the infinite kindness to spare them the cold 
 vision of an empty house." Arnold Major's house could not 
 be given up till June, and here June was ; so the note was 
 to spare me any trouble or blushes about being " turned out" 
 on the quarter day. And they made eight weeks of their 
 honeymoon abroad, — at home the bees never wearied of 
 working, because the summer weather always lasted ! 
 
 But the " at home " for three days after their return w^as 
 a failure — the only social lapse Horatia ever made. Such 
 quantities of people came ; five — six times as many as had 
 decked the altar ; such droll people too, as well as fine, lan- 
 guid, condescending, and flattered ones. Came for ten min- 
 utes — sat staring, or not seeing anything (according to their 
 degrees of breeding), said a few different words on the same 
 subjects — and went. I have no doubt each and all went 
 away highly (or lowly) offended with the late Miss Standish, 
 because she could not or would not amuse them more than 
 ever. But Horatia could not get rid of her husband, and 
 her self-containedness (never an extensive capital of hers) 
 had passed quite into him. Not that she blushed, changed 
 color, or did anything she ought not to have done ; on the
 
 308 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 couti'aiy she had never looked so interesting or been more 
 polite ; there was however no warmth about her for any one, 
 except her oion, just yet, it had all reti'eated to the central 
 life-heat, for the present, where the faculties and the feelings 
 met and rushed into embrace as one. Not yet assimilated to 
 the summer passion she had blossomed fresh to, it could not 
 yet freely j^enetrate her character, — how then inform her 
 manner ? It is not that such a woman alters Avith marriage ; 
 but with the fulfilment of the Creator's whole designs in her, 
 she exjxinds — is unimprisoned through the love that, under 
 every form and image, is alone the agent of everlasting 
 Freedom. 
 
 And the other ! Men do not pass into such perfection as 
 their wives by marriage, their own physical development, if 
 not their moral beauty, being complete before. I have no 
 doubt Horatia felt a difference between her acquaintance- 
 friend and lover-husband, — but it sprang from the change in 
 herself, not him. I saw him exactly the same, he could not 
 have more dearly doted on her now than he had done before ; 
 but by curious chance I knew this far better than she could 
 know. And as for his extraordinary lovingness, it was only 
 now active instead of passive, just as his passion was revealed 
 instead of hid. 
 
 And therefore noAV, just as I had always perceived it, the 
 bitterness in him, to which I have once alluded, was as per- 
 ceptible. His sweet disposition always tempered it to her, 
 and his exceeding grandeur of character, through its out- 
 flowing humanity, absorbed it — as the air a perfume — still 
 in gusts I felt it, and dreaded it not for her sake, but his. 
 You could not call his innate displeasure in society a preju- 
 dice, any more than you could damn his jealousy as a bad 
 principle, — yet both were in him and \)iiv\ of him. He dis- 
 liked society in proportion to his charity towards all the world ; 
 and it having never yielded him either homage or apprecia- 
 tion, perhaps it was not strange he should. Then his tem- 
 perament extremely ardent ; an over-active brain ; with
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 309 
 
 nerves of electrical receptivity ; the delicate melancholy of 
 his views and opinions that, not tinctured -with rainbow imag- 
 ination, dwelt ever on sin and shame with sorrow that knew 
 not hatred — above all the engrossing, if fastidious, passion- 
 ateness that pervaded him pei'haps accounted for his antipa- 
 thies, -which, if they were odd, were innocent. I just touch 
 on them in recalling his behavior those thi'ee " at homes." 
 Had Iloratia asked him to go up in a balloon for two hours 
 under a broiling sun, he would have done it without question 
 or hesitation, feeding in anticipation on a thousand kisses 
 when he should come down. And therefore he so sedulously 
 followed her arrangements, premeditated with scarce a thought 
 on her part, only as a matter of course. He was excessively 
 courteous to every one ; his equanimity was unperturbed, no 
 higher gentleman, if none simpler, came or went. But I 
 who knew his soul, as one who, in all other respects unlike 
 him, had a single point in common, can know, was j^erfectly 
 aware of his impatient longings to " have done with it," as 
 the phrase is, and be alone with her ; of his jealousy un- 
 touched with meanness, that grudged the very sight of her to 
 those, her passing guests. And oh, how tired she looked 
 when all had gone ! though I don't suppose it would have 
 entered her head to say so, she was too completely inured to 
 etiquette to complain of, or even comprehend, its results. 
 
 One favor on his part (actually asked by him as a favor,) 
 but received and obeyed as law, was the request that in those 
 three grand, gloomy afternoons, Philippa should be kept out 
 of the way. So I found her, happier than is describable, at 
 six o'clock, with the aquarium. I took her to dine with 
 Hilary and myself in my own room — the domestic chaos 
 was not yet perfectly reduced to order. But next day, 
 though, in respect of the boy, she left me perfectly indepen- 
 dent, and as if, indeed, I dwelt next door, Mrs. Arnold Major 
 took Philippa to herself, and had her to dine at lunch-time. 
 For she was (the first time) alone after breakfast. But, 
 though it may a[)[)ear a trivial merit to note, she was a per-
 
 310 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 son so ill love with literature, so thoroughly, if easily, accom- 
 plished, that not a moment could hang heavy on her hands — 
 not to mention that she had as much romance as a woman 
 ought to have, which is not little — and would not have wea- 
 ried of her own sweet dreams and anticipations the whole 
 livelong day. Then of all things, it was innate in her to 
 ahhor teaching and finding fault (its necessary consequence, 
 if the teacher be conscientious) ; but her organization was 
 peculiarly sensitive to small, slow, worrying cares — albeit, a 
 being moi'e endurant I have not seen, in the process of real 
 trouble. Yet her design to manage and train Philippa was 
 carried out to the utmost, and for some months it was like the 
 breaking in of the wildest and waywardest strong colt. No 
 failure here though, for Horatia made a clean dash at the 
 child's intellect, whipped it into excitement, and bowed it in 
 the new-felt hunger for knowledge of all sorts, before she 
 meddled with the moral bias, or the paces of the future char- 
 acter. Five ordinary children would have given no trouble 
 in comparison ; nor was there any of the winsome fondness 
 of some little ones, in this instance, to beguile or lighten the 
 rude task. Horatia also knew very well that her husband 
 could not love the child (loving really no human creature 
 except herself, though she was too modest to find that out for 
 a long time), and that doing his duty by her to the best of 
 his ability, that duty possessed no charm of interest in his 
 eyes. 
 
 Dull as such details must be, it is due to such a character 
 as hers to analyze in some slight sort her connections posi- 
 tive, if passionless, with so many other persons. Every one 
 knows that there are human beings reduced to such a morbid 
 condition that they cannot bear their self-reminders ; never- 
 theless, this condition may be rather to be pitied than con- 
 demned, as should indeed be their feeble incapacity to bear 
 up against solitude, (ever a stern test — there is no solitude 
 for those who love !) The loveless fly to such society as 
 they can afford, compass, or come at — they do not enjoy,
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 311 
 
 nor cause enjoyment in it, they simply suspend self-con- 
 sciousness for a while. Others again, particularly -women 
 these, would perish if their own husbands were sole arbi- 
 ters of their charms — personal, mental, or exceptional. 
 There are, also, women vain enough (I was going to say 
 wicked enough, but retract it, for I am a man) to desire 
 more than their husband's the miserable appreciation of 
 other men — perhaps the husband's is no better ; but men 
 honor, if they cannot love, a " virtuous woman," and give her 
 full credit for her utmost self-respect. In no such class could 
 Horatia be set down an instant by the most fatuitous man 
 or si)iteful woman — nor indeed in any class ; though excep- 
 tional, she was quite as guiltless of eccentricity as free from 
 cant. She was born with social gifts that it was as natural 
 to her to exercise as to breathe, she pleased all persons, 
 whether they would or no — she fascinated many — troubled 
 by her spells a few. But all this as naturally as (again to 
 say it) she breathed ; still the very fact of its being rather 
 through the free motions of her mind she entertained them, 
 than with any pai-ticle of sentiment or intention, gave her 
 own performance a zest to herself far racier than any she im- 
 parted. Just as she glorified and dramatized the silliest little 
 ballads and least " aesthetic " songs by her remarkable fashion 
 of singing, she uttered Avitticisms or fathomed subtle intel- 
 lectual depths more in her own eax-s than others ! — her 
 words were to them diverting pictures — hieroglyphs ; she 
 only had the key. 
 
 I have no doubt she overvalued her social position (an 
 unusual one) for her husband's sake at first ; dreaming bar- 
 ren visions, beautiful with love, of its restoring him to his 
 right place, whatever that might be. I am sure the con- 
 sciousness of possessing more wealth than he, never touched 
 nor tainted this sweet fantasy ; besides, her tact was per- 
 fect, as only in very passionate natui'cs tact ever is, — I 
 don't speak of '■'■finesse" the French botli of it and its mean- 
 ing. And so she allowed him perfect liberty in his own
 
 312 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 affairs ; sbe did not even refurnish her house ; she fitted up 
 no private room for him especially ; and I have reason to 
 know her very table was less elaborate than, in Mrs. Le 
 Kyteler's time, on her account it had been. She was so 
 delicate that, if a parcel came directed to him unpaid, she 
 never paid it, but let it alone till his return. Still, be it 
 understood, wherever the Avife's rights, personal or other, 
 were concerned, she was as jealous as ever he, and as tena- 
 cious of them. No servant dared to touch his clothes, his 
 books, the very pen he wrote with last. I did not dare any 
 more to correct the " Madras " proofs, an item of labor 
 which he had left to me and she snatched from me ; order- 
 ing me not to inform against her. 
 
 It was a curious household, and I don't think many wives 
 and husbands behave as they did. To return to the " soci- 
 ety " point, it had (if never more than a pleasure that 
 fatigued her agreeably before) become a positive annoyance 
 now to her to adhere to her former customs ; yet she did so, 
 and, I am sure, thought it her duty all the more because 
 " their glory had departed." After those " afternoons " in 
 which such crowds were concerned, and to which they rushed 
 all the more now she was married, to see what she would do, 
 say, look, under those remarkable circumstances ; after hav- 
 ing entertained them charmingly, and received and dismissed 
 them with kindness rarer than courtesy, if felt, as hers was ; 
 I have seen her pale, excessively tired, but never sinking, 
 nor giving way ; only wearing on her brow, and in her eyes, 
 the yearning anxiety for his return, the waiting patience, 
 very touching in an impatient temperament like hers. And 
 when he came, behold it was no more ! but it returned when 
 he departed, even for an hour. 
 
 I detest, because tliey are radically, on pliysical princi- 
 ples, false, those delineations, so favorite in conjugal romances, 
 (written by the umoedded always,) in Avhich husbands and 
 wives are made to torment each other and rupture the law 
 of marriage twice an hour by hidden or obtuse jealousies,
 
 ALIIOST A IlKROINE. 313 
 
 constitutional irritabilities, tempers "sore with tenderness," 
 delirious mutual or one-sided suspicions, all which convulsed 
 deviations from the average of the "two made one" are 
 reported and commented upon, on either part, to any per- 
 son, however insignificant, who does not happen to be the 
 natural and authorized recipient of such mysterious mise- 
 ries, i. e., the man or his wife themselves ; the man for his 
 wife, the wife for her husband. 
 
 Arnold Major was a jealous man, — all lovers are ; — Hora- 
 tia a jealous woman, — all loving women will be ; but in 
 neither of them it induced want of confidence, nor any malefi- 
 cent or morbid frame. Of course they suffered from it, he 
 the most I think ; and yet I don't know, when I recollect her 
 gratitude at the end, when she really found how entirely 
 she was his all, — a fact she took long time to learn. If he 
 suffered from his jealousy, it was not because he fancied her 
 smiling on another man, even as a friend, in his absence, — 
 not that he doubted her (almost amusing) coldness when she 
 sang duets, or took part in concerted music according to her 
 girlish habit, become a part of nature, — not that he fancied 
 her for an instant oblivious of her own beloved, in absence. 
 But there was in him, just as he had expi-essed it once, an 
 unraeasurable power of loving, that could not fulfil itself in 
 this short life, and that yet asked every instant of time be- 
 stowed on man to prepare himself and his soul's soul for 
 the food and fashion of eternity. To do him justice, and 
 prove his integrity of faith in her, I recollect the only time 
 1 ever heard him allude to those same reunions of Horatia's 
 acquaintances. It was thus ; I happened to be present, a 
 rare thing then. 
 
 "Did Lord Wilders come again, and did you sing to- 
 gether ? " 
 
 " Yes," said Horatia ; " the same things. He does carry 
 his conservatism into his singing, as into everything else, 
 and he will discover imperfections, till the standard of per- 
 fection is lost." 
 
 14
 
 314 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 " Does it tire you very much ? " 
 
 " No, not the least. I am too idle not to like grinding at 
 the old better than learning the new." 
 
 " It is all right, then, but I will not have jou fatigued more 
 than must he." 
 
 Tliis was all, save that the " must be " rang in my ears. 
 It meant something, it was a beginning or a hint — of what ? 
 Let it not be imagined that Arnold Major was devoid of 
 spirit, or that he could not hold his own. A very few months 
 after their marriage they went one night to a ball. She, 
 splendidly dressed, and with two exquisite and most extrava- 
 gant bouquets he brought her, one for the bosom and one for 
 the hand. Though to go out, as a fact, afforded him no grati- 
 fication, he was radiant with pride to take her out ; and truly 
 as far as his mere " apparition's shell " was concerned, she 
 had reason to be proud of him. He was too well put to- 
 gether not to be a good dancer too, but he danced idly, like 
 one who dreams deeper " within a dream." Dancing did not 
 excite him the least, but music did, almost beyond enthusiasm. 
 
 However, this was an immense ball, one of those last 
 efforts of the season to perish gorgeously, like a dolphin dying, 
 at a very grand house where scarce a commoner was ever 
 asked, and to which it really was a fine thing to have been. 
 Such an awfully hot August night it Avas ! Through Mrs. 
 Arnold Major, who could get anything out of anybody for 
 any one, I had received an invitation, and accepted it solely 
 out of curiosity on my friend's account. I had plenty of 
 leisure, of course, to watch them. The rooms, vast for a 
 private mansion, were reeking with breaths and perfumes, 
 lined with such hot-house flowers as should never be brought 
 into a dance save in the open air, for instance, the African 
 jessamine, and purple heliotrope, with quantities of orange- 
 shrubs in bloom. The air was positively sick with the lus- 
 cious mist. It made me giddy, and I saw rings round the 
 lustres ; to crown all, a distant storm spent and spit its last 
 spite upon us, and through the windows, flung wide open, the
 
 ALJIOST A HEROINE. 
 
 315 
 
 electric smiles played over the bright twinkling show till 
 twelve o'clock. 
 
 At five in the vivid August morning we went home. IIo- 
 ratia, much too exhausted to speak or stir, lay back in her 
 husband's arms, in the carriage, and he actually carried her 
 up to bed. Three hours afterwards he came down to break- 
 fast without her, having ordered her to remain in bed; I 
 knew this, because he was obliged to speak to me about a 
 message he had to take, in answer to Brown, from me. 
 
 She did not leave her room all day, until half an hour be- 
 fore the usual one of his return. Then she too sent for me 
 rather peremptorily, — it was, however, a case of exigency, 
 in which she found herself at fault, (she did not allow it in 
 the least !) for the Madras proofs were sent for, and found 
 wanting. We kei)t the boy waiting while we retouched them 
 between us, and then fearful, as I knew, of hurting my feel- 
 ings by making even the least use of me, she insisted on my 
 remaining with her even to dine ; she pretended too, that she 
 did not expect him to come home. 
 
 This was only the reaction of an exceedingly fine sense of 
 justice, — she was heartily vexed that her husband did not 
 dance the night before, except once with herself. Arnold 
 Major was neither straight-laced nor old-fangled; a more 
 liberal person did not live, but it was next to impossible he 
 should not try his wife's nerves, if not her temper, the first 
 year of marriage. She was vexed, not that he had danced 
 with no woman but herself, (not a woman ever so jealously 
 craved her husband's every smile and gesture of devotion for 
 herself alone,) but that she had quite thoughtlessly and natu- 
 rally, at the time, danced with all wlio invited her ; in Hora- 
 tia's case these could not be few. 
 
 By the way, just to defend Arnold Major from the lightest 
 charge of primness — which his very soul abhorred — I have 
 seen him dance on various light and bright occasions since, 
 as he would have romped with children, or rifled his own or- 
 chard to shower "golden apples" on a parcel of sehool-boys ;
 
 31 G ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 but on this occasion he himself, new to his great happiness, 
 too great to compass in a hurry, and not yet even semi-real- 
 ized; when festivity was positively run desperate, and the 
 festal throng moved rather in " melting durance," than for 
 love of even " the divinity of custom," I was not surprised at 
 him, nay, I even sympathized with him, for being passive at 
 the time, and much disgusted afterwards. 
 
 While waiting for him, (I knew he would come, and so did 
 she, whatever she pretended,) I could see she was really ill, 
 -white as a sheet, with the black-blue shadows under her eyes 
 that denote intense exhaustion ; deepened, instead of light- 
 ened, by uneasy sleep. I fancied, indeed felt sure, she had 
 fretted all day to tears — those all spent now — for any but 
 her husband to behold them, she would, I dare say, have 
 deemed a sacrilege. Besides the premier vexation, I could 
 tell she had been dreadfully vexed not to make his break- 
 fast (for the first time omitted since their marriage, I knew 
 through his proud assertion ; he ne\'er wearied of praising 
 her if he only saw me for a few minutes.) 
 
 He came in rather before the usual time, and I saw one of 
 their embraces — a beautiful siglit. "Their every parting 
 must have been to die," for such long, speechless, pressure in 
 each other's arms had something almost mournful in it. 
 Hearts sobbing under the great waves of an overwhelming 
 passion, calmed by love — and yet not stilled forever ; the 
 tide felt every motion of the changing moon ! 
 
 He looked dreadfully tired himself; but, I thought, it was 
 cruel of him to fasten such a look on her, of wild reproach, 
 half tragic — quite more than the occasion warranted. He 
 could not help it, though, and she did not dislike it, for she 
 knew its Avellspring. 
 
 " I will not have it again ! " he exclaimed, in eager, heart- 
 wrung tones, (I knew he didn't perceive me, if she did.) 
 " I will have no more of your life drained out of you by 
 these vampires, who Avould not even regret you if you 
 were dead ; but " (I knew he meant it) '" who would only
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 317 
 
 revenge tbcmselves on your departure by devouring some 
 one else." 
 
 How she laughed ! half nervously, because I was there, 
 half with her sense of the absurd, stricken at its highest jjitch 
 by his sublime treatment of a very trivial foct. His arras 
 were round her still, and she spoke low in answer ; but her 
 excessively clear voice only seemed distincter in a whisper. 
 
 " I thrive very well on the vampirism ; I suppose I wanted 
 depleting. And you have been working all day, so it is good 
 for you to reproach me with being idle ! I like it ; it appeases 
 my conscience a little." 
 
 Without (as it seemed) heeding her light words, he went 
 on, — 
 
 " I will have no more August dancing ; it is horrible tor- 
 ment, worthy of the Inquisition." 
 
 "There Avon't be any more this year — there can't." 
 
 " There will be another August — promise me." 
 
 " For all the future summers ! I certainly shall never 
 dance again, unless you allow me to come down next day as 
 soon as you do." 
 
 This was all. Certainly, the next August saw neither of 
 them at " the dancing," for better reasons than Arnold Major's 
 then. 
 
 Another source of vague annoyance to them both was the 
 child Philippa. She grew in stature and knowingness, if not 
 in wisdom, excessively fast, and was ever in the way. I 
 fancy no house, no palace, would have been big enough to 
 get rid of her in ; she so persisted in haunting places where 
 she was not wanted. I knew that her uncle had resolved to 
 send her to a school of the very best sort, where she should 
 be kept till bedtime out of the way ; but this Horatia never 
 would permit, and as far as the child was concerned, she was 
 perfectly riglit. The chief annoyance she occasioned to him 
 was, that daily and hourly slie was on his wife ; the crown- 
 ing one to hei" tliat the child annoyed him. She was a care 
 and a handful, or rather a handful of cares ; if she ever
 
 318 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 had been tired or spent, or if one could have made her fond 
 of books, or anxious to learn drawing ; but no, neither pur- 
 suits found favor in her eyes, though, like a rough, unkempt 
 scamp of a Sl^ye-terrier, she adored Horatia, and held fast on 
 to her. This the lady only allowed, of course, while her 
 husband was away, apportioning a large empty room at my 
 end of the house to both the children, though empty it was 
 not, for all sorts of old toys, and queer, past-use articles of 
 childish or nursery virtu found place there — a few gymnas- 
 tic poles and a firstrate swing among the rest ; also an old 
 rocking-horse ; besides a great deal of Arnold Major's furni- 
 ture from the old house was stowed there also, the best part 
 of the said furniture having been ordained by him to fill the 
 rooms which I and Hilary occupied, — the children's own lit- 
 tle beds, baths, &c., having been quietly permitted by the 
 mistress of the household to be retained for them instead of 
 new ones, or any of her own. 
 
