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 Page 137
 
 STRIVE AND THRIVE 
 
 A TALE 
 
 BY MARY HOWITT. 
 
 NEW HAVEN. 
 «. BABCOCK, CHAPEL STREET. 
 
 1841.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAP, PAGE 
 
 I. Neighbor's Gossip 5 
 
 IT. Neighbor's Gossip illustrated .... 14 
 
 III. Married Life 23 
 
 IV. Mr. Thompson's Visit 33 
 
 V. A Great Change 40 
 
 VI. The New Home 49 
 
 VII. A Hopeless Quest 59 
 
 VIII. New Characters 65 
 
 IX. The Twelfth Hour 76 
 
 X. New Prospects 84 
 
 XI. Little Margaret's Sorrow ; and the First Hol- 
 iday ~ . .95 
 
 XII. Brighter Prospects 106 
 
 Xin. Secret Schemes . . . . . .117 
 
 XIV. La Belle Flora 135 
 
 XV. Difficulties 145 
 
 XVL A Friend in Need . . , . . .158 
 
 XVII. New Connexions 167 
 
 Conclusion 177
 
 STRIVE AND THRIVE. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 NEIGHBOR S GOSSIP. 
 
 "That poor man over the way is dead at last," 
 said the younger cf the two Miss Poindens, as 
 they sat at breakfast. 
 
 " How do you know that ?" returned the elder. 
 
 " They did not take the roll this morning," 
 answered Miss Barbara ; " I saw the baker put 
 it back into his basket ; and that tall, thin girl 
 has not dusted the window-frames ; nor has that 
 pale-faced boy fetched the spring water, as usual ; 
 nor have the blinds been drawn up ; and the sash 
 of the sick chamber has been raised a matter of 
 three inches. I am sure he is dead. It would 
 but be neighborly to send over and inquire if we 
 could be of any service." 
 
 " Barbara !" exclaimed Miss Poinden, as if 
 quite shocked and astonished ; " and what con- 
 cern is it of ours if the man be dead or alive 1" 
 1
 
 6 neighbor's gossip. 
 
 " Sister," replied the more benevolent Barbara, 
 " they are poor ; very poor, I am sure they are. 
 I have studied the ways of those people as if they 
 were my own kindred ; I know they are poor ; 
 and relations or friends they have none, for there 
 never was going or coming to that house, nor 
 have they had as much as a neighbor to take 
 tea with them ; and yet how respectable they all 
 look ; those children — and there are five of them — 
 always so neat, and with a something about them 
 so unlike common people's children ; the boys 
 with their clean white collars — but they always 
 take them oflf as soon as they get within doors — 
 I've seen it scores of times ! Bless me ! I've sat 
 and fretted myself if it came on to rain while they 
 were out, as if they had been my own children, 
 and I had to pay for their washing. Of course I 
 know nothing of them further than I have seen," 
 continued Miss Barbara, talking on in a weak, pat- 
 tering voice, that might have reminded an unac- 
 customed listener of quiet rain against the window ; 
 " but you know, when one has seen a thing for 
 some time, one can make a shrewd guess respect- 
 ing it. Now I maintain it, that although these 
 people are poor — which is a common lot enough — 
 yet that they are not common people. The house 
 itself is a mirack to me ; — always ao clean and neat
 
 NEIGHBOR S GOSSIP. 7 
 
 as it looks ; and yet there is no servant, not even a 
 girl, nor a char-woman on a Saturday ; — how they 
 manage is past my skill to say; one would think 
 fairies did the work of the house. Look only at 
 their street-door — there is not a door like it : 
 paint clean, knocker bright, steps as white as a 
 lilly ; yet never did I s€e a hand upon them. It is 
 my opinion that all this is done when every body 
 else is in bed : and they would not have that 
 sensibility if they were your common people. I 
 declare I feel quite a regard for them. They take 
 in needle-work, poor things, and that's money 
 hardly earned. Pve seen the draper's porter 
 bring Irish linen there — I'm sure it was Irish; 
 and it is my opinion that they work for ware- 
 houses ; and the boy takes home the work in a 
 carpet-bag every Saturday morning. It was a 
 long time before I could understand things — that 
 carpet-bag puzzled me much; but I have a pretty 
 good knowledge of all their movements now. 
 They are respectable people, sister ; very respect- 
 able people, though they are poor. I think I 
 shall just send Martha over with my or our com- 
 pliments, and ask if we could be of any service — 
 it would but be neighborly, you know." 
 
 ^' Nonsense !" returned Miss Poinden ; " I beg 
 you will do no such thing. Half a dozen people
 
 8 neighbor's gossip. 
 
 may be dead in the street besides this man, yet it 
 is no concern of ours." 
 
 Poor Miss Barbara always yielded to her sister, 
 and therefore she did not urge the point, although, 
 she thought within herself, that it was very dis- 
 agreeable never to have her own way. 
 
 "He must have been ill many years," said 
 Barbara, after a silence of five minutes, during 
 which time the circumstances of the opposite 
 neighbors had passed in busy review before her. 
 
 "The man over the way?" inquired Miss 
 Poinden, who had thought in the meantime on 
 twenty different subjects, and yet, who, accus- 
 tomed to her sister's unwearying perseverance in 
 one train of thought, naturally reverted to the last 
 topic of discourse, — " perhaps he may." 
 
 " He has,'^ persisted Miss Barbara ; " why, it 
 is three years last July since he came — don't you 
 remember? Last July three years they brought 
 him in a sedan-chair, and he then was too ill to 
 walk. Three years it is since they came ; those 
 dressy Martins — Mrs. Martin and her three daugh- 
 ters — lived there before them. You had your 
 lavender silk the very May before they left, and 
 no sooner had you been seen in it, than Mrs. 
 Martin got one like it." 
 
 " Going on for four years since I bought my
 
 NEIGHBOR a GOSSIP. 9 
 
 lavender silk ! It is impossible !" exclaimed Miss 
 Poinden. 
 
 " It will be four years next May," returned 
 Barbara, quietly, " since you bought that dress." 
 
 " If you can make that out, the dress shall be 
 yours," said the elder sister ; and Barbara, who, 
 unfortunately for the indulgence of her benevo- 
 lent impulses, was dependent upon her senior, 
 and who was the grateful receiver of her more 
 costly cast-off habiliments, set about proving that 
 the poor opposite neighbor had been ill in that 
 house upwards of three years, inasmuch as he had 
 been the succeeding tenant to the dressy Martins, 
 in whos« time the lavender silk was unquestion- 
 ably bought 
 
 " Now I can prove it to you past a doubt," 
 said Miss Barbara, settling herself into a talking 
 position in her chair: "they came here on the 
 first of July — that was your birthday, you know. 
 I dare say they took the house at Midsummer, but 
 perhaps he was too ill to be moved ; I hope, 
 however, they had not another quarter's rent to 
 pay; or perhaps they were in lodgings by the 
 week, then it would'nt matter. Well, however, 
 as I said, they came on the first of July, and he 
 was brought in a sedan chair. I was standing at 
 that window dusting the old china on the stand; 
 1*
 
 10 NEIGHBOR S GOSSIP. 
 
 for, as it was your birthday, we were going to hare 
 company. We had the Smiths and the Wilsons 
 that night to tea and supper. Young Wilson was 
 over then from Barbadoes, and we asked the 
 Smiths to meet them. Well, as I said, I was 
 dusting the china ; I had my Jemmy Jessamy in 
 my hand when the sedan-chair came up, and I 
 was naturally curious to know who it held, for 
 the goods had come the day before — no great 
 quantity of them either — and that pale-faced boj 
 walked beside the sedan ; he was a very little 
 fellow then ; and Mrs. Walsingham, though at 
 that time I did'nt know her name, came out to 
 the door to receive them. The chairman carried 
 out the sick man, wrapped in a blanket, and pres- 
 ently I saw him brought into the chamber where 
 he now lies dead. He must have been very ill at 
 that time, for he has kept his chamber ever since, 
 and his bed also, in my opinion, for I never saw 
 him more then once or twice, and that at distant 
 intervals, sitting in an easy chair near the fire. 
 It was some incurable malady — some slow con- 
 sumption or other — that has been the death of him; 
 for though a doctor came now and then, just at 
 regular times, I never could see that any physic 
 came to the house. But, however, all this is 
 nothing to the purpose ; I was telling you about
 
 11 
 
 their first coming. I was very busy looking at 
 them, and put my hand back to set the Jemmy 
 Jessamy on the stand, that I might go nearer to 
 the window, for I did'nt care to be seen dusting 
 it as I stood there ; but unfortunately I forgot 
 that I had moved the stand, so instead of setting 
 it down as I expected, I dropped it on the floor." 
 
 " Just like you," chimed in Miss Poinden, in 
 rather a bitter tone. 
 
 " Well, well, sister," continued Miss Barbara, 
 with a deprecating voice, " my accidents mostly 
 fall on my own head, as in this case, for, as I 
 told you at the time, it was my own piece ; and 
 seeing I have no great possessions, I had most 
 cause to grieve : and then Mrs. Smith — just like 
 her — asked where the Jemmy was, the moment 
 she entered the room, for she catalogues every 
 thing in every body's house. And did'nt you 
 wear your lavender silk that night ; and Mr. Wil- 
 son, the old gentleman, dropped his muffin, with 
 the buttered side downward, on the side-breadth ; 
 and old Mr. Smith told you that magnesia was 
 the best thing in the world to take out grease ? 
 O, I remember it as if it were only to-night ! and 
 that was the day the people over the way first 
 came ; and I declare I never saw any one of them 
 for a long time afterwards, without feeling as if I 
 had just broken something."
 
 18 neighbor's gossip. 
 
 "To be sure," said the elder lady, "I did 
 wear that dress that particular night ; it was new 
 just then ; but that can not be three years ago." 
 
 "Well," returned Miss Barbara, "you'll see. 
 Your next birth day you spent at Margate ; the 
 next, you had that fit of lumbago, when Mr. 
 Baillie sent in that large bill ; bless me, what 
 money those doctors must get! I don't wonder 
 at the poor Walsinghams having the doctor only 
 now and then. Last first of July, don't you 
 remember sitting in the morning for your picture, 
 and our drinking tea with the Philipses in the 
 evening ? Now there are three birthdays for 
 you; and that makes three years, to my know- 
 ledge, that that poor man has kept his sick-bed ; 
 and next May your lavender silk gown will be 
 four years old." 
 
 " Bless me," said Miss Poinden, "how time 
 goes on! That gown looks well for its age; it 
 was a good silk to begin with — seven-and-six- 
 pence a-yard ; but it is time you had it ; and, now 
 I think of it, I am rather tired of it. It will 
 make you an excellent church-going dress when 
 you've turned it." 
 
 Poor Miss Barbara, though she was two-and- 
 iifty years old, was so pleased and so occupied 
 with the business of re-modeling the lavender silk
 
 neighbor's gossip. 13 
 
 dress, that she said no more about sending Martha 
 with her compliments OA^er the way, or with her 
 offers of service ; but yet, in the midst of her 
 sewing and shaping, she could not help wonder- 
 ing how poor Mrs. Walsingham would contrive 
 to put herself and all those five children, into 
 decent mourning. 
 
 Miss Barbara Poinden was quite right in most, 
 if not all of her surmises. She was right in believ- 
 ing that Walsingham was dead — that he had died 
 that night, after a long confinement to a sick 
 chamber. She was right in saying that they were 
 poor ; that there was no coming or going of re- 
 lations or friends to their door, nor neighborly 
 tea drinkings, and yet that they had a respectable 
 look — a something about them unlike common 
 people. She was right as to the needle-work 
 and the street-door ; and, as neither servant nor 
 char-woman could be afforded in that house, 
 had Miss Barbara been an early riser, she might 
 have seen that the fairy who cleaned the steps 
 and the knocker, was no other than the thin, 
 pale-faced boy, who had so often excited her 
 compassion. 
 
 But, as Miss Barbara's observations only served 
 for a breakfast-table gossip, and were only the 
 result of an idle though kind-hearted curiosity,
 
 14 neighbor's gossip. 
 
 we who know all the detail of the family history, 
 must enlighten our readers thereon ; and, in order 
 to do that thoroughly, we must go back nearly 
 twenty years. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 neighbor's gossip illustrated. 
 
 Nearly twenty years ago, Walsingham had just 
 left college. He was a man of fine taste and 
 accomplishments; that is, he had received a clas- 
 sical edcuation ; he read and discussed modern 
 literature and the belles lettres, and was not only 
 a conno sseur in the arts of music and painting, 
 but an amateur practitioner of them also. He 
 sketched excellently ; he played on the flute and 
 violin more than passingly well ; and was, in fine, 
 in the opinion of all his family, a most elegant 
 young man. Add to these other attractions, that 
 he possessed six thousand pounds in the funds, at 
 his own disposal, and, better still, that he was the 
 undoubted heir of a rich uncle, and it will be 
 easily seen that the world gave its golden opinions 
 not without reason. To his uncle, who was an 
 old bachelor, he was the nearest of kin, and had
 
 neighbor's gossip. 15 
 
 been brought up by him from his earliest child- 
 hood. The good old man, in fact, had been to 
 him " father and mother both," and, as he ad- 
 vanced from childhood, had spared no expense to 
 give him every advantage of education. 
 
 Too much money, however, had been spent, 
 and too much indulgence allowed, if Mr. Thomp- 
 son (for such was the uncle's name) expected 
 that at his one-and-twentieth year, he "would 
 buckle to," as he expressed it, and take the place 
 of head clerk in the soap-boiling establishment, 
 even with the whole concern in reversion. Matters 
 fell out as might have been expected : the nephew 
 thought trade vulgar, and his uncle an unreason- 
 able, if not a tyrannical old man, who expected 
 him to sit down to ledgers and invoices punctually 
 at ten o'clock daily, Sundays and Saint-days only 
 excepted. He declared decidedly, that he should 
 not do it ; and that, if the prosperity of the soap- 
 boiling concern depended upon him, it might go 
 to ruin. The uncle thought the nephew an idle, 
 ungrateful, good-for-nothing fellow, whose mind 
 was given up to operas and plays, to picture- 
 painting and fiddling, and to idle books, that 
 were only written to turn weak heads. He was 
 cruelly deceived ; and such ingratitude, he said, 
 would never bring a blessing.
 
 16 neighbor's gossip. 
 
 Poor Mr. Thompson ! he felt the disappoint- 
 ment even deeper than his words expressed. 
 Walsingham had been as a son to him ; he had 
 toiled for him and thought for him, and had been 
 destined, even from his birth, for his vv^orthy 
 and superior successor. The young man for 
 the last several years had lived mostly at college ; 
 his mind had been occupied partly by study, but 
 more by pleasure, and he soon learned that life went 
 on merrily without his uncle. The uncle, on the 
 contrary, never lost the memory of his ward ; every 
 scheme in business, every accumulation of wealth, 
 had reference to him ; and when, during the last 
 half year of his college life, the good soap-boiler 
 enlarged his warehouses, refitted and modernized 
 his counting-house, and had his old-fashioned, 
 dingy dwelling in Fore street trimmed up, as it 
 never had been trimmed up before, all was done 
 with an eye to the comfort and credit of his 
 nephew. No wonder, was it, therefore, that that 
 nephew's contempt of trade was a most severe 
 blow ; he doubted if his senses, indeed, conveyed 
 true intelligence ; he had no conception of such 
 consummate folly. The younger kinsman, how- 
 ever, conceded so far as to make an attempt at 
 book-keeping, but six months more than sufficed 
 to satisfy both parties ; he smoked cigars, which
 
 neighbor's gossip. 17 
 
 were the old man's abomination, while he posted 
 the ledger ; he made crooked ees instead of the 
 good, old-fashioned, round-backed ones ; and 
 although his handwriting was naturally a good, 
 clear, bold, tradesman's hand, he wrote a hurried, 
 unintelligible scrawl, which would have disgraced 
 a nobleman. The two, therefore, parted, and 
 with less regret on the senior's part than if this 
 trial had not been made. 
 
 Walsingham was his own master. He made a 
 tour on the continent ; he joined a grouse-shoot- 
 ing party in Scotland ; and in the third summer 
 after leaving his uncle, having seen him but sel- 
 dom, and then casually, during that time, he set 
 out on a pedestrian fishing ramble to some of the 
 fishing streams of England. In the pleasant little 
 town, or rather village, of Ashford-in-the-Water, 
 in Derbyshire, where he had located himself for 
 trout-fishing in the delicious little river Wye, he 
 became acquainted with a gentlewoman and her 
 daughter, of the name of Hammond. Walsing- 
 ham had never been much captivated by fashion- 
 able beauties, for they were too much of his own 
 stamp to excite great interest in his heart. But 
 sweet Margaret Hammond — more beautiful than 
 the most admired beauty of a London season — 
 with so much simplicity, with so much good
 
 18 neighbor's gossip. 
 
 sense, with so much information — where might 
 there be one to compare with her ? There was a 
 wonderful fascination about her : with the utmost 
 self-possession and maidenly quietness there was 
 a naivete, a piquancy, an indiscribable something 
 in her manner and conversation, that won all 
 hearts; she was accomplished, too, but her ac- 
 complishments were the last thing thought of. 
 Margaret, however, was not rich — in the world's 
 estimation she was poor. She had eight hundred 
 pounds to her portion, and her mother, who was 
 a widow, was dependent on a small annuity. 
 Nevertheless they knew no wants, because their 
 desires were bounded by their means ; and those 
 means, managed with admirable economy, seemed 
 to extend as by a miracle. 
 
 Walsingham went no further that summer than 
 Ashford-in-the-Water, and the next spring he 
 again returned. The young people became ex- 
 tremely attached to each other, and Mrs. Ham- 
 mond placed no impediment in the way of their 
 marriage. He was candid in telling all that re- 
 lated to himself ; he told of his uncle's early kind- 
 ness and devotion to him, and of his earnest 
 desire that he should enter into trade ; he even 
 told how t-^e good old man, who had a horror of 
 bricklayers and carpenters, had admitted them into
 
 ■ neighbor's gossip. 19 
 
 his den for the sake of his comfort, and had even 
 pulled down and biiilded up, and offended his 
 own love of ancient dinginess, to make the count- 
 ing-house more attractive to him ; and yet, that 
 all had failed of its purpose. Margaret did not 
 laugh at this relation, as he intended she should, 
 but she asked him why he had done so ? for, that 
 to her mind, his conduct was selfish and ungrate- 
 ful. Perhaps he was startled by her plain speak- 
 ing ; perhaps he was conscious that there was 
 truth in it. However that might be, as he now 
 seriously intended to marry, he thought it worth 
 while to make up matters with his uncle. The 
 old gentleman was upwards of sixty years of age, 
 and, considering that he was the nearest kinsman, 
 and that, after all, he owed him some duty, it was 
 worth while to conciliate him, supposing him 
 really affronted, even at the expense of sitting 
 down punctually to day-books and ledger. 
 
 Margaret could not analyze all her lover's pri- 
 vate reasoning, but giving him credit for every 
 pure and noble motive, her own good heart sin- 
 cerely blessed him. 
 
 Mr. Thompson, habited as usual, in his brown 
 coat, buff waistcoat, kerseymere small-clothes, 
 and neatly-blacked and buckled shoes, was sitting 
 at his desk, within a sort of large glass cage, that
 
 20 neighbor's gossip. 
 
 occupied an angle of his spacious counting-!ionse, 
 when his nephew, with a non-chaUint air, presented 
 himself before him. The old geiuieman raised his 
 head from the large ledger on which he had been 
 poring, and, adjusting his spectacles to the proper 
 angle for transacting business by word of mouth, 
 beheld his unexpected nephew. 
 
 The monosyllable " so" greeted his ear the 
 first moment his uncle's eyes glanced upon him, but 
 in the next his hand was involuntarily stretched 
 forth, and his own grasped with the most cordial 
 welcome. Waisingham's heart was really touched 
 by this undoubted proof of kindness, and at the same 
 moment he was shocked to see the palid, thin 
 countenance of his uncle : the old man had evi- 
 dently been ill. 
 
 Mr. Thompson did not conceal the pleasure he 
 had in again meeting his nephew; and when, as 
 the two sat prolonging to an unusual time the leis- 
 ure the old gentleman allowed for his solitary glass 
 of after-dinner port, Walsingham announced his 
 wish to make himself useful in business, declaring 
 that he was satisfied with gendemanly indolence, 
 and would now become the plodding tradesman, the 
 good old man was overjoyed ; he declared it was 
 the happiest day of his life ; that he would have 
 the back bed-room new papered, and new moreen
 
 NEIGHBOR S GOSSIP. 21 
 
 hangings to the bed, and that he should be lodged 
 like a prince. Unfortunately, that was not what 
 Walsingham intended ; but as he feared the old 
 bachelor's aversion to marriage might throw some 
 impediment in his way, he kept his own counsel, 
 and merely replied that he should prefer choosing 
 his own lodgings, and that he would not trouble his 
 uncle to make any domestic alterations for him. 
 Mr. Thompson would have thought nothing trouble 
 that secured his nephew to himself, and he was 
 therefore thrown quite a-back by this repulse. " So 
 my house is not good enough for him — my way of 
 living does not please him," muttered he to himself, 
 as he put on his slippers that evening ; and next 
 morning Walsingham found his uncle considerably 
 abated in cordiality. There were many stipula- 
 tions now to be made before he would agree to re- 
 ceive him into his counting-house. In the first 
 place, he must be punctual ; " To the minute, sir," 
 said the senior, with emphasis. Walsingham 
 promised. He must never smoke ar cigar in the 
 counting-house ; he must write a good, round, legi- 
 ble, tradesman'' s hand. He promised without hes- 
 itation. Further, the old gentleman approved nei- 
 ther of play-books, play-liouses, operas i.or fidling; 
 and if his nephew expected important advantages 
 from him, he too expected some little concessions. 
 2*
 
 22 neighbor's gossip. 
 
 Walsingham thought his uncle ignorant and un- 
 reasonable, but he was in no humor to stand upon 
 trifles ; and therefore he again promised. No in- 
 dulgence, he said, of his own pleasures or private 
 tastes, should interfere with his duly to his uncle. 
 
 Mr. Thompson gave his hand, and said it should 
 be a bargain, and that in one month from iliat day 
 he should expect him to be at his post. 
 
 Walsingham passed what he thought a happy 
 fortnight in London, and then went down to Ash- 
 ford, intending to spend the remainder of his lime 
 with Margaret. He had left all bright and hope- 
 ful but a short time before ; on his return he 
 found that a fearful change had occurred. Mrs. 
 Hammond had been visited by a paraletic stroke, 
 and Margaret was overwhelmed by sorrow and 
 anxiety. 
 
 Walsingham, on his part, had nothing but good 
 to communicate. He was, he believed, secure of 
 his uncle's affections ; he had a prospect of wealth 
 before him, and, with him, for Margaret also, 
 Mrs. Hammond's faculties were unimpaired by her 
 severe visitation ; but as the physician was appre- 
 hensive of another attack, which he feared might 
 be fatal, the one earnest desire of her heart was 
 now to see her daughter united to Walsingham, 
 which she urged incessantly, and with almost
 
 MARRIED LIFE. 23 
 
 childish impatience. Walsingham seconded her 
 M'ishes with an urgency that would take no denial. 
 Margaret alone hesitated ; but her hesitation was 
 overruled, and her marriage took place but a few 
 days before her mother's death. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 MARRIED LIFE. 
 
 The day after Mrs. Hammond's funeral was that 
 on which Walsingham was bound to return to his 
 uncle. Margaret insisted on his punctually keep- 
 ing his appointment: but this she could only 
 pursuade him to by accompanying him to town. 
 Walsingham, however, did not keep his appoint- 
 ment ; he was one day and three hours after his 
 time — a serious delinquency in the eyes of his 
 kinsman. A very different countenance to that 
 of their late interview now met him ; and Walsing- 
 ham ventured not to make the excuses of either 
 of the men in the Gospel, that he had to bury the 
 dead, or that he had married a wife, and could
 
 24 MARRIED LIFE. 
 
 not come. He took the unoccupied seat by his 
 uncle, whose only salutation to him was, that 
 there would be double duty for him to-day, see- 
 ing he had neglected that of the day before. 
 
 It seemed an interminable day to Walsingham ; 
 he grew out of humor, bit his pen, and thought, 
 that of all drudgery under the sun, that of head- 
 clerk in a soap-boiler's office, was the most irk- 
 some, even with the whole business in reversion. 
 Margaret's first day in London, too — spent in a 
 small room at the Bull-and-Mouth, Aldersgate- 
 street — was melancholy enough. It was seven 
 o'clock before her husband returned, and he then 
 proposed their spending the evening at the opera ; 
 but she was in no spirits for the opera; and, late 
 as it was for such a quest, she prayed him to let 
 them seek for quiet lodgings, that, at least in his 
 absence, she might have some feeling of home- 
 comfort. Their quest was unsuccessful ; and, as 
 Walsingham did not rise early enough to go out 
 before he went to the counting-house, after four 
 joyless days spent at a hotel, she determined to 
 go down to Ashford, wind up all their little affairs 
 there, and leave her husband in the meantime to 
 provide a house for them. 
 
 We need not go through the melancholy detail 
 of the busy three weeks which Margaret spent at
 
 MARRIED LIFE. 25 
 
 her old but now desolate home. After packing 
 up their good store of old fashioned, respectable 
 plate, linen, and china, and selecting from their 
 well-kept furniture what she thought would be 
 most useful to them in their new housekeeping, 
 the rest was sold, a farewell was taken of her 
 friends, and she returned to London. To her 
 surprise she was introduced by her husband into 
 a small but elegant villa, in the pleasant neigh- 
 borhood of Highgate, as her future home. It 
 seemed all like magic; the rooms so light and 
 cheerful, the v'lews so delicious ; the neat gay 
 garden, with its trim lawn and abundant ever- 
 greens, looking so verdant and refreshing; all her 
 wants and wishes studied, and even her domestic 
 comforts thought for. It was better than any 
 magic — it was the forethought of an affectionate 
 heart. 
 
 "Oh, Edward, how kind, how considerate!" 
 exclaimed slie, glancing round, with an emotion at 
 her heart that filled her eyes with tears ; " this is, 
 indeed, like coming into Paradise!" 
 
 He was not less pleased than his wife ; he had 
 intended her an agreeable surprise, and such it had 
 proved. 
 
 Walsingham, as we have said, had fine taste ; he 
 had a passion for the beautiful, and, in consequence.
 
 26 MARRIED LIFE. 
 
 considerable knowledge of the fine arts. He 
 loved music ; he purchased pictures and expensive 
 casts; life lost half its charm to his mind, without 
 the enjoyment of these things. Poor Mrs. Wal- 
 singham had a practical lesson, only a few days 
 after her arrival at Highgate, how inferior her 
 tastes and notions were to those of her hus- 
 band. 
 
 " What is all this old lumbering rubbish brought 
 here for ?" exclaimed he, as he saw the furniture 
 which Margaret had left to come by the waggon, 
 and which had now arrived, brought into his hall. 
 "Where does this broker's rubbish come from?" 
 again asked he, as his wife came down stairs, eager 
 to empty the drawers of the old linen and plate 
 which she had so carefully packed in them. 
 
 " It is some of mother's furniture," replied she, 
 " which I thought might be of use to us." 
 
 " To us !" repeated he, disdainfully ; " I would 
 not give such lumber house-room ! Such things 
 as these are inadmissible in a modern house !" 
 
 " I did not think our house Avould have been as 
 elegant as this ; and, besides, dear Edward, I 
 thought of saving us expense." 
 
 " The deuce you did !" was his impatient reply : 
 the first time he had spoken impatiently to her. 
 " You ought to consult me about such things, for
 
 MARRIED LIFE. 27 
 
 you are not to be trusted in matters of taste. These 
 things are not even antique !" 
 
 Margaret was mortified ; and she stood with the 
 handle of a drawer between her fingers, forbearing 
 to open it, lest her husband should discover some 
 additional cause of displeasure. An additional 
 cause of displeasure, however, stood before him in a 
 chest of books — the small library of Margaret's 
 mother — the old binding and dingy gilding of which 
 made it unsightly to his eyes. 
 
 " It is really too bad, Margaret," said he, " to fill 
 the house with these worthless things ; had you put 
 them in the sale they might have brought their 
 value ; as it is, they are valueless here." 
 
 " Not to me," returned his wife: "and have you 
 forgotten, Edward, the pleasure we have had in 
 reading these very books V 
 
 " One might endure to read them at Ashford,'' 
 said he, " where ail things corresponded, but here I 
 could not touch them." 
 
 In the evening, when her husband returned from 
 the counting-house, all the offensive old furniture 
 was removed from sight ; not a straw nor a piece of 
 matting remained ; nor even a china jar, nor an an- 
 tiquated piece of plate, was in sight, to recall the 
 annoyance of the morning. All had been carefully 
 put away, and the old furniture stowed into an un-
 
 28 MARRIED LIFE. 
 
 finished chamber — not without an involuntary and 
 depressing thought that, perhaps, a time might come 
 when even these despised articles should stand them 
 in stead. 
 
 Time went on — children were born to them — and, 
 to all appearance, this little villa at Highgate was 
 a happy home : it was so to Mrs. Walsingham, 
 with one or two drawbacks. Her husband's lav- 
 ish expenditure, his unabated dislike to all the details 
 of trade, and the coldness and disunion which now 
 existed between himself and his uncle, were her 
 saddest causes of anxiety. 
 
 Mr. Thompson had found his nephew a very in- 
 different substitute for his old regular head-clerk ; 
 his want of punctuality and business-like precision 
 reduced the old man's patience to the strength of a 
 burnt thread. Frequent dissensions occurred be- 
 tween them ; still the one forbore and forgave, and 
 the other promised amendment, and even attempted 
 it; but still they met upon the fertile ground of 
 difference, and no sympathy nor confidence existed 
 between them. 
 
 In all this time Mrs. Walsingham was unknown 
 to her husband's uncle. Mr. Thompson soon 
 learned that his nephew had taken to himself a 
 wife ; but after his first ebulition of anger was over, 
 the subject was never started by either, although
 
 MARRIED LIFE. 29 
 
 now and then, when some gleam of better intelli- 
 gence passed over them, Walsmgham would quietly 
 hint that a visit from his uncle would give his wife 
 pleasure. So it would; for I^.Irs. Walsingham had 
 soon learned, even from her husband's complain- 
 ings, to understand the character of his uncle ; and 
 her earnest wish had always been that they might 
 be acquainted. 
 
 " Only bring us acquainted," said she to her hus- 
 band one day, " and all will be well. I understand 
 the old gentleman's character far belter than you do, 
 and I respect many of his prejudices. I could 
 make you also understand, and, perhaps, like each 
 other." 
 
 Walsingham burst into an uncontrollable fit of 
 laughter. 
 
 " But, at all events, dearest husband," continued 
 she, " endeavor to please him. If he chooses to 
 have his safes unlocked, and his books opened pre- 
 cisely at ten, he is perfectly right in requiring it; 
 and if he forbids a cigar to be smoked in his glass 
 house, neither you nor any other person ought to 
 do it ; and if he does think that a man who gets 
 his own living has no right to make crooked ees, 
 for henceforth and for ever, in his books at least, 
 let every e be straight. You would conciliate him 
 3
 
 30 MARRIED LIFE. 
 
 at once by humoring him in these harmless little: 
 fancies. 
 
 Walsingham persisted that his wife tallied of 
 what she did not understand. 
 
 "This at least, I understand," she replied; "he 
 behaved as the most affectionate of fathers in your 
 younger days ; some obedience and some gratitude, 
 therefore, you surely owe him. It would be a 
 small thing to try^ at least, to please him — 
 for the sake of your children, dearest Edward, do 
 it !" 
 
 Walsingham was moved, and promised that he 
 would even try. 
 
 " And though," continued his wife, " he may 
 have refused your former invitations, still invite 
 him again ; not with that cold measured voice of 
 yours, but with a kind, cordial voice, as if your 
 heart went with your invitation ; and I am sure he 
 will come. I think he would like me, and I have 
 made up my mind to like him." 
 
 Walsingham put, as he thought, his heart into 
 his words, and invited the old gentleman, but he 
 again refused. He thought of the invitation after- 
 wards, however, again and again ; and after it had 
 revolved in his mind for about six months, he 
 thought, all at once, that he would go — that he
 
 MARRIED LIFE. 31 
 
 would drop in quite unexpectedly, for that was the 
 true way of seeing people as they were. 
 
 A (e\v more pages, however, we must be allowed, 
 before we relate Mr. Thompson's very momentous 
 visit. 
 
 " I'll have that old tea-service of your mother's 
 exchanged for modern," said Walsingham one eve- 
 ning, after a little party had left them ; " it is nei- 
 ther modern nor antique, and I can not bear the 
 style of it — 1 must have it exchanged." 
 
 " By no means," said his wife, " for I have a 
 strong attachment to that old tea-service ; I re- 
 member it from the time when I was a child — be- 
 fore my father died — when we had that faithful old 
 servant that I have told you of." 
 
 " But," said her hnsband, '• you can not tell every- 
 body of your early attachments ; you are quite a 
 child, Margaret, about these things." 
 
 " Perhaps I am," said she ; " but I must confess 
 that I love to think of those times when mother had 
 her tea-parties at six o'clock — they kept, then, such 
 early hours in the country ; and I wore a white 
 frock and red shoes, and used to sit so demurely at 
 her feet. Then that old tea-service was so care- 
 fully kept — it was always considered so very good 
 — and, after father's death, we only used it now and 
 then, on great occasions. I remember we brought
 
 32 MARRIED LIFE. 
 
 it out the first time you took tea with us. I remem- 
 ber it well — perhaps you don't." 
 
 Walsingham kissed his wife's cheek, and called 
 her a little fool ; adding that, spite of all her tender 
 associ-ations, the old tea-service must still be ex- 
 changed, and that he would call at the silver-smith's 
 before long, and see about it.*' 
 
 "Wait, at least," said Mrs. Walsingham, "till 
 we are assured of Mr. Thompson's good will ; and, 
 whatever we do, dearest Edward, let us be pru- 
 dent." 
 
 These were unfortunate words for her to have 
 spoken, and her husband's temper became ruffled. 
 He held an opinion, which many men hold — and a 
 very false, and often fatal opinion it is — that women 
 have nothing to do with their husbands' incomes, 
 further than managing their housekeeping, and pur- 
 chasing clothes for themselves and their children. 
 Mrs. Walsingham had always received from her 
 husband what her good management and prudence 
 made sufficient for this expenditure, but the real 
 extent of his resources, or the state of his circum- 
 stances, she never was permitted to know. She 
 saw no visible want of money ; she knew that her 
 husband was lavish in the indulgence of his tastes, 
 and even in his personal expenses ; but as he re- 
 pelled interference from her, she remained in pas-
 
 MR, Thompson's visit. 33 
 
 sive ignorance. Poor Walsingham ! this was his 
 most fatal erorr, and the source of all his after sor- 
 rows. The truth was, that his yearly expenditure 
 had long exceeded his income — his funded property 
 had been sold, and much of the ornamental furniture 
 of his house, his pictures, and various articles of 
 viriu, which he was constantly exchanging, unpaid 
 for. Of all this his wife knew nothing; and he, 
 with his unbusiness-like habits, detested the very 
 idea of looking into his affairs. These few re- 
 marks will prepare the reader for the chapter which 
 is to follow. 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 MR. THOMPSON'S VISIT. 
 
 It was a fine evening, late in May, when the old 
 gentleman took a turn up to Highgate. It was 
 about six o'clock when he set out ; he dined at one, 
 and he now made up his mind for a comfortable 
 " dish of tea" with his kinsfolk. It was altogether 
 a most unlucky time. Walsingham was going that 
 evening with a gentleman to the opera, with whom 
 3*
 
 34 MR. Thompson's visit. 
 
 he was also first to dine. He had retuned from the 
 counting-house in time to dress; and, as the eve- 
 ning was as deliciously fine as an evening on the 
 verge of June couki well be, Mrs. Walsingham, who 
 had that day dined early with her children, had 
 taken them out for a walk. 
 
 Walsingham, when he went to dress, emptied a 
 quantity of loose papers out of the pocket of the 
 coat he intended to wear, and laid them, with his 
 new primrose-colored gloves, his opera-ticket, and 
 his opera-glass, upon the dining-room table. 
 
 While dressing, he was informed that an old gen- 
 tleman wished to see him. 
 
 " I am engaged ; I can not see any one," was his 
 reply : " but stop — what name ?" 
 
 " He gave no name, sir," replied the servant. 
 
 " What is he like ?" asked Walsingham. 
 
 " An old gentleman, sir — rather like a trades- 
 man." 
 
 His uncle was the last person in his mind ; and 
 the word /ra^/e^man suggested some unpleasant im- 
 ages to his mind in the forms of sundry duns for 
 unpaid bills. 
 
 " I can not see any one," said Walsingham impa- 
 tiently. 
 
 Mr. Thompson had been asked to sit down in the 
 dining-room ; and in the meantime he took an at-
 
 MR, Thompson's visit. 35 
 
 tentive survey of every thing, and saw much which, 
 in the fit of ill-humor tiiat was rapidly coming over 
 him, he disapproved. "Very fine!" said he to 
 himself; " I wonder whether all this is paid for." 
 