 In a moment of rare confidingness, (rarer now she was 
 won instead of wooed,) Horatia had expressed to me her re- 
 gret that she could not give Philippa a pony. 
 
 " It is hard," said she, " that whatever I can do (and it is 
 little) for the children, I dare not do till I am dead. If we 
 were in the country, she could scour and rummage every- 
 where on a surefooted Shetland by herself; but here, there 
 must be a groom, or at least a mount of some sort after her, 
 or she would be run over ; and as I have not been used to 
 keep riding-horses, why, I can't, because — " A sweet smile 
 finished up the reason. 
 
 Of course Philippa was ordained to remain in the play- 
 room all the evening, unless sent for, which I recollect hap- 
 pening once when I was sent for too. I fancy Horatia was 
 afraid either of us should feel neglected ; as if that imp 
 could ever perceive neglect ! And Philippa, never allowed 
 to climb on her aunt's lap, (oh ! poor Arnold Major ! how 
 that word made him wince and shiver when she used it ; I 
 can't tell who taught it her, unless the servants ;) Philippa
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 319 
 
 v.'oukl throw her -wild arms round Horatia's neck, half strang- 
 ling her, and dealing immense smacks, that by Brobdignagian 
 courtesy only could be tei'med kisses, all over her face. Al- 
 most sternly — his cheeks burning — Arnold Major tore the 
 nuisance off, and, I believe, by his marked disapproval, he 
 drew down on his own head the " ignorant thing's " revenge. 
 For scarcely a day afterwards, Philippa found her way into 
 the drawing-room while they were at dinner and I engaged 
 with Hilai-y ; often enough she played " Mag's diversions " 
 there on a wet afternoon when it was not visitors' day, and 
 whatever she broke, injured, or upset in her schemes, Ilora- 
 tia (very firmly reproving her though) took care to remove 
 all signs of before her husband should come home. This 
 time I mention (Philippa imparted to me in after confidence, 
 which I won on purpose), she heard them coming up stairs, 
 and, frightened to be found there, (curious, I sus])ected, also,) 
 crawled under the largest sofa, and lay there perdue all her 
 length. Heard them enter the room, heard various other 
 sounds — she took care to lie still — was privy to such sweet 
 secret convei'sation as the little bird of the proverb of the 
 softest wing and voice hears not — repeats not — in common 
 with ruder secrets ! Meantime, Horatia being tii-ed, and 
 the autumn evening a wild, wet one, her husband drew the 
 sofa for her near the fire — discovered the intruder, who only 
 escaped without reprimand because they were both too an- 
 noyed to find words or time to scold her. She came tearing 
 up to me, and told me every thing straight out. For a few 
 instants I hesitated whether to show her I was exceedingly 
 angry, and order her to tell no one else ; but I decided to 
 let it alone, as my veiy interest in the matter would incite 
 her to take more than she felt herself — a mere ()assing one, 
 born of high health and rampant curiosity, as it proved. 
 
 If I could do little or nothing in the matter of Philippa, I 
 was thankful to find that at least the boy became my care 
 alone ; he chose it to be so, or so it had not been. Of melt- 
 ing heart, relenting temper, he showed no more sign than
 
 320 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 she did. But one coixld not deal with either of them as with 
 the " happy-born ; " their disadvantages pressed prejudice 
 backwards, and wooed benevolence in double measure to 
 overflow on their behalf. As for religious character, that 
 seemed fanatically developed in little Hilary — a morbid 
 predisposition to remorse, to superstitious awe that had no 
 spring in faith, but only in his fear, a fear nurtured by pre- 
 cocious grief (as weeds grow rank in wild churchyards, that 
 in the pure sun Avould dwarf and wither). As he got hold 
 of all sorts of books, — and there were strange books, though 
 none evil, in the house, — he took a singular infection from 
 that new class of literature, professing to reconcile the high- 
 est spiritual mysteries with the simplest natural facts, and to 
 explain the one by the other as easily as the chemical com- 
 position of soda-water; books very interesting to the adult 
 .and high-class literarian, who, as much as an honest surgeon 
 must learn pathology, should study every manifestation of the 
 " spiritual body," in order to test and appreciate the sound 
 and healthy " animal magnetism." Not the standard pillars 
 of the science, but the offshoot tracts, theses, and American 
 pamphlets on odyle and clear-seeing ; (not the noble classics, 
 Avhich are almost poems, of those poetic facts), but all kinds 
 of collections of dream and ghost stories, many true, some 
 false — (not dictated nor meant so) ; nay, even the new and 
 startling re-revivals of witch- power, crystal divination, and 
 fate-casting, with which the broad sea of modern generalistic 
 publication is sprinkled unawares, (quite rightly, too, for the 
 angling of those who are mature, or who have the prematu- 
 rity of genius) ; such books, unknown to myself, (I was too 
 busy in more matter-of-ftict fashion to heed his play-hours,) 
 did Hilary suck down and retain, to the irritation of his in- 
 tellectual "plexus," in an undigested mass. As nightmare 
 springs from bodily indigestion, so did the intellectual pleth- 
 ora react. The horrible and grotesque play equal parts in 
 "incubus;" therefore, in his case, the morbid and the sad 
 did so. A positive magnetic predisposition, too, made such
 
 ALMOST A HKRUIXK. 321 
 
 pursuits more dangerous for him ; he would lie on the rug 
 for hours, his eyeballs, turned up to the ceiling, fixed and 
 filled -with hazy gleams and shoots of sudden radiance, most 
 uiichildlike — above all, unboylike ; to me most painful ; or 
 ■would elude me after my most elaborate efforts to interest 
 him in some wild, breathless narrative of travel or adven- 
 ture, or novel phenomenon of science more like fairy than 
 is all magic ; would then escape to some dark room or cor- 
 ner, and watch the lambent light — that licks the edges of all 
 crystals seen in darkness by a vivid vision — in scraps of 
 sugar. Often he declared to me he saw ghosts ; I know he 
 never did ; " the magnetic eye is not the eye of the clear- 
 seer," says one who is wise upon the subject. If he had 
 been born in certain circles, or certain novelty-ridden persons 
 had got hold of him, he would have been spoiled for any 
 active part in life, and sunk into a prodigy. Whatever must 
 happen to him, I was resolved that this should not. 
 
 It was the worst house he could have possibly come into ; 
 for, one scarcely knew how, a constant excitement pervaded 
 it ; and had he been a poetical child, this would have done 
 him good as well as harm. Horatia's singing, when it came 
 swelling from beneath, blanched him, made his eyes grow 
 dark, with dilated pupils surcharged with weird expression ; 
 and for hours after, he was, without being able to help it, too 
 unstrung to learn. Yet no cathedral music — I had often 
 taken him to the Abbey — had on him the least effect, though 
 I have seen him start and turn momentarily rigid at the 
 boom of a deep-toned bell. 
 
 Still there Avas nothing to fasten on as a positive f;^ult in 
 him ; be obeyed me better than any one, and with a better 
 grace ; learned faster than ever, procuring himself just so 
 much more time to dream ; nor was he actually rude to his 
 uncle, as he had been wont, when they happened to meet. I 
 think Horatia set on the boy a spell of reverence, enforced 
 by hers towards him she alone revered in all the world. 
 Arnold Major was precise about the child ; never failed to 
 
 14*
 
 322 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 examine me as to his j^rogress, periodically ; was ever asking 
 my advice, which it would have been vain to give, since, 
 under the circumstances, it could not be followed ; for I felt 
 only the best of the best of public schools would be of any 
 use ; the child, though still so young, being more than ready, 
 for such a destination intellectually, while morally he wanted 
 to be born again to boyhood. 
 
 I have said Arnold Major was conscientious ; but for his 
 anxiety, I can say nothing. None of us are perfect ; and 
 perhaps a perfect man would partake more of the nature of 
 prig than angel. So here I must insert that my friends at 
 this time realized Lavater's phrase of " attention without in- 
 terest," with reference to all persons and subjects except his 
 wife. Starved long on hopeless love, held long in durance 
 viler than despair, riven suddenly, as if by death, — trans- 
 ported in an instant, as it were, into the innermost recesses 
 of that mysterious Paradise, round whose very gates hang 
 fragrances that make the shut-out strangers giddy even to 
 breathe, — how could he be blamed if all humanity was 
 veiled from his heart awhile — if cares and duties swept by 
 him, unheeded, not unfultilled ? For, harder than he had 
 ever worked before, he must have worked now, to get home 
 every day an hour earlier than before his marriage. This 
 was indeed the case ! Ilis work must have been done too, 
 for the house of Brown, Jones, & Co. would have discharged 
 any unfullilling or mis-fulfilling of its servants, at a moment's 
 notice. 
 
 How intensely happy he was ! — though no need to him 
 of partings to heighten the bliss of meeting. I believe that 
 those transient daily separations of this husband and this wife 
 produced peculiar results, which would not have been brought 
 to fruition in less developed natures than theirs, even if de- 
 voted to each other. Such daily separations may have 
 sharpened the bliss of restoration to him, but Iiis nature was 
 too earnest to require intensifying, and the intensification of 
 such pleasure was but pain. And for her — she was a
 
 ALMOST A HEKOLNE. 323 
 
 woman who could not but suffer from suspense, the very 
 shortest, concerning him with whom she was made one. 
 Also, there lay deep nestled in her bosom a strange but true 
 instinct of having been unfairly judged by him — even un- 
 fairly treated by him, (seeing how he loved her,) for several 
 lonely years. When he was with her, her generous wife- 
 hood rose superior over this dim darkling instinct, as tlie 
 dayspring overflows the twiliglit ; but in his brief, frequent 
 absences, it woke and fluttered like a wounded bird within 
 her. I knew it by my gift of sympathy, — a kind of moral 
 divination, — which gift I hope I never have abused, but 
 sometimes used for good. It was nobler than any one would 
 allow it to be, that she devoted herself to that child Philippa, 
 for her Avhole nature was in a state of delicate irritability 
 from the overshadowing presence of the absent, — if such a 
 phrase may be used, — and her organization was thrilling 
 from head to foot through every fibre, like the mimosa lately 
 touched by the finger that pressed, then left it. 
 
 They were in fact, both of them, beings who could not 
 understand each other fully till every mystery was fulfilled, 
 of sorrow as of love, of faith as well as passion.
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 CHANGE OF AVEATHER. 
 
 TiiEY gave only four dinner parties that winter, — Hora- 
 tia had been accustomed to give half a dozen every year ; 
 this time, I fancy as much for her own sake as her husband's, 
 she curtailed the number. Scarcely would it have been 
 graceful on her part, if feasible, to entertain no friends at all 
 in her own established fashion ; for such friends as formed 
 her circle on those special occasions had been friends of her 
 father and known her all her life. She was, I think, vexed 
 with me because I would not accept her invariable invita- 
 tions ; at all events, for the last time she would take no nega- 
 tive, and I went down perforce. I was not sorry ; I had 
 never seen her, rather, I should say, had never heard her, so 
 brilliant ; and I recollect thinking in the midst that it would 
 surely be as hard, even as unnatural, for her to abstain from 
 society altogether, as for a fine dramatic genius to " cut " the 
 stage. And certainly in the mere part of hostess, she was 
 perfect, for she was kind, a rare concomitant even of the 
 grandest courtesy. I only mention this dinner at all, because 
 at it I remarked a guest who looked like an intruder, and 
 whom, albeit, she treated with a special and distinctive kind- 
 ness, almost implying gratitude or cause for gi-atitude on her 
 part, or some peculiar connection between herself and him. 
 "When I say he looked like an intruder, I don't mean he failed 
 in self-possession, or did, on the point of the palate, make 
 himself at home ; but he was so abstracted, cast such stealthy 
 glances about, then, as it were, pulled himself up mentally,
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 325 
 
 and seemed doubly (as I foncicd) unconcerned with any but 
 the passing engagement. Once he peeped at me, — I fear I 
 have the knack of attracting eyes by mine, and, if I may use 
 such a phrase, of eye-reading ; at all events I have made 
 scores of individuals, whose gaze I had attracted with mine, 
 avert their eyes directly afterwards, and never meet them 
 again so long as I was in their company. Such of these per- 
 sons as I had the chance of knowing in the sequel, I always 
 found sly, dishonorable, or possessed of some doubtful quality 
 or impure secret. But of an eye that turns not from me, I 
 am certain God looks out of such with the soul. 
 
 I only meant to notice, however, that this man peeped at 
 me. I gazed full at him, and he shrank visually. I saw no 
 more of his eyes, and could not tell their color afterwards, 
 nor ever recall their expression. He was a dapper gentle- 
 man, grave, gray, and rather reverend, who laughed much 
 at the saUies of the hostess even when they were serious (a 
 peculiar quality of Horatia's wit), but who never smiled — 
 who had no smile, I thought. He was devoted to her in 
 manner and action, however, and once, only once — as she 
 passed out of the room at the head of her sister stars — 
 " their sphei-ed music silent in her sphere," — I saw his face 
 soften, a mournful pity quivered darkly over it an instant ; 
 in an instant it was gone, and his face set harder than be- 
 fore. I am certain no one else remarked it ; in general, men 
 ai-e no Aviser physiognomists than they are jurors, perhaps 
 not so good. 
 
 He looked almost like a man preparing for a heavy ill- 
 ness, who sinks into a pathetic languor, and rouses himself 
 alternately ; and Avho will not give in till he must. This 
 showed more to me after the men were alone (for as short 
 an interval as might jiossibly be — an apology for etiquette, 
 indeed ; this the fault of the polite but very imi)atient host ! ) 
 Next day, of course, I sent to inquire after INIrs. Major's 
 health. She sent for me thereon (I knew she would) and I 
 went down, expecting by instinct a repi'imand.
 
 32G ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 " Why ? " asks the reader. Listen ! 
 
 She always looked particularly interesting when tired, — a 
 rare thing with women this sickly age. She was sitting back 
 in a very easy chair, fitting some plain work for Philippa ; 
 (she made her learn to Avork, all honor to her for that.) The 
 fine lawn looked very snowy and pretty in her hands ; she 
 had taken to rings again on the right hand, which glittered 
 like an iris ; on the left the wedding glory shone alone, and 
 right vain was she of that tiny circlet, twisting it every way 
 while she talked — anon covering it with the other hand 
 jealously, as if she thought I might suddenly desire to steal 
 it. She was soft and saucy together, one of her happiest 
 moods. 
 
 " I always knew you were dreadfully unsociable, but I did 
 think you would forego your prejudices for the sake of your 
 friends," she began straight out. 
 
 " What did I do ? " I asked, innocently. 
 
 " Nothing — that was the miss. I never thought you 
 vain before, — on the contrary, I believed you modest." 
 
 "Vain! ami?" 
 
 " You must be so ; I know not a person — certainly not 
 among young gentlemen of my acquaintance — who can 
 talk more prettily than you do, when you choose. You are 
 neither slow nor ignorant when out of your ovm books," (did 
 she mean I was slow and ignorant in them ?) — " as you 
 would make people beheve. You carry the poet into prosaic 
 circles at the risk of disenchanting them of the notion they 
 have just managed to entertain, that possibly you are one. 
 A poet, I mean." 
 
 " I don't write poetry, I am sure." 
 
 " You know I think that a mistake also — " (she was re- 
 solved to lecture me.) " You clip and trim your ideas to 
 make them march in prosaic lines ; whereas ' winged words ' 
 fall sweetest, even on untuned ears." 
 
 " Next time I write it shall be a poem, and I shall get 
 nothing for it, even if it shall be printed, instead of getting
 
 ALJIOST A HEROINE. 327 
 
 seventy or eighty ikhuuIs for a clipped and trimmed 'ideal' 
 tale, that in prosaic lines ' drags its slow length along.' " 
 
 " I thought you meant to be very brilliant," she went on ; 
 "you looked so unusually accoumiodating." 
 
 " Mrs. Major ! There was somebody you wanted me to 
 please, then ; pray tell me who ; pity you did not tell me 
 beforehand." 
 
 " I knew you wouldn't come at all then ! Don't be angry 
 if I say that all men are not your admirers, for, in compen- 
 sation, I know not one woman who is not your adoress." 
 
 " Delicious ! llast thou found honey ? Eat so much as 
 is sufficient, «&.c." 
 
 " Did you remark the gentleman on my right hand ? " 
 
 " Particularly. But if he be my admirer, he showed it 
 curiously ; he would not look at me. And do you know, I 
 thought he looked strangely uncomfortable, considering his 
 proximity to yourself." 
 
 " Are you serious ? I never quite know whether you 
 mean more than you say, or simply say much more than you 
 mean ? I should be sorry if he were even uncomfortable. 
 And in a social sense, I know no one so capable of comfort." 
 
 " Ah, it must have been one of my hallucinations, — per- 
 haps that celestial soup disagreed with his mortal stomach. 
 It did taste like the 'brains of nightingales' distilled in 
 gravy from ' Balzac's ' game. Did you know he had a pre- 
 serve fed on sugar and nothing else, and all for his own eat- 
 
 ms 
 
 V" 
 
 She sat quite up. " I don't think I half like your fashion 
 of rambling in by-ways of reading — it makes your books 
 unfavorable to the matter of fact ? Now that man was one 
 of the few who take a desperate fancy to your books, — he 
 would have done anything — have bought any number I 
 bade him — and he wanted to see you." 
 
 " He didn't look as if he did ! Who is he, may I ask ? " 
 
 "You would have known if you had been out as much as 
 
 you ought. He is the great banker, Rupert Petres — per-
 
 328 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 haps the greatest going, certainly one of the fastest and 
 longest. He was my father's very dear friend for years and 
 years ; and my mother's long before I was born." 
 
 " No wonder you feel so strongly for him then — I can 
 understand — but then you see he was not my father's and 
 mother's friend, and didn't know me long before I was born, 
 
 — I mean " 
 
 '' You mean you are dreaming very far off the mark. 
 Never mind ! It is certainly very mean of me to find fault 
 with you, when I am just going to ask you the very greatest 
 favor that " 
 
 " That what ? — " for she hesitated — " that a lazy lady 
 can ask a fast young gentleman. I want to give a children's 
 party, just before Christmas, — on Christmas eve, I think, — 
 I know so many little dears. They will have a tree, of 
 course, and I shall look after that ; also a comical magic 
 lantern and marionettes; but I w^ant something striking to 
 begin with. You see I can't bear those little plays written 
 for children, to curb their pi'etty tongues ; and yet for the 
 first half hour, unless they are disposed of, they are apt to 
 do dreadful things on a small scale, and not to amuse them- 
 selves, as the Fi-ench say." 
 
 I saw it all ! — the excuse veiling the design. In reality 
 she wanted to do honor to Arnold Major in the persons of 
 Hilary and Philippa ; he could not complain, either, that it 
 was on their account, if she invited a party of her friends' 
 children ! but the fear of " dreadful things " was of course as 
 clearly founded upon Philippa's peculiar idiosyncrasy, as 
 that of the non-amusement on Hilary's. However, I felt 
 instantly I could help her here, and grateful to her that 
 she asked me. "Will you leave it all to me, then — 
 entirely ? " 
 
 " Certainly not ! " quite indignant. " How do I know how 
 much you will want to spend — choose rather — for I know 
 you would just ruin yourself to produce a startling ephemera 
 
 — or epheraeron — which is it, you know Greek ? "
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 329 
 
 " I beg your pardon, I slioukl not think of insulting you so 
 far ; it would be indeed (in the words of a great AVit) ' rob- 
 bing the poor-box to pay the bank of England ! ' I Avill either 
 give you an estimate, or send you in an account." 
 
 " I never have accounts — I hate them. Can't you give 
 mc the least idea ? " 
 
 " You shall give me ten pounds, and I will give you the 
 residue." 
 
 " Gracious ! you can't do anything with that." 
 
 "Can't I?" I thought. "Indeed, Mrs. Major, I can, 
 and no one ought to spend more on such a thing, — nay, no 
 one need so much." 
 
 She gave me tlie money then and there. How she de- 
 lighted in being rich, — all generous persons do, particularly 
 women, I fiancy; Avealth gives them, in their own opinion, an 
 extra strength — until they experience its worthlessness, 
 unless other support accompanies it. 
 
 "Now," she said coaxingly, "do tell me what you are 
 going to have ? " 
 
 " A tableau (I hate the term) a picture, from the " Mid- 
 summer Night's Dream — " 
 
 " Oh, please, no — it will be so awfully flat — the dregs 
 of all the pantomimes mixed together." 
 
 " You will see ; — I shall have Mendelssohn's music to 
 it.'' 
 
 " I can't allow that — it would be absolutely dead." 
 
 " Wait till you hear my rehearsal of it ; I shan't permit 
 one to be seen." 
 