 The maid went into the kitchen to pin on a pink 
 bow which had fallen from her cap, and, as she 
 thought the " old tradesman" was in no hurry, she 
 let him wait some time before she delivered her 
 message. Mr. Thompson had ample time to com- 
 plete his survey. " Upon my word !" said he, " an 
 opera-ticket and glass !" 
 
 Completely out of humor by this time, and 
 scarcely thinking what he was doing, except that it 
 was his way at home, he took up paper after paper, 
 and made himself master of their contents. They 
 were sundry unpaid bills, letters of duns, and 
 other such documents, which Walsingham had been 
 careful in keeping from his wife's knowledge. 
 
 " An extravagant dog !" growled he, no longer 
 able to control his anger, and reading aloud the 
 subjects and totals of the four last bills — " Seven- 
 and-thirty pounds, nineteen shillings, for a tailor's 
 by^l ! fifteen pounds eighteen for horse-hire! seven 
 guineas for the Graces — a group in plaster ! thirty- 
 five pounds on the exchange of the silver tea-ser- 
 vice !" — and, scarcely waiting for the assurance that 
 Mr. Walsingham was engaged, and could see no
 
 36 MR. Thompson's visit. 
 
 one, the old gentleman flung out of llie house more 
 irritated against his nephew than he had ever been 
 before. 
 
 All unconcious who had been the visitor, but con- 
 vinced that it was some " dunning tradesman," from 
 the maid's remark, that "he went off in a towering 
 passion," he gathered up his unfortunate papers, the 
 disarrangement of which he never observed, locked 
 thenfi in his desk, drew on his delicate gloves, pock- 
 eted his ticket and glass, and set off for an evening 
 of pleasure. 
 
 Mrs. Walsingham enjoyed her walk — so did her 
 children ; the spirits of all seemed bright and cheer- 
 ful as the sunny air they had been breathing, and, 
 long after they had nestled down in their healthy 
 slumbers, their mother's heart knew no feelings but 
 those of thankfulness and pleasure. 
 
 Walsingham returned liome in raptures of delight. 
 Life, he declared, was not worth having without 
 such pleasures as he had that night enjoyed. Cat- 
 alani's singing, Desshayes' dancing — tliey were the 
 very perfection of intellectual pleasure ! Margaret 
 thought that she had enjoyed sounder pleasure, per- 
 haps, though less ostentatious, in sitting by her 
 sleeping children. She had no doubt, she said, of 
 such pleasures as her husband spoke of being very 
 delightful, very intellectual; but still they were
 
 MR. thomi^son's visit. 37 
 
 not the only pleasures, nor the higliest pleasures of 
 life. 
 
 " You are so prudent, you are so measured in 
 your approbation, you are so very domestic in your 
 tastes," was his unsatisfied reply. 
 
 The next morning Walsingham felt a great reac- 
 tion of spirits ; he was not the excited, animated be- 
 ing of the last night; and it was with a weariness 
 of mind, and a thorough disgust of business, that, an 
 hour and a half after his time, he presented himself 
 before his uncle. PIcre a reception awaited him for 
 which he was not at all prepared. 
 
 " So, sir," began iiis uncle, " you make use of a 
 silver tea-service !" 
 
 Walsingham was astonished ; yet it was not with- 
 out a smile that he replied he did. 
 
 "Sir," returned his uncle, "Britannia-metal or 
 Sheffield plate, at least might serve your turn. I 
 am a man, sir, not worth less than a quarter of a 
 million, yet I never had a silver tea-pot in my life. 
 And you have spent seven guineas in three plaster 
 women! — not seemly figures, any of them to be in a 
 decent man's house" continued he, as his nephew, 
 utterly amazed at v/hat this could mean, looked at 
 him without a reply. 
 
 He then announced his last evening's visit, and, 
 without permitting a word of apology or explanation,
 
 38 MR. Thompson's visit. 
 
 went on to state in what manner he had possessed 
 himself of these facts. 
 
 VValsingham, who almost rejoiced at the moment, 
 in what seemed a plea against his uncle, declared 
 his conduct to have been treacherous and mean ; 
 and that only in the most dishonorable manner had 
 he possessed himself of these facts. He would 
 rather, he declared, live on bread and water; he 
 would rather pine in a jail, than tamely submit to 
 conduct so ungenilemanly ! 
 
 " As you please," was his uncle's unmoved re- 
 ply. 
 
 Walsingham believed that he stood in the position 
 of an injured man, and he was not cast down. 
 His uncle pursued : " I called on you last evening 
 with a disposition to establish a friendly feeling be- 
 tween us ; but I saw enough to convince me that we 
 hold such different principles, and take such differ- 
 ent views of life, that the less intercourse between 
 us the better. I will leave you uninterruptedly to 
 walk in the path you have chosen. A man who 
 will not pay his debts, a man who will sacrifice his 
 own self-respect for the sake of indulging fancies 
 that he calls taste, shall not have the encouragement 
 of my countenance. Do not interrupt me, sir ; your 
 services have never been of any value to me; I
 
 MR. Thompson's visit, 39 
 
 have all along overpaid you, and henceforth I shall 
 have my work done by those from whom I can have 
 my money's worth. I am not the dishonorable being 
 you represent me ; the full amount of those unpaid 
 bills, with which I became acquainted last night 
 you will find in this checque. The less we see of 
 each other henceforward, the bptier." So saying^ 
 he left his nephew almost stupified by contending 
 feelings. Was he injured by his uncle, or benefitted 
 by him ? — he scarcely knew which He stood for 
 a few moments undecided what to do next, and he 
 might have remained undecided much longer, had 
 not a clerk pushed past him, as he thought rudely, 
 and for an instant diverted the current of his feel- 
 ings. 
 
 He took up his hat and the checque to which his 
 uncle had pointed, and, without ascertaining its 
 amount, hastened to the bank, presented it, and re- 
 ceived a hundred and fifty pounds.
 
 40 
 
 CHAPTER Y. 
 
 A GREAT CHANGE. 
 
 Walsingham put the money into his pocket, and 
 determined that his wife should know nothing of 
 this unpleasant affair. He had no fear but that in 
 the end his uncle would pass all over ; and, since 
 he was now free from counting-house duties, why 
 not enjoy a week's real relaxation ? Why not take 
 his wife and children, this delicious weather, to 
 spend a week at Richmond, at Windsor, or some- 
 where ? 
 
 The little scheme of pleasure was soon arranged ; 
 his unlooked-for week of leisure made every home- 
 inmate glad ; and he, confident in his own 
 mind that his uncle would relent, gave himself up 
 to enjoyment, with an entire reaction of spirit that 
 was, perhaps, neither unnatural nor strange. 
 How happily that week at Richmond wore away ! 
 
 " 1 am not bound to be back precisely to the 
 week," said he, as the seventh day was accom- 
 plished, and with a secret reluctance to encounter 
 again any disagreeable reality; "I am not bound 
 exactly to time ; suppose we stay over the Sunday —
 
 A GREAT CHANGE. 41 
 
 just three days longer." Every one joyfully ac- 
 ceded. 
 
 On the Sunday, as he and his wife were walking 
 on the terrace, they were met by the gentleman who 
 went with him to the opera on the unfortunate eve- 
 ning of his uncle's visit. 
 
 " Good Heavens I" exclaimed the gentleman, 
 " you here !" 
 
 " And why not ?" asked Walsingham, in a cheer- 
 ful voice, yet not without a sudden chillness of 
 heart. 
 
 " You have not heard, then ?" said the other. 
 
 " Heard what ?" asked he, alarmed. 
 
 "Of Mr. Thompson's death! — Good Heavens, 
 that I should thus distress you!" added he, seeing 
 the shock his words had produced upon both his 
 hearers ; " but it will be all the better for you, my 
 dear fellow," he said, laying his hand on Walsing- 
 ham's arm, and meaning to act the comforter. 
 
 The gentleman's information was only too cor- 
 rect. Mr. Thompson had died whilst holding his 
 pen in his counting-house the day before. The 
 little party hurried to London immediately. At his 
 house Walsingham found the announcement of his 
 uncle's death ; and on the next Thursday he was in- 
 vited to attend the funeral, and hear the reading of 
 his will. He had not yet told his wife under what 
 4
 
 42 A GREAT CHANGE. 
 
 circumstances they had last parted ; there would be 
 no need now, he thought, if things were as he 
 hoped, and as he almost expected. 
 
 Mr. Thompson's will was dated the day after 
 their last interview, and was short, clear, and strong 
 as words could make it. His business he ordered 
 to be disposed of, and the whole of his property was 
 left in bequests. Alms-houses were to be built, 
 different institutions enriched, and a large amount 
 given to various charities in the metropolis. A few 
 annuities came last, to his old servants, male and 
 female, to his oldest clerk, and to his nephew ; one 
 hundred pounds a year to the latter, and fifty pounds 
 for funeral expenses. 
 
 This was a blow which crushed poor Walsing- 
 ham to the earth. In the agony of his disappoint- 
 ment he opened his whole soul to his wife ; he told 
 of his uncle's strange visit, of the manner in which 
 he had discovered his debts, of their last interview, 
 and of the money which he had given him. Mar- 
 garet shed bitter, heart-fek tears at this unexpected 
 recital ; she was amazed at the knowledge of their 
 debts, at the amount of borrowed money, but above 
 all, at the discovery that her husband's private 
 resources, and her own small dowry, were alike dissi- 
 pated. It was an appalling knowledge ; but it was 
 then no time for reproaches.
 
 A GREAT GHAxXOE. 43 
 
 A small portion of Mr. Thompson's parting gift 
 had been spent during the ten happy days at Rich- 
 mond, but the remainder she religiously devoted to 
 the purpose for which it had been given. 
 
 An illness of some weeks was the first result of 
 Walsingham's disinheritance ; and, with his recov- 
 ery, his nature seemed to have undergone a change. 
 Tlie powers of his mind were weakened, and, no 
 longer burning with resentment against his uncle, 
 he heaped only reproach and upbraidings upon 
 himself 
 
 The entire management of their affairs devolved 
 upon his wife at this critical juncture, and it was 
 arduous in the extreme ; clamorous debtors assailed 
 her on every side ; fearful threats were held out ; 
 and friends from whom she might have hoped for 
 council, if not for aid, either stood coldly aloof, or 
 presented themselves in the new character of urgent 
 claimants. It seemed as if an earthquake had 
 opened under her feet, and nothing but dismay and 
 ruin was before her. It was not, however, a time 
 for hopeless lamentation, but for decisive action; 
 and she quickly made up her mind as to their 
 proper line of conduct. As soon, therefore, as her 
 husband's health would bear it, she proposed her 
 plans to him ; but day after day the poor man put 
 away the idea from him. " When I am stronger,"
 
 44 A GREAT CHANGE. 
 
 said he, " I will talk about these things !" But piti- 
 less creditors would admit of no delay, and she 
 again introduced the subject. 
 
 " I see clearly, dearest husband," said she, " the 
 course which it is right for us to take : only allow 
 me to guide us. We must part with all these ex- 
 pensive things — nay, do not shrink from me — ad- 
 mit but once this idea, and your mind will be recon- 
 ciled to it. We must remove quite away from this 
 place. We must begin life anew ; and, please God, 
 we can pay all our debts, we shall yet do well. 
 The true happiness of life does not alone consist in 
 wealth. 
 
 Walsingham groaned aloud, for he could not con- 
 ceive of happiness without wealth. His wife's 
 heart bled for him, but she continued to lay down 
 her systematic plans of reform. 
 
 " Do not urge me to do any thing in this detest- 
 able business," said he, in a voice half of petulance, 
 half of distress ; " let me only be absent, then you 
 may do what you please." 
 
 Margaret hesitated to reply, and her husband went 
 on. 
 
 " I have not the strength of mind which you 
 have ; I could not sweep away all the little elegan- 
 cies and embellishments of life with the same indif- 
 ference that you could. If I remained with you I
 
 A GREAT CHANGE. 46 
 
 should only be a hinderance ; give me a fortnight's 
 time to prepare my mind for this frightful change — 
 for the fall from a gentleman's to a pauper's condi- 
 tion—and I will return, prepared for whatever ar- 
 rangements you have made." 
 
 " But, my love," urged his wife, with the greatest 
 gentleness, " this morbid shrinking from unpleasant 
 duty is only increasing your own difficulty. We 
 must all exert ourselves as we have never done 
 before. We shall be penniless when all our debts 
 are paid," 
 
 " I know it, I know it !" exclaimed the poor man, 
 with an agony of distress which he could no longer 
 command ; " 1 am a weak, worthless incumbrance 
 on society. I shall bring you all to beggary — those 
 dear, dear children! and you, Margaret!" Wal- 
 singham covered his face with his hands, and wept. 
 " You can not conceive," at length he continued, 
 *• with your strong, calm mind, the extreme misery 
 of mine ! Do not ask me to face all the wretched 
 detail of this needful change, I have lived here as 
 a gentleman, and I will not be seen here as a bank- 
 rupt." 
 
 " No no, not as a bankrupt," said his wife ; " as 
 an honest man who will pay every farthing he
 
 46 A GREAT CHANGE. 
 
 " I can not do it," returned he, " and if you love 
 me, do not require it from me. I will go but for 
 one fortnight — I care not how sordidly to live, 
 where no one knows me — and in the meantime do 
 just what you please ; I will harden my mind for 
 the change, and we will sit down for the rest of our 
 days humbled and poor." 
 
 Margaret began to think with her husband, that 
 she really was more capable of going through this 
 disagreeable business than he was ; and that, in his 
 present state of feeling, it was desirable to spare 
 him the annoyance even of its petty details. She 
 perceived, too, advantages in his absence ; for the 
 very regret with which he would have parted with 
 a picture, or some favorite piece of ornamental fur- 
 niture, would have weakened her own resolution. 
 Besides, his health and mind had been so shaken of 
 late, that the change of air and scene would benefit 
 both. He should take Willy, the second child, now 
 six years old, with him — he always was happy with 
 his children — and, vvith the boy to occupy his 
 attention, he could have no time for melancholy 
 thoughts. 
 
 The next day all was ready. Willy was de- 
 lighted with the prospect of another visit to the 
 country, like that happy time at Richmond, and 
 Walsinsham, absolutely refusing to enter again
 
 A GREAT CHANGE. 47 
 
 upon the subject, gave his wife free permission to 
 do whatever she thought right ; and, not even ven- 
 turing a parting look at any of his possessions, and 
 begging that in her letters she would not even hint 
 of her progress, unless his presence were absolutely 
 requisite, nor that she would even hint of where 
 she intended them to remove, he and his child took 
 the coach to Dorking, designing to spend their time 
 in that delightful neighborhood. He was to write 
 at the end of the first week to their present home ; 
 and, as their future one was to remain unknown, it 
 was agreed that on that evening se'nnight they were 
 to meet punctually at six o'clock by the great gate of 
 St. Paul's, whence Margaret was to conduct thera 
 to their new habitation. 
 
 How Mrs. Walsingham alone, and without coun- 
 sellors, went through the business of these important 
 two weeks, we need not relate at full. We will 
 only say, that that elegant new tea-service which, 
 had given such displeasure to Mr. Thompson, and 
 for which the old, associated as it was with the 
 pleasant memories of Margaret's childhood, had 
 been exchanged, was taken back by the silversmith, 
 having a considerable allowance made for use. The 
 Graces too, with another group, went back to 
 their unpaid former proprietor ; so did some of the 
 pictures. Fortunately it was well known that
 
 48 A QREAT CHANGE. 
 
 Walsinghara was a man of great taste ; and the 
 circumstance of his uncle's will having excited 
 some sympathy towards him, many of his pictures, 
 and various articles of virtu, sold for even more 
 than he had given for them. The landlord, too, 
 was not an unreasonable man. He thought Mrs. 
 Walsingham the very paragon of women ; — so 
 young and handsome, and yet to understand business 
 so well ; to have her senses about her for every 
 thing ; — he wished all men had as much business- 
 knowledge ; — and yet she was quite a lady ; could 
 draw, and could play on the piano like an angel, as 
 he had heard ! She was, to be sure, one in a thou- 
 sand ! Such was the summing up of the good land- 
 lord's encomium, as he set out with a proposal to take 
 the furniture off her hands, together with the house, 
 which he in future would let furnished. Spite, 
 however, of his admiration for her bussiness-talents, 
 he expected to get every thing at a considerable re- 
 duction, and to make a good bargain for himself; 
 yet with these drawbacks she gladly assented, and 
 thanked God that this formidable business had been 
 made so easy to her. 
 
 As the house had been furnished in the most un- 
 sparing manner, she had the opportunity of reserv- 
 ing some of the least valuable articles ; while the 
 whole of that stowed-away, despised old furniture,
 
 THE NEW HOME. 49 
 
 which she had brought from her mother's, was des- 
 tined to be again useful. She was not, however, 
 forgetful of her husband's sensitiveness on the 
 score of elegance ; and some few articles of luxury 
 and taste she reserved especially for him. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE NEW HOME. 
 
 Mrs. Walsingham, after all, found the result less 
 appalling than she expected. When every demand 
 was satisfied, and unexpensive lodgings furnished — 
 for she would not venture again upon taking a 
 house — a small surplus would yet remain with 
 which to commence their humble house-keeping. 
 A mountain's weight seemed at once removed 
 from her mind, and she could not resist an ex- 
 pression of thankful joy when she wrote to her hus- 
 band, even though it approached the forbidden 
 topic. 
 
 She then took four rooms in the house of a re- 
 spectable working watchmaker at Pentonville. 
 The place altogether had a very reputable aspect ; 
 the window glass was good, and bright as hands
 
 50 
 
 THE NEW HOME. 
 
 could make it; the paint was clean, nor even the 
 wall-papers inelegant ; there was a light, well- 
 looking staircase, and a private door. To her 
 judgment the lodgings had much to recommend 
 them, and she hoped her husband would feel no 
 insuperable repugnance nor disgust against them. 
 What principally influenced her, however, in the 
 choice, was the cheerful, healihful, honest counten- 
 ances of the old couple to wliom they belonged ; 
 countenances which bespoke good lives and good 
 consciences. 
 
 She had dismissed her three servants on leaving 
 Highgate, and, hiring a young woman, recommended 
 by the watchmaker's wife, had her goods and chat- 
 tels removed. Even she could not resist a very 
 natural depression of spirits, a sort of weary fore- 
 boding of heart, as, with her three children, who 
 had questioned her painfully as to these strange and 
 melancholy changes, she lay down amid the disar- 
 rangements and discomforts of her half-furnislied 
 chamber. But with the morning's light came better 
 and more hopeful feeling. The second week was 
 wearing on, and there was no time to be lost. In 
 many cases the very necessity for exertion both of 
 body and mind is our greatest blessing; it was so 
 with Mrs, Walsingham. 
 