 Next day I wrote a note to John, and asked him a favor 
 on my own account. It was to lend me, for one day and 
 night, a certain supei'b stuffed owl in the " collection," and 
 a marvellous musical snuff box, item ; the latter had been 
 manufactured by a German, who, it almost seemed, must 
 have had a myriad fingers to make it, and at least, three 
 brains to invent. It was as big as a street-organ, and it 
 played Beethoven's " Ode to Joy," PurceU's " Hymn on
 
 330 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 Charles I.," all tlie chorales from Bach's " Passione," Cinia- 
 rosa's " Hochze it durch List," Weber's Jubilee, " Ranz 
 des Yaches," and all the " Midsummer Night's Dream " 
 of Mendelssohn. The man Avho made it had spent all his 
 patrimony on it, — sold every bit of his furniture to finish it, 
 save the bench it stood on in his garret, and the needful 
 tools ; borrowed five pounds on it to come to England, and 
 pawned his only coat to advertise it. My uncle had, of 
 course, heard of it ; and finally bought it for five hundred 
 pounds, with which the German bought a tiny tobacco 
 business in the Minories, and died of smoking, three years 
 afterwards, worth quite five thousand pounds. 
 
 I bade John (if he chose to oblige me) let me know w^hen 
 I might fetch it ; but lo ! the very next afternoon he came 
 in a hired Uglyvillian fly with it and the owl, the latter in a 
 game basket of the largest size, and the former in his own 
 arms, wrapped in the library tablecloth ! I thought Horatia 
 would have died of laughing when she saw him. Of course, 
 having heard of him before, she was all her generous self 
 to him — wanted him to come upstairs, but he persisted in 
 sitting in the hall ; and also in believing it was my house, 
 earned by my literary performances. Horatia could not 
 make him move even into the dining-room, nor Avould he 
 drink a glass of wine. 
 
 Arnold Major passed through the hall -while he was sitting 
 there, — stopped, as he ever did when attracted by her 
 atmosphere, — said something about her catching cold, and 
 drew her in his arm away. 
 
 " Is that her brother, Mr. Ernest ? " 
 
 " No, John, her husband." 
 
 " She ought to have had you." 
 
 I never heard him express the least feminine penchant 
 before, and this was his method of denoting his enslavement 
 by Horatia : — 
 
 " She has a pretty tongue. She ought to have had you, 
 or, otherwise, she ought to have had your uncle."
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 331 
 
 Did he think wives descended literally from one man to 
 his heir ? Poor Horatia ! — well for her slie had her choice 
 within her doom. 
 
 John would only stop to give, as he expressed it, the 
 " horse a smoke ; " by which I concluded he had pelted in 
 style from Uglyville. Then he asked for a glass of water — 
 " because it costs nothing." 
 
 " Is there anything else I could do, Mr. Ernest ? " with his 
 head on one side. 
 
 " You can send me, not bring them, mind, a lot of ivy and 
 holly, — all sorts of evergreens, — and a great deal of moss, 
 that flat moss, you know, John, that lines the very bottom of 
 the dell." 
 
 I knew that would " cost nothing." And on Christmas- 
 eve morning came a cart John had hii'ed of a carrier, quite 
 full of such greenery. Enough to represent Birnam Wood 
 on any stage. 
 
 Mrs. Major wanted to hire a portable theatre, dresses, &c., 
 but I could not bear such a thing, one sees them every day 
 now. We quarrelled a little bit, and then she gracefully 
 resigned. I saved her something in cost, and as for the 
 materials, — a few sheets of rose-colored and azure tissue 
 paper, two old oil lamps with globes, never used except by 
 her servants, and a quantity of fresh flowers (I would none 
 of artificial) were all I used or needed. I have not seen 
 anything half so pretty as my rehearsal, either. 
 
 Those irksome children ! I had to go almost on my 
 knees to Hilary to take a part at all, and even then it only 
 amounted to his setting the elfin orchestra to work behind the 
 screen, which, veiled completely with evergreens, hid the 
 rose-veiled lamps and other paraphernalia, necessarily kept 
 out of sight. 
 
 Philippa, wild with being made Oberon (leaning out of an 
 owl's nest, with an owl on the top of it), behaved very well 
 then, and acted capitally, of course, because there was no one 
 to see, and it was of no consequence. But afterwards, just
 
 332 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 as I was congratulating myself, she comes to me (all the wee 
 actors behig gone) : — 
 
 " Uncle, you ought to let me squeeze the flower." 
 " Why so ? — nonsense ; you did it very nicely." 
 " It says ' squeezes ' in the book, I looked at it, — I wanted 
 so to squeeze it." 
 
 " "Well, my dear, you can squeeze it if you like ! " 
 Unlucky me ! I had selected one of those carnations 
 made of Madeira feathers (Horatia had a quantity of them), 
 a vivid crimson, to outstand the more forcibly in the picture, 
 rather than with strict regard to the text ; and, justly, I did 
 not think it mattered whether she squeezed it or not ; it 
 might keep her more statuesque to do so. Unluckily also, 
 she didn't like " Titania," a grandchild of the very Rupert 
 Petres whom Horatia aflfected so much ; in fact it was at 
 Mrs. Major's own request I made her Titania in the group, 
 for all the other little creatures were fairer far than she ; 
 only, she, being excessively small (puny), passed well for 
 eltin, with her eyes shut, and recumbent on a thousand flow- 
 ers (green baize under them, to carry out the moss-tints I 
 had heaved into my sloping background). 
 
 " I don't like that child," said Philippa to me, additionally, 
 that night. " If I had been Oberon, she should have seen a 
 great bear after the flower, to eat her np." 
 
 " Never mind, and be sure to keep still ; it is only a pic- 
 ture, you must remember," said I, " for if it was not a very 
 pretty picture, I should be so ashamed." 
 
 In the very middle of the sweet, sweet overture, tinkling 
 as from all the leaves at once (the picture was only to last so 
 long), when forty real fairies were dimpling, peeping, and 
 shining in every attitude of baby art (I let them all smile, 
 provided they didn't laugh), when the eight solemn little 
 creatures who fjinned the queen with real palms (I got those 
 through Horatia's universal interest at Kew Gardens) were 
 fanning as if they would never tire, — when the audience, 
 (all papas, mammas, and nurses) were breathless with de-
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 333 
 
 liglit and vanity, — suddenly Titania shrieked, jumped n[), 
 ran down the bank, tumbling over all her attendants in front, 
 snatched at the screen and pulled it over, still screaming, 
 while her mother, a fasliionable young woman of the highest 
 watei', sent her head nurse to see what was the matter. 
 
 The matter was that Philippa had privily soaked the cai'- 
 nation in Horatia's Bohemian flask of eau-de-cologne, and 
 the feathers had retained the moisture like sponge, till the 
 right (or wrong) moment, when Oberon had discharged it 
 straight into Titania's eyes. 
 
 I only mention this little incident, because it was like the 
 initial misfortune to what came afterwards. 
 
 I never saw Arnold Major (who, ardent as he might be, 
 had the sweetest disposition — sweet as his wife's) in such a 
 downright passion. While Hoi-atia, having carried off the 
 squealing little patient to her dressing-room, and there estab- 
 lished her with her nurse, was setting on the puppets in the 
 play-room, lighted and prepared on purpose, — I, still stand- 
 ing discomfited in the background, saw Philippa borne off by 
 her uncle in her fantastic dress. He lifted her bodily, and 
 vanished with his burden at a door behind the overtopped 
 sci'een, 
 
 Wondei'ing what he had done with her (all the children 
 were cleared out of the drawing-room by this time), I be- 
 thought myself to go and see, and left Hilary still sitting on 
 the floor, in the middle of the moss, listening to the musical 
 box. He would not go with the rest. 
 
 On the second floor was the set of rooms I inhabited with 
 Hilary, shut in by double doors of baize. On this landing 
 was a lofty staircase window. There was no moonlight, or I 
 should have seen in time, and retreated from, two flgures. 
 They were whispering ; I knew them instantly, and was turn- 
 ing on my heel to go, when one of them heard me. 
 
 " Here," said Horatia, in clear but not untroubled tones, 
 " come and help me, Mr. Loftus, to disenchant this monster 
 — a child-ogre on Christmas Eve ! "
 
 334 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 " Whatever lias he done ? " I asked, stopping warily a few 
 steps beneath the landing. 
 
 " Sent that poor ' child terrible ' to bed ! Nay, put her 
 there and locked her in. I hiiow she didn't mean any harm, 
 whatever monkeyism, for she has seen me bathe my head a 
 hundred thousand times." 
 
 There was silence. I could see him press her again and 
 again to his bosom. Then I heard : — 
 
 " Oh ! my darling, don't make me remember my selfish- 
 ness too hardly, for daring to be happy. Have pity — " and 
 then his silent kisses devoured his words again. 
 
 The woman's instinct, never failing, any more than chai'- 
 ity, felt my presence there, which in the tumult left by his 
 late excitement, he felt not after the first moment. She 
 plucked herself very gently away from him, and turned to 
 me. I saw his arms stretch after her, but she eluded them. 
 She chose to do so then. 
 
 " Do ask him to let her come and see the marionettes. 
 Material has more power over the poor mite than immate- 
 rial. She meant no harm. He won't say yes to me." 
 
 " — Did you really wish it ? I thought it only your be- 
 nevolence — your tender heart — " 
 
 " Hush ! " 
 
 She put her hand over his mouth. She would not bear 
 compliments from him befoi'e another man. 
 
 " I do really and sincerely wish it, if you think it right," 
 she added, in the tone of that deference the tyrant-hus- 
 band crushes under his heel, the man cherishes in his heart 
 as the most precious part of a treasure immeasurably pre- 
 cious. 
 
 " I did not know you cared so very much. She shall 
 come down directly. Ernest," — he addressed me, without 
 turning to me — " will you fetch her ? The key is only 
 turned outside." 
 
 I went readily, but in going I had to pass them close, and 
 I heard Horatia shiver, — scarcely strange, the night was
 
 ALMOST A HEROI^^E. 335 
 
 Cliristinas-cold ; but it was scarce like her, I thought after- 
 wards, to say : — 
 
 " I liope nothing is going to happen. See that shooting- 
 star ! " 
 
 For my part I knew not any superstition connected with 
 shooting-stars. Perhaps she did. Had no terrestrial trouble 
 intervened, the celestial apparition would never have been 
 remembered by me, but have faded as its own fair trail in 
 space. 
 
 Philippa came down. No more of her — nor of the chil- 
 dren's merry evening, which was glorious — Horatia, looking 
 quite herself again, only her pale self. Arnold Major look- 
 ing himself also, as I had seen him look before his marriage, 
 when, after his first flush of hope, earthly cares beset him 
 with their thorn-wound fever. 
 
 The next day but one, Horatia informed me that she and 
 her husband were going to St. Leonards for a week or ten 
 days, the extent of his leave of absence from business in fact. 
 She said she required sea-air, which meant, of course, she 
 thought he did, but that she was little likely to say to either 
 of us. 
 
 However, I was thankful to see them go, for they deserved 
 more of each other's solitary companionship than they could 
 well attain in London. 
 
 The children were, of course, left to me. Fortunately a 
 decided frost set in the very day the travellers departed, and 
 my agonies lest Philippa should demolish the drawing-room 
 furniture, or that of the dressing-room, still more desirable in 
 her eyes, were suspended by her taking a violent fancy to 
 the ice on the Serpentine. 
 
 I took her there every afternoon and taught her first to 
 slide and then to skate — for a marvel, Hilary took a liking 
 to the dreamy exercise as well, so that I felt sure I had them 
 safe at least ; and in the evenings (hey were both tired enough 
 to go to bed betimes. 
 
 The fifth day a great snow fell, — a white veil, dreary as
 
 336 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 darkness, hid the sky, and as so often it seems to happen, the 
 spirits of my charges sank with the thermometer — and so 
 did mine. Hihiry barricaded himself with his books, but 
 only laid his head on them. Philippa stretched herself on 
 the hearth-rng and scorched herself redhot. I essayed tell- 
 ing them one of Andersen's tales, but was sure they were not 
 attending — and in the very crisis of it, dull enough even to 
 me, we all started together at a most overpowering street- 
 door knock. 
 
 Who could it be ? for it was but half-past twelve, — the 
 travellers returned, unexpectedly perchance. But no, — nor 
 had I long to wait, for a servant (in undress, with exposed 
 shirt sleeves) brought me a card — Mrs. Le Kyteler — and 
 she must see me instantly. 
 
 Mrs. Le Kyteler ! who lived all winter long as in a hot- 
 house, — who had never effected a single free and easy en- 
 trance since Horatia's marriage. I was awfully alarmed, — 
 fear of I know not what constricted ray very heart. I flew 
 down stairs, for she was in the dining-room — she would not 
 come up. 
 
 There she was, wrapped up like a Russian to her very 
 mouth in sable — but on my appearance she tlu-ew off a 
 heavy cloak and I could see her face. 
 
 It Avore a deadlier anxiety than mine, — her cheeks were 
 scarlet, and her eyes glittered. Nor would she sit down — 
 I therefore stood on the rug — she did not attempt to salute 
 me, but began at once hoarsely and imperiously : — 
 
 " In as few words as possible, tell me, do you know 
 through your friend anything about the disposition of his 
 wife's money ? " 
 
 " I know nothing more than that he is as wholly inde- 
 pendent of it as before his marriage." 
 
 " Tush ! a good thing to say now he has housed himself 
 here ! Have you ever heard him say whether she trans- 
 ferred her property on her marriage ? for she made her will 
 all over asain. I know that."
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 337 
 
 " I never knew where her money was, and I am pretty 
 certain he did not, tliough he may know now, for I believe 
 their mutual confidence is perfect — " 
 
 " No sentiment, if you please, — it has ruined more women 
 than play men. Heavens ! Avhat fresh disaster ? " 
 
 It was another knock — in an instant a gentleman came 
 running in, his military greatcoat whiter than his whiskers, 
 scarcely whiter than his foce. It was Sir Verveyne Waters 
 — I knew him instantly, though I had only seen him at the 
 wedding — a man I liked exceedingly. 
 
 " I use no ceremony," he said. " I am sorry to see you 
 here, madam — how fast flies ill-boding news ! " 
 
 " Is it quite true, then — certain ? no hope ? " 
 
 " Dead-locked — not a shutter down — they say he has 
 blown his hrains out. No such chance — I know better ! 
 Mr. Loftus, how is Mrs. Arnold INIajor ? her people tell me 
 she is at the sea — not ill, I trust." 
 
 " No, as well as usual — they only went for ten days, and 
 this is the fifth." 
 
 " No good to question him, Sir Verveyne," said Mrs. Le 
 Kyteler, petulantly, " young men never know anything that 
 is of any use. I have asked him already — his conviction is, 
 of course, that the husband is incorruptible — not much to the 
 purpose." 
 
 "A great deal to the purpose," said the officer gravely — 
 " if misfortune falls heavy on a tender woman, well for her 
 if her life's support is incorruptible. In this hour I am glad 
 she made her choice thus." Then he turned to me : 
 
 "I know you to be very intimate with Mr. Major, — did 
 you ever hear him express disapprobation of the house she 
 banked at ? I have done it many and many a time to her." 
 
 " Never in a word — nor hint — " 
 
 " Do you think you would alarm her if you went down to 
 them — suddenly, and asked to see him ? " 
 
 " I could prevent its alarming her, I am sure." 
 
 " I will go with you in the train — we shall catch one in 
 15
 
 338 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 three quarters of an hour, — and on the road I will tell you 
 my worst fears." He just bowed to Mrs. Le Kyteler — who 
 said (she must have been in extremity of alarm to be so un- 
 selfish) — " Pray take my carriage, and send it back here for 
 me, — I will wait, it is so much quicker than a cab." 
 
 So we went in her brougham. Oh ! that journey on the 
 snow-blocked line, when we seemed whirling on wheels of ice 
 down some Alpine precipice ! anon were stuck as if frozen to 
 the drift. I will not write down our conversation — it is 
 useless to rack memory, nor does it teach endurance ; it was 
 short and sad — and I began to think I had underrated real 
 troubles in overrating spiritual woes. 
 
 On reaching St. Leonard's, we drove first to a stationer's ; 
 I bought a blank white sheet, enveloped and directed it to 
 Arnold Major in a hand unlike my own. Then straight to 
 the address they had sent me — one of those large pretty 
 houses fronting the fair sea — now dim and smoke-tinted 
 against the dazzling snow-shower. We stopped in fact four 
 doors off, and I went to their door alone. They were in the 
 drawing-room, — passing up the wide warm stairs I heard her 
 laugh — it rang out as from the fulness of deep delight ; — I 
 had sent up no card, for fear of frightening her, but merely my 
 name, and a message that I had brought a note on business. 
 
 Arnold Major opened the door, and I saw into the luxurious 
 drawing-room, with its crimson long curtains and enormous 
 fire, — Horatia, in a delicious easy chair, basked full in the 
 golden blaze. 
 
 I know not what he read in my face, but he came out and 
 all but shut the door behind him. 
 
 " Only a note from Brown, Jones, & Co. about some busi- 
 ness — it seemed immediate, so having nothing to do, I brought 
 it — particularly as it was not to come by post." 
 
 I held it to him — but Horatia heard at least one word — 
 for she rushed to the door and dragged it open : — 
 
 "Did you say Brown & Jones had failed'^" — she asked 
 vehemently.
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 339 
 
 " No, no, Mrs. Major," — I felt as if I should clioke ; — 
 her first thought for her husband had inadvertently glanced 
 so strangely near the truth for her. 
 
 How should I get rid of her? — through her pride, of 
 course. 
 
 "They said you were to read it alone, and give your 
 answer" — she retreated not, but cast a jealous eye at me, 
 as to say, " Tou are not necessary to his solitude if / am 
 banished." He saw something doom-like, I suppose, in my 
 regard, for already his own reflected it. 
 
 " We will go down stairs an instant " — this to me, he did 
 not trust himself to look at her. 
 
 " You cannot go down stairs," said she, excitedly, (I knew 
 she fancied something too) — " for we have not engaged the 
 dining-room, and there are people in it — I will go up stairs, 
 if need be, and you can remain. Mr. Loftus, is it anything 
 about my husband ? " 
 
 She pressed close to me, and poured all the wife-love of 
 her looks full into mine. 
 
 " No — on my conscience — by my soul ! " 
 
 " Still, it would seem something serious, that you speak so. 
 Does it concern me ? " 
 
 " I don't know — it may." 
 
 I glanced at Arnold Major, and saw he did not disapprove 
 my straightforwardness. 
 
 " What is it ? — don't bore me, please ! " 
 
 " Two friends of yours came to me to-day, to tell me that 
 Petres had stopped payment, yesterday." 
 
 A moment, she turned her piteous eyes towards him — 
 eyes of the wounded hart; — she reeled into his arms, then 
 tore herself away abruptly — I never saw her so ungentle. 
 He Avould have held her yet — he did yet hold her hands. 
 Great tears rushed into his eyes, veiling such tenderness as I 
 never saAv expressed in mortal face before or since, but hers 
 were dry and emptied of expression, while all the haughti- 
 ness, all the waywardness, all tlie passion of her nature, 
 seemed fighting in her face.
 
 340 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 Again and again bis eyes of love, his longing arms, in- 
 vited her — in vain ; she struggled only farther from him, 
 her bosom heaving with deep long gasps, that would not 
 melt — her eyes like stone. 
 
 " You don't love me, then," he said, " half so much as I 
 have loved youP 
 
 This was all. But, loving as the words were, they were 
 not %oise. She dragged her bands from bis enfolding ones, — 
 her wrists were scarlet with the effort to release them, — pass- 
 ed swiftly into the drawing-room, and locked the door — 
 leaving us both outside. Even he dared not to follow, then. 
 " Is it true, then ? " I ventured. 
 
 « AH — every ftirtbing ! Ob, that I had been unselfish 
 enough, brave enough, to advise her ! Others have done so, 
 she told me; and that deterred me. What shall I do ? " he 
 added, with a singular expression, that was not wholly sad, 
 and going a few steps farther from the dooi". 
 
 " What shall I do to make her bear it — brook it ? — and 
 this is the wild spirit I thought I had covered with my 
 wings ! " 
 
 I could have been angry with him for the sudden echo of 
 exultation in his tone. Can it be believed — this man adored 
 her j90or, with sudden and manifold ecstasy ; it was what had 
 been the desire of his desires, though he had never dared to 
 dream it. Realization of the penalties included came soon 
 enough. I could not grudge such a momentary triumph to a 
 passionate and noble nature. 
 
 " What shall I do ? " again he said, with pleasure fluttering 
 on his lip. 
 
 " Leave her to God and herself. It is bitterly hard for 
 her — " 
 
 " Leave her to God !' — God gave her to me, and she her- 
 self — she is my own — weak wretch that I have been, to 
 doubt an instant ! Go down stairs, please — she might not 
 like — " 
 
 '" To find me there again — quite true."
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 341 
 
 I ivent down stairs ; but on the way I heard him knock, 
 not rudely, nor loudly — very low ; and in an instant the 
 door was opened ! I don't think I ever admired her so nuich 
 as at that very instant. 
 
 But just in illustration of her character, I must add, that 
 by no means could I persuade Sir Verveyne Waters to let 
 her alone, nor leave her alone with her husband. " I Avant 
 to give her a crumb of comfort," said the direct old boy, and 
 went to call on her. I waited outside, of course. When he 
 came down, and climbed into the cab : 
 
 " I always said (along with her father, who meant her to 
 have been a boy) that she was a soldier spoiled ; she is as 
 plucky as a pigeon sitting on a cannon's neck (I once knew 
 such a bird belonging to a fellow who had saved it, once on 
 a time, from the sportsman's small shot). I don't believe she 
 cares a stiver for losing all her thousands. Poor Standish ! 
 it is enough to pull him out of his grave. I had no idea, 
 either, it was half so much ; she can't be extravagant, like 
 most women. I wish I had anything worth leaving her, but 
 the little I have will be hers, and so I told her. She is a 
 ■bao-o-ao-e — and nothing can mend it. What do you think she 
 answered ? — stared at him straight, and held up her head — 
 ' I think myself the richest woman in England, General, and 
 have now for seven months and more.' " 
 
 All very well, I thought — but the baggage is a parcel 
 whose contents you do not know.
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 LOVE IN A MIST. 
 
 It was bitterly hard for her — I repeat it. Of course it 
 was not only improper, but " undisciplined " (is not that the 
 term ?), of Horatia to object to lose her fortune ; of course 
 it was wicked of her to regret it bitterly — intensely; but 
 such was indeed the case. Only to have lost favor in the 
 eyes of the man she loved, would have been a bitterer and 
 more stony fate in her esteem. Born generous through 
 every fibre, 'and of an organization that almost demanded 
 luxury and respite fi'om care, for its health and well-being, 
 with a temperament susceptible even more fully to pleasure 
 than to pain ; with a nature so intensely passionate that, with 
 a proportionate imaghiation, she would have been the great- 
 est poetess that ever lived, but which (failing that non-desir- 
 able faculty) made her only the more perfect woman : — so 
 far so good, so sweet, so honorable ; but, alas ! as a human 
 being (whatever as a tvoman she might be), she was no 
 more feultless than her lord. Therefore, if he exulted un- 
 duly in the fact that her future support would fall on him 
 wholly, — that every item of provision she consumed, every 
 rag of raiment she put on, would be procured by and through 
 his earnings, she — well ! her haughty spirit, which took the 
 place in her noble nature that worldliness takes in a mean 
 one, positively revelled in its own exceeding discomfiture ; it 
 was as though she sat down with her misery and hugged it 
 breast to breast. 
 
 Tlic first time I saw her after the catastrophe (one involv-
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 343 
 
 in"f the ruin of scores less able to bear the nakedness of 
 poverty than she), I was surprised at her cheerfulness, her 
 lofty air — it was almost grand ! Even he trembled at it, 
 who only saw it through the mist of beauty that bathes the 
 beloved one ever for the eyes that love ; but I — well, I 
 thought she would be ill afterwards from the violent sup- 
 pressed excitement (all the wilder because suppressed) 
 which evidently possessed her. The shock fell on her 
 nerves instead, and smashed her energies awhile ; I do not 
 believe they would ever have recovered their tone, had not 
 the sharpest remedy of bosom-pain, of anguish cradled in 
 the blood, struck through all the outworks of sense and pas- 
 sion to the heart, — the human heart, not the romantic one. 
 If she rebelled in secret against the edict of what was 
 certainly needless fate, she never showed it by word or 
 strongly evidenced emotion. But, as I have said, she was 
 not faultless ; I must note that her worst error was against her 
 husband ; she could not reconcile herself to the dependence 
 on him, which after all, had been as absolute before, if less 
 palpable ; she raged inwardly against her impotence to be 
 his almoner and financial fountain-head ; not tliat actually 
 she had been either yet with his permission, but I knew she 
 always had it in her mind that she excelled him on one ma- 
 terial ground ; she was content he should surpass her on all 
 the rest- 
 As for him, he had never before been miserable. " I was 
 lost for want of her when I had her not ; now I have lost 
 her, for if she does not love rae, she exists not — there is no 
 such being." These were a few of his words to me one 
 evening, while she was, vivaciously and most rationally, super- 
 intending the disposition of her personal effects. That same 
 hour she came down while we were together, and re- 
 marked : — 
 
 " Don't you think that you might go back to the same 
 house you had before ? — for they say it is not yet let, and it 
 seemed to suit you so well."
 
 344 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 He had been discussing with me quite desperately, whither 
 he should remove. How she had found out about the house, 
 we could neither of us tell, but I appreciated, even as well 
 as he could, the virtue of her volition in alluding to it 
 first. 
 
 In fact, we returned there. 
 
 I believe in her first, fresh bitterness, Horatia sought to 
 mortify herself as much as j)ossible (like Job when he sat down 
 among the ashes), for nothing could be much more repug- 
 nant to her habits, taste, temperament, than that same neigh- 
 borhood. But one part of her — and a vital one — was her 
 exceeding philosophic aptitude to make of the worst the best. 
 And, however she might fret and chafe at the conditions 
 which bound her generous hands, and made void her natural 
 impulses to give, she never sacrificed an iota of her rights as 
 wife and mistress. Certainly they lived in the same house, 
 but who could have recognized it ? She had sold all her 
 furniture, save tliat of the room she had shared with Jdm, 
 and that transferred made the new one a lesser model of the 
 old ; but she had conserved certain articles of ornamental 
 furniture, a number of drawing-room toys and books, her 
 splendid piano of course, and the exquisite foreign filigree 
 flower-stands that had adorned the stair windows on every 
 landing, now filled every window in the house ; their plants, 
 so carefully tended all along, bloomed brighter than ever, 
 there. For the rest, — six weeks had not passed before Ar- 
 nold Major said to me : — 
 
 " It is inconceivable, and must be done by magic. She 
 never even spends what I give her, and see the diiference 
 between this time and ours." 
 
 Ours in the past tense, because, of course, nothing — 
 neither his powers nor her smiles induced me to remain in 
 their house. 
 
 One can get apartments fit to live in at Islington — the best 
 part of it — at a reasonable rate, which, I fancy, can be said 
 of no other region in or near London, whatsoever ; and thus,
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 345 
 
 on my own account merely, I was thankful to escape from 
 an extra debt of gratitude, — what I owed already could 
 never be repaid. Besides, I could almost rid them of Hilary 
 altogether ; he stuck fast to me, and even remained with me 
 at night. Meantime, Philippa was the solid incubus of the 
 household yet, and I coidd not hope to rid it of her, though I 
 had some small share in intercepting her rash inquiries and 
 remarks as to the changes she beheld and experienced. For 
 in the first ferment of excitement in the household before it 
 was broken up, I had taken her alone with me for a long 
 walk, and explained to her very seriously what had happened 
 to her benign, sweet friend. No one knows how much children 
 can understand, and how needless it is to invent fibs for them 
 in order to disguise either natural mysteries or chance facts, 
 from the pure vision of their undistorting innocence. This 
 child was a rough diamond enough, yet the beams struck 
 forth from her at the first touch of the light let in. When I 
 had told her about the bad man, who had been wasting and 
 spending other people's money for ever so many years, her 
 eyes gor bright and rigid. I worked up the tale as highly as 
 possible with side truths ; but when I reached the plain foct 
 about Horatia, she burst out crying violently, and went into 
 premature hysterics. The only way to quiet her, after giv- 
 ino- her a very large shaddock to which she had been at- 
 tracted in a fruiterer's window, was to make a secret of it, as 
 between herself and me, and bid her not to reveal anything 
 I had told her. "No one who is in trouble likes to be 
 talked to of it, because it makes them cry, and no one likes 
 to be seen to cry," was my suggestion. 
 
 " No," said Philippa, and dried her eyes abruptly with her 
 gloves, grasping the shaddock yet more firmly. 
 
 I wondered whether I had produced any effect. Positively, 
 yes! That very evening, just before her husband's return, 
 Horatia stood by the fire in the beautiful drawing-room she 
 was so soon to leave ; — nothing could draw Arnold Major 
 from his daily duty now, it had become his pride and his glory. 
 15 *
 
 346 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 Philippa marched in, trying to be quiet, and, of course, 
 making every one of lier own footsteps doubly audible. She 
 went up to Horatia : — 
 
 " I say — you don't like me to call you aunt ? " 
 
 Even " aunt " started ! So did I, — for it was a fact I 
 knew inductively ; but Philippa could have only known in- 
 stinctively, — she did not like it. 
 
 "I want to kiss you," adds Philippa. 
 
 Horatia was not one of your universal woman-kissers ; in 
 fact, I hardly ever saw her kiss any person ; her embraces 
 were reserved for one, at present. She stooped her cheek a 
 little, however, and Philippa climbed on a stool. 
 
 " Shall I call you Sliss Standish ? " 
 
 Horatia laughed, — what a melancholy laugh — though 
 born of momentary mirth. 
 
 " I am not Miss Standish. No, certainly you may NOT 
 call me so." 
 
 " Then may I call you ' dear ' ? " 
 
 " Oh, certainly, it is a very charming word." 
 
 So Philippa did ever afterwards — and as she had never 
 chosen to give Arnold Major the name of uncle, and had 
 always persisted in giving it me, I possessed it solely, and 
 possess it to this day. 
 
 Arnold Major was quite right about Horatia's management 
 — it was miraculous, and it proved, in one of the most tri- 
 fling instances, how lost and imposed on are men without 
 wives to care for them, not only like them — a vastly differ- 
 ent thing — though in that, as in many examples, the 
 "greater includes the less." I do think her pride may have 
 helped her a' mere little, where style was the point in ques- 
 tion ; but it never infringed on the tender forecast of her love 
 where his comfort only was concerned. 
 
 Horatia found " o|)portunity in extremity." Of the room 
 opposite the parlor which Arnold Maj'or had used on the sup- 
 position that it was necessarily the o?^/fy sitting-room — yes, 
 of the room which had been given up to the children and
 
 ALMOST A IIEROINK. 347 
 
 their desires, she made the most exquisite drawing-room. In 
 fact it was a long room, running the whole depth of the 
 house. But Arnold Major, maidike, I myself after him 
 also, had always underrated it because it had a hideous-pat- 
 terned, sick-hued papering. Mrs. Arnold Major " changed 
 all that ; " she re-papered it with the very simplest and tiniest 
 moss-pattern in gold on white ; for here be it recalled, she 
 had sold her personal effects to such purpose, that on the in- 
 terest of the sum realized, she proposed to dress herself 
 entirely. This paper was the only gift she bestowed on the 
 house, — that is, bought for it ; — for, with the residue of 
 fair-shaped and brightly-tinted articles she had reserved, she 
 made that long, if somewhat narrow, room lovelier than the 
 high echoing saloon in Wilton Crescent. No wonder Arnold 
 Major was amazed ; — with the sum he had spent, or half 
 wasted, weekly, his wife not only set up, but maintained a 
 page, besides the woman-servant (Arnold Major's own orig- 
 inal one) ; the boy, a nice little creature, clean, clever, sharp 
 as steel, — nay, a very fast "■ buttons " indeed, who yet adored 
 the shadow of his mistress so devotedly that he did not even 
 hanker after the flesh-pots of Wilton Crescent, — for he had 
 been bred there, and was the butler's first grand offspring. 
 I know that (light weight as he w'as) he " sat heavy on the 
 soul " of Arnold Major, the whole of the first year he was 
 there, until the end of it. And then, " Positively we are 
 not in debt ! " said my friend to me when I called on literary 
 business of my own, and he could not help praising her to 
 me (of course I don't know how much he covered her with 
 laurels under the shadow of the rose). " Not only we are 
 not in debt, but have saved something — so she says." Then 
 came a pause filled by a sigh, which, had I not been tolerably 
 discerning, as well as deeply interested and somewhat expe- 
 rienced too by this time, I should have wondered at. How- 
 ever, this is getting on too fast. 
 
 If ever there is romance, as well as love, in a marriage, it 
 deepens hour by hour, like the love. In fact, the grand dif-
 
 348 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 ficiilty in delineating the life of real marriage (not formal 
 and factitious, veiling hate, disregard, or unsuitability) would 
 be ever to leave off'. Had one the right as well as the power 
 to depict it, cui bono ? for, as is the case with all the few in- 
 teresting subjects of discourse or scripture, so very rare is 
 the interest it excites ; or perhaps rather, so few human 
 beings can look up Avith marriage glory on their faces, because 
 so few have married without some cause, remote or proxi- 
 mate, of shame. 
 
 In this iny marriage there was romance enough ; I believe 
 the exceeding romance of both their dispositions saved them 
 both from various small collisions with minute obstacles of 
 fate, but it could not help either in the governing circum- 
 stances which impeded for a time — not too long for good — 
 their perfect vinion. Were they not married then, and 
 happy ? Happy as never man or woman can be out of mar- 
 riage ; nay, their intense and vital realization of the bliss of 
 their positive existence had a tendency and close approxima- 
 tion to pain, because it was so keenly jierfect. I have noth- 
 ing to do with that, save to notice it, for had not their happi- 
 ness been summer bright, the negative troubles (that impeded 
 what I call their perfect union) would not have been excited 
 either, any moi'e than motes can dance in the sunbeam when 
 the sun is under cloud. 
 
 I think Arnold Major believed that a few weeks, if not a 
 few days, would restore her completely to him as she had 
 been before. This was not, and could not be, because she 
 herself was changed. Lovely as her disposition was, and 
 noble her nature to its inmost core, she had never been tried 
 in the manner she herself appreciated most painfully, until 
 the instant when the terror fell on her. To call the loss of 
 wealth a terror may sound absurd, but is really rational, be- 
 cause our greatest terrors are not the most absolutely and 
 abstract terrible thing or fancy, but what we dread the most. 
 
 Then again, there is something in the quality called Taste 
 which is little comprehended, because in this country it is
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 349 
 
 scarcely ever possessed. And to a person of taste it is very 
 difficult, not only disagreeable, to be poor. Again, there are 
 persons M'ho, without overvaluing money either as misers or 
 spendthrifts, have a taste for it, which is quite as rational as 
 one for eating olives or laver, — nay, as natural as an instinct 
 for the chase. And Horatia, had she possessed the largest 
 fortune in the world, — not the new world, but say the old 
 sumptuous Koman one, — would have done more good with 
 it, and created for a greater number more enjoyment out of 
 it, than any woman that ever lived. I say woman, not man, 
 because women are proverbially and openly extravagant 
 whei-e men are secretively and slyly so. Thei-efore, knowing 
 so many persons richer than herself, Horatia had never con- 
 sidered herself rich, though she had been perfectly contented 
 until the flush of pride had bloomed out of her love, — pride in 
 being able to bestow even the credit of a richer wife than 
 was he a husband, on Mm. If a greater personal trouble 
 could have befollen her (which I doubt), I fear she would 
 have behaved exactly as she did behave, full-facing all the 
 world, as one unconscious of having imperilled her safe 
 position in her social niche. In public so, I say ; and in pri- 
 vate, turned, not restive (too womanly even for that), but shy 
 and heart-veiled towards her husband — a little while, that 
 must have seemed hoiv long to him. 
 
 Of course, Horatia's afternoons were forever over, ab- 
 ruptly cut out from the current and the future calendars ? 
 Not at all ! They still ivere, — and were, of course, unat- 
 tended? Nothing of the kind. In fact, any man, of any 
 age or standing, who could fancy them made null and void, 
 must be a greater muff than I myself (who, notwithstanding, 
 did expect that no one would continue to call on her, having 
 learned such old-fashioned and selectly narrow notions of 
 my kind from my uncle, in the days when impressions are 
 apt to be deep, if not ineradicable). 
 
 Horatia's afternoons were crammed. I went to about six 
 of them out of curiosity, and I should have been amused, but
 
 350 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 for the face of the hostess. The struggle of her personal 
 pride — it went no deeper, and was just as naughty — kept 
 her erect, brilliant, desperately witty, but as calm as the 
 frost, forging in white furnaces the myriad-moulded icicles. 
 I fancy she was resolute to keep her intellectual ground 
 because she had willingly surrendered her musical position ; 
 nothing would induce her to sing in the long loic room, 
 except to her husband ; I think she was afraid of her voice 
 being too strong for it when it was full, as it always was ! 
 and of being laughed at, which no one likes, — and she ! 
 
 She could sing to her husband, though, while he 
 
 wrote in the room across the passage ; and once or twice I 
 was by his side, or near him ; and on those occasions her 
 voice was like the sea when 
 
 "It shakes the ■niiite pillars of the Orkneys." 
 
 And he was like those trembling but eternal columns. His 
 whole frame quivered, and his eyes streamed glory that the 
 fiery strains alone preserved from dissolving into those great 
 founts it is dangerous to break up, — the teai-s of manhood. 
 
 " I cannot write ! " he said on one of these occasions, and 
 dashed down his pen ; then grasped it hardily ; with the red 
 light fixed on his cheek, that in a face like his is not a symp- 
 tom of perfect health ; grasped it, and gathered up his whole 
 mental energy and will to do what none can go on doing, — 
 two things at once ! Even I was horrified at the stress upon 
 his countenance, — his soul embracing hers, his ear drinking 
 deep draughts of her voice, sweeter to him, and more intoxi- 
 cating, than the fresh-pressed " blood of the grape ; " and his 
 brain bent, bowed from its highest exercise to an em})loy 
 which microscopically engaged it, yet was of its powers 
 totally unworthy. What strain of nature can last forever, 
 without reacting on the flesh ? And there was more. I 
 suppose men always take men's parts ; but I could tell, and 
 did not wonder, that it was a fearful disappointment to hitn 
 she did not slip quite easily into the consciousness of being
 
 ALMOST A IIEROI>JE. 351 
 
 his own now, to provide and labor for, as well as to worship 
 and to lend. He had no right to have expected that she 
 would, but that he had expected it was evident. I could 
 gather from his mere manner — nay, his mere expression — 
 that, unfailing in the sweetness of wifely duty, she treated 
 him rather more like a lover than a husband now ; I mean 
 she did not open, through all her deeps and heights of nature, 
 so fully and freely to him as before the misfortune had de- 
 scended. Indeed, I ibund out from revelations of sickness, 
 that all-revealer, afterwards, that she had not only haughtily, 
 if smilingly, rejected all consolation from him on the (/round 
 of the misfortune, but had laughed it off into pretended 
 insignificance, and steadily forborne from further allusion 
 to it. This of course might have been philosophy on her 
 part, but I fear it was only pride. 
 
 She knew her place as a wife, however. Arnold Major 
 said to me one day, — 
 
 " I cannot get her to go out, and she must miss it. Indeed 
 it is as necessary to her as sun to certain flowers." 
 
 " Why will she not go ? " was my natural rejoinder. 
 
 " Because / cannot, — positively it is impossible for me to 
 spare the time, — which is all I have ; I tnust push for the 
 next ten years, and then, perhaps, we shall both rest and 
 have time to love." With one of his heavenly smiles. 
 
 " Do you really mean that she requires to go out ? " 
 
 "I am certain, — she is so used to it; and in such organi- 
 zations habit is not only second nature, but the very child of 
 the frst." 
 
 " If you really do want her to go out, ask her as a favor 
 and kindness to yourself, and you will see." 
 
 I was curious to see. Certainly he was right in consider- 
 ing that her idiosyncrasy demanded great freedom and space 
 to expand in, but it had only really done her good afler her 
 marriage, when he had gone with her. To go alone was not 
 only to her a fruitless trouble, but a positive nervous shock. 
 
 Still, as I had expected, (I did not know how he persuaded
 
 352 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 her, bat I believe he rather ordained it,) she did resume her 
 old fashion somewhat, for about half a dozen expei'iments, — 
 tliat is to say, she went out a little, returning very early ; 
 but left off on a sudden. I don't think she told him why, 
 because he did not ask her. I know I was frightened at 
 both their faces one night just about this time, and yet the 
 woebegone expression on both, so pale, so indrawn mutually, 
 would have been positively sneered at by most persons, even 
 the most poetical. For what cause did they suffer ? it might 
 have been asked then, — no mist of envy defiled their sum- 
 mer, nor abyss of the hell of jealousy yawned between them, 
 yet the jealousy existed somewhere in their heaven. Ah ! 
 if it be true that the " more delicate and exquisite a flower of 
 joy, the tenderer must be the hand that plucks it," I think 
 the same may be said of certain flowers of sorrow, — frail 
 blossoms that will never come to fruit, yet fling their bitter 
 perfume out awhile to fill the soul that loves with faintness, 
 nay, with even sickening fear. 
 
 Certainly the vanishing of wealth, " taking to itself wings," 
 into the empyrean of non-existence, can be, must be, no trifle, 
 or it could not so bereave certain persons of more than 
 itself. 
 
 People who have lost crowns, have borne it easier, — but 
 then they had not the sensation which beats in the very 
 blood of the child of a noble and wealthy parent, that the 
 gold was as though coined — or, if not coined, conserved by 
 love for the heir of all. 
 
 Howbeit, it is rare to see sincere devotion, — always to be 
 respected, if not admired and imitated, — rare especially to 
 find it in persons of that caste, which, if it abjure not passion, 
 as the Hindoo curses pork, yet certainly condemns the life of 
 love as one to be avoided, unless enormous external advan- 
 tages compensate for and cover its multitude of tender 
 " weaknesses," that are never sin. 
 
 It was Horatia's fate to have excited and preserved such 
 devotion. Her loss of wealth, if it was a blow to herself, a
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 353 
 
 blow to love, through its twin passion, pride, — was a death- 
 blow to another. It positively killed Mrs. Le Kyteler, who 
 seemed to liave no disease before save that of worldliness, 
 which Heaven is kindlier to, and death medicines much more 
 gently and surely, than sectarians ever dream of. Iloratia's 
 loss fretted her old friend to constant and vital-feeding fever, 
 and not only her actual loss m her own person, but what she 
 had further sacrificed through her ingenious generosity on 
 behalf of her same old friend. 
 