 It was a long time before she could arrange and fit 
 things to her own mind, so as to combine comfort and
 
 THE NEW HOME» 51 
 
 convenience with some little appenrance of elegance. 
 She herself had now many misgivings about the old 
 furniture. Her husband had said truly that it was 
 neither modern nor antique. True it was well 
 kept, and, in an old house in the country, it would 
 have had a respectable look ; it would have done 
 very well in a country cottage, even ornec^ but it 
 certainly was less handsome than she had thought. 
 It was bright, to be sure, but it was not French 
 polish which had made it so ; — it had been the 
 daily watchfulness of her good mother's house- 
 wifely care; and she sighed to think, now that it 
 was again come into use, she should neither have 
 the time nor the means even to preserve its present 
 state. The color of the paper, also, in the sitting- 
 room, did not accord with that of the only carpet she 
 had been able to bring with her ; and that, she 
 knew, would annoy her husband ; again, the win- 
 dows, bright and good as the glass was, looked 
 staring and naked, with only their white roller- 
 blinds, to an eye accustomed to ample, well-hung 
 curtains, stained glass, and Venetian blinds. — 
 " Alas !" sighed she, " what mere trifles make it 
 hard to descend into a lower estate !" 
 
 It was, however, of importance that her husband 
 should not be depressed at the first moment, by 
 any liitle deficiencies which she could supply, or
 
 52 THE NEW HOME. 
 
 defects which she could remedy. She therefore 
 set herself again assiduously to work. A drab 
 drugget, bound with crimson, would correct the car^ 
 pet; and a little stand in that corner would fill an 
 awkward blank ; bnt the only stand she could 
 spare for that purpose was ill-conditioned and hope^ 
 lessly ugly. A crimson cloth, however, would not 
 only conceal its defects, but would give character 
 and cheerfulness to the room. Full, white muslin 
 curtains, too, would sufficiently clothe the windows ; 
 and, as Walsingham liked those in their own draw- 
 ing-room, these she would make like them. 
 
 Accordingly she set to work with all the zeal 
 which a kind heart and a willing mind give tS a 
 ready hand ; and, after expending about three 
 pounds, and working the whole day, with the help 
 of Mrs. Knivett, the good woman of the house, and 
 her own two little girls, Mary and Grace, tvho 
 threaded all their needles, waxed the thread, picked 
 up pins, and ran little errands, had the satisfaction of 
 seeing that the effect she desired was produced even 
 beyond her hopes. 
 
 A recess at the end of the room had been filled 
 up with shelves for books ; but it was enclosed with 
 heavy doors, painted in bad taste, to imitate differ- 
 ent woods ; these doors were a great annoyance to 
 her — to her husband she knew they would be de-
 
 THE NEW HOME. $3 
 
 testable. " If I could only have them away," 
 thought she, " I could fill the shelves with the best 
 of the books. Even their dingy gilding would look 
 better than those frightful doors, or the empty 
 shelves." 
 
 The doors were removed, and the shelves filled 
 with the best-conditioned and brightest-looking of 
 the books, carefully rubbed up, and arranged to the 
 best advantage. 
 
 " What a blessing it is to have all these excellent 
 books," thought she to herself. " When these dear 
 children grow a little older, what delight we shall 
 have in reading them together ! and even poor Ed- 
 ward too, how he would enjoy them, could he once 
 get over the dingy paper and the old fashioned 
 types !" 
 
 " It will do," exclaimed Margaret, when, after 
 having finished all her little arrangements and im- 
 provements, she went out of the room, endeavoring 
 to make herself a stranger to it, and came in again 
 to have a general, and, as it were, a first view of the 
 tvhole ; " it will do excellently — even Edward will 
 see nothing to displease him." 
 
 It was in the same spirit, with the same attention 
 to her husband's tastes and prejudices, that all her 
 little arrangements were made. 
 
 " Well, you are the very cleverest lady that ever 1 
 5
 
 54 THE NEW HOME. 
 
 knew I" said good Mrs. Knivett, when, at three 
 o'clock on Saturday afternoon, the day which com- 
 pleted the fortninght, Mrs. VValsingham, who had 
 finished all her operations, invited her to take a gen- 
 eral survey. 
 
 " I think it all looks very nice, Mrs. Knivett," 
 she said. 
 
 " Oh, it is like a palace, madam. And see all 
 the forecast you have had to hide all the flaws ! 
 why, if I did not know where the broken places in 
 the walls were, I should never find them out. And 
 all this furniture, how finely it has been kept! I 
 am sure it will be a pleasure to me, at any time to 
 lend a helping hand. I love bright furniture ; but 
 none of your French polish for me. Nothing like 
 elbow-grease, madam, for furniture !" 
 
 Mrs. Walsingham wished it possible that her 
 husband could be of Mrs. Knivett's opinion. 
 
 She was punctual to the moment, at the great 
 gale of St PauFs, but her husband was not there. 
 She was not very much surprised, because she 
 knew it so difficult for him to keep an appointment. 
 She walked backward and forward in sight of the 
 gate, till two quarters had tolled, and she grew un- 
 easy and dispirited. Was he ill ? Had he fallen 
 into some strange distress, and knew not now 
 whence to summon her ? And the child, the poor
 
 THE NEW HOME. 55 
 
 child, what would become of him ? The idea al- 
 most made her dizzy, " Oh, this separation has 
 been a wild scheme," thought she. " Perhaps it 
 will cost — perhaps it has already cost him, or both 
 of them their lives!" Her steps grew as hurried 
 and bewildered as her thoughts ; and, when, at ten 
 minutes before seven, her husband stood before her, 
 and little Willy caught hold of her dress, she felt 
 ready to faint. " Thank God," she exclaimed, " that 
 you are come ! but, oh ! you should not have kept 
 me waiting thus !" 
 
 Walsingham was astonished to find himself af- 
 ter his time ; he meant to have been punctual ; 
 and Willy declared that papa had set his watch just 
 as they left Dorking, and that they had only stop- 
 ped to look in at the pretty shop-windows since they 
 got off the coach at Charing Cross. 
 
 How impossible it was for Walsingham to be 
 punctual ! Margaret thought that she would not 
 have subjected him to the anxiety of mind which 
 she had endured, but she did not say so ; and she 
 was distressed to see that he looked pale and out of 
 spirits. He was so ; and this coming back to what 
 he considered degradation, was terrible ; and could 
 he have delayed it by weeks or months, or even 
 years of absence, he would have done it. Willy ran 
 talking on with all the eagerness of a child, and
 
 56 THE NEW HOME. 
 
 mingled up Leith Hill, Box Hill, and yellow butter- 
 flies, with his delight in the attractions of the shop- 
 windows which they passed. 
 
 " And whither are we bound ?" at length asked 
 Walsingham, as, after walking through St. Martin- 
 le-Grande and Aldersgate, they entered Goswell 
 Street — the first allusion he had made to the subject 
 which pressed so heavily upon his heart ; " whither 
 are we bound ? for, to tell you the truth, I do not 
 admire the direction ; surely we are not to live in 
 Islington !" 
 
 " No, love," replied his wife, " but our new abode 
 is in Pentonville!" 
 
 " Lord bless me !" exclaimed poor Walsingham, 
 with a wretchedness of tone that went to his wife's 
 heart. 
 
 " Yes, it is true, dear Edward," continued she, 
 cheerfully, and wishing to prepare him for the worst 
 — " and we lodge at a watchmaker's." 
 
 Walsingham literally made a pause, and dropped 
 his wife's arm from his. " Well, Margaret," said 
 he, bitterly, " you have brought us low indeed ; but 
 thank Heaven, we can not fall much lower." 
 
 She made ho reply, for she was not sure of 
 either of these facts — either that it was she who 
 had brought them low, or that they would fall no 
 lower.
 
 THE NEW HOME. 57 
 
 Not another word was spoken, except on indiffer- 
 ent subjects ; and, before long, they entered the 
 watchmaker's door, 
 
 Walsingham looked upon himself as a hopelessly 
 degraded man, and he made up his mind to take 
 whatever came without observation. According to 
 his apprehension, it would be tlie truest philosophy. 
 It therefore was with great disappointment, if not 
 with mortification, that his wife found all the little 
 schemes and forethought for his indulgence and 
 gratification, either unperceived or unappreciated. 
 He did not seem to notice his easy chair set invit- 
 ingly for him, nor his slippers and evening coat, 
 which were laid ready ; nor, fallen though he thought 
 himself to be, that still the clean damask napkin was 
 carefully folded, the silver fork still laid for him, and 
 the hot savory steak served with as much propriety 
 as in the days of his prosperity. Or if he did no- 
 tice these things, it was but with the morbid sense 
 that this exact observance, which was intended to 
 spare his feelings, only harrowed them the 
 more. 
 
 The next morning his wife, unable longer to en- 
 dure this cold indifference, and knowing that 
 there existed a strong necessity for him manfully to 
 face his misfortunes, and rouse himself into exer- 
 tion, gave him the history of the last fortnight, without 
 5*
 
 59 THE NEW HOME. 
 
 disguising the fatigue she had gone through, or the 
 annoyance she had endured. He was almost per- 
 plexed with the very idea. " You are an angel," he 
 said, when she had finished ! " and you really have 
 done miracles ; but oh, Margaret, to think of com- 
 ing here ! — to take lodgings at a watchmaker's ! 
 When you spoke so cheerfully in your letter of 
 the future, I expected something better than 
 this." 
 
 The tears started to her eyes. " How differ- 
 ently," she said, "you and I estimate things. I 
 thank the Almighty that we have such a home as 
 this i" and then she added, looking round with a 
 cheerful countenance, " I do not ask you to admire 
 any thing, but tell me, is it not comfortable ? See, 
 here is your own chair ; and there is your favorite 
 pair of nymphs — and are they not on pretty brack- 
 ets ? and here is your mother's picture — hanging in 
 a very good light too : — you are not without your 
 old friends ! 
 
 Walsingham heaved a sigh which was very 
 much akin to a groan, " Those few meagre relics," 
 at length he said, " annoy me infinitely more than 
 no vestige whatever. They keep the past in the 
 mind : when I see them I know that I am fallen !'^ 
 
 " No, Edward," she said, " you take a false view 
 of your circumstances ; you are not fallen, so long 
 as you deserve your own self-respect — so long as
 
 A HOPELESS QUEST. 59 
 
 you have acted honestly and uprightly towards your 
 fellow-men ! Thank God, you owe no man a shil- 
 ling ; these few possessions are honestly your own ; 
 and please Heaven to prolong us our health, what 
 should hinder us raising ourselves and our children 
 above indigence ?" 
 
 " Lord bless me !" said he impatiently, " how is 
 it to be done ? The very power of my mind is 
 gone ; in the midst of poverty I shall always be 
 poor. These very lodgings will sink my spirit; 
 the sound of that old woman's voice, and the very 
 knowledge of the string of watches stretching 
 across the window below, will distress me for 
 ever," 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 A HOPELESS QUEST. 
 
 Time wore on, and Walsingham, as he said, re- 
 mained poor. He solicited the assistance of many 
 former friends — of men, at least, who, in his pros- 
 perity, had professed themselves his friends — and 
 many were liberal of promises. He was flattered 
 with hopes of situations in the Customs, in the 
 India House, in various Insurance Offices, and 
 even in the Herald's Office itself ; but the hope was
 
 60 A HOPELESS QUEST. 
 
 all that he obtained ; and at length, the very men 
 who had raised the false hopes, tired of his solicita- 
 tions, began to treat him coldly, and then stood 
 altogether aloof. He had filled, in the meantime, 
 several situations ; but some he had thrown up in 
 disgust, and others he lost from his very incapacity 
 for business. All this continual change, this per- 
 petual disappointment and unsuccess, made him 
 tloubtful and disirustful of himself; he lost, in a 
 great measure, his former confident and unembar- 
 rassed air, which had insured influence and success 
 in his better days. His dress, also, insensibly 
 acquired that harsh, napless look which belongs to 
 the needy man. The very consciousness of this 
 stealing-on air of shabbiness, depressed him even 
 more painfully than the coldness and rebuffs of his 
 friends. 
 
 One day, at the commencement of winter, about 
 four years after their coming to the watchmaker's, 
 Walsingham dressed himself in his very best man- 
 ner. He was thin, and care-worn, with hollow 
 cheeks and hollow eyes ; and his dark hair was 
 thickly sprinkled with gray. It was not often, of 
 late, that he had taken extraordinary pains with 
 his person ; but he was bent this day upon doing 
 the very best for himself. His linen was whole, 
 and spotlessly clean ; his hat and coat were studi-
 
 A HOPELESS QUEST. 61 
 
 ously brushed ; his best black stock put on with 
 great precision ; his trowsers carefully strapped 
 down to his well-blacked but twelve-raonths-old 
 boots ; and his dark kid gloves, repeatedly, but in- 
 visibly mended, and fitting as well as old gloves 
 might, were heedfuUy drawn on, and his shirt- 
 wristbands made visible just half an inch beyond 
 the cuff of his coat. It would have been evident 
 to any one that he had some important business in 
 view. He had. He was going to present himself 
 before a bank director, whose advertisement in the 
 Times he had answered, and whose reply had now 
 invited him to an interview. Poor fellow ! twenty 
 others besides himself had received a similar reply ; 
 and the one-and-twenty hoping and fearing candi- 
 dates met in the same apartment, each in a short 
 time after the other, Walsingham glanced round 
 in dismay. Each one was eyeing the rest with 
 inquisitive and envious glances, as if each thought 
 the others interlopers who would come between 
 himself and the desired good. Scarcely a word 
 was said, but each tried to look perfectly at ease ; 
 some whistling, some humming a tune, some walk- 
 ing quickly about, and others looking through the 
 windows. There was a rush whenever the door 
 opened, for admittance, each eager to get precedence ; 
 for on that precedence success might depend.
 
 62 A HOPELESS QUEST. 
 
 Some kind of regulation, however, was acted upon 
 in the admission, and Walsingham's turn came 
 among the latest. But he felt no immediate reason 
 to be dissatisfied with the interview granted him ; 
 he was left in uncertainty, it is true ; but his name, 
 age, and residence, were noted down in a book, 
 and he desired to call at ten the day after the 
 morrow. 
 
 Walsingham, as we have said, was kept waiting 
 a long time. He stood four hours in a large cold 
 room ; the streets were wet through which he had 
 walked, and his boots were not the best in the 
 world : add to this, a drizzling rain had come on 
 in his walk; and lie had not been long in waiting 
 before he felt a chilly, comfortless sensation come 
 over him. But the hope, however vague, which 
 had been excited in his breast, dismissed any anx- 
 ious thought about himself, and he went home to 
 cheer them with the hope that he might perhaps 
 get a situ4tion of two hundred pounds a year. 
 
 The next morning he felt very unwell ; but he 
 had forgotten the large cold room, and the misty 
 rain, and only wondered what could be amiss with 
 him ; and when hb:- wife urged him to take some- 
 thing warm and go to bed, he laughed away her 
 anxieties, quite unwilling to yield to any indisposi- 
 tion which might confine him for a moment.
 
 A HOPELESS QUEST. 63 
 
 The next day he dressed himself with the same 
 scrupulous care, and punctually presented himself. 
 Poor VValsingham ! that once he was tive minutes 
 before his time! After a delay of two hours he 
 was admitted, and was told by the gentleman he 
 had formerly seen, but there were others beside him- 
 self to be consulted ; that he had failed to see them, 
 and that it must still stand over. 
 
 Walsinghara inquired when he should call again. 
 
 " Oh," replied the other, carelessly, " in two or 
 three days : or, stay, we have your address ; if we 
 decide in your favor, you shall hear from us." 
 
 His hopes sunk ; but he requested that he might 
 hear soon, as he was naturally very anxious. The 
 gentleman looked at him as if he thought his re- 
 quest very impertinent, and replied, " that if their 
 decision were favorable, of couse he would hear; 
 but his opinion was, that it would not be so." 
 
 Walsingham would have asked if any thing had 
 prepossessed the gentleman unfavorably towards 
 him — for at that moment he was very humble — but 
 the other motioned to the door. Walsingham went 
 out, and, regardless of who might see him, or what 
 might be thought of him, absolutely wept as he 
 walked homeward. 
 
 This was the last time he walked in the streets of 
 London. The severe cold which he had taken, and
 
 64 A HOPELESS QUEST. 
 
 which he had concealed from his wife, settled upon 
 his lungs ; and an illness followed which confined 
 him to his bed through the winter. He had scarcely 
 recovered in the spring, when a paralytic stroke took 
 the use of his left side, and reduced him in a 
 great measure to helplessness. In process of time, 
 however, he recovered his health sufficiently to be 
 able to write ; and, for upwards of twelve months, 
 he was employed in copying folios for lawyers. 
 He became very expert in this business, and 
 might have practiced it much longer, had not 
 the close confinement again brought an illness 
 which in the end became confirmed consump- 
 tion. 
 
 Houses had been built, right and left, round the 
 watchmaker's at Pentonville, and the situation be- 
 came every day less desirable. The watchmaker 
 himself died, and, as his wife intended to reside 
 with her married daughter in the country, the little 
 establishment was broken up. 
 
 Mrs. Walsingham then took the little house in 
 
 Street, opposite Miss Poinden's, and the removal 
 
 took place, af which Miss Barbara Poinden spoke 
 in our opening chapter.
 
 65 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 NEW CHARACTERS. 
 
 But it is time we introduce the children of the 
 Walsinghams more fully to our readers ; and these 
 children, at the time the family left the watch- 
 maker's, were, as Miss Barbara correctly stated, 
 five in number. At the time they left Highgate, 
 they consisted but of four. A little scene or 
 two shall make our young readers acquainted with 
 them. 
 
 " Willy," said Mary, the eldest girl, taking her 
 brother by the hand, the first evening of his arrival 
 at the watchmaker's, " you must come with me and 
 be quite still. We don't live at Highgate now, you 
 see, but we have such pretty little rooms here ; and 
 I've been mamma's maid, for Kitty's gone, and so 
 is cook, and Betsy, and we have only Rebecca : 
 Rebecca is the new maid ; and I am sure you will 
 like her. And this is Grace's and my room ; and 
 little Jack is to sleep in the crib beside us ; and I 
 am to dress Jack, and help Grace to dress herself — 
 only mamma washes Jack all over at night." 
 6
 
 66 NEW CHARACTERS. 
 
 " I don't like tliis room at all," interrnpted Willy. 
 "It is not half as pretty as that at Highgate; nor 
 half as pretty as ours at Dorking. Oh, it was so 
 pleasant at Dorking! I wish you and Grace could 
 go. And Box Hill is so high, and so is Leilh Hill : 
 and there are butterflies, and box -trees as big as 
 houses !" 
 
 " Butterflies as big as houses, Willy ?" asked 
 Grace, who had come softly into tlie chamber. 
 
 '' No," replied Willy, indignantly, " box-trees as 
 big as houses; and such butterflies f' And Willy 
 then unburdened his mind of some of the pent-up 
 delights of the Dorking sajoun7 ; and the second 
 mention of the pretty chamber then recalled the one 
 in which they stood. 
 