 This death, very sudden, if very easy, was a dreadful 
 shock to Horatia. I never saw her (as I have said) shed 
 tears positively, but her husband told me then (in half- 
 despairing confidence) that she had cried all night after she 
 had seen her friend die, albeit in such a gentle and unsufFer- 
 ing end. 
 
 I saw Horatia next day. It was true that nothing could 
 be done between them, yet a third person could a little be- 
 guile each of thera, when apart, from the speechless brooding 
 over the mortal troubles that are real, which waste the nervous 
 energy so fatally and fast. I sounded a few fathoms of the 
 trouble in her case this time. 
 
 " How are you ? " I asked, rather condolingly — awk- 
 wardly, I dare say. 
 
 She looked white as ashes and weary with weeping ; her 
 very eyelids clear through at their edges with the fretting of 
 the salt tears so unlike the dews, sweeter than those of morn- 
 ing or of evening, that distil from love alone. 
 
 But I had mistaken her if I dreamed she needed, or chose 
 to accept, condolence. She was " perfectly well," had " never 
 been better," — " what had I been doing?" — "she hoped I 
 was not going to have many deaths in my present book," — 
 the one I was now engaged upon, — "I was too fond of kdl- 
 ing people ; would I like to see Philippa, who was growing 
 an immense child ? " I refused the honor. " Should she 
 (Horatia) sing to me ? " 
 
 Ah ! I could not refuse that.
 
 354 ALMOST A HEKOINE. 
 
 So she sang to me superbly, but rather too forcedly, — sang 
 about a dozen " new " things. " Lord Wilders brought them 
 me," she explained, — lent them, I mean." 
 
 " He does not sing with you now ? " 
 
 " No," she answered, " there is not I'oom enough. I do 
 not choose to ask him, — I mean, let him." 
 
 " My friend must be very glad there is not room enough," 
 I observed, out of perfect simplicity — still from a very 
 strong impulse. 
 
 Slie turned round, facing me. 
 
 " I do not understand you," she said, in her coldest voice, 
 still a very sincere tone indeed. As for me, I am born to 
 have to do with secret things, though I do not tamper with 
 them, I fancy. And when with a person noble-natured all 
 through, I fear not my own audacity. 
 
 " Don't be angry with me, Mrs. Major. I only mean that 
 if I had a wife who sung as you sing, I should not he jealous 
 if she sung with another man, (though I fear I should envy 
 the fellow his voice,) but I should simply be very glad if any 
 chance circumstance interfered with, or stopped, their singing 
 together. Breaths mingle in singing when so near ; and 
 such music is apt to upset a weak-headed, but excitable man, 
 while it takes no effect on a woman whose temperament is 
 unexcitable, save under the influence of 07ie — that one her 
 husband." 
 
 " Gracious ! Do you know what you are saying, and do 
 you mean it ? " 
 
 " Truly and honestly. If you w^ere not altogether a 
 woman, you -w^ould comprehend my prejudice, and even 
 share it." 
 
 " I can only say that you would make a desiivable husband 
 for the most jealous woman living — which I am not. Do 
 you wish for any further entertainment, or shall I shut the 
 piano ? There is a factory of some kind near, and the blacks 
 are fond of settling on the keys." 
 
 " Only one thing more — not a ' new thing.' Do ' say' me
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 355 
 
 «Tn questa tombca oscura,' as you pretend to sayiiuj songs 
 rather than singing thera." 
 
 This was a fact, a little affectation of hers ! 
 She sang it ; and made me (though I am not superstitions) 
 shake to my heart's centre with the loving fear, the awful 
 love of death. 
 
 As she finished, and was dreamily dispersing the symphony 
 from her fiery finger-ends, she said, abruptly, — 
 
 " But my husband disapproves of nothing I do, Mr. Loftus ; 
 if he did, he would tell me immediately and I should alter it. 
 One advantage men have over women (proper to their sex 
 of course) is that they may disapprove of anything in their 
 wives they please, and express it openly, without compromis- 
 ing either their conjugal kindness or their " 
 
 " Pride," for she hesitated. I went on, — 
 " Do you mean a wife cannot object to whatever she chooses 
 in a husband's conduct out of his conjugality ? " 
 
 " IIow could you guess what I meant ? " she asked, evi- 
 dently amazed. 
 
 " You gave me to understand just so much as that you 
 were anxious, and did not choose to express it openly to him, 
 not that I think you right. But yet I would fain relieve 
 your anxiety if I could." 
 
 I saw her give me a stealthy side-glance, — she was jealous 
 herself of somethmg, and very desirous to be sure I did not 
 suspect her of anything beyond anxiety. I bore the scrutiny 
 unflinchingly ; I never change color, save to grow paler, in 
 any extremity, and this was not yet one, thank God ! 
 
 " Don't you think he looks different the last month, — 
 mrfuJhj tired and thin ? pray tell me as a stranger — I mean 
 friend — at least as one who does not see him constantly" 
 
 " I saw him yesterday, and then I had not seen him for a 
 week. I saw no difference since the time before. Is he ill ? 
 I only know he looks desperately happy, and as I have seen 
 him look desperately unhappy, I am so far a judge." 
 
 She smiled exceedingly — she liked to hear that — but 
 still held her peace.
 
 ooG ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 " But you surely don't reflect upon the fact that, loving 
 you as he does, and as I believe no man living loves besides, 
 he cannot help being sad to see you suffer, even from a 
 trifling cause." 
 
 " A trifling cause ! " 
 
 " Is not a loss like yours a trifling cause for wasting and 
 wearing grief ? I don't mean your new loss, — your late one 
 I mean, which you don't seem to recover. Now / was very 
 unhappy to lose what I expected, but it was because I found 
 my uncle had loved me little and misunderstood me quite ; — 
 I did not like being poor, but now I have ceased to care 
 about it, — am even glad to be, since it has given me what I 
 should never have attained without." 
 
 " So you have taken upon you to lecture me, but your — 
 premises are wrong. I had forgotten all about what you 
 term ' my loss,' and was reflecting on something of much 
 more consequence. I should not tell you, if I did not think 
 you might help me in it. I cannot know what my husband 
 does, but I hwiv he is working too hard, and that presently 
 he will be ill if it goes on. I have no right to inquire of 
 kirn, as he had not given me so much as a hint. And cer- 
 tainly — now I think seriously — I ought not to have men- 
 tioned it to you — even. So do not say one word about it. 
 Men have of course the right to kill themselves if they 
 choose, and if it is not against their principles to commit 
 suicide." 
 
 I could not quite make out her mood, — she bewildered 
 me. Rather, I was puzzled by its duality, forever and anon, 
 through her paleness ; and from her eyes, dull with tears, like 
 a cloudy sky whose rain has ceased, beamed an expression 
 of unconti'ollable and insatiable pleasure, a doting look as of 
 a heart dreamy with drinking too deeply of its own delight, 
 
 — a look I had never seen on her face or any other, for it 
 Avas the first time I beheld the beauty of that fairest mystery, 
 
 — maternity revealed. 
 
 Well, it baffled me even more than the sadness ; and both
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 357 
 
 the grief and bliss were inexplicable in their intensity. I 
 was not going to betray her, and yet I was resolved to dis- 
 cover the cause of her fresh anxiety, (that was not jealousy.) 
 I recollected the tale of the man who was made ill by a cer- 
 tain number of his friends agreeing to meet him 'in different 
 places and tell him one and all that he looked ill, and I was 
 cautious. Horatia and her husband were worthy of each 
 other for innocence, (that not being ignorance,) and the 
 very next day he came to me, pale as he had looked the day 
 befoi'e, but radiant, — too bright and blissfully at ease for 
 smiles ; soft rather, and earnest, — earnest as love and 
 death. Short time as it was since her marriage, yet even 
 before her mercenary bereavement, Horatia had worried 
 herself, as only such true women worry, at her want of 
 promise to become a mother; nay, I myself lieai'd her, be- 
 fore she had been a wife a year, declare she was certain she 
 should never have a " baby." Her tenderness for children 
 was indeed a passion most peculiar and innate — not created 
 nor even formed by wifely love.
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 BITTERNESS. 
 
 However, the sweetest bliss that bears the " brand of 
 sorrow " was hers at last, I could scarce find it in my heart 
 to question him on any other subject ; yet felt as though it 
 were a kind of duty to do so. I did not really think he 
 looked ill, so I pretended to think it. 
 
 " What have you been doing to yourself.-"' I said ; " you 
 are overworking, beyond the mark, and it will never do." 
 He started. 
 
 " What do you mean ? Has she said anything ? " 
 
 Certainly she had, but at that precise moment I did not 
 choose to say ; so I rather waited, restrained by respect 
 even for such shadowy confidence as hers, which betrayed to 
 her husband by another man, might make a misunderstand- 
 ing which had, not shadowy, but vital consequences. 
 
 " You look ill, — very fagged and worn ; — is there any- 
 thing I could do ? " 
 
 At the least touch of humanity his heart always vibrated ; 
 he was so human where even most unlike the human 
 average. 
 
 " You are very kind, you always are. No, I have not at 
 all too much to do, but, I am thankful to say, more than I had, 
 which was most insufficient." 
 
 " Are the Browns going to scrape together the ashes of 
 the Alexandrian from under their ages' accumulated dust- 
 heap? Perhaps (like peat, in the case of human bodies) 
 such refuse has not only covered, but preserved them ! "
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 359 
 
 " Ah ! I don't mind liow much you laugh at me ; I am too 
 happy and thankfid to Heaven, and to my diirhng, darhng 
 ^vife ! " 
 
 His o-ratitude knew no limits; his noble nature recoiled 
 not from the full confession of its gladness — where it was 
 fully understood. Only I was anxious in the recollection of 
 her anxiety. 
 
 " How then about having more to do than you had ? — 
 and tliat much having been ' insufficient ' ? " 
 
 " Only that they are going to superannuate their account- 
 ant, and, of course, pension him, and that I am trying for the 
 situation, and hope to succeed." 
 
 I stifled my desire to exclaim in any interjection which 
 might divert this rare confidence of his. I could have 
 groaned though. If thei-e was anything not only uncongenial 
 to, but improper for him, it was figures. I don't speak with 
 any nauseous, nonsensical notion that anything is improper 
 to do which (being pure in itself) is j)ossible. But before I 
 could keep books myself I should be in a strait-waistcoat, 
 though I were to try with all my might. And he! — how 
 much less fit than I ! — particularly because his general and 
 chief occupation was trying to him in the extreme, and it 
 induced constant mental tension, whereas my chief occupation 
 was to me congenial. 
 
 " But may I ask — does the ' game seem worth the can- 
 dle ' ? — I mean, forgive me, do they pay enough to make 
 the labor worth the love ? " 
 
 " Oh, if I can only get it ; it is two hundred a year, you 
 know." 
 
 If he only got it ! I looked at him a moment in his 
 manhood, so glorious in its j^urifi/ and strength, his intellect 
 so masterly that disdained no duty, how inferior soever to its 
 power ; his knowledge, that could (had it been matched in 
 him with equal cunning, avarice, or worldliness) have com- 
 passed any political place in the broad road of power. Yes, 
 it was better thus, — he lost nothing, save a few paltry frag-
 
 360 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 meiits from hands that reeked with the hard-wrung sweat of 
 universal injustice. 
 
 " I am sure you icill get it." (I couldn't say anything else.) 
 " But can't I help you the least ? — I think I could." 
 
 " No, no, — I'm not ungrateful ; but see, Ernest, would it 
 not be strangely divarjing to learn one's Latin accidence or 
 premier Greek grammar now ? I, for one, have absolutely 
 forgotten mine ! It is merely creeping on one's hands and 
 knees a little, however, to get up the equally foi*gotten 
 figures, and it does me no harm, but you have wings, and it 
 would be impossible in your case. Oh ! how I should lie 
 down in blissful consciousness that I deserved it ! " he added, 
 spreading wide his arms with that peculiar gesture of his I 
 had always remarked, though seldom seen, — a kind of 
 stretching towards the infinite, most when most human. 
 
 "But surely it is not so difficult," said I ; " and when is it 
 to be decided ? " 
 
 " Presently, — in one month, I hope ; but they have many 
 candidates already." 
 
 " Heavens ! And they would dream of another, when you 
 were on the list ? " 
 
 " Of course ; they consider me the least eligible ; that is 
 natural, for I am," quite calmly he went on. 
 
 " Ah ! And you have to try your paces in the evening, I 
 suppose ? " 
 
 "Yes, — and that is hardest, — is it not hard? I don't 
 mind saying so to you. It takes me from her, and it must. 
 She does not know why, and I cannot tell her. She never 
 would believe it is entirely for our baby — as it is." 
 
 Strange revelations ; but how sweet is nature, shining 
 through the truth ! 
 
 " Ah ! you think she would imagine it was for hei' — for 
 her only you toiled extra, and would fret and beat her wings 
 against such ' walls of fate.' " 
 
 " Of course she would ! She has behaved so generously, 
 and has given me such cause, beyond even my desert in
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 )G1 
 
 loving her, (I don't think either tliat is smull.) to trust her, 
 that I dare not tell her I am trying to make more money, — 
 she would be certain (nothing could unconvince her) that 
 it was on her own account. And it is not, — she needs so 
 little, takes so little for herself, and is so wonderfully content 
 in her fresh, unexpected trust in me alone; that — not 
 only I cannot thank her ibr that, but I camiot tell her the 
 other." 
 
 His face belied his words, as to the certainty that she liked 
 the sole trust in him, (albeit, it was all the more generous if 
 she liked it not.) 
 
 " Why can't you tell her?" I asked abruptly, though I 
 fancy it was a natural question. 
 
 " Because you forget — she has lost so much that she her- 
 self would have given to her child! Ernest, I have never 
 confided so far in any mortal creature as now in you, — I 
 don't mean anything I should confide to her — though I 
 should tell her all, were it the time to do so. She would 
 suffer more than needful if she knew I worked to remedy 
 her child's loss in hers, — worked she would, of course, term 
 it, for she has no idea of the slightness of the occupation, 
 albeit it takes timer 
 
 " How long ? You are two hours later every evening, I 
 suppose ? " 
 
 " Oh, no, not more than one — scarcely an hour later. I 
 could not bear more myself, and I think she could not." 
 
 I thought, moreover, that her pride compelled her to hide 
 from hira how much she suffered in the one hour's defection, 
 — nay, I was sure of it. Veiy wrong, of course, — still, 
 perhaps, pardonable. I also knew it would be useless to try 
 and persuade him to tell her his secret ; for, not to name him 
 by so harsh a term as obstinate, he was immutable in his 
 least resolve when taken. 
 
 The eyes of love strike deeper than those of knowledge, 
 and see, how infinitely further ! — the eyes of a wife's love 
 are infallible. She knew him better and his future, where I 
 
 16
 
 3G2 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 saw 110 evil, nor dreamed the dimmest shadow of impending 
 Avoe. 
 
 After our little lonely conversation, Horatia rather avoided 
 me, never asked nor permitted me to see her alone ; nay, 
 I fancy she detected that I had not strictly obeyed her in- 
 junctions "not to say one word about it," and it was just 
 like her not to question me as to the results of my intermed- 
 dling-. As for him, he obtained the accountantship. Of 
 course they were glad enough to get him, and rather 
 ashamed to pay him so little ; though slightly helped out of 
 their confusion by the certainty he would tell no one lioio 
 much (or how little) it actually was, except me (for whom 
 they had no reverence at all) and his wife, their respect for 
 whom had been founded upon her fortune solely. 
 
 If I saw thus little of her at this time, I saw less of him ; 
 but I understood that perfectly. He could not have time to 
 call on me. At last there Avas a gap of full three months 
 between one of his flying visits and the next. Various re- 
 mittances had meantime reached me, on the boy's account, 
 through the post, — sent from the city of course. I was just 
 then Avriting very desperately, and Hilary occupied all my 
 leisure. As for him, I never could persuade him to take 
 little messages to, or make inquiries at, his uncle's house, 
 and indeed the only moments he saw Philippa were when 
 they met out of doors, as happened now and then. 
 
 It was about ten o'clock that day ; — how well I recollect 
 it ! Hilary had just fetched out his books and put them on 
 his own little table in the window. I was at my writing- 
 desk, answering a mysterious note dictated by John, — he 
 Avas always dictating mysterious little notes to me now, — 
 I could never imagine Avhy, unless it was because we Avere 
 noAV in the third year after my uncle's death. John's amanu- 
 ensis Avas not great at spelling, and I Avas puzzling over a 
 long word, Avhen a knock at the street-door thrilled through 
 my very mai'row, a curious phrase, perhaps, but any one 
 who has heard a trembling hand (not trembling Avith emo-
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. -"f^-^ 
 
 tion, but pain or illness) raise a knocker loosely hung, will 
 understand me, — a low, uncertain, ominous vibration. I 
 looked up and waited, and the short moments seemed very- 
 long. As I had expected to see him, knowing his knock per- 
 fectly by heart, I was not surprised when Arnold Major 
 entered, but shocked inexpressibly, for he reeled rather than 
 walked, with that ghost of an expression, vague, blank, yet 
 passionately sad, which is only seen in illness, but only seen 
 in illness on certain faces. 
 
 He threw himself on the sofa, and could not speak to me 
 at first. I took Hilary very gently, but firmly, by his shoul- 
 ders, put him out of the room, and locked the door. Whether 
 he would listen or not, I could not tell ; but it did not signity, 
 he must be got rid of just then. 
 
 I went back to my friend. He smiled — tried to smile — 
 a wan and wasted phantom of his smile, indeed. 
 
 "I believe in you — you will see," he said. " I want you 
 to go out for me, this one day, and let me stay here quietly. 
 I shall then be all right, and she will know nothing." 
 
 One day of repose to repair such ravages ! And she - — 
 surely she must have seen them. It was but the beginning, 
 too, I knew that ; my heart sank in me, as hearts unll sink 
 sometimes. 
 
 " I would go to a doctor," he continued, " but I have no 
 confidence in any. I never was positively ill in my life. 
 Besides, this is not illness." 
 
 " What then ? " for he hesitated. 
 
 " Only fotigue, I think. I cannot know, of course ; it may, 
 of course, be death ! But I have not slept for such nights 
 and nights, and now have tried everything." 
 
 " Thoughts of her made you sleep once, I recollect, before 
 you had her too, when you two were far apar:." 
 
 I wanted to touch him deeply, to quench the still fires 
 within his tearless eyes, that perchance they might bedew 
 the burning brain with their refreshing waters. It was of 
 no use, his cheek only glowed more desperately ; his glance
 
 364 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 seemed devoured and dried up by the drought that preyed 
 on his whole frame. 
 
 " You really mean that you have never told your wife ! — 
 that she does not know, nor guess about these nights, — she 
 so vigilant and tender ! I cannot comprehend it." 
 
 " I could not find it in my heart, for then I must have ex- 
 plained the cause. And she looks so ill herself; I fear it is 
 the bond between us makes her reflect my misery. She is — 
 I cannot say — I must not speak of her. No ! just tell me, 
 can you go for me, or not ? " 
 
 " 1 will go, certainly, this moment ; " and so I did, though 
 he knew not whither. As for Brown, Jones, and Co., they 
 might have been blown up by a powder-train laid privily in 
 the cellars, or carried across the Atlantic bodily, and left on 
 the Andes, for all I thought or cared about them in that 
 hour. 
 
 I went straight to her. She came down to me from her 
 room ; she w^as changed, but not as he. She was pale to her 
 lips, with the passion of bitterly suppressed suspense. I 
 would not lengthen it an instant, nor would I frighten her, I 
 thought. 
 
 She did not hold out her hand, but stood, white-foced, 
 wavering-footed, before me, a good way off. 
 
 " I don't think your husband is very well ; he wants per- 
 fect rest, and I think, if you were with him, he would procure 
 it. — No worse ; nothing to see — except such dead fatigue, 
 and that will be mended by repose, you know. He has taken 
 none so long." 
 
 Such wild wandering glances round the room ! I went a 
 few steps towards her, for I feared she would fall. Still dry 
 were her eyes as his. Had she caught the infection of that 
 tearless fever ? 
 
 Still she said nothing, but sat down in a chair. Such per- 
 fect anguish of despair I never beheld ; it could not happen 
 twice, no, not in the hour of death's short, but real separation. 
 That she had given him up already I was sure.
 
 ALMOST A HKKOINE. 3G5 
 
 " I must tell you tliat he came to me and told me, because 
 he wanted to spare you, whom he loves perhaps too well for 
 his own peace. I will further tell you that there is good 
 cause for all this ; he has been overworking, just that he 
 might get two hundred a year more, you can tell for Avhom ! 
 and his brain won't stand figures. All beings delicately, if 
 finely, organized, must have such a crisis once." 
 
 She got up abruptly, — turned coldly from me to the table. 
 
 " Don't talk," said she, " wait for me ; " she wrote two 
 notes with a hand that shivered to the very sight, tossed them 
 over the table to me, " Please direct them, I can't clearly." 
 
 She then dictated to me the names of the court physician 
 and chief surgeon. I did not like that, but let it pass that 
 moment. She rang tlie bell, and when the boy came, made 
 a sign to me, she could not then speak. I ordered him to 
 carry the notes instantly ; then I wrote a telegraphic mes- 
 sage, — she eyed me wistfully an instant when I began, but 
 left the room before I had ended, and came down in a 
 minute with her bonnet on. 
 
 " It is a long way," she said, with a sigh too deep. 
 
 " A little Avay indeed, only round the corner." 
 
 " He came to you then, actually to you first ! Oh, what 
 have 1 done to deserve it ? yet I do deserve it, I know ! I 
 know ! " 
 
 She sat down and sobbed violently, hysterically, still with- 
 out a tear. 
 
 " You scarcely deserve his love, if you cannot understand 
 it," I said. I actually felt angry tor the moment, for I had 
 seen him in his extremity, which had in fact been too sudden 
 (as are all shocks after long preparation) for her to define 
 and perceive, whatever she might have dreamed or dreaded. 
 
 Her agitation became awful, because so helpless for the 
 time, and she so humiliated, — it seemed strange indeed. 
 
 " I know I do not deserve his love ; I never did, I always 
 knew it. I ouglit to have flung myself under his feet and 
 stayed there till he told me all ; I ought to have thrown my
 
 366 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 hands round him and held him fast every day, kept him at 
 home by hanging to his neck like a millstone ; I ought to 
 have made him weary of me and wish me dead ! " 
 
 Her whole frame was as if in a convulsion. I gave her 
 some water, she could not swallow it. I tried one of the old- 
 est fashioned and best recipes with women, — for example : — 
 
 " You must think of your child, or you will hurt it, and 
 that would break his heart." 
 
 " Oh, it is safe enough, no fear ! what is it to me in com- 
 parison with him ? It does not exist, — or it lives where 
 nothing can harm it — out of the life he has filled." 
 
 It roused her though, — she got up and went down stairs 
 before me. We drove quickly, silently. 
 
 " Shall I go in first and tell him ? " was my question. 
 
 " Certainly not." She went in alone, I dared not follow 
 then, but went straight to the nearest telegraph office, having 
 written for Lord Lyndfield on my own responsibility. 
 
 Why did I write for Jiim ? I cannot say, except that 
 when an impulse strikes through me directly, piercingly, I 
 always obey it, for I never find it wrong in its result. Had 
 I been ill myself, I should never have consulted any one 
 else ; but I had no guarantee, not even any intuition, that 
 he would understand all constitutions as he had done mine. 
 I had not heard from him for quite six months, though 
 I knew he was alive, for I had heard very lately from 
 some one else ; she and I always wrote to each other once 
 a month. 
 
 I went straight back to my rooms, and found them already 
 void of Horatia and her husband. There, however, sat 
 Philippa on the rug dressing her cat in a black silk cravat 
 of mine, and her own black silk apron. 
 
 " What are you doing, child ? " I asked. 
 
 Surely there are sand-grains of comedy in the base of the 
 floods of grief. 
 
 " '■Dear ' is very miserable. I should not be, if he was 
 my husband, I should be glad. Is he going to die ?"
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 3G7 
 
 Rather awe-striick the last words. 
 
 " If he is, you and I had better pray to be as good as he 
 
 is, before our time comes, as it ivill " 
 
 She tore the bUick rags off. 
 
 " I didn't mean anything ; but I can't be so fond of kiss- 
 ing as she is, nor ever sliall be, not if I married you, uncle ; 
 and I don't like kissing Mm at all." 
 
 Hilary — curious child — Avas sitting in the window, pale 
 and grave — unlike himself ; as the girl spoke, he came to 
 me and said, — 
 
 " I hope he is not going to die, because I have behaved 
 badly to him, and it would stop near me all my life." 
 
 Strange power of the celestial gift men call conscience — 
 where it is unsullied and unseared. 
 
 " You may make some muflfms," said I to Philippa, " for I 
 am going out." 
 
 This to divert her from her mournful play. Making muf- 
 fins was to cut out small rounds of bread with a thimble and 
 toast them on a darning-needle. It was Philip[)a's favorite 
 game, and I had the credit of inventing it. I borrowed the 
 feminine implements from my landlady and placed them 
 on the table, with all due appliances of bread, &c. ; but, as 1 
 was shutting the door, I chanced to look back and see Phi- 
 lippa moistening the future mutrms with her (unfrequent) 
 tears. 
 
 How I yearned to go and see, or hear, what was happen- 
 ing — had happened in this short time. But I feared for 
 the future, if there should be a mortal future, and that too 
 much (if how little) would be lost, were no explanation 
 offered at the house of business. So there I went directly 
 — first. 
 
 Business knows neither sickness, sorrow, passion, love, sus- 
 pense, nor — death. Everything was going on straight- 
 forwardly, but evei-ything was dull. The handsome partner 
 was very much disgusted at any reader daring to be ill, and 
 very nearly told me so, — I saw him first ; — the unattractive
 
 3G8 ALMOST A HEEOINE. 
 
 senior was " very sorry," he said, (he didn't look so,) but my 
 whole trust was in the partner who had furthered the ad- 
 vance of Arnold Major lalehj, and who had a heart of flesh 
 inside his heart of gold ; — he was very rich, and petted by 
 the firm accordingly ; of good family, and feared by them in 
 proportion. A very few words sufficed to establish me in 
 Arnold Major's room "' until he should have recovered — " 
 vague term, dimly veiling the possible fact of something 
 other than recovery. And this partner procured me respite 
 from attendance the rest of that day, — a kindly favor which 
 made me fancy he too, perhaps, had lost — a friend. 
 
 It was well he gave me even that short leave of absence. 
 Horatia's passionate anxiety and helpless lovingness might 
 have done some harm, or prevented some good, in the case 
 of her beloved patient. 
 
 She had been nearly doctored to death herself more than 
 once, and yet in her optimism, not to say charity, (the 
 optimism I have already taxed her with,) she could not 
 believe that any physician and surgeon of high-sounding 
 repute and vast practice — large fortune too — could err, at 
 least be at fault, if not downright ignorant. 
 
 They were both by his side, his bedside — I found, — could 
 not even name the attack in plain English, and diametrically 
 differed as to treatment ; but that the case was emergent 
 they both knew, and looked (to me) inwardly appalled at 
 their own fallibility. 
 
 The physican prescribed opiates, the surgeon depletion. 
 Of course I got Horatia out of the room for a minute, — it 
 was like wrenching a limpet from the rock, even for that 
 minute. 
 
 " You mvst attend to me, and not look Avild," I said. 
 
 " I can't help looking wild," she said, touchingly ; " it does 
 not make me deaf. I can listen, — now, directly." 
 
 " If you allow them to put on leeches, he Avill die. Die 
 for want of the life that is in tlie blood, — it is so little, and 
 all he has left. His pulse is almost indetectible, though so
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 3G9 
 
 rapid ; liis veins are almost empty. Besides, I heard him 
 say once, when he was ill with excitement, that a French 
 sui-geon ordered him never to be bled." 
 
 " That is enough ; if he said so himself, it shall not be 
 done, whatever happens. Tell me then, — advise me." 
 
 " Take the prescription from the other, and give the pa- 
 tient half. That is my intuition, and I should follow it 
 blindly. I have written for some one in whom I have faith 
 wlien I can trust at all." 
 
 I gave her a glass of wine, not into her hand, for she 
 could not have held it, but put it to her lips and she swal- 
 lowed it like a child — then flew back into his room. I 
 waited in the drawing-room, heard one of the arbiters of 
 health descend, and then the other. Both carriages I'olled 
 away. 
 
 There was no going out for the remedies ; Horatia was 
 never without a medicine-chest, and the prescriber had mixed 
 them himself. So I waited. Then my pulses began to spin 
 with the hastening of the crisis of suspense. Lord Lynd- 
 field might arrive within an hour. 
 
 An hour, and no mortal coming, — no voice in the 
 strange house, which sickness, the sickness of the "just," 
 makes solemn beyond all temples. Half an hour, and now 
 my pulses tolled in my ears. Then seemed to leap up 
 before my own a vision like a tongue of light, for Hora- 
 tia opened the door ; spirit-quiet, awful-looking, she fled to 
 me. 
 
 " Come ! " she said, and not another word. That word 
 was crushing. It made me blind with tears a moment, but 
 her eyes were dry as dust. She was right in her instinct, 
 though, when she told me her child was safe. It luas safe, 
 isolated in its own soft paradise of love, amidst the great 
 deep of conjugal passion that was now torn up with tem- 
 pest. 
 
 I thanked God that through my own exceeding ignorance, 
 my instinct too had pierced with one ray of the truth. Well
 
 370 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 for him, for her, and for me, that she had only given him 
 half the overpoweringly strong dose of opium and other 
 narcotic trifles, such as aconite and henbane, Avith a dash of 
 hydrarg., a squeeze of lettuce, &.Q,. Had he retained the 
 whole, he would have been poisoned, drugged to stupor, — 
 the stupor next to death, — which must have followed it. 
 
 Healthy as he was in every vein, the purity of a virtuous 
 and temperate life could be no match for the violent means 
 that are for the extreme of disease, whether inherited or 
 from intemperance acquired. And his intensely reserved 
 sufferings, trodden down and dormant in his former lonely 
 life, would have (as nature will) reaction in the very freedom 
 of perfect life and happiness. 
 
 Therefore, much of his strength had been spent of late in 
 very bliss, — how much more of his vital energy in occupa- 
 tion that had worn his nerves, and strained their strong and 
 subtile powers bej'ond the lawful mark. Then, too, there 
 had been a misunderstanding between them, delicate, un- 
 spoken, but how little of that bitter leaven leavens perfect 
 love ! — spousal love — none other. 
 
 She had called me only, because she could not hold him 
 down. He was wildly delirious — as such a brain will be 
 in the grasp of opium. A light dose might have acted 
 differently — I do not know — on a brain wholly balanced 
 and active, with not (naturally) the slightest morbid ten- 
 dency. 
 
 In his case there was no heaviness nor indolence of tem- 
 perament to keep furled the " wings of thought." 
 
 His palms burned as though each were redhot ; his eyes 
 were each a living blaze that saw no human sight ; yet his 
 brow was bloodless white, and not a vein stood out above the 
 surface. 
 
 I flung both my arms across the sheet which alone covered 
 the bed, and made of them an ai'ch ; she sitting on the bed, 
 beside the pillow, held one arm under his head, and never 
 left her hold ; but Avith the other hand she grasped (rather
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 371 
 
 than veiled) her eyes. I did not wonder. I beheve she 
 was, even in that extremity, thankful I was with her, and 
 no other man or woman to hear his muttered passion, — 
 the " real man " outspeaking in the hour when art and pride 
 lie low. 
 
 I had known all along he was jealous, but had deemed him 
 so within the bounds of right and justice belonging to a hus- 
 band. Now, the human weakness — woe to us all, we all 
 share it in the flesh ! — burst from the living grave built over 
 it so carefully by art and pride. He raved, — not loud, but 
 in his own strong tones, sharpened «nd rarefied till they 
 pierced the ear, — raved of secrets sweet as love, made sad 
 by his suspicions, of mysteries half divine in their veiy hu- 
 man excellence, darkened nearly to despair by selfish and 
 all-exigent idolatry. 
 
 Not a man Iloratia had sung with, or conversed with, or 
 been acquainted Avith, or had amused, since, nay before, her 
 marriage, but was recalled and condemned, in language wild 
 indeed, but which seemed to shiver through her being with 
 some marrow-piercing aiTOW of conviction, invisible to me 
 that hour, perchance winged from the visible abyss of truth 
 for her. 
 
 Then the agony of remorse that clutched him, (conscience 
 seeing in the dark,) because he had withheld one little secret 
 from her ! It was a lesson certainly in the duties of love, 
 whether towards God or one's fellow-creature. 
 
 Still awake — so awfully awake — too vivid an awakening 
 of every power, faculty, conception, instinct — no rest in any 
 nerve, through any organ ; but all in anarchy, and the lord 
 of all discrowned and clothed with weakness. It could not 
 last, and mysterious as the struggle was, a greater mystery 
 must end it. 
 
 And now — strange words — more strange than any, 
 prompted by such thoughts as made light-headed saints, in 
 darker times, call them temptations of another than the self 
 in every man ! He believed himself dying in that Avaking
 
 372 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 dream ; cast glances on her that might have struck her to 
 the ground hke lightning, — spoke of her forgetting him 
 and being another's wife ! He had forgotten all about his 
 child. 
 
 I heard steps outside the door. She had crept to the bot- 
 tom of the bed now, and hidden her face above his feet. I 
 drew her away rather roughly. Alas ! there was no time for 
 gentleness. 
 
 " Kiss him," I said, " stop his lips ! some one is coming 
 and will hear." 
 
 She threw her face on his, gently enough, too gently ; she 
 pressed his head against her bosom — so held it — buried it ; 
 the wild words passed into her heart and only there. 
 
 I knew something was at hand, — a sort of wild hope, fresh 
 as the cold breeze before the rising sun after a whole night's 
 fever, swept my spirit, — seemed to sweep my veiy brow. 
 I opened the door. There stood, and entered, my first 
 friend. 
 
 How wonderful is Life ! A doctor, to be one truly, should 
 be pure of all disease ; should radiate health, I think ; or, if 
 I be in error, I felt it so that hour. " A healthy mind in a 
 healthy body" expresses exactly the temperament and con- 
 dition of Lord Lyndfield. It always struck me as the high- 
 est proof of his knowledge and sympathy, that he could 
 penetrate and feel for, even medicine, torments he could not 
 understand. 
 
 He Avent to the bed — the benign breath of healing seemed 
 to float round his aspect. I felt superstitious ; I fancied for 
 the instant his very touch would cure. Alas ! she knew 
 better, for she searched his face with her despairing eyes, 
 and when / saw his own — I saw he had no power — and 
 knew it. 
 
 " The chief symptom ? " he asked me, in a whisper ; " is 
 there another symptom I do not see ? " 
 
 "No sleep," said I, "for eleven nights, nor in the day. 
 They gave him this," — and I handed him the paper. He
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 373 
 
 scarce looked at it, — threw it noiselessly on the table behind 
 the curtain. 
 
 " No time for delay or ceremony," he whispered still ; " I 
 have but one chance ; but if you choose, you can lose me 
 that. You must leave the room." 
 
 I had no heart to marvel ; besides, he followed me. 
 
 " Miss Hope is here ; she has saved more brains than I. 
 But if she sees you, I will not answer for her skill. I sus- 
 pected something of this sort, and brought her. Sleep he 
 must, or die, — and not many hours off." 
 
 " She shall not see me." 
 
 Who can answer for himself in human extremity when it 
 is one's oion? That moment I could scarcely grieve for; 
 could barely recollect — the sick, perhaps the dying, to see 
 her ! — for that I must, saw she me or not. 
 
 Lord Lyndfield passed me, and went down stairs. He did 
 not see me creep back into the bedroom, but I did, and hid 
 myself entirely behind the heavy chintz folds of the curtain 
 that drooped along the bed on the side opposite Horatia, 
 where yet she sat — and looked half dying, too — as calm as 
 death. 
 
 His eyes had fixed themselves suddenly on the high can- 
 opy ; she could not follow them. I knew she thought they 
 would not stir again ; but again the new hope fluttered at my 
 heart, — I thought they would, I knew not how. 
 
 The curtain was double, and there was a slight chink be- 
 tween its two divisions ; through it I saw all. 
 
 There was not a sound of footsteps as Erselie glided in. 
 She had altered, I knew not how, though I knew her again 
 too well. Even in that hour her aspect smote Horatia 
 through and through ; an eager terror, vague as death, and 
 as awful, filled the wife's face ; she looked wild as a mother 
 whose only babe a stranger seeks to snatch from her breast, 
 — more closely she bowed to him, still with her arm under 
 his head, but her eyes, dilated with dread, and brimmed with 
 jealous tenderness, could not or would not cease from gazing
 
 374 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 full at the other woman, — devouring her very looks, it seemed 
 not lovingly. 
 
 And Erselie, whose yearning goodness absorbed her pride, 
 only looked with compassion, with supplication, with humility, 
 at Horatia, who did not relent. I forgave her though, for I 
 was to the full as ignorant of what my darling willed as she. 
 And, oh ! how surprised at this new crotchet that had made 
 its nest in Lord Lyndfield's healthy brain. 
 
 Erselie only appealed by her looks a single instant to the 
 tortured wife, and while she looked, she stood exactly at the 
 bottom of the bed. Still poor Arnold Major lay, with those 
 unseeing, upturned eyes ; then Erselie crept round close to 
 Horatia, and even touched her dress, which in that very 
 hour Horatia had thought (or woman's instinct) enough to 
 pluck from contact with her. But Erselie took no notice, — 
 only a heavenly sadness, soft and pale as moonlight, but 
 nothing like it, overspread her noble fjice. Then she bent 
 over him, and looked close into his eyes, looked steadfast- 
 ly. I could not see hers, only the lovely lids on which 
 peace seemed to pillow passion, and the lashes, like the 
 shadows of an angel's wings resting dark upon the vault of 
 night. 
 
 His eyes fell from their fearsome stare instantly, by her 
 mysterious power, or at her pure volition, I knew not which. 
 They met hers — a dim ray, like recognition in despair, 
 seemed radiating from that vague distressful glance. She 
 raised her right hand — that hand whose fingers seemed 
 alive with spirit, and in whose veins light seemed to dance 
 and thrill instead of blood. "Well I knew her hand, but I 
 did not know this gesture. As she lifted it, she bent the fin- 
 gers towards hira slowly. That moment, that very instant, 
 he gave a thrilling scream, and tossed over, like a poor, weak 
 weed on a tremendous billow, towards Horatia's breast, and 
 woman, wife-like, she was no spirit in that hour, nor angel 
 either. Haughtily, and cold as death, with her arms, her 
 bosom spread over and covering him, she surveyed the little
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 375 
 
 dark-haired thing with starry eyes, and brow a seraph might 
 have carried in the seventh depth of heaven. 
 
 "How dare yon hurt him?" said poor Horatia, low-voiced 
 enough. She took care her tones should not so disturb him. 
 
 In^desperation, I looked towards the door. Lord Lynd- 
 field was not there — not coming. Where was he ? — should 
 
 we all be lost ? 
 
 " I wanted to make him sleep," said Erselie, in those won- 
 derful tones of hers, so very innocent, so infinitely earnest. 
 « I have made so many, worse than he ; and you will not let 
 me, liecause you love him so." 
 
 "ToH cannot make him sleep," said Horatia, restlessly, 
 "only God can," still covering him with her arms and speak- 
 ing very low. 
 
 "There is something wrong besides; some one else here. 
 I must be alone with him. Oh, let me!" said my darling, 
 with anguish, with aspiration. 
 
 The sick man heard — or felt it; — he turned half round, 
 thou-h he could not escape Horatia's arms, with such heart- 
 meltrng moans ! It was eiiough - wretch that I had been to 
 hide myself; the other hnew me there. 
 
 I had never heard this gift of hers spoken of; she was 
 little likely to speak of any good she did — the greater the 
 less likely. I understood it though ; I was not ignorant of 
 natural miracles, though my faith had been long time weak. 
 I passed out of my corner, went behind Ersehe, and so 
 strai-ht to Horatia, — drew her by main force away from 
 him, — she struggled as if for life,— took her almost m my 
 
 " If you make a sound, it may IciU him," I whispered. 
 Exhausted by her long suspense and sudden-stricken pride, 
 she had no -strength left to resist me ; and she was never very 
 strong, — always a looman in very weakness as well as love ! 
 She couldn't walk now, and I quite carried her down stairs. 
 There sat Lord Lyndfield, — no, he did not sit, he was stand- 
 ing bolt upright, like a sentinel on duty. I was glad to see
 
 376 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 him there, because, before a second man besides myself, I 
 knew Iloratia would (outwardly if not physically) rally. I 
 just laid her on the sofa, and went up to him — began talk- 
 ing to him as though she were not in the room. 
 
 " I don't understand animal magnetism, spiritualism, affini- 
 ties, nor any jargon — no more does she,'' said Lord Lynd- 
 field, not noticing Horatia; he had the wisdom to do, or 
 rather not to do, that. " But it is wonderful^'' he went on 
 gravely. " You know my chief patients, and what a lot they 
 are ; she goes among them like Daniel into the lion's den — 
 with much such results. She isn't afraid; and yet — that 
 can't be the whole reason ! " 
 
 I knew Horatia was listening, though she made no sign. 
 
 " How did she find it out in herself?" I ventured. 
 
 "Like all grand discoveries (as they say), by chance. 
 She met one of my poor fellows, who had torn a hole in the 
 brickwork with his hands and nails, and climbed over my 
 wall into her garden (it happened, of course, when I was ab- 
 sent, — I had gone to see a sick friend). He was running at 
 her with a great knife in his hand (the knife he had secreted 
 at a meal — I was not there, you see). She told me she felt 
 a strange power pass into her or come over her — she didn't 
 know whether she stood still or went forward, but she looked 
 at him. ' I looked into him,' she said, ' and I felt as if I saw 
 his soul.' He not only quailed, you know, as they all will 
 under a steady sane eye, but fell on the gravel-walk. Still 
 she looked — she was a little bit afraid of his stirring — and 
 presently a gardener came by. She called him to come and 
 look. They looked together — behold ! the patient was asleep ! 
 