 " Now, Grace," asked he, " do you call this a 
 pretty room ?" 
 
 "No, I am sure I do not," replied Grace; "the 
 window is not straight, and there is nothing but 
 backs of houses to be seen from it ; and I don't like 
 the paper ; and there are no pictures ; and the 
 chimney-piece is only wood. I don't like it at 
 all." 
 
 "But Grace," interrupted Mary, "you must not 
 say so — you must like it. Mamtna told me some- 
 thing that convinced me that we must be con- 
 tented ; and we must not And fault ; and we must
 
 NEW CHARACTERS. 67 
 
 do every thing for ourselves — much more than we 
 did at Highgate ; and we must help one another, 
 and love one another," said she, putting her 
 arms affectionately round the neciv of each. " Oh, 
 mamma told me something that made me cry 
 so !" 
 
 " I know what it was," said Grace ; " I heard 
 cook say tliat we were not as rich as we had been. 
 Oh! Willy," continued she, in an earnest and sor- 
 rowful voice, " all the pictures are gone, and the 
 casts, and the marble-table, and the or-molu lamps, 
 and the piano ; I am so very sorry !" 
 
 Willy was confounded by this strange intelli- 
 gence. " And so we are to live here then," re- 
 marked he, after a pause of a few moments ; 
 " then I know now what made poor papa so sorry 
 when we were at Dorking; he was not half as 
 merry as he was at Richmond, and yet Box Hill, 
 and Leith Hill, and Denbies, and Deepdenc, and 
 Norbury Park, are a great deal prettier than all 
 Richmond." 
 
 " Yes, Willy," said Mary, who felt herself to be full 
 of experience, " mamma says we are never to com- 
 plain of any thing before papa, nor to say that it is 
 not as nice as Highgate ; for, though it may be true, 
 it would do no good, and only distress poor papa.
 
 68 NEW CHARACTERS. 
 
 Now, you must remember, both of you ; and I am 
 sure we shall be very happy here, for there are very 
 pretty walks." 
 
 " Yes, that there are," said Grace, " for I went 
 out with Rebecca and Jack, and it is pleasant, 
 though it is not like Highgate." 
 
 '* And then," chimed in Mary, " Mrs. Knivett is 
 such a nice old lady." 
 
 " Mrs. Knivett ?" asked Willy. 
 
 " Yes," said Grace, " Mrs. Knivett lives at this 
 house, only you don't know her ; and she is very 
 good-natured ; and she looks very like an old pic- 
 ture on a Sunday, for she wears such a funny lit- 
 tle bonnet, and a black silk cloak, and such a hand- 
 some, old-fashioned gown. She is very good- 
 natured ; do you know she gave Jack some bread 
 and honey, and Grace some such nice apple- 
 marmalade. And then old Mr. Knivett — he makes 
 watches down in the parlor — sits singing all 
 day long ; and he works with such pretty little 
 tools." 
 
 " I think, Willy," said Mary, " you would like to 
 be a watchmaker — and then you would get some 
 money — mamma's watch was worth fifteen guin- 
 eas." 
 
 " Oh, Willy, do you know," whispered Grace, 
 " mamma has parted with her watch ; it was packed
 
 NEW CHARACTERS. 69 
 
 lip with her gold chain, and all those pretty rings 
 and brooches ; and the necklace and the cross, 
 Willy, are all gone." 
 
 *' Don't say a word about it," said Mary ; " mam- 
 ma cried very much when she packed up the box ; 
 and when I told her she had promised me the neck- 
 lace when I grew a woman, it only made her cry 
 more — so don't say a word about it." 
 
 ^' And, Willy," said Grace, "never ask mamma 
 what lime it is by her watch. I will teach you the 
 clock, for, do you know, Mr. Knivett taught me 
 since I came here." 
 
 "And where am I to sleep?" asked Willy, 
 after the three had remained in silence some 
 time* 
 
 " You sleep in papa and mamma's room, in the 
 nursery French bed ; and, you must know," said 
 Mary, " that Grace and I hemmed the ends of your 
 curtains our own selves*' 
 
 The children said truly, that they must learn to 
 do every thing for themselves, for, a fifth child being 
 born in the first twelvemonth of their residence at 
 Pentonville, neither Mrs. Walsingham nor Rebecca 
 had time to spare for waiting on them. But this 
 was no disadvantage to them ; they gained self-de- 
 pendence, and the constant interchange of little 
 6*
 
 70 NEW CHARACTERS. 
 
 good offices only increased their affection for each 
 other. 
 
 The great cause of anxiety to their mother was 
 the little chance there seemed of giving them edu- 
 cation — that part of education, at least, which is 
 gained at school. But what will not affection and 
 necessity achieve ? Their mother undertook their 
 education herself Her own school books were 
 looked up — lessons learned and repeated — copies 
 set and sums done — and even history and travels 
 read and explained, to the infinite amazement 
 of good Mrs. Knivett, who seemed to take a livelier 
 interest in the domestic arrangements of the 
 family than Walsingham himself, who, dispirited 
 and self-absorbed, had but little interest in any- 
 thing. 
 
 After his paralytic attack, when he was wholly 
 confined to their room, and the returns even of his 
 former precarious labor were so seriously diminished, 
 his wife found it necessary to add to the family 
 resources. What was there for her to do but 
 needlework — that most unproductive of all employ- 
 ment ? Nothing. And needlework, accordingly, 
 she did. She hired herself to a ready-made linen 
 warehouse, and, while she was occupied in the ed- 
 ucation of her children, plied her busy needle in- 
 cessantly.
 
 NEW CHARACTERS. 71 
 
 Let it not, however, be supposed, that all this 
 was done without exertion and fatigue, both of 
 body and mind. The imparting instruction, even 
 to the quickest and most docile of children, is se- 
 vere labor; and when to this was added the neces- 
 sity of assiduously attending to a sedentary and dull 
 occupation, the extent of her praiseworthy efforts 
 and endurance may be understood, Margaret 
 Walsingham was a heroine in the best sense of the 
 word ; still her spirits often sank, and she felt bodily 
 exhaustion that almost amounted to illness; but that 
 energy of mind, and that strength of moral principle, 
 which, combined, produce the truest heroism, in 
 the very moment of despondency brought hope, 
 and nerved her for further and even greater exer- 
 tion. 
 
 Walsingham's long confinement and increasing 
 illness made him fretful and wayward ; and, when 
 it was necessary for the family to remove from Pen- 
 tonville, he insisted upon their taking a house, thoug^i 
 it might be ever so small, in preference to lodgings ; 
 for poor Mrs. Kniveit's cracked voice, and the 
 string of watches in the window below, had never 
 ceased to annoy him. The small house, therefore, 
 
 in Street was taken, and he was removed 
 
 thither in a sedan-chair, as Miss Barbara Poinden 
 had said.
 
 72 NEW CHARACTERS. 
 
 The furniture had been mostly removed the day 
 before, but his chamber was the only room in a state 
 of preparation ; into it he was carried, and placed 
 in his easy chair. 
 
 *' Now, let that hideous pair of nymphs be carried 
 out of my sight," were his first words, as he saw 
 Grace put them on the brackets which had been 
 fixed in the wall ; " T have seen those things before 
 me for the last five years ; every fold of their drapery 
 is disgusting to me; they recall nothing but un- 
 pleasant thoughts !" Grace stood rebuked, and, 
 takino down tlie unfortunate casts, which, to her 
 taste, were extremely beautiful — the only beautiful 
 things in the house — she carried them into her own 
 chamber, intending, with her mother's permission, 
 to keep them there. 
 
 Tlie family was soon settled in their little domi- 
 cil, and things took that dull routine, in one week's 
 time, which might continue for years. Walsing- 
 ham's chamber was the first floor front — the airiest 
 and most cheerful room in the house. There was 
 little prospect of his ever leaving this chamber, ex- 
 cept for his last home. Here Mrs. Walsingham 
 generally sat at her never-ceasing work. The 
 three elder children came in and out; but Grace, 
 who was, on many accounts, her father's favorite, 
 was more frequently there than any of the others.
 
 NEW CHARACTERS. 73 
 
 The two eldest were the habitually useful members 
 of the family ; Mary was the housekeeper, and 
 Willy the man-of-all-work. The two youngest, 
 Jack and little Margaret, who, the latter at least, had 
 been born, as it were, to their present fortunes, and 
 who had no remembrance of better days wherewith 
 to gloom the present — who had never had nursery- 
 maids, nor any expensive indulgencies whatever — 
 were two bold-spirited, robust children, full of health 
 and animal spirits, which nothing but the fear of 
 disturbing their father could repress ; they, there- 
 fore, were but seldom the companions of the poor 
 nervous invalid. 
 
 Good Miss Barbara, over the way, puzzled herself 
 prodigiously to know exactly how the family man- 
 aged matters. Mrs. Walsingham's day might be 
 said to commence at nine o'clock at night. At that 
 hour her husband had his supper, and settled down 
 for such rest as he might get — she softly stealing 
 to the little sofa-bed in his chamber towards twelve, 
 or later. After her husband was left for the night, 
 she began her housework, at first alone, but by de- 
 grees Mary and Willy insinuated themselves into a 
 participation of all the duties and burthens of the 
 little household ; and then it was much more quickly 
 dispatched, every thing being left perfectly clean 
 over night, and the fires ready laid for lighting next
 
 74 NEW CHARACTERS. 
 
 morning. Mrs. Walsingham was not ashamed of 
 the performance of any duly, however humble ; yet 
 she had a sense of self-respect — call it pride, if you 
 please — which made her unwilling to be seen by 
 her neighbors employed in her more menial offices. 
 Hence her street door was so miraculously cleaned. 
 This was for some time her early morning work, for 
 it was no use cleaning it over night. Mary was 
 willing to undertake it, but the good mother, who 
 saw her daughter growing tall and comely for her 
 years, would not thus expose her to the notice of 
 early passers by, or even of policemen, and it re- 
 mained, for long, the most unpleasant of her house- 
 hold work. At length William insisted upon under* 
 taking it himself. 
 
 " But, my dear," said his mother, " it is not quite 
 the proper work for a boy." 
 
 " Never mind that," said he, " I shall be useful to 
 
 you ; and, besides, " He did not know exactly 
 
 what he meant to say besides ; and his mother urged 
 that, with his bad cough, it was not right for him — 
 there was so strong a draft at the door, and the 
 mornings were so cold. 
 
 " As to that," said William, " I'll manage ; and I 
 shall clean the knives and shoes, and I shall begin 
 to do a great many more things than I have yet
 
 NEW CHARACTERS. 75 
 
 done, for I don't like to see your hands and Mary's 
 get so hard." 
 
 His mother kissed liim with unfeigned affection, 
 and, from that day fortli, William, true to iiis word, 
 cleaned the street-door. It would^ indeed, have 
 touched the kind heart of Miss Barbara Poinden, 
 had she seen the thin, pale-faced boy, with his 
 woolen comforter tied round his neck, and his old 
 cap on, cleaning the steps and rubbing the knocker; 
 or had poor Waisingham, in the room above, only 
 knownor thought of all that his family were reduced 
 to, it Avould have made his sick bed more uneasy 
 than ever, if not have driven him to his grave at 
 Oiice. All day long, after Mrs. Waisingham had 
 arranged with Mary the frugal family-dinner, and 
 prepared herself the choice morsel for her hus- 
 band's eating, she sat at her unceasing needle- 
 work. 
 
 " That's beautifully fine linen, said Waisingham, 
 one day to his wife, as she stood at his bedside, 
 gathering the sleeve of a shirt; " but why do you 
 make up such for me ?— -why, indeed, make any, for 
 I shall not need them long." 
 
 " My love," replied liis wife, astonished at his 
 words— for though she had never told him that she 
 was compelled to do needlework, yet, as she had 
 done it for the last three years, she had supposed 
 him aware of the fact — " these are not for you."
 
 T6 THE TWELFTH HOUR. 
 
 " Good Heavens !" exclaimed the poor man, all 
 at once perceiving the truth ; " and you are reduced 
 to this !" 
 
 " We none of us complain, dear Edward," she 
 replied, " and to us it is no hardship." 
 
 Walsingham turned his face to the pillow and 
 wept: it was, to his mind, another and an un- 
 expected proof of his family's degradation. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE TWELFTH HOUR. 
 
 Grace, as we have said, was her father's favorite. 
 She was now nearly twelve — of a pensive counten- 
 ance, delicate figure, and soft, gentle manners. In 
 many respects she greatly resembled her father ; 
 she had the same love of elegance, the same tastes, 
 and the same irritable temperament. She had al- 
 ways shrunk from the performance of the common 
 household duties, and she had been spared it by her 
 elder brother and sister. Having thus much more 
 leisure than either of them, she devoted herself
 
 THE TWELFTH HOUR. 77 
 
 principally to waiting on her father, of whom she 
 was extremely fond, and in reading to him. The 
 dingy paper and the old-fashioned type did not of- 
 fend him, as the words came to his ear through the 
 sweet voice of his daughter ; and thus many hours 
 of every day were most profitably and agreeably 
 spent. 
 
 " And what has become of those two young 
 rogues ?'' asked the father, on one of those very 
 days of which Miss Barbara spoke, when he sat 
 in his easy chair ; " I have not seen them for weeks, 
 nor scarcely heard them for days." 
 
 " They are down stairs," said Grace. 
 
 " Why do they never come to see me ?" asked 
 he, half peevishly ; " I shall be entirely forgotten at 
 this rale." 
 
 " They were too noisy the last time they were 
 up," said the mother. 
 
 " Oh yes," replied Walsingham, " I remember, 
 and I was very angry — but let them come up 
 now." 
 
 Grace ran down, eager to convey to the little 
 excommunicated ones what she knew would be 
 joyful tidings. 
 
 " Father wants to see you, dears," said Grace, »• 
 as she entered the little back parlor, in which they 
 were busily playing at riding to market on a broken 
 7
 
 78 THE TWELFTH HOUR. 
 
 chair ; for Jack, though he was turned nine years 
 old, liked that play best which had most fun- 
 in it. 
 
 Down jumped they, overjoyed at the news, and, 
 leaping up stairs, without waiting for Grace to look 
 at them, rushed into their father's chamber. They 
 had coarse pinafores on, and old shoes ; wild, rough- 
 looking hair, though it had been smooth enough in 
 the morning ; and their hands and faces were very 
 far from clean. They had been playing in a room 
 without a fire, and, though their blood was warm 
 with exercise, their red hands and cheeks looked 
 coarse and cold. Poor Walsingham's heart had 
 been full of affection, but this sudden vision of robust 
 childhood shocked him ; and, holding up his feeble 
 right hand with a motion of disgust, and closing his 
 eyes, he exclaimed, " Oh, Margaret, how like com- 
 mon children they are grown — I can not bear to see 
 them !" 
 
 The poor children, who felt that they had dis- 
 pleased their father, though they knew not how, 
 slunk out of the chamber, and stood outside the door 
 silent and bewildered. Mrs. Walsiagham looked at 
 her husband, the tears starting to her eyes, but said 
 nothing. The silent reproof, however, went to his 
 heart. 
 
 " Margaret," said he the next day, taking her hand 
 affectionately, " it is only by very slow degrees that
 
 THE TWELFTH HOURc 79 
 
 I shall ever gain wisdom. Thank God, however, 
 these last few hours have taught me more than years, 
 I have taken a review of my life : I have seen the 
 duties I have neglected — the advantages I have 
 wasted — the blessings 1 have thrown away ! I have 
 been an unworthy husband, and a negligent father ; 
 but, please heaven to strengthen me in the perform- 
 ance of duties, even at the eleventh hour I will not 
 fail you." 
 
 His wife wept ; and, though she could not blame 
 her husband as he blamed himself, she blessed God, 
 on her bended knees, for all the mercies he had be- 
 stowed upon them ; among which she emphatically 
 numbered her husband's prolonged days : and she 
 prayed, that whatever his pious wishes and desires 
 might be, that the Almighty would enable him to 
 perform them. 
 
 That morning was as a sabbath of the heart. 
 The blessing of heaven was assuredly on that home 
 of humble virtue. 
 
 The two little children were again admitted to their 
 father's room. It is true that Grace washed them, 
 put on their Sunday dresses, and, with smoothly 
 combed locks, sent them in, hand in hand. "You 
 should not have done this, Grace," said he, mildly ; 
 " it is the severest of reproofs, and I hardly needed
 
 80 THE TWELFTH HOUR. 
 
 it." Grace felt the truth of her father's remark, and 
 wondered at her own dullness. 
 
 " How I love father," said Jack, as he went down 
 stairs again. 
 
 " I wish he would get well," said jMargaret. 
 Mary shook her head, and the tears were in her 
 eyes. 
 
 " Why are you crying, Mary?" asked Jack. 
 " Poor dear father," said Mary, " will never be 
 any better." 
 
 Jack and Margaret cried too. " But what can we 
 do for him V asked the little girl. 
 
 "Be good, quiet children," replied their sister; 
 " learn some pretty verses to say to him, and mind 
 to have clean hands and faces when you go up stairs, 
 for father can not bear to see you dirty." 
 
 " Oh yes," said Jack, in whom it was an act of 
 virtue to be clean ; " and we won't play at fish-wo- 
 raen any more." 
 
 Walsingham did not feel that he could be very 
 useful to Mary. She had no particular tastes ; her 
 characteristics were, strong good sense, perfect dis- 
 interestedness, and keen, quick understanding. What- 
 ever she had read she had treasured up and compre- 
 hended ; and whatever she did, she did well. The 
 management of the house, as we have said, entirely 
 devolved upon her; and it was a mystery how one so
 
 THE TWELFTH HOUR. 81 
 
 perpetually occupied with undignified duties, had 
 found time to acquire so much. To William and 
 Grace, however, the father could be essentially useful 
 in many ways. 
 
 It was a touching sight to see the poor invalid 
 propped up in his bed, feeble as he was, in the inter- 
 vals of his harassing cough, teaching William his 
 Latin grammar, or instructing him in mathematics ; 
 or even teaching the little ones their elementary les- 
 sons, and going through a column of common spel- 
 ling, when the pupil was unwittingly dull, Avith a 
 patience and propriety that cast his wife^s former 
 efforts entirely into the shade. 
 
 " And have you no drawing to ^^how me, Grace ?" 
 asked he one day, after she had read an Italian lesson. 
 Grace hesitated. 
 
 " What were you doi'.ig yesterday ? Your mother 
 »aid you were drawi.ng." 
 
 " Yes, father, but—" 
 
 " But what ? Let me see what you were doing," 
 added he, with an earnestness that brought on his 
 cough with terrible violence. Poor Grace thought 
 that she was the cause of this, and ran instantly 
 to fetch her drawing. Her father, however, was 
 too much exhausted to give any further lessons 
 that day. 
 