 " After that, she felt a strong desire to affect others. She 
 read no nonsense — talked no trash to other women — but 
 practised. There seems absolutely no art in the case, though 
 there must be a born gift — as that of surgery." 
 
 He half winked at me ; he had taken my cue, and was 
 trying to amuse Horatia. Slie was still attending, and sitting 
 up too, now. On a sudden she stood up — came with her
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 377 
 
 peculiar step towards us, and in a tone half hauglity, but also 
 half repentant, — 
 
 " Why choose women ? " she inquired of him, not me — 
 she did not look at me. 
 
 " We don't choose them — Heaven does, or whatever does 
 choose human beings their part in life." 
 " Will she — save him ? " 
 
 How clear that voice, how heart-piercing ! Its calm had 
 passed all hope, I thought. 
 
 " If she makes him sleep, most probably she will." 
 " / could not make him sleep." 
 
 How wearily; her very wildness was worn out. Oh, 
 woman, woman ! why not be content with wifehood, with the 
 perfect worsliip of him you perfectly obey? Why not? 
 Because she is immortal, and we all aspire who love, wheth- 
 er love be hidden or revealed. 
 
 Then over her face fell, pallid-dark, that shadow of 
 wretchedness, that mock phantom of degradation, seeming 
 real, which arises to haunt the good when they have foiled in 
 love's least duty, or failed to fulfil its irrefragable laws in 
 the very lightest particular. I could see she was wrestling 
 with this dim trouble as an enemy, and that she had not 
 strength to lay it. I should never have hinted such a fact to 
 Lord Lyndfield (he was not a man ever to comprehend or to 
 appreciate a being like Horatia), but I got him out of the 
 room by a little management, and put him into the other 
 with a box of cigars, a bottle of sherry, and the " Illustrated 
 London News." 
 
 If her husband's delirious complaints were sacred and are 
 sealed from repetition, — far more must be the wife's. Suf- 
 ficient to say that, to my knowledge, and in my presence, she 
 drained the very dregs of her own pride, and touched in her 
 bitterness the edge of death, — its sword ran keen along her 
 spirit, like a naked dagger pointed to the flesh, — its cold 
 but divine temper searclicd her through and through, and she 
 must have been healthy and sound of mind and soul, or such
 
 378 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 a probing liad surely drawn some poison from the wound. It 
 did not ; — but oh, the bitterness ! — her own bitterness all 
 poured forth on herself. Such self-accusations ! — she so loyal 
 and passionate a wife — such turning the blunted arrows of 
 self-suspicion against her own soft nature. I believe in that 
 extremity, and long, long afterwards, she took to herself all 
 the credit of his illness — or rather all the blame. And I be- 
 lieve that for every particle of attention or of time she had 
 bestowed on other men, she expected to lose in retribution 
 whole ages of his presence in eternity. The questions she 
 asked me — wandering and desperate — the strange terrors 
 she conjured up — I could not answer her, for unnaturally 
 exaggerated and embittered as was the truth they held or 
 hinted at, it was still truth's essence, dissolved in overflow- 
 ing draughts of woe. 
 
 And bitterest of all was the fresh-steeped wormwood of 
 her jealousy — her jealousy that another woman served him 
 — was with him in her absence and her powerlessness. 
 This jealousy she tried to hide from me, a man, but it en- 
 veloped her as a garment — her face lost all its sweetness — 
 her very figure seemed altered — strained, as on a rack, out 
 of its form ; her eyes looked blind. 
 
 Still her whole hody listened for the slightest sound up 
 stairs. 
 
 To me it felt two hours ; to her I doubt not like a drag- 
 ging, darkest night. In reality (I knew afterwards) we were 
 not a full hour together so. 
 
 There had been no warning rustle, no footfall, no creaking 
 door or stair. The door opened as in a dream, and noise- 
 lessly, swiftly, Erselie entered on a sudden. Not like a 
 spirit ! a woman, from the finest tress of all her silken head 
 down to the tender feet that trod the " path of sorrow " as 
 softly as if on flowers. No fancied halo encircled her ; she 
 fancied none herself; her glory was the consciousness that, 
 in sacrificing her happiness to Right, she had not need to 
 sacrifice one gift, except that power to make another's joy ;
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 379 
 
 she marred not, nor mortified, the flesh sucli a soul made 
 pure. 
 
 Her cheeks, so clearly pale before, were touched as with a 
 rose reflex, from the blood that the intensity of volition had 
 driven too swiftly through licr brain ; her eyes were brimmed 
 with a lustre as intense, — pale, yet vivid, like a lovely comet ; 
 a radiance that shook over the dark pupils a silvery veil from 
 the bright iris ; such eyes one sees not often, such glory saw 
 I never. Unconscious of her fair and startling aspect, she 
 passed me by ; but Ifelt hevfeel me as she passed. Straight 
 up to Horatia she went, and took her hand ; that hand more 
 than ever helpless, and more than ever fiiir. 
 
 " He sleeps," said Erselie ; then knelt down by the sofa, 
 put her head on her two hands, (withdrawn now both from 
 the other woman's,) and broke out weeping. Horatia looked 
 at me in white despair — despair that she had been told no 
 more. I called on Heaven to sustain me, and went to my 
 beloved. 
 
 " She is anxious. May she see him ? go to him ? " 
 
 " How selfish of me ! " said Erselie, rising with her sweet 
 eyes clouded of their glory, and turning her wet face to Ho- 
 ratia. " But I was so glad. Never have I tried so much. 
 Because he is your husband ; and oh, if I had a husband, 
 and he was sick, I should not be able to help him, because I 
 should love him too much — like you ! " 
 
 Poor Horatia ! The " broken heart and contrite spirit ; " 
 but still the pride was there, and the jealousy, though put 
 away and hidden, for gratitude for very shame.
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 "SyiLL WITHIN WILLS. 
 
 A WOMAN was the only companion for a wife in that hour ; 
 a Avife who might not even watch her husband sleeping ; for 
 Erselie was firm as rock, and told Horatia she would kill him 
 if she did not leave him so. I saw Erselie press her sweet 
 hands on Horatia's pallid brow — a moment — saw Horatia 
 shrink from that touch, then saw no more, but left them both 
 together. 
 
 Lord Lyndfield, with the window open to the back garden, 
 Avas smoking out into the air ; a gi-ave face enough he Avore 
 under the Aveedy influence, and hopeless enough he Avas ; but 
 I could tell he respected Avhat he comprehended not in the 
 mysterious sleep. 
 
 "• All humbug in tin's case, of course ? " taking a morsel of 
 unfinished Manilla from his lips. 
 
 " If sleep be humbug, yes." 
 
 " You don't mean he is asleep ? " 
 
 " He is though, and alone." 
 
 " Then I say no more. I had Avashed my hands, and I 
 noAV deliver up my responsibility. He was not a stone's 
 throw from the undertaker's." 
 
 "I thought so" (I had indeed.) "Will he positively re- 
 cover, Lord Lyndfield ? " 
 
 " Nothing Avill positively be except to-morrow. But there 
 is good chance if his Avife do not pet him, nor he coddle 
 himself too much, nor starve himself, — equally absurd things 
 to do." 
 
 " Arnold Major ' coddle I ' "
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 381 
 
 " Certainly. I tell you what, I do not understand you neio 
 young men, any better than the Puseyites, or spu-it-rappers, 
 or table-turners ; nor do I fancy you will, any of you, make 
 healthy parents for the next generation." 
 
 " I am exonerated, for I shall never be a parent at all." 
 He shook his head. " It is very fine, but, I repeat, neither 
 natural nor healthy. What sort of feelings can a man have 
 given way to and persisted in, to fall positively \\\ from them 
 and nothing else, — a man Avith an affectionate wife and fair 
 prospects, as prospects go ? And as for you, young one, I 
 understand you. still less. You are not ill — delicate enough, 
 but keep going — yes, are well. Yet you will neither make 
 your fortune nor get married." 
 " No." 
 
 I knew this rallying was the expression of extreme phi- 
 lanthropy, and a little materialistic doubt. 
 
 " You can't live on angels' food, these stirring, striving 
 times," he said again. 
 
 " Multitudes of men did once, and wanderers too, in the 
 pure air of the eastern wilderness ; and as long as they kept 
 the ' sapphire tables ' unfractured in their hearts, it suited 
 them, it was sweet to them to feed so. But my manna is not 
 the old-fashioned sort, but the new — not all sweet, quite 
 suificiently bitter, — nor do I walk in the appetizing air of 
 Liberty, yet would I die a slave — if it must be." 
 
 " Good powers ! I shall have to carry you back with me a 
 bit. Yet, your mind is clear — strange images as it reflects. 
 And you and my good child would seem to have a strange 
 conn(;ction somewhere. You have both turned against me 
 together, and soared out of my reach or help, poor things. 
 Beware of dreams, though." 
 
 " Dreams don't hurt the good — only the evil." 
 " What kind of a woman is it our friend has married ? " 
 he went on, after a few futile putf-^. Fancy describing Ilora- 
 tia to Lord Lyndfield ! As well liave read Bailey's " Mystic " 
 to the late Hugh Miller.
 
 382 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 It is good not to know the future even when it is not dark ; 
 the steps of progress to he lived, if foreseen, M'ould write 
 wrinkles to remain, instead of shadows to vanish, on the 
 bravest brow. Marvellous in its psychological simplicity is 
 Harriet Martineau's depicture of the child who cried because 
 she should have to wash and dress and have her hair done 
 every day, her life all through ! Above all, how tedious to 
 the tender hearted is the long, long lapse of convalescence in 
 those they " love the best." Poor Arnold Major ! snatched 
 from the grave and heaven, how tardy and struggling was 
 his return to earth, and how he hungered fully to return ! 
 How he hungered for health, and yearned for the strength 
 that would not be commanded! He did not awake from 
 that first miracle of sleep for hours upon hours, and then 
 looked even more like dying than when he was so. 
 
 Here, however, Lord Lyndfield's remedial craft stepped 
 in, and how he glorified himself! He even forgave the new 
 young men for being unlike the old, as soon as he could be 
 of use, I think. And as for his devices to nourish the pa- 
 tient, they were innumerable. 
 
 Poor Horatia ! from the moment she was allowed to be 
 with her husband, she believed he would mend " too-fast for 
 time," — how he tried to mend, and how touching was his 
 pretended energy when he could hardly draw his breath, nor 
 bear the light upon his vision — when a whisper shivered 
 through him like a ray of lightning down a lightning-rod. 
 She knew it all, but locked her knowledge from him, — and 
 for such a woman, at such a time, to conceal her passive 
 anxiousness, was a more heroic effort than to have bound 
 down her active anguish in extremity. 
 
 Erselie went back to Lyndfield the moment he was out of 
 danger ; I did not see her again, — by her decision, not my 
 own, — but I readily believed she was a wiser judge than I. 
 
 For days I took my seat at Arnold Major's desk, yet never 
 for an hour filled his place, — I could not, it was not in me, 
 though I did my best and was condescendingly overlooked.
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 383 
 
 It was all very well, this coiiH)Iaccnt lull in the house of 
 business for six weeks or so, just so long as it had not hap- 
 pened to signify, not being the " height of the season " for 
 literary exposition, and the books I had to decide on in the 
 mean time happening fortunately to be by known names, and 
 fames (however small) aeeredited. 
 
 As ibr the accountantship, that throve better with me than 
 him, I had a brain less fragile and refined than he. 
 
 Still, such a state of things could not last, I knew — so did 
 they at Brown, Jones, and Co.'s ; so, alas, did he. I was hor- 
 rified to find out (so easily, the moment I Avas alone with him) 
 how this fact preyed on and wore him. 
 
 " I cannot possibly get quite well," he sighed, " because it 
 eats into me that they will not wait — they will choose 
 another in my room, never will they retain you, because they 
 will believe you, as an author, prejudiced in favor of your 
 class." 
 
 " Hold your tongue ! " I said. (Well I recollect the day.) 
 " Something will turn up, it always does in the case of young 
 ravens, authors, and readers ! If only you would accept the 
 providence Lord Lyndfield offers, and persists in offering — 
 rare circumstance for him." 
 
 It was true Lord Lyndfield had written almost every day 
 since his departure, (for this weakness of Avhich I speak was 
 not constitutional, only nervous, and what doctor cares to 
 watch or can medicine that ?) Every day had sent abrupt, 
 but really serious, notes to me, to the effect that he desired 
 (lie said ordered in the notes, but I didn't tell my dear friend 
 that !) that he desired his late patient (he would call him so) 
 and his wife (incomprehensible and uncomprehended) would 
 come to Lyndfield without any nonsense, stay with him awhile 
 in his vacant home side of the chase, and get all tlieir non- 
 sense taken clean out of them by the extraordinary influence 
 of the " fattest air in Britain." 
 
 Of course, the grand allurement and prospect of recovery 
 rested in the cream and camomiles of that northern Canaan.
 
 384 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 But in this instance I really did think both those agents of 
 " health, the natural religion," would serve iinperceptiblj to 
 restore the wasted energy and enrich the attenuated blood. 
 
 Then, I knew at the bottom that the intense vigilance of 
 ihQ husband — not the patient — (awakening in revenge for 
 its sick suspension tenfold strong) wore him more than all the 
 other causes and l^ejit him low. I had not seen Hoi*atia since 
 Lord Lyndfield went away ; woman-like, I fancy she was 
 glad not to meet me ; but now I resolved to face her and win 
 her over to my views for him, which were my only hopes. 
 
 She w^as altered ; not in face, nor had she lost one jot of 
 spirit, one trick of fascination, one particle of character. 
 But a new light lay on her eyes, like the reflection of some 
 twilight-dawning star, melancholy, not mournful, trembling 
 in its very calm. Great sorrow had swept her ever tender 
 conscience, and left it cold, not scarred or seared ; and had 
 purged her bosom of its haughty self-reliance, made her trust 
 in God and her human master greater, and her trust in men 
 far less. Her very love seemed more human, more womanly 
 it could not be ; and as for his love for her, oh, how she 
 clasped it now ! how it folded her from head to foot, and 
 veiled her inmost spirit from the vision of any other man ! 
 
 " Certainly," — in reply to my long address (I always use 
 too many words I am afi'aid) — " certainly, we shall go to 
 Lyndfield, as those who know it recommend it ; I mean 
 decidedly to beg him, as soon as ever I am straight ; I know 
 not how soon that may be, but soon, I think. It is of no use 
 for even me to ask him to go alone, and then" with a sweet 
 expression, " I can pretend it is on my account, you see." 
 
 I " saAv," I understood her. Right or wrong of me to do 
 so, I wrote a letter to Lord Lyndfield, explaining her wifely 
 scruples. Came there then a missive truly in keeping with 
 him. 
 
 " She was a foolish woman, or a selfish one ; she meddled 
 with her husband's mending, and her child's well-doing after 
 that. It was infinitely better for a baby to be born in the
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 385 
 
 country than in town ; the first breatli its lungs drew avjis 
 sui-ely more adapted to fill them if it was air than if it was 
 smoke." 
 
 I never expected Horatia would hear such an arrangement, 
 but she did; all honor to her! And she carried it through 
 with downright courage, physical and moral ; she disdained 
 her own natural frailty in the time of her husband's unnat- 
 ural weakness — honor to her again ! It was really very 
 good of her to go ; because Lord Lyndfield and she had not 
 taken to each other, as the phrase is ; they were not persons, 
 either, ever to do so ! Besides, she knew very well Erselie 
 lived at Lyndfield, or close " thereby," and she could not 
 forget, though she had forgiven, the hour of her own discom- 
 fiture and powcrlessness, and the other woman's power and 
 glory. 
 
 So, a third time, honor to her ! Horatia went, and once 
 more, to laud her justly, it was far more meritorious in her 
 to go to Lyndfield, disliking it, than it would have been to 
 accept the shelter (not proffered at the right time, I 7nust 
 say) of any one of the other fair country mansions she had 
 adorned so often, and to which she had so often been bidden, 
 in former days o? fairer fortune, as men call it. 
 
 Indeed,,! Avas glad and thankful when they were gone; 
 yet I felt, how dispirited that day, or rather evening, for I 
 returned from the city to find them vanished. I was to 
 " take care " of the house, and the children had come home 
 with me there. I could not pardon myself for the heavy 
 weariness that descended on me, and wrapped my faculties ; 
 no mist, but thick as London fog. Then the children — they 
 were growing daily a heavier harass, for it was daily more 
 difficult to do one's duty by them, and this difficulty, under 
 present circumstances, would not diminish with time. I had 
 kept them both with me, and out of their uncle's house, until 
 that very day, at some cost (trifling enough to any man with 
 a settled income, but much to me just then), as I was obliged 
 to hire an extra room, and an attendant for Philippa, which
 
 38G ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 attendant, chosen in desperate need and the thick of all- 
 absorbing anxieties, innoculated the child with all kinds of 
 tricks through her unfailing imitativeness. 
 
 This night they came home. I speculated much and long 
 on their destinies, and the destinies of children born as they, 
 to whom it seems as though Heaven, in its inexorable justice, 
 is forced to deny the tempered wind it breathes on the shorn 
 lamb. 
 
 They didn't look much like shorn lambs, either the haugh- 
 ty boy or the hardy girl ; and it was to me a mystery of the 
 future how they would receive the tender stranger they had 
 no dream of; I dreaded their cool or rough reception of it 
 for its mothei''s sake. 
 
 Anniversaries are not agreeable, I think, and not the dis- 
 like of growing older, but the dread of going farther from 
 any very dear point in the past, makes one, if one is not 
 very sanguine, prefer all the unnoticable days to them. It 
 felt incredible to me, for my part, to have gone so far from a 
 certain epoch in my own life, which was a distressful blank, 
 if not a positive grief But on it came in its recurrence, 
 sure and slow — slow even to me, for I wished it over : the 
 third return of the date I had learned my poverty, and taken 
 on myself the doom of insignilicance. I do not quite know 
 why I wished it over, for I expected no result from it, nor 
 chano-e. It seemed incredible that mcorruptibility could per- 
 sist in keeping itself intact ; and for even some months now 
 I had not heard from John, nor of him, — he had ever taken 
 care to keep himself informed I was alive, as I have said 
 before. And so I Avas mean enough to expect he meant to 
 shirk his responsibility in the matter of the iron box after 
 all. Scarcely need I say that, if he had done so, I should 
 never have appeared against him, troubled him, or inquired 
 after him. 
 
 Ten days after the wafe and husband had left town, this 
 anniversary would occur. On its eve the children had been 
 very troublesome indeed, — Hilary especially, who needed a
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 387 
 
 stronger hand than mine, and a more experienced head. 
 How utterly self-disgusted I was ! I recollect wishing my- 
 self a street-sweeper, like John in the olden times, and think- 
 ing how pleasant it would be for a little while to have one's 
 business and duty far below one's intellectual level instead 
 of so much above one's moral one. I dreamed of John that 
 night — all night, — which was, perhaps, not strange ; and 
 yet, it is true, that I no more expected to see him or hear of 
 him next day than to wake up in Australia. And if ever 
 his idiosyncrasy dreamed in its life, I dare say John dreamed 
 about me that night too. In the morning I was obliged to 
 leave the children wholly to their own devices, even before I 
 left tlie house, — nay, I could not go down to breakfast, for I 
 had a double " leader " to carry out with me all ready, in 
 consequence of some home-mess in Parliament making a 
 devil's brew rechauffe out there two months afterwards. 
 And I left the house thinking of nothing else but it — far 
 less a dreamer than in the night. 
 
 I think it must have been about one o'clock, when one of 
 the minor bookkeepers (with a large ink-smear splashed on 
 his forehead from surprise), opened my desk-door and looked 
 in. He had not even knocked, and all the men at Brown, 
 Jones, and Co.'s were as respectful as their masters were 
 respectable. 
 
 " The carriage, please sir." 
 
 " What carriage ? " I exclaimed. 
 
 " The two gentlemen said they were sure you would know 
 their errand. And they have been first to Islington — that is 
 why they are so late." 
 
 " Just ask one of them to be so good as to come and speak 
 to me." 
 
 Generally, of course, I should have gone out myself to 
 speak to any " gentlemen " — something withheld me now. 
 
 One gentleman entered half a minute afterwards, bowing 
 and saliiming, spick and span polite. Still I could not un- 
 derstand it the least; though I had, I felt sure, seen the
 
 388 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 man's face at some time or other, I had " clean forgotten 
 where," as Mrs. Arnold Major might have said. 
 
 " Excuse me," I observed, trying to be decently polite on 
 my side (though without the least inclination), " I have not 
 the remotest idea of your business ; will you oblige me by 
 explaining it instantly, as mine, though slight, is urgent." 
 
 He gave me a card out of a " city purse," in which was a 
 place to carry such credentials. " Mr. Osborne," he said, 
 as if reading it, while handing ; " I was present," he went on, 
 awfully slowly, " at the reading of the Loftus will, three years 
 since, on this very day, together Avith my friend, who is at 
 present with me — outside, of course. We had not been 
 legally employed by the testator, but were consulted by youi-- 
 self after the demise — you were very young at the time." 
 
 "And I'm not so very much older now. What would you 
 have me do, Mr. Osborne ? I should be sorry to have to 
 leave this just now, it being a friend's post." 
 
 " Yet your presence is positively, immediately, and legally 
 necessary." 
 
 " Stop here, then, one moment, please." 
 
 I blessed all the stars of the fortunate that the handsome 
 head was wanting in the establishment that day, as to his 
 bodily presence, having gone to Aldershott, (quite a new 
 time-killer then,) so I could speak to my favorite, the part- 
 ner who always looked exhausted beneath the pressure, not 
 only of business, but o^ feelinr/s ; a curious man who might 
 have been a poet, if he had been born minus the bump of 
 acquisitiveness and the hump (?) of self-esteem ! He let 
 me go immediately, and pretended it was convenient, though 
 I knew it was not. 
 
 John had sent the largest glass-coach, the only one left 
 then, I believe, in the livery stables of the largest Ugly- 
 villian inn. It had two large horses, as fat as prize sAvine, 
 that moved like sloths in harness. Solemnly, albeit — we 
 were all three solemn, and if only we had had on hatbands, 
 &c., it might have been actually the funeral over again. I
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 389 
 
 thought we should never get there, and I suppose solicitors 
 ■would no more think of making themselves companionable 
 while in the throes of a professional catastrophe, than judges 
 would shave themselves in their wigs. 
 
 It was a good two hours before we got to the Roman 
 Villa; and then, in the first instance, there was no John, 
 he having left the street-door wide open, and run away — 
 or rather, gone into the library, where he waited for us. 
 
 He would not shake hands with me — would not even 
 speak — would not even so much as turn towards me a 
 single lash of one of his eyes ; but handed a little round- 
 warded key (standing in front of both the lawyers, and ex- 
 actly between them), as though he were anxious to divide 
 the key between the two. One of them took it, the other 
 inclined his head solemnly, and off we all moved in pro- 
 cession up stairs, he heading us, and John last. Through the 
 corridor none had trodden for three years, and past the doors 
 of sleeping chambers where none had slept so long. Past 
 my own bedroom door, which I shrank from and hankered 
 after at the same moment (if any one can understand me). 
 
 Into my uncle's bedroom — its corner — that iron corner. 
 Next moment the key turned in its lock, soft as velvet, — it 
 was open, the iron door, just large enough to permit its con- 
 tents to pass through into the air. Then John produced the 
 other and smaller key. But the legal gentlemen shook their 
 heads, and both laying hold of the little box, they bore it 
 down stairs again between them, like a miniature sarcophagus, 
 placed it on the library table, from which all else had been 
 swept away ; then plied the second tiny patent sesame, softer, 
 more velvet-fitting than the first. 
 
 Of course the legal gentlemen were about to address me 
 in a proper professional exordium, in the act of opening 
 (but still before opening) the box. But John aroused, vi- 
 vacious as a canary bird at five o'clock in the morning. 
 
 " Hold your tongue, sir ! What do you mean by keeping 
 Mr. Ernest waiting ? " he cried so loud and shrill that he
 
 300 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 frightened away their intention. In another instant the key- 
 was turned, the box opened ; within it lay a small parch- 
 ment roll, whose very red tape-twist was sealed with ex- 
 quisite elaboration, — my uncle's coat-of-ai-ms in full, (of 
 wliich, as John informed me afterwards, the signet and the 
 die had both been destroyed after this their final affixture.) 
 
 I really thought, now realization was at hand, that it was 
 all an invention of dream together ; it even struck me that 
 John might have contrived the trick himself. They did not 
 think so, the two examinants, for they fastened on it like a 
 couple of leeches, having opened it between them furtively. 
 Very disinterested, as it could not possibly concern them. 
 
 For ten minutes or so there was silence. Then, — 
 
 "A curious document," observed one, 
 
 " The most singular, to be regular, I ever perused," the 
 othei*. 
 
 " It is regulm^" John asserted, rather than questioned. 
 
 " Most certainly." 
 
 Then they whispered another minute or two, and unfixed 
 from the open parchment a double sheet of large writing 
 paper ; it had been simply wafered to the parchment edge, 
 and rolled up with it. 
 
 " This is private, I believe," said they (or one of them, I 
 forget which) and handed it to me. It had on its upper side 
 these words in my uncle's hand. " For my nephew and heir- 
 at-law, Ei-nesto Loftus." The first light autumn brown, that 
 creeps with time on ink, had even so soon touched it. " Pri- 
 vate " was marked in the corner, I forgot to say. And like 
 leaves of latest autumn, the sheets, in turning them, shook 
 and rustled in my hand. On the inner page was written (it 
 was like reading an epistle from the other world ) : — 
 
 " I loved you well, my child, but certainly not wisely. I 
 treated and restrained you in my tenderness as though you 
 had been a woman Avho was never to meet or do battle with 
 the world. I saw my error too late to mend it in my mortal 
 life, but by that time I had discovered that existence would
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 391 
 
 last a very little while to me. I had not strength of mind to 
 banish you while yet I lived. When dead, you will first re- 
 gret, then detest me, and after that become indifferent as to 
 whether I had lived or died. Not finally, for in the hour you 
 read this, you will first leai'n to know me. If the years I shall 
 then have given you for probation (few enough — had I 
 been more courageous and less fond, they would have been 
 twice as many) are tests of what I think you are integrally, 
 you will thank me for them, and I also, I know not how, 
 rejoice ! But if you be not what I think you, by that time 
 it will be known to your own soul — and mine ; and then the 
 blessing I have left you will change to bitterness — no need 
 for me to curse you." 
 
 A sort of wild rapture, irrespective of all but the fact that, 
 little as I had been tried indeed, I was at least no hypocrite, 
 rushed through my brain. I felt as though (without wings) 
 I could fly — giddy with the amaze that had no taint of an- 
 guish. I wanted nothing else that hour, felt no human pres- 
 ence in the room (only a spirit still human, that was and 
 must be absent). I don't know how long the suspension 
 from the outward lasted, and I am sure I did not swoon; 
 but the first pulse of resuscitated consciousness awoke to 
 the sense of comedy in me, which, I fear, will never die. 
 Thei-e was an awful smell, not as of a " tortoise boiled in 
 brass," but of sheepskin roasting. The men were scolding 
 John too, but he was outrageous, and didn't care ; his voice 
 rose to a positive scream as it roused me. 
 
 " Sure I may burn my own Avill ! " was the first remark I 
 heard. " You said the other one was regufar." 
 
 " It is not regular to burn it till it has been duly compared 
 with the former under the eyes of the real legatee." 
 
 " Never mind ! " again screamed John. 
 
 But one of them pushed him oiF the rug and held his 
 ai'ms back, while the other picked the thing out of the fire 
 with the tongs, — a huge fire, quite filHng the library grate, 
 but fortunately very clear ; so that, smutty and scorched as
 
 392 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 was the document, it was, to all legal intents and purposes, 
 still " intact," for it was presently " laid on the table," like a 
 map, side by side with — u'hat ? My uncle's 7~eal will, made, 
 drawn up, and dated, the very day after the false one, — his 
 own too ! Copied by the same solicitor, and signed by the 
 same " parties ; " to wit, John and the lawyer (as in the first 
 instance), the lawyer as knowing as the other was ignorant 
 of what he did. The will was precisely the same as in the 
 former case, saving and only these trifling alterations — that 
 my name was in the place of John's this time ; and a hun- 
 dred a year for life to him, with five hundred pounds down 
 to the legal gentleman employe, or to the lattei''s next heir in 
 case of his own decease, were clearly and unmistakably as- 
 signed. Quite as clearly and unmistakably came lastly a 
 codicil, a charge to me myself, or so it seemed, — a great and 
 solemn obligation, though it was, in fact, but the suggestion 
 of a heart remembering its own weakness in the flesh, and 
 together with that remembi'ance, realizing that univei'sal 
 charge of the Maker of all, to " love." 
 
 My uncle (perhaps touched deeply with the truth that he 
 could not carry his images and idols of beauty even where 
 beauty is eternal) expressed in the plainest words his great 
 desire — for it was no command nor condition — that the 
 whole Collection should be forthwith sold for some especial 
 purpose of (what men call) charity, — the sum it should re- 
 alize to be applied as I might think fit within such limits, if 
 I complied with such desire. It being stipulated that the 
 " charity " should be one wholly distinct from any so-called 
 existing ones, except a hospital. Also stating (there are no 
 hints in law, but in undress language I should have called it 
 a hint) that he should prefer me altogether to use my own 
 discretion in the matter. 
 
 What discretion had I, Ernesto Loftus? I know not 
 whether any. Dear Arnold Major told me I was a " child " 
 in some things ; and I believe I must be, for my whole being 
 sank down in a trance of wonder and terror at the responsi-
 
 ALMOST A HKROINE. 393 
 
 bility placed in my hands. I could not shirk it. I knew 
 that. How I wished the lettei- had been all that was left to 
 me ! For the first rush of joyful recollection that now I 
 could really and substantially serve my best and dearest 
 friend sank low — sank leaden-deep — Hke a waterspout in 
 its explosion. For him I dared do nothing — for his wife 
 less than nothing ! if such a phrase be permissible. To send 
 one lightest right of his away from him would be sacrilege if 
 not sin. 
 
 Never shall I forget that night. Musing is wholesome, 
 perhaps, but, when unfruitful, it is melancholy. I thought on 
 and thought out — my feelings swept humanity. Here was 
 a great boon granted me — to me, to whom all wealth was 
 personally useless. And, oh, how immense a duty ; if pleas- 
 ure be a duty — for oh, how delicious it is to give ! The 
 one temptation besetting those of generous hearts and large 
 means is to give in the right way. I knew this way not, 
 how should I ? I must wait, as all those wait who love. 
 
 At Uglyville again. I stayed there a few hours, but 
 could not leave the children longer, and was thankful to 
 have an excuse in them for leaving my old home. Perhaps 
 this gratitude was morbid ; but I am sure it wasn't wrong. 
 However, I did not leave my dear good old crony of a John 
 for a little bit. What a mercy that nothing can alter tem- 
 perament, the heaven-bestowed, I think — for its veil, or 
 mask, or atmosphere shelters a good many souls. 
 
 John's gratification was not the least noisy. On the con- 
 trary, he assumed to have guessed the truth all along, for 
 this is what happened between us; Avhen the lawyers had 
 departed, finding me impervious to compliment or cajolement, 
 I went to look for him. He was sitting before the kitchen- 
 fire, smoking very slowly, and looking, as I can fancy those 
 prematurely emparadised beings are said to look who chew 
 (or swallow) the oriental hemp. 
 
 " Why, John, do you enjoy it so much ! " 
 
 " Don't I, Mr. Ernest ! it's my first." 
 17*
 
 394 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 " First what, John ? " 
 
 " First pipe, sir, since " 
 
 Here he commenced to smoke again — or rather went on. 
 
 " Is it possible ? You're half a hero, John ! But now I 
 want to speak to you ; you needn't leave off smoking while 
 I do, and you can take your time to answer. What do you 
 intend to do now ? " 
 
 He didn't take his time ; he took the pipe from his lips, 
 and held it out before him. 
 
 " I mean to take to meat again, Mr. Ernest." 
 
 " Meat ! You don't mean it was anything but a joke 
 about the bread and cheese ? " 
 
 "Thi-ee years, Mr. Ernest, have passed, since butcher's 
 meat or poultry has passed my lips." 
 
 " But why, my dear, good man ? " 
 
 " That, having made my will, you might the sooner enjoy 
 it, Mr. Ernest." 
 
 " But the tobacco, John ? that would not make you live 
 any longer, would it ? " 
 
 " It makes me sleepy, sir, and sleep makes fat, they say." 
 
 " But now, John, you will come and live with me, won't 
 you ? " 
 
 " If you please, Mr. Ernest, — providedly you take charge 
 of the money, — my money, — or else I shall go and spend it 
 all at once." 
 
 "What on, John?" 
 
 " There seems many ways, sir, but I rather think the best 
 would be on little children without parents, Mr. Ernest." 
 
 Curious words ! How they dropped in my heart. I be- 
 lieve in modern oracles, and half believe that the simple, not 
 the foolish, are at times oracular. Children "without" — 
 not children who have " lost " — their parents. What might 
 this not mean ? 
 
 Lord Lyndfield had declared that none of the " new young 
 men " would make " healthy fathers for the next generation."
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 395 
 
 But some of them have healthy cliildren, and that is as good. 
 The babe of Horatia and Arnokl Major was a prodigy of 
 size, symmetry, sweetness, and serenity, — alHterative quah- 
 ties belonging to it, and I can use no other terms. I know 
 nothing so terrible, so unnatural, so bewildering as a funny, 
 unshapely, cross, or restless infant ; albeit pitiful enough. I 
 fancy the old fable of changelings came from the awful fact 
 of hereditary weakness or imperfection developed by unlaw- 
 ful marriage, — for such a thing there is. 
 
 However, this child is still the most exquisite creature 
 " going," and full of promise as a rosebud of veiled bloom. 
 Being born at Lyndfield, the very dawn of the day I re- 
 covered my rights, the master of Lyndfield Chase held it 
 to be quite as much indebted to that surpassing climate as 
 though it had been "thought of" there as well. As for 
 Iloratia, she made up for her indifference (?) to it ante- 
 natally, by her motherhood's perfection afterwards. She 
 never went out in the evening — nay, never at all save 
 when the weather was fit for it also ; she never danced nor 
 sang save into its tender ears, till this same babe was 
 weaned. She fulfilled the greatest duty of a woman's life 
 triumphantly, for she preserved her own health in exactest 
 balance for its sake, — not so very selfish a proceeding, or 
 it would not be so exceptionally rare, I think ; — she pre- 
 served her own health, I repeat, by strict adherence to the 
 old laws of nature, so fast becoming obsolete, but which are 
 eternal as the stars, as the hills, and — love. 
 
 So her reward was — the natural result — an offspring 
 healthy in body and in brain, the darling of nature and the 
 grateful child of Heaven ; for is anything so grateful as the 
 pure enjoyment of Heaven's best gift, Existence? 
 
 Still, I said she fulfilled her highest duty perfectly, but I 
 did not name it her greatest pleasure. Still, as before its 
 birth, the cliild is as nothing to her, in comparison with him, 
 its father. I think that ever growing, passionate, persistent, 
 and glorious love of hers for her husband will teach her son
 
 396 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 a lesson few sons have been taught before, namely, that in 
 perfect conjugal love and union such bliss is to be found, 
 such " full repose ; " that to put up even temporarily Avith 
 its counterfeits would be something even more absurd — not 
 to speak morally — than to exchange the very kingdom of 
 Heaven for a mess of pottage. 
 
 And as for my friend, — my darling brother, I may call 
 him now, for bis own boy calls me " uncle," and is even 
 named after me, — as for Arnold Major, I fear the only 
 charge that can be brought against him is a certain quality 
 ineffably lovely to those who love it, but which worldly per- 
 sons call '■'■ futility r In revenge for his strained and set 
 position in practical life, never let go by him, (I have else- 
 where spoken of his tenacity,) he does become more romantic, 
 in regard to Horatia, every day. He is, as a parent and a 
 " new " man, at once proud and jealous of his child. I be- 
 lieve he considers himself a hero not to repine at the num- 
 ber of kisses which Horatia bestows on the baby ; for truly 
 it is still a baby, and will not be forced out of babyhood 
 ever, so may look forward to several baby years as yet. 
 
 It was as hard as the lovingest being in this world can 
 imagine, not to pour out every golden drop of all that sud- 
 den gold-flush that had fallen on me on those, — so few ! — I 
 loved. But I loved them, and they each other, far too well. 
 If Arnold Major had not recovered from his distressing 
 illness, it would have been diflPerent. I should not have had 
 to force anything on him, for he would have token all he 
 wanted, — I know that, — and so would she. But he did 
 recover ; the perfect and entire relief from toil, and the 
 necessary suspension of all responsibility, wei'e the means, 
 so said the doctor ; but I greatly fear that being completely 
 alone with his wife, where no one coidd get at her, was the 
 crown of the result. Delicate he ever will and must be. 
 Sometimes I have a dream I shall doctor him some day, and 
 more effectually than any one else has or ever could. 
 
 To explain this last vain speech. If I have a dream of
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 397 
 
 doctoring one man, it extends to mankind. I am studying 
 hard, they say, but I find it easy work, because every bit of 
 me responds to it. An idle man with a large fortune needs 
 positively some superhuman pride, some seraphic Mentor, to 
 prompt his every step and handful of largesse, and such 
 guides are fsibulous these days. I don't know whether my 
 uncle's idea of selling the " Collection " for a hospital prompt- 
 ed me, but it may have done so, to endeavor to become a 
 physician ; but I do know how all my faculties and long- 
 ings stretch towards such an end. Meantime, tliere is plenty 
 for all of us, if we want it ; but I only restrict myself to 
 necessary expenses, though I " learn of all who know," and 
 there is not a master of medicine in Europe, or the East, 
 with whom I do not communicate. Having bequeathed my 
 possessions, I care not what betides, only I should like to 
 live long enough to he the first " Medicine-man " in all the 
 world. 
 
 Arnold Major did not heep that blessed accountancy, for I 
 went to Brown, Jones, & Co., and refused it for him. In- 
 stantly they were treated with, they skulked, (I can only use 
 such an expression,) and the next thing they did was to 
 offer him two hundred a year more for his readership, which 
 this time he accepted, knowing he deserved it, and knowing 
 also that he could not help the other officials being paid after 
 the old regime, because I had placed a certain sum for their 
 benefit in the firm. Anyhow, he and his wife want no more 
 now than they own and possess, for the two children are my 
 charge wholly, belonging to me altogether, and the highest 
 proof of regard so conscientious a man could confer was be- 
 stowed on me in the hour he gave them to me. Quite free 
 of them, of course, the husband and wife are free of /tome at 
 last, as they never were, or could be, while such children 
 were in their home. 
 
 All Arnold IMajor's savings are safe for his own, nor are 
 they small. Also, if his wile should be the mother of " ten," 
 (happy ten, if so,) the I'uture lacks not promise, ibr, to judge
 
 398 ALMOST A HEROINE. 
 
 from the Bank of England note for a thousand pounds, 
 which Sir Verveyne Waters sent baby Ernest ■with his 
 blessing, I think the soldier's " savings " are not so small as 
 he made out to me. Then Yalliance Major's idiot child is 
 dead, the only blessing that could befall it ; he has no other 
 children, and perhaps Horatia's husband will have Castle 
 Valliance after all ; if they have not money enough to " keep 
 it up," as the saying is, they can at least, in that case, have 
 plenty of beautifully built rooms for the " ten," should they 
 dawn and bloom after the fashion of the ^r*^ 
 
 Hilary and Philippa are getting on, each better than 
 could have been expected. Philippa's woful and length- 
 ened sense of bereavement, when taken from Horatia, was 
 good to see, and made her better, too, I do beheve. 
 
 Hilary still talks of the " diggings," and I don't discourage 
 him, for I have learned one or two little things. For 
 instance, my great desire, when first he became my charge, 
 was to send him to Harrow. There he could not he entered, 
 because not a legitimate child. That fact staggered me a 
 little, but the shock brought wisdom to me, I believe, and 
 hope. 
 
 " The poor ye have always with you." Yes, and not only 
 the poor. I am no purist of the school which denies all 
 classes (virtually) except its own, nor do I affect the phi- 
 losophy which is blind to such sorrows as are the fruits of 
 selfishness or vice. I fear we shall ever, till this " sick 
 earth grows young again," have the innocent children of the 
 guilty among us, quite as thickly as the poor. Days and 
 nights I brooded over this subject, but my first impulse was 
 the best, I think, and in its fulfilment it has not played me 
 false. In the old house, where I was never positively 
 happy, if only negatively uncomfortable, I have made a 
 home for such. There is nothing in it like a school, which 
 my very soul abhors. But inasmuch as no man that ever 
 lived could accomplish the least purpose of humanity quite 
 perfectly without the aid of woman, so I am indebted for the
 
 ALMOST A HEROINE. 399 
 
 arrangement and management of this home to the two best 
 women in the world. 
 
 I don't half like calling it a Home, because that precious 
 word has passed into slang some time ago ; and we are 
 deluged with homes, sacred and secular, Puseyitical and 
 Jesuitical, the length and breadth of the land. But there is 
 no other name for it, and (unlike those its contemporaries) 
 it is actually and indeed a home. A home of almost infancy 
 as yet, so short a time has it been founded ; and I fervently 
 believe that the children in it will grow up to call it so. 
 
 Many persons from various places thought me very mean 
 because I would not suffer a single article of the " Collec- 
 tion " to be bought (or bidden for) under its exact and utmost 
 value. They didn't only think me mean, but called me so. 
 I did not, and do not care. All the good the richest man 
 among us all can do, in this short life, is such a drop in the 
 ocean, that it reminds one of the journey of a single ray of 
 light through space, — or of the eternal truth — that Love is 
 patience. 
 
 THE END.
 
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