 '7*
 
 82 THE TWELFTH HOUR. 
 
 Next morning Grace went softly to his bed, and 
 kissing him tenderly, "Dearest father," she said, "I 
 did not wish to show you the drawings yesterday, 
 because I thought you might not like the subjects ; 
 but, however, here they are." And, half hesitating 
 still, she held up two chalk drawings of the nymphs 
 which he had ordered from his chamber. " 1 have 
 been very long over them, and I only finished them 
 the day before yesterday." 
 
 " Ah !" said Walsingham, mournfully, after he 
 had examined them for some time, " if it would only 
 please heaven to prolong my life, what pleasure we 
 two might have together !" 
 
 From this day forward Grace received drawing 
 lessons from her father, whenever he was able to 
 give them. 
 
 The discarded casts were again placed on their 
 brackets, or on a stand, as best suited the student ; 
 and, now in one position, and now in another, they 
 were copied over and over, until Grace became 
 even more familiar with every fold than her father 
 had been. 
 
 Mrs. Walsingham had said, in the early time of 
 their misfortunes, that happiness was not entirely 
 dependent on wealth. The truth of this assertion 
 was proved; and her husband himself, whose 
 memory was painfully alive to every circumstance
 
 THE TWELFTH HOUR. 83 
 
 of the past, was the first to remind her of her own 
 words. 
 
 The time of separation, however, was drawing 
 near: Latin, mathematics, Italian, and drawing, 
 were studied only at irregular times, and with longer 
 intervals. At length the physician, who had had 
 his stated times for calling, was summoned suddenly, 
 owing to Walsingham's increased illness ; and he 
 announced that, in all probability, a few days would 
 terminate the poor invalid's suffering. He was right. 
 Walsingham died but two days after this opinion was 
 given. 
 
 How like a good Samaritan would Miss Poinden 
 have seemed to the stricken heart of poor Mrs. Wal- 
 singham, had she sent in Martha with her compli- 
 ments and offers of neighborly service ; for on that 
 very morning, for the first time, Margaret Walsing- 
 ham felt hopelessly forlorn ! 
 
 But " God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb ;" 
 and the widow soon ceased to mourn as one that 
 refused to be comforted.
 
 84 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 NEW PROSPECTS. 
 
 By the death of Walsingham, his family was de- 
 prived of the only certain income which they had 
 possessed for several years ; but their industry, 
 their combined efforts and affections, and their 
 good economy, that surest of all alchemy, were 
 left ; with this joint stock the mother looked to 
 the future with an anxious, it is true, but an un- 
 dismayed heart. The last quarterly payment had 
 been received only two weeks before poor Walsing- 
 ham's death, and they had punctually been paid 
 the bequeathed fifty pounds for his funeral ex- 
 penses. 
 
 It was with an unexpressed, but a general 
 sentiment of still closer drawn affection, that the 
 little family group gathered round their fire on the 
 mournful evening of the funeral. The tea was 
 almost silently taken, even by the younger branches 
 of the family ; and, as they sat in a still prolonged 
 silence, now and then a sob might be heard from 
 some heart whose sorrow was too strong to be 
 repressed.
 
 NEW PROSPECTS. 
 
 85 
 
 Mrs. Walsingham was the first to make an effort 
 at dispelling the general gloom, although her own 
 heart at the time felt an unwonted depression. *' My 
 children," she said, " it has pleased God to afflict us ; 
 but it is not his will that we should sink under any 
 affliction. Years of experience have proved to me, 
 that no dispensation comes from his hand without its 
 full freight of mercies. We have lost a dear 
 friend" — and here the widow's voice faltered — " or 
 rather, I should say," she continued, " the Almighty 
 has taken him to his rest ; and we are left, my 
 children, but not without sufficient blessings : we 
 have health, united affections, and various faculties, 
 and, as I trust, before God and man, clear con- 
 sciences ! How, then, should we utter a complaint, 
 or why should we be cast down ?" 
 
 "But what can we do?" asked William ; "how 
 can we help you ?" 
 
 " We can do many things," said Mary, hopefully ; 
 " whatever mother determines upon doing, we shall 
 find many ways of helping her." 
 
 " Now I can run up and down stairs, without 
 fearing to make a noise," said Jack, cheerfully ; " I'll 
 carry up the coal and water, for I am a deal stronger 
 than you, William." 
 
 "Ah!" remarked poor Grace, with a faltering 
 voice, " there will need no more coal up stairs 
 now !"
 
 86 NEW PROSPECTS. 
 
 •' My plans, dear children," said Mrs. Walsing- 
 ham, " are these, and I make you all confidants in 
 them ; because from all of you, for the present at 
 least, I shall need co-operation. I shall open a small 
 haberdasher's shop." 
 
 "A shop!" repeated the elder ones. 
 
 " I formed this plan," continued she, " long 
 since, in anticipation of the event which it has 
 pleased heaven should now take place. There is 
 
 at the corner of Street, which is a good 
 
 thoroughfare, and leads to the Park, a small shop 
 now to be let. That I intend to take. We must 
 be very humble at first, and contented with very 
 small things, for my capital would seem absurd to 
 tradesmen generally ; but I remember the widow's 
 mite, and the widow's oil, and I am not discour- 
 aged." 
 
 A knock at the door interrupted a re-discussion of 
 the shop-keeping scheme the next morning, as Mrs. 
 Walsingham and her two eldest girls wereemployed 
 over a set of shirts, which had been interrupted by 
 Walsingham's death. William hurried the last of 
 the breakfast things, which he had been washing, into 
 the cupboard, and ran to the door. It was the good 
 physician who had attended his father. Without 
 the ceremony of an apology, or any circuitous intro- 
 duction — for Dr. Elliot had never a moment to
 
 NEW PROSPECTS. 87 
 
 spare — he began with the occasion of his call. He 
 wished to know if there was any way in which he 
 could assist them. In a very few words Mrs. Wal- 
 singham stated her plans, and her wish to retain the 
 assistance of her three elder children. " Very good, 
 very good," said the physician ; " quite right, Mrs. 
 Walsingham." 
 
 " For my youngest boy," said she, half hesi- 
 tating 
 
 "What! the fine little fellow with the black 
 hair," said he, glancing round, as if expecting to 
 find him. 
 
 " Yes," she replied ; " there are, sir, many good 
 institutions in London, where he would receive a 
 better education than I have any chance of giving 
 him at present." 
 
 " Yes, yes ; to be sure," said the physician, " a 
 boy like that deserves a good education ; I'll see 
 what I can do for him. And as to this shop-keep- 
 ing scheme of yours — you'll pardon me, but some 
 capital is needed." 
 
 Poor Mrs. Walsingham, free from false shame as 
 she was, felt some hesitation in mentioning the 
 amount of her capital, and a slight color passed over 
 her cheek. 
 
 " If, my good lady," continued the physician, " one 
 or two hundred pounds would be useful to you, have 
 no reluctance in asking it from me."
 
 88 x\EW PROSPECTS. 
 
 • 
 
 " Oh sir !" said she, " I would not venture to 
 borrow sums as large as those ; but if I should need 
 assistance, I will not forget that God has sent me a 
 friend. " 
 
 " All perfectly right," responded the Doctor, as 
 if he had been hearing the effect of a prescription; 
 and, giving his hand, and liurrying away at the same 
 moment, in three seconds more he was driving down 
 the street. 
 
 " The last of their goods are gone now," said Miss 
 Barbara Poinden, about a fortnight after the above 
 conversation ; " and very clean, respectable goods 
 they are, though old-fashioned. And now there 
 goes Mrs. Walsingham — poor woman, how respecta- 
 ble she looks in her mourning — and that pale-faced 
 boy too — she has put the key in her pocket — they 
 will sleep to-night at their new house. Bless me, 
 what a deal I think about those people, and never 
 spoke one word to them in all my life ?" 
 
 " Whether you speak to them or not," said her 
 sister, " you speak enough of them." 
 
 " But, did I tell you," asked Miss Barbara, not 
 perceiving that her sister's remark was intended for 
 a reproof, " that the second boy has actually got tlie 
 Blue-coat School dress on ? I protest, I didn't know 
 him at first, for all his beautiful black hair, you know, 
 sister, is cut off — they make those boys such frights ! 
 And he looked half ashamed of his yellow stock-
 
 NEW PROSPECTS, 89 
 
 • 
 
 ings ; I declare I was quite sorry for him ; and he 
 thrust his hand into his sister's when they went out 
 yesterday — no, it was the day before yesterday — as 
 if he wanted some body to countenance him, and 
 make him feel that he was himself; and yet he's a 
 fine, bold lad, with ten times the spirit of his brother. 
 That boy will go off in a consumption, it's my 
 opinion, and, if I were his mother, he should wear 
 flannel on his chest." 
 
 " Martha says," again began Miss Barbara, after 
 she had knit three rows of the worsted shawl which 
 was then occupying her, " that they have opened a 
 shop — a little haberdasher's shop — some where in 
 
 , Street. I think, sister, we might be a 
 
 few shillings in their Vv'ay now and then ; pins and 
 needles, and stay-laces, and buttons, and sewing- 
 cotton, are articles always in demand." 
 
 " We are very well served at Venables's," replied 
 Miss Poinden ; " and articles bought from those 
 little shops are always inferior." 
 
 " Ah !" sighed Miss Barbara, fearing within 
 herself that she had no chance with her sister, " if 
 every body reasoned so, what would become of the 
 small shop-keepers?" 
 
 " Thank heaven !" returned Miss Poinden, " that 
 I am not a small shop-keeper, and, therefore, it is no 
 concern of mine." 
 
 8
 
 90 NEW PROSPECTS. 
 
 The little shop at the corner of Street was 
 
 to be opened on the following Monday. Mrs. 
 Walsingham's capital amounted to seven-and-thirty 
 pounds ; and ten pounds siie borrowed from Dr. 
 Elliot, but not until she had found that her seven- 
 and-thirty would be entirely consumed in the 
 purchase of her little stock, for all of which she 
 paid ready money. 
 
 The little shop was neat and clean, and cheerful- 
 looking to begin with ; there was altogether a happy 
 look about, it, even before the goods were put in it ; 
 and the physiognomy, even of a shop, is of some 
 importance. How busy each member of the family 
 was in arranging every thing in its proper place ; — 
 the neatly-tied-up packets of gloves — no great quan- 
 tity of them, we confess ; the stockings, the mils, 
 the various woollen wares of divers colors; the 
 crewels, the worsteds, the wool ; the compartmented 
 drawers of sewing-cotton, white and colored ; 
 the buttons, the wire, the thread, the tnpe, the 
 pins and needles, and all the thousand multi- 
 farious articles of the haberdasher's ware. There 
 was a glass-case with its small store of cutlery 
 in one part, and a few dolls, wax and composition, 
 in the other. 
 
 The shop made no great show after all ; but a 
 world of thought and care was expended- over it.
 
 NEW PROSPECTS. 91 
 
 William rubbed and polished the wood- work, and 
 cleaned the windows, and left not an atom of dust 
 in any corner ; Grace arranged the colors of the 
 wools and netting-silks, so as to produce the best 
 effect, and then she sat down with her sister and 
 mother, for three whole days, before the shop was 
 opened, to assist them in stitching gentlemen's 
 collars, in making stocks, and in knitting some 
 dozen woollen night-caps and comforters, little 
 socks, and mils, which, as autumn had set in, they 
 thought might be attractive. 
 
 At last the Saturday night came, which con- 
 cluded their labcrs. The shop was to be opened 
 on the Monday morning ; and, for the first time for 
 several years, the mother and her five children 
 went altogether to church. It was an anxious 
 Sunday to all the elder members of the family ; 
 the mother herself felt more anxious than she 
 chose to avow ; and she did not sleep that night 
 without putting up a prayer to the x\lmighty, that he 
 would be pleased to bless these her humble but 
 honest endeavors. 
 
 William was up before it was light. He passed 
 first into the little shop, to see that all was right ; 
 he lit the ready-laid kitchen fire, cleaned the 
 shoes, and then opened the shop-shutters, which 
 was to be his business. He was, in fact, to be
 
 92 NEW PROSPECTS. 
 
 porter, errand-boy, youngest apprentice, and head- 
 clerk, all in one. There was no customer before 
 breakfast; and, while that meal was dispatching 
 in the little back room, which opened into the 
 shop — the only room, indeed, on the ground-floor — 
 every eye was continually turned to the shop-door, 
 as if customers were plenty as black-berries ; but 
 none came. Mrs. Walsingham sat behind the 
 counter, busy at needle-work, all the morning ; and 
 Mary and Grace, after their house work was done, 
 sat down also, to prepare what, it was hoped, 
 others would buy ; Mary, to knit night-caps : and 
 Grace, to net purses. WilUam fidgetted about 
 from the counter to the door, from the door to the 
 inner room, full of nervous excitement, for nobody 
 came. Two ragged children, for a penny ball of 
 cotton, a servant-gill, who came intending to buy 
 shoes, and took a shilling pair of scissors instead, 
 and a policeman, who bought a fourteen-penny 
 pair of woollen gloves, were the first day's cus- 
 tomers. 
 
 A week went on, and things got no better. It 
 was not encouraging. The family left off taking 
 supper, partly because they were out of spirits, 
 partly from motives of economy ; for those who had 
 so little coming in, and whose very bread was bought
 
 NEW PROSPECTS. 93 
 
 witli borrowed money, must be satisfied, they thought, 
 with three meals a day. 
 
 " Did you notice a little haberdasher's shop at 
 the corner?" asked a certain Mrs. Spenser, as she 
 walked one fine day, about this time, towards the 
 Park. Her husband replied that he had not. 
 " She is a widow," continued his wife, " who has 
 jusi opened that shop. I have not been in it yet, 
 but her anxious countenance strikes me every 
 time I go past. She looks to me like one who 
 has seen better days. I doubt her shop will not 
 answer ; and she seems, poor thing, to have several 
 children." 
 
 " Can not you buy sometliing from her ?" asked 
 her husband ; " for you ladies are happily gifted with 
 never-supplied wants." 
 
 " I will," replied Mrs. Spenser, " and we will call 
 on our return." 
 
 They did so. Poor Mrs. Walsingham was 
 cheered by their entrance ; so was William, who, 
 since he had nothing better to do, had taken his old 
 Latin dilectus to get on with his lessons ; so were 
 Mary and Grace, to whom little Margaret, who had 
 been sitting on a high stool by her mother at the 
 counter, ran to communicate the joyful intelligence, 
 that such a handsome lady and gentleman were 
 buying such a many things, and were paying in 
 8*
 
 94 NEW PROSPECTS. 
 
 gold! Five-and-lhirty shillings good Mrs. Spenser 
 laid out that morning at the little haberdasher's 
 shoj) ; a sovereign, half-a-sovereign, and a five 
 shilling piece ; there was some thing generous in 
 the very look of the coin. But far more than 
 the money's worth was the kind look, and the few 
 worjs of kind inquiry and sympathizing good- will 
 which were spoken. 
 
 " How I wish it had been a great, big parcel, ever 
 so heavy," said William, " that I might have had the 
 pleasure of carrying it home for them !" 
 
 It seemed as if Mrs. Spenser's purchase had 
 brought good luck with it. An old man came in 
 before they went out of the shop, and two young 
 ladies immediately succeeded him. In the evening 
 William said there had been fifteen customers ; and 
 Mrs. Walsingham announced that she had taken 
 four pounds.
 
 95 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 LITTLE Margaret's sorrow; and the first 
 
 HOLIDAY. 
 
 Things were decidedly taking a turn for the bet- 
 ter ; and, es the winter came on, so great was the 
 demand for Mrs. Walsingham's peculiarly warm, 
 home-made comforters, night-caps, gloves, and 
 socks, that it required the unceasing industry of 
 herself and her two daughters to supply the de- 
 mand. Among her custo.mers was a lady of the 
 name of Aukland. She had one little daughter, 
 about six years old, who, on her next birth-day, 
 was to have a wax-doll which could open and 
 shut its eyes. In the centre of Mrs. Walsing- 
 ham's glass-case lay a doll of this description, 
 beautiful beyond measure in the eyes of this little 
 child — a doll which sometimes lay with its eyes 
 open, and sometimes with them shut. There was 
 anpther little girl, besides this, whose heart had 
 kindled with the most excessive admiration of this 
 wax miracle, and that was Margaret Walsinghara. 
 Margaret had never possessed any bought toys ; 
 she never had a better doll than the one which
 
 96 LITTLE Margaret's sorrow. 
 
 Grace manufactured for her of linen; a beautiful 
 doll, as the grateful but inexperienced child then 
 thought ; but oh, how inferior to these in her 
 mother's glass-case, and to this, the very queen and 
 empress of them all ! 
 
 Mrs. Walsingham had forbidden her to open 
 the glass-case, but her admiration througli the 
 glass was allowable. The little girl seated her- 
 self often by her mother, pleasing herself with 
 day-dreams of how, if she had that doll, she 
 would dress it for the day and carry it out with its 
 blue eyes open, and then how she would bring it 
 home, take off its gay clothes, put on its night- 
 dress, little frilled cap and all, shut its eyes, and 
 lay it to sleep on her own pillow. Such excessive 
 admiration coul4 not exist without touching; and, 
 spite of the prohibition, the little girl, one day 
 when the shop, with closed door, was left to her 
 keeping, opened the glass-case and gently pulled 
 the wire ; the pink eyelids closed, and the child 
 was ready to scream with delight ; another touch, 
 and they opened. It seemed to her as if the doll 
 woke and smiled upon her. " How I wish she were 
 mine !" sighed she, as, with a throbbing heart, she 
 closed the glass-case. 
 
 Her mother entered, but said not a word ; she 
 had not seen her. The temptation, once yielded
 
 LITTLE Margaret's sorrow. 97 
 
 to, could no longer be resisted, and the doll's eyes 
 accordingly were sometimes open and sometimes 
 shut. Neither Mrs. Walsingham, nor the elder 
 girls, nor even William, had noticed this circum- 
 stance ; but so it was. Margaret used to delight 
 herself with the fearful pleasure, whenever she 
 found herself alone in the shop. One unfortunate 
 day, however, as she heard her mother's step near 
 the door, she jerked the wire upwards, to open the 
 eyes, and suddenly closed the glass-case. The 
 next time she went, the wire moved freely, but 
 the eyelids never closed. How was this ? — what 
 was amiss — had she done it ? Yes ; and she then 
 remembered the jerk and the loose sensation with 
 which the wire went backwards : — the doll was 
 spoiled ! All at once the horrible sense of diso- 
 bedience, the dread of detection, the wish that all 
 was known, tiiat she could undo what she had done 
 — all the agony, in short, of an outrage done to a 
 tender conscience, fell upon her spirit. The violent 
 crimson which had flushed to the roots of her hair, 
 and the tips of her ears, faded away, and a heavy 
 s€nse of misery lay at her heart, that paled and 
 saddened her countenance. 
 
 " Oh, T wish Jack was at home ! I could tell it 
 all to Jack !" sobbed the poor child, as, after unu- 
 sual kindness from her mother and sisters, who,
 
 98 LITTLE Margaret's sorrow. 
 
 supposing her ill, had sent her early to a warm bed, 
 ^^^e lay tossing from side to side. " What shall I 
 •^0? what shall I do?" again, and again, she ex- 
 claimed, till, fairly exhausted with her distress, she 
 sank into heavy sleep, only to wake with a soreness 
 of heart on the morrow. 
 
 The morrow was the day before Christmas Eve, 
 and the lady and her sister, wrapped in fur and velvet, 
 came in to purchase the birth-day present. 
 
 " Aly little girl," said the lady, "has fixed her 
 affections on a handsome wax-doll of yours, which 
 can open and shut its eyes. To morrow is her 
 birth-day, and I wish to purchase it for a birth-day 
 present." 
 
 IMaraarct was sitting at the counter as these words 
 were spoken. Her mother expressed her pleasure 
 and her thanks ; opened tlie glass-case, and took 
 out the doll, intending to exhibit its accomplish- 
 ments ; but the wire produced no effect. She 
 remarked that this was certainly very strange. The 
 doll had been injured ; she could not conceive how 
 it had happened. 
 
 " Oh, mother, dearest, dearest mother, I did 
 it!" exclaimed Marsaret, seiziufj her mother's hand, 
 and laying her face upon it ; " can you ever forgive 
 me?"
 
 LITTLE Margaret's sorrow. 99 
 
 " My child," said her mother, " you have done 
 very wrong ; you have done me great mischief !" 
 
 The child hiid her face on tlie counter, and sobbed 
 violently. 
 
 " You naug])ty little girl !" said the lady, " if I 
 were your mamma, 1 would whip you !' 
 
 " She suffers more at this moment," replied 
 Mrs. VValsingham, calmly, " than she would from 
 such a punisimient. But the doll is certainly 
 spoiled, and I am sorry I have not another to offer 
 you." 
 
 " It might soon be repaired," whispered the 
 lady's sister to her ; " I could almost do it myself. 
 She'll sell it cheap," added she, within the other's 
 bonnet. 
 
 " It is certainly spoiled," continued the lady, 
 in reply to Mrs Walsingham, " but I don't know 
 that Sopiiy would mind about the eyes, for it is just 
 as pretty as ever." 
 
 "If It please the young lady quite as well, it 
 might do," said Mrs. Walsingham, again presenting 
 the doll. 
 
 " What is the price ?" asked the lady. 
 
 " Seven shillings, in its uninjured state, madam." 
 
 '•Seven sliilhngs !" said the sister, "it is not 
 worth more than five now ; — in fact, I would not 
 buy a damaged doll at any price ; but Mrs. Auk-
 
 100 LITTLE Margaret's sorrow, 
 
 land must please herself," said she, touching her 
 elbow at the same time, which was intended to say, 
 " Buy it !" 
 
 " I think I could get it repaired for you at the 
 toy-manufactory," said Mrs. Walsingham. 
 
 " We must have it to-day," said the sister ; " it's 
 no use waiting to have it repaired. If we have 
 it at all, we must have it to-night, to get it 
 dressed." 
 
 "I'll give you five shillings for it," said the 
 lady ; " and, if it can be repaired, we can get it 
 done." 
 
 " I think that's very fair," said the sister, who 
 acted on all occasion'? as a corps-de-reserve, 
 
 " "Very fair, Mrs. Walsingham," repeated the 
 lady. 
 
 " I shall lose by it," said Mrs. Walsingham, *' more 
 than I can well afford." 
 
 " Of course you expect to lose by damaged 
 goods," argued the sister ; " and, do you remem- 
 ber, little miss," said she, leaning over the coim- 
 ter to Margaret, who still sat with her face bu- 
 ried in her hands, "never io meddle with your 
 mamma's property again ; for you hear she'll be a 
 loser by it." 
 
 "I am a good customer of yours, Mrs. W^alsing- 
 ham," said the lady, in an insinuating voice, " and
 
 LITTLE Margaret's sorrow. 101 
 
 we like your woollen socks so much, that we must 
 have another dozen pair." 
 
 " I thank you," returned Mrs. Walsingham ; " and 
 what size did you wish ?" 
 
 " I must call and bring you a pattern," replied 
 the lady ; " but we must have the doll ;" and, 
 taking a five-shilling piece from her purse, she laid 
 it on the counter. " I have been a very good cus- 
 tomer of yours, Mrs. Walsingham, and I shall send 
 all my friends to you." 
 
 Mrs. Walsingham thanked her. " You must 
 let your little boy carry the doll into the Regent's 
 Park : there is the address," said she, giving a 
 card. " And you must run, little boy," said she, 
 addressing William, " and mind you do not break 
 the doll ; for we shall take a fly directly, and I 
 shall be quite provoked if you are not there in 
 time. I'll call about the socks in a day or two, Mrs. 
 Walsingham." 
 
 " I've a great mind not to carry the doll for her," 
 said William, quite out of humor, and very slowly 
 putting on his hat and gloves ; " and, if it were not 
 to oblige you, mother, I would not !" 
 
 " Oh, mother, will you ever kiss me again — will 
 you ever forgive me— will you ever trust me 
 again ?" asked Margaret, half afraid to look into 
 9
 
 102 LITTLE Margaret's sorrow. 
 
 her mother's face, as soon as William was out of 
 the shop. 
 
 " To be sure I shall forgive you," replied her 
 mother, " and trust you also, in order that you may 
 prove yourself trust-worthy. You must consider, 
 my dear cliild, that it is as important for us to preserve 
 our property uninjured, as it is to increase it. You 
 are too young yet to increase it ; all you can do is 
 not to injure it. This doll cost me five shillings and 
 sixpence ; I hoped to sell it for seven, and thus gain 
 one shilling and sixpence by it. You have injured 
 the doll, and I can only obtain five shillings for it ; 
 I am thus a loser by you, not only sixpence in the 
 first cost of the doll, but one and sixpence also which 
 I hoped to gain. Do you understand ?" 
 
 " Yes," sobbed Margaret. 
 
 " What can I do to help mother ?" asked Mar- 
 garet, from her sisters, to whom she told her trou- 
 ble, and her grief for her mother's loss ; " you are 
 at work for her ; can I do nothing to make up her 
 loss, at least ?" 
 
 " 1 think we can put you in away of doing some- 
 thing to make up her loss," said Mary, kissing her : 
 "have you any money at all ?" 
 
 " I have only one silver sixpence, which the gen- 
 tleman gave me for picking up his purse in the shop,'^ 
 said Margaret.
 
 LITTLE Margaret's sorrow. 103 
 
 " If I were to set you some knitting, would you 
 take pains to learn ?" inquired her sister. Margaret 
 joyfully promised. 
 
 The knitting was set, and, after about a week's 
 practice, Margaret was pronounced able to begin 
 upon a night-cap. 
 
 " But don't you say a single word to mother," 
 said the little girl. " And, don't you think she will 
 be very much surprised when I give her the two 
 shillings ?" 
 
 Her sisters thought she would, and promised to 
 be faithful. The sixpence was laid out in wool, 
 which produced two caps worth fifteen-pence ; this, 
 again, was expended on fresh material; and, in 
 somewhat more than two months' time, the little girl 
 had two shillings in hand, besides three caps in her 
 mother's shop. Of course all this little merchandise 
 could not be carried on without Mrs. Walsingham's 
 knowledge ; but it was understood amongst them, that 
 Margaret's laudable mystery should be inviolate, and 
 that no one should anticipate her act of justice, even 
 by commendation. 
 
 One morning — it was on Shrove Tuesday — Mar- 
 garet was observed by her mother at breakfast to 
 look very smiling ; to glance at her brother and sis- 
 ters, and to fidget about in her chair, as if for very
 
 104 LITTLE Margaret's sorrow. 
 
 joy. " What makes you look so pleased, yet so 
 mysterious ?" asked she. Margaret took from her 
 bosom a neat little packet, in white paper. " I have 
 a little present for you, mother," she said — " and yet 
 not quite a present either ; — it is the money I owe 
 you — the two shillings — don't you remember ?" — and 
 she blushed and hesitated, unwilling to remind her 
 mother of the doll. 
 
 " You are a dear, honest little girl," said her 
 mother, opening the packet, and looking at the 
 money with great pleasure. " You have shown 
 wonderful perseverance ; for this money, I suppose, 
 is obtained from the sale of those caps you have 
 been knitting so long ?" 
 
 " Yes, mother," said Margaret. 
 
 " You have shown a strong and clear sense of 
 honor and justice in this little affair. You have 
 given me real pleasure," said her mother, kissing her 
 aflfectionately. 
 
 " I never was so happy in all my life," exclaimed 
 the child, " and I don't care about dolls now !" 
 
 " Then," said her mother. " if I were to offer you 
 a doll, a very nice doll, in exchange for your remain- 
 ing caps, you would not accept it V 
 
 " I think not," said she, half hesitating ; " but 
 what do you say, Mary ?"
 
 LITTLE Margaret's sorrow. 105 
 
 " Be guided, my love," said her mother, " by your 
 own inclinations — by your own judgment." 
 
 " No — I won't have a doll," was at length her de- 
 cision ; " it would remind me of that unfortunate 
 day." 
 
 " You shall go with me this morning," said her 
 mother, " to Dr. Elliott's. I am going to return the 
 money which he so kindly lent me when we first 
 opened the shop." 
 
 " It is a happy thing to pay money that one owes," 
 replied she ; " I am so glad you are going !" 
 
 " And as the shops will be closed after twelve," 
 remarked Mrs. Walsingham, " suppose we all of us 
 — Jack too-^go to the Zoological Gardens ? Dr. 
 Elliott gave you tickets long ago." 
 
 " So did Mrs. Spenser," remarked Mary. 
 
 " How delightful ! how delightful !" shouted 
 Margaret ; and all agreed that it was a happy 
 thought. 
 
 That Shrove Tuesday, bright and warm beyond 
 most early spring days, afforded to this toiling and 
 worthy family their first real holiday. 
 
 Blessings on those old holy-days of the Catholic 
 institutions, which, as if in benevolent foreknowledge 
 of the wants of modern social life, are still retained ! 
 Blessings on them, I say, for they are like sunny 
 glimpses in the desert of worky-day-life ; like a 
 9*
 
 106 BRIGHTER PROSPECTS, 
 
 pause in the wheel that grinds ; like a relaxing of 
 the chain that pinches. There is a sort of God-send 
 in them ; they seem out of the common run of things ; 
 an extra day of rest, besides the one in seven ! 
 
 C H AFTER XII 
 
 BRIGHTER PROSPECTS. 
 
 The little shop prospered ; and, before two years 
 had elapsed, Mrs. Walsingham was able to make 
 some improvements in her domestic establishment. 
 There was a well-qualified maid servant in the 
 kitchen, and an errand-boy in the sliop ; and, besides 
 this, she was able to give constant employment to 
 several women in making up linen, and the childrens' 
 and babies' clothes, for which her shop was becom- 
 ing much celebrated. The little concern was de- 
 cidedly flourishing. The seven-and-thirty pounds 
 had been turned over and over and over again ; and, 
 like the snow-ball in the deep snow, it grew at every 
 turn. Tlie shop shelves and drawers were full, and 
 every corner was fitted up to hold boxes and cases 
 of goods. The place bore a fanciful resemblance to
 
 BRIGHTER PROSPECTS. 107 
 
 a nest, which, as the brood becomes full-fledged and 
 strong, is too narrow for its contents. Mrs. Wal- 
 singham, however, was unwilling to remove from a 
 place which had evidently been so blessed to her ; 
 and the family inconvenience was soon remedied by 
 the next house becoming vacant ; the original tene- 
 ment was, therefore, converted into work-rooms, 
 second shop, and private room; and the fimiily re- 
 moved into the next, to which internal communica- 
 tion was made. In all these things Mrs. Walsing- 
 ham saw the visible hand of Providence ; and she 
 went through her daily duties, her daily occupations, 
 with an increasing thankfulness of spirit. 
 
 " William, you are nearly fifteen," said his mother 
 to him one Sunday evening, as the whole family sat 
 together in their comfortable parlor ; " but it is never 
 too late for you to learn," continued she, smiling — 
 " you must now go to school." 
 
 William looked quite pleased, so did his sisters ; 
 and Jack, with no very gentle laugh, exclaimed, 
 " Now, brother, you need not envy me." 
 
 " What think you of the London University ?" 
 asked his mother. 
 
 " I should like it of all things," replied he ; " and, 
 at my age, it sounds better to go to the Univer- 
 sity than to school." William, however, blushed
 
 108 BRIGHTER PROSPECTS. 
 
 as he said this — half suspecting that his words 
 were foolish. 
 
 " Yes," said Grace, quite sympathizing with her 
 brother, " you are right ; it sounds a great deal 
 better." 
 
 " But, mother," said William, " do you think I 
 shall seem very ignorant at first — as if I had been 
 very much neglected — I don't mean neglected 
 either" — said he, again correcting himself, in the 
 fear that his words implied a censure on his mother; 
 " I mean, shall I seem much more ignorant than 
 common boys of my age ?" 
 
 " I hope, not generally ignorant," replied his 
 mother, " but, probably, deficient in much elemen- 
 tary knowledge." 
 
 " But," said Mary, " you will understand things 
 so much better than younger boys, that you will 
 soon overcome that deficiency ; and poor, dear father, 
 you know, thought you read Latin very well ; and 
 you can translate with great ease : you know some- 
 thing of mathematics, too ; and you have been pon- 
 dering over that old Encyclopaedia that Jack bor- 
 rowed for us, for these three months. There must 
 be a deal of knowledge in this round head of yours," 
 said she, pushing the thick locks from his forehead ; 
 " depend upon it, you'll be a first-rate scholar !"
 
 BRIGHTER PROSPECTS. 109 
 
 " And, William," said Jack, with a countenance 
 of very extraordinary gravity, " if you wouldn't 
 be offended, I know what I would do, I would 
 teach you grammar rules, and geography, and 
 show you how to parse, and to find the latitude and 
 longitude, and all that ; and I would hear your 
 spelling lessons, and words with meanings, and 
 all !" 
 
 " Upon my word," said Grace, laughing, " you are 
 very patronizing, Jack." But Jack neither looked 
 abashed nor vexed. 
 
 " Thank you, brother," said William ; " you shall 
 hear me those lessons, and give me those instruc- 
 tions, for it is just what I want," 
 
 " There, Mistress Grace !" said Jack, nodding 
 at her, and archly glancing out of the corners of his 
 laughing black eyes. 
 
 This happy scheme, the first-fruits, as it were, of 
 their amended fortunes, furnished the fireside topic 
 for many days. William was allowed to take his 
 Sunday clothes into every-day wear, and a new suit 
 was ordered for him ; and the whole of the next 
 fortnight he spent in acquiring elementary knowledge, 
 and in exhibiting to Jack, every leave-day, the pro- 
 gress he had made. 
 
 At the end of the fortnight the new term com- 
 menced. William kissed his mother and sisters,
 
 110 BRIGHTER PROSPECTS. 
 
 and, with a joyful heart, ran off to the University ; 
 thinking as he went, that it was a great deal 
 pleasanter to be going to school, than to be stand- 
 ing behind a counter: and it was with a beating, 
 but jet with a proud heart, that he, when the 
 school-roll was called over, answered to the name of 
 Walsingham — " adsum.^^ 
 
 Mary, as we said before, had frequently assisted 
 her mother in the shop. She was a tall, well-grown, 
 and remarkably handsome girl, very womanly in 
 appearance, and of very quiet, elegant manners. Eve- 
 ry-body admired her, and many came purposely to 
 look at her, or be served by her. 
 
 Mrs. Walsingham soon became aware of the 
 circumstance, and, knowing how dangerous such 
 admiration might be to her daughter, determined im- 
 mediately to remove her from it. 
 
 " Do not ask Grace to serve in the shop, dearest 
 mother," said Mary, as the three were talking family 
 affairs over. 
 
 " Oh do not, mother !" exclaimed Grace, with 
 nervous excitement — " I never could do it. I will 
 net purses, do worsted-work, work salin-stitch, open- 
 hem, embroider, braid, design patterns — or do any 
 thing except serve in the shop." 
 
 " You shall never be asked to do it, my love," said 
 her mother. And the grateful girl touched by what
 
 BRIGHTER PROSPECTS. Ill 
 
 she thought another proof of her mother's kindnes'^ 
 sat down with redoubk^d industry, to the beautiful 
 work in which she excelled. 
 
 A few days after, Mrs. Spenser, who from the first 
 had remained Mrs. Walsingham's firm frietui, came 
 in, and asked to have some private conversation with 
 her* She wished to know, she said, if she intended 
 her eldest daughter to remain in the shop. No, she 
 was not likely to be in it again, Mrs. Walsingham 
 repHed. Mrs. Spenser was very glad. Had she any 
 decided plans for her daughter ? Not for the present ; 
 the removing her from the shop was only a late 
 determination. 
 
 " Will your daughter spend this evening with 
 me ?" asked Mrs. Spenser, after a moment's pause ; 
 "I shall be quite alone." Mrs. Walsingham was 
 quite sure it would give her daughter great pleasure; 
 and at six o'clock, accordingly — for she was to go 
 very early — Mary, dressed in her very best — in her 
 new dark-blue silk frock, the most expensive dress 
 she had ever had — set out for Russell Square. It 
 was with some little excitement of spirit that she 
 set out ; for an invitation, even to lea, in those days 
 was a very great event. As Mary, in her unorna- 
 mented dress, with her rich, abundant, dark hair 
 plainly braided, and her calm, self-possessed demean- 
 or, entered the spacious and handsomely furnished
 
 112 BRIGHTER PROSPECTS. 
 
 drawing-room, Mrs. Spenser thought she had sel- 
 dom^ seen a more prepossessing girl. Mary Wal- 
 singham was, in fact, the very counterpart of her 
 mother in her younger days : but of that Mrs. Spenser 
 knew nothing. 
 
 Mary, although she looked calm, did not feel 
 quite so. She had hitherto seen Mrs. Spenser as 
 the kind patron of themselves, humble trades-people ; 
 they were thankful, grateful to her ; nay, they even 
 loved her ; but they had never ceased to feel that 
 she was rich and they poor ; that she was placed 
 infinitely above them in station, and that, perhaps, 
 any sentiment stronger than that of obligation, might 
 be thought impertinent ; and now, here was she, the 
 very girl who had sold her cambric handkerchiefs, 
 and even things as humble as pins and knitiing- 
 cotton, sitting on the same sofa, and talking unbon- 
 netted to her, face to face ! This feeling, however, 
 soon passed away ; and Mary forgot that Mrs. 
 Spenser was so much richer, was so much higher in 
 station than themselves. A great variety of topics 
 was conversed upon, and Mary, shrewd as she was, 
 never suspected that Mrs. Spenser was testing her in 
 many ways ; that she was fathoming her general 
 knowledge, sounding her principles, and discovering 
 her sentiments on the most important points. Had 
 Mary known this, perhaps she might not have passed 
 through the ordeal as unexceptionably as she did.
 
 BRIGHTER PROSPECTS. 113 
 
 " And now, Miss Walsingham," said Mr s. 
 Spenser, " I will be frank wiih you : I was not 
 altogether disinterested when I requested the pleas- 
 ure of your company. I had an object in view, in 
 which my own interest was entirely concerned. 
 I have one little daughter." Mary said she had 
 seen her very often. " She has hitherto," continued 
 Mrs. Spenser, " had only a daily governess ; but 
 we wish rather for a resident one — one whose 
 manners and principles we may have an opportu- 
 nity of knowing thoroughly. You are young. 
 Miss Walsingham — younger than I supposed — 
 but of that fault you would mend every day," said 
 she, kindly. 
 
 " And did you indeed think of me, as Miss 
 Spenser's governess ?" asked Mary, scarcely able 
 to keep down her emotion. 
 
 "I have thought of it for some time, my dear 
 girl," replied Mrs. Spenser, " but I sincerely desire 
 it now." 
 
 Mary looked at Mrs. Spenser with her eyes full 
 of tears, but she could not speak. 
 
 " You are inexperienced in teaching, perhaps," 
 continued Mrs. Spenser ; " but as my little 
 daughter is not yet six years old, not much book- 
 learning is required. You shall have every oppor- 
 tunity of improving yourself." 
 10
 
 114 BRIGHTER PROSPECTS. 
 
 Mary expressed her gratitude in few, but efficient 
 words. 
 
 " My dear," said Mrs. Spenser, " society owes 
 much to a woman like your mother, who has not 
 only passed through a life of peculiar trial and 
 hardship unblemished, but who has set an example 
 of almost every virtue. Your mother, my dear, 
 has already more nobly deserved a statue, than 
 many a hero ; and no great merit is due to such 
 as I, who only do a little to make her path 
 easier.'^ 
 
 Mary again could not speak ; and the moment 
 after, her brother William was announced, who, as 
 had been arranged, was come to fetch her home. 
 
 That was a joyful going home ; and the happy, 
 thankful family remained round the fire after 
 midnight — there was so much to be said, and so 
 much to be arranged. 
 
 "It is a pleasant thing," said Grace, "to build 
 castles in the air, but a far pleasanter thing to find 
 real castles built, and ready furnished for you, as 
 you have done to-night, Mary. I am sure I am 
 very glad, for you quite deserve it, and you will 
 fulfill all Mrs. Spenser's expectations." 
 
 " 1 hope so," replied Mary. 
 
 " You toill,^^ returned Grace : " only think how 
 well you do everything, how thoroughly you succeed
 
 BRIGHTER PROSPECTS. 115 
 
 in all your attempts, and how much you know ; yet 
 you never seemed to be learning — you had no time 
 for it ! But, after all, mother," continued Grace, 
 turning to Mrs. Walsingham, " I am glad Mrs. 
 Spenser did not fix upon me ; I could never have 
 fulfilled her expectations." 
 
 " And for that very reason, my dear," replied her 
 mother, " Mrs. Spenser would not have fixed on j^ou 
 for such an office." 
 
 " Ah," said Grace, sorrowfully, " I shall always be 
 the least useful one of the family !" 
 
 "You undervalue yourself, my dear," said her 
 mother. 
 
 " Think of all that exquisite work which you have 
 done," said Mary. 
 
 " Of all those purses and bags, and bead-work, 
 and embroidery, and braiding," added William, 
 each anxious to raise poor Grace in her own esti- 
 mation. Grace made no answer ; but she sighed, 
 well knowing, though she would not confess it, 
 that every kind of work which had been enume- 
 rated as among her good gifts, had long since 
 been distasteful to her ; and, so that she might 
 have studied Italian and our best English poetry 
 and literature, and employed herself in drawing, 
 she would contentedly have lived on bread and 
 water.
 
 116 BRIGHTER PROSPECTS. 
 
 Mary was soon happily established in her new 
 home, and twelve months more went on prosper- 
 ously with the widow and her family. William 
 had lost his thin, pale-faced, anxious look, which, 
 in fact, had only been the consequence of an 
 over-tasked mind and an extremely anxious spirit. 
 He had become ten times more studious than 
 ever, and was as happy as the day was long. 
 He advanced rapidly in his classes, and brought 
 home, at the close of each term, the highest cre- 
 dentials of merit. Mr. Spenser took the warmest 
 and most friendly interest in him ; and, when he 
 had been rather more than two years at school — on 
 his seventeenth birth-day, in fact — he was admitted 
 as junior clerk in Mr. Spenser's counting-house ; 
 an event which filled the widow's heart and house 
 with gladness. 
 
 We must now go back a year and a half at least, 
 and return to Grace, who henceforth will be the 
 principal character in our little history.
 
 117 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 SECRET SCHEMES. 
 
 As Mrs. Walsingham's circumstances improved, 
 she became anxious that Grace, who seemed the 
 only one unbenefited by them, should share some 
 of their advantages as well as the other members 
 of the family. But Grace, in many respects, was 
 peculiar ; she was a being extraordinarily gifted, 
 and, under prosperous circumstances, would have 
 been the flattered, courted, and, probably, the 
 spoiled child of genius ; her character, too, would 
 have been transparent as water ; but, chilled as 
 she had insensibly been by early poverty, by wit- 
 nessing the privations, and, often, the concealed 
 suffering of those most dear to her, she had learned 
 to veil her own feelings, and even while indulging 
 an almost morbid sensitiveness of spirit, wearing 
 outwardly an appearance of coldness and reserve. 
 Her father, had he lived, would perfectly have 
 understood her, but he would have been far from the 
 best guide for a being so constituted. Grace, though 
 10*
 
 118 SECRET SCHEMES. 
 
 she had neither fear nor distrust of her mother, 
 dreaded so much the adding to her difficulties, or the 
 receiving an over proportion of indulgence or con- 
 sideration from her, that she never made her her 
 confidant ; and although she loved her elder brother 
 and sister, and had the most profound respect for 
 them, yet they were never admitted to her most 
 secret feelings. It was Jack — the gay, volatile, 
 light-hearted Jack, two years her junior — that was 
 the closest intimate of her heart. Two beings 
 more dissimilar could hardly be conceived ; Grace, 
 slender, and of a marble paleness, with soft brown 
 hair, straight and glossy as silk, and limbs of the 
 most delicate mould — all ideality, and filled with 
 notions of beauty and perfection ; Jack, strong built, 
 strong-featured, and rough-headed ; a bold, free- 
 spoken youth, that seemed to laugh all sentiment to 
 scorn, and from whom it might have been thought 
 no tender sympathies could ever have been extracted. 
 It was by him, and him only, that Grace was thor- 
 oughly known, and to him only that she freely opened 
 her heart. 
 
 When Mrs. Walsingham proposed that Grace 
 should have the advantage of school, she at once 
 shrunk from it. " No, mother," said she, " I am too 
 old, too tall to go to school."
 
 SECRET SCHEMES. 119 
 
 " You thought difterently in William's case, my 
 love," argued her mother. 
 
 " William was very different to me," she replied ; 
 " I could not bear — indeed, mother, I could not — the 
 way in which I should be treated at a first-rate 
 school; and I had better be at home," she added, 
 timidly, " than go to an inferior one." 
 
 Her mother quite agreed in that opinion. 
 
 " Do you not know, mother," asked Grace, half 
 reluctantly, " the ungenerous feeling, the want of 
 sympathy, there is among women generally, and 
 among girls, too, I suppose ? T mean, that those 
 who fancy themselves richer and greater, despise 
 those they think below them — such as ourselves," 
 said she, with a faltering voice. 
 
 " But, my dear," replied her mother, " while we 
 preserve our own self-respect, we are almost inde- 
 pendent of the opinions of others." 
 
 " That must depend, in great measure, on our 
 own natures," said Grace. " I could not bear all 
 you do, dearest mother," continued she, " from peoplfe 
 considering themselves perfect ladies ; they are so 
 imperious often — so little considerate of your feel- 
 ings ; and if ladies behave thus to you, mother, 
 whom every body respects, and whose real goodness 
 every body acknowledges, how is it likely that 
 ignorant girls, full of their own importance, and with
 
 120 SECRET SCHEMES. 
 
 all their educated notions of wealth and station, 
 would behave even civilly to me, a stranger, who 
 would be known to them only as a shopkeeper's 
 daughter ?" 
 
 " There may be some truth in what you say, 
 my dear girl," returned her mother, " but you want 
 charity ; your censures are far too sweeping ; you 
 forget the kind friends we have found — you forget 
 Dr. Elliott and Mr. and Mrs. Spenser." 
 
 " Yes, mother," returned Grace, " but those 
 are the exceptions. Were the world made up of 
 Dr. Elliotts and Mrs. Spensers, we should hardly 
 wish to go to heaven : but, dearest mother, as to 
 my going to school, do not think of it. I have 
 plenty of time at home for the few studies 1 care 
 about." 
 
 *' You shall have lessons in French and Italian," 
 returned her mother, " from good Mr. Hamilton, 
 and you shall have a little time also for your own 
 reading. It is but fair that you should reap some 
 advantage from our amended circumstances, partic- 
 ularly when you have done your part towards their 
 amendment." 
 
 Grace kissed her mother's cheek, and thanked her 
 again and again for her kindness. 
 
 " Well, but, Grace," said .Tack, one fine evening 
 during the midsummer holidays, as they were walk-
 
 SECRET SCHEMES. 121 
 
 ing in the Regent's Park together, " you are low- 
 spirited — you ought to think better of yourself. 
 There's nothing like having a good conceit of our- 
 selves — I soon found that out." 
 
 " But you don't at all understand," said Grace ; 
 " I only say, that many things make me low- 
 spirited, that others would not mind about at all. 
 Now, you know, I ought to help mother — and I 
 will. But, oh Jack, you don't know how I loathe 
 that trumpery satin-stitch and embroidery, and how 
 often I feel to despise women, because they think 
 so much about dress. I wear nothing but these 
 plain cambric collars myself, because I hate those 
 worked ones." 
 
 " But," replied her brother, " you admire every 
 pretty pattern, and every thing that is elegant and 
 graceful ; and every body says there never was 
 such beautiful work as yours. Didn't mother say, 
 this very morning, that there was another order for 
 another dozen of babies' caps ?" 
 
 " Yes, brother," said Grace, " and I could not 
 eat another morsel after I had heard it. I some- 
 times think that I will leave off inventing pat- 
 terns ; but, then, it would be wicked not to help 
 mother to the utmost ; and, now William's at the 
 University, and Margaret is going to school, and 
 now I take French and Italian lessons, I know
 
 122 SECRET SCHEMES. 
 
 that I ought to work even harder thqn ever. I 
 declare, Jack," said she, weeping, " I often pray 
 that God would enable me to do my duty cheer- 
 fully, for it is the doing it cheerfully that is the 
 great thing, after all !" 
 
 "I wish 1 could help you in some way," said 
 Jack. 
 
 " You do help me," was her reply ; " for it is 
 the greatest comfort I have to take these pleasant 
 evening walks with you, now you are at home 
 every day, and to open my whole heart to 
 you." 
 
 " Grace," commenced Jack, cheerfully, as if a 
 new set of ideas had taken possession of his mind, 
 " if you might have just what you liked, and be 
 just what you liked, what would you be ? Very 
 rich, I suppose, wouldn't you ? and have a grand 
 house, somewhere in a grand park, with plenty of 
 deer ; and servants, and carriages, and horses ; 
 and pictures, and statues, and a deal of music ; 
 and fine folks to visit you ? Would that please 
 you?" 
 
 " Not quite, I think," returned Grace, " though T 
 should like the grand house and the pictures, and 
 statues and music, and books, Jack, which you have 
 forgotten."
 
 SECRET SCHEMES. 123 
 
 "You wouldn't do any more satin-stitch or 
 embroidery, I guess ?" said Jack. 
 
 " No " replied Grace, " I would forbid any- 
 body ever to mention the words before me ; and I 
 don't think I should ever touch a needle again as 
 long as I lived." 
 
 "You would do famously," said Jack, "in 
 that island where ready-made shirts, with buttons 
 and button-holes, plaited frills and all, grow upon 
 the trees !" 
 
 " I should be a very princess there," replied 
 Grace, " and I would do nothing then but read and 
 draw. And, by the bye, did I show you my little 
 etching on copper ?" 
 
 " It has turned out well, has it ?" asked Jack. 
 
 " I think so," said Grace, " for a first attempt ; 
 I should never despair of quite succeeding, if I had 
 only time. How useful that Encyclopaedia has 
 been to us." 
 
 " And yet it was the satin-stitch that helped you 
 to buy it," said Jack. 
 
 " I have a notion," said Grace, without noticing 
 her brother's observation, " that if I had only 
 the time to practice, I should succeed very well ; 
 but I should prefer wood-engraving — I understand 
 it so entirely : and my attempt was really not 
 despicable."
 
 124 SECRET SCHEMES. 
 
 " No," said Jack, " 1 think it was capital." 
 
 " But, you know," continued Grace, " I should 
 never be satisfied to devote as much time as would 
 be needful to any art of this kind, while mother had 
 to struggle with difficulties." 
 
 " And yet I think," said her brother, " if she 
 only knew how you hated this stitch, stitch, stitch- 
 ing, she would not object to your giving it up ; 
 and, in the end, you might get a deal of money by 
 engraving. I know two boys, whose father is an 
 engraver, and they walk the streets with a livery- 
 servant after them." 
 
 " But," said Grace, " it is not common for women 
 to be engravers." 
 
 " Fiddlestick-end !" said Jack, " if that's all the 
 objection." 
 
 " Not quite all," replied Grace ; " but mother 
 might think it a wild experiment, and, perhaps, 
 think me unkind, in not helping her still in the 
 way that seems most natural ; and I heard her 
 say, this very morning, what advantage it would 
 be to her to keep lace of the most expensive 
 kinds, and in greater variety ; and that she had 
 lost one of her best customers, because she could 
 not supply her with such lace, but that she should 
 not think it right to keep it at present, because 
 she had not sufficient capital. Now, if I were to
 
 SECRET SCHEMES. 125 
 
 leave off doing that fine work, mother must hire 
 others to do it, which would lessen her profits, 
 and I, the while, should be making continual 
 demands upon her. If I had only any little way 
 of gaining money independently of the fine work, 
 that I would lay out for myself, and then I would 
 design, and etch, and engrave to my hearths 
 content," 
 
 " I wish you could," Said Jack ; and these few 
 emphatic words brought them again to their own 
 door. 
 
 " I want you to have a walk with me, Grace," 
 said Jack, on his first leave-day, about a week 
 after the holidays were closed. Grace was sitting 
 at her work-table, busied over the last baby's cap 
 of the dozen which had been ordered. " I'll put 
 all these things by for you, for I'm in a prodigious 
 hurry ; I want to have some particular conversation 
 with you." 
 
 Grace was very quick, for she longed to be out 
 in the fresh air ; and she was curious, besides, 
 to know what important topic Jack had in his 
 mind. 
 
 He linked his ungloved hand into her arm, and 
 
 the moment they had left the door he began : " I 
 
 really have found something that you can do, and 
 
 get a deal of money by, too — something quite in 
 
 11
 
 126 SECRET SCHEMES. 
 
 your own way ; and you may go on with the fine 
 work at the same time, and nobody else know any 
 thing about it at present, but you and me ; and then, 
 if it doesn't succeed — but it will succeed, and so I 
 won't fancy any thing else." 
 
 " But what is it, dear brother ?" interrupted 
 Grace. 
 
 "You know all about calico-printing," said 
 Jack ; " printing ladies' dresses — those beautiful 
 muslins." 
 
 " No, indeed, I know nothing about it," replied 
 Grace. 
 
 " Nonsense !" said he ; " you know that those 
 beautiful patterns are all drawn first upon paper ; 
 and very clever people — sometimes artists — design 
 them, and a great deal of money is often paid for 
 first-rate patterns, and many people get their 
 living by doing nothing else but designing and 
 drawing patterns." 
 
 " And you think I could design and draw thera ?" 
 asked Grace. 
 
 " I'm sure of it," he replied ; " you cohIu do it 
 beautifully — I should not wonder if you got twenty 
 guineas for one design." 
 
 " Impossible !" said Grace ; " twenty guineas 
 can never be given for a single pattern."
 
 SECRET SCHEMES. 127 
 
 " But it is !" said Jack. " Now, I know a boy, 
 his name is Ferrand, and his father does nothing 
 else but design patterns. He lives at Mr. Aukland's 
 print-works. I have been often at his house, for 
 Dick and I are rather cronies ; and I have been all 
 over the printing-works, and I understand exactly 
 how every thing is done." 
 
 " But in what kind of way are these patterns 
 drawn?" asked Grace. 
 
 " Very nicely drawn, and colored exactly ; — but, 
 dear me," said Jack, interrupting himself, " I've 
 three or four in my pocket that I begged, for I 
 thought of you directly." 
 
 " You are a dear, kind creature,'^ said Grace. 
 
 Jack produced the patterns. " You see," said 
 he, " they are made to look exactly as they are 
 meant to be; but these are nothing extraordi- 
 nary — quite common things, that they set no 
 store by." 
 
 "The patterns are nothing," said Grace, "but 
 they are all I need." 
 
 " Mr. Ferrand said," continued Jack, " that they 
 were always wanting new patterns, and that they 
 would give any money for something very original 
 for next spring, because printed muslins were to be 
 all the rage. I told him I knew a young person — 1 
 didn't say lady — that would do him some better
 
 128 SECRET SCHEMES. 
 
 things than he had ever seen, and that I would 
 bring him some. He seemed very much pleased, 
 and asked me to have some brandy-and-water with 
 him." 
 
 " But you did not, I hope," interrupted Grace, 
 " No, I didn't drink any," said Jack, " I only 
 sipped at the glass ; and he told me he used to 
 design a great many himself, but that of late his 
 hand had been out. " 
 
 Grace thanked her brother sincerely, and promised 
 that she would try what she could do. The next 
 morning she was up early, and, instead of either 
 reading Italian or French, as had been her custom, 
 sat down to catch and realize, if she could, some of 
 the phantom designs which had floated through her 
 brain, even in her dreams. It was several days 
 before she produced any thing that at all satisfied 
 herself; but after that time she began to design 
 rapidly, one combination suggesting another entirely 
 different. Some were formal Chinese-like things, all 
 angles and interlacings — a gorgeous mass of color ; 
 others, light floating sprays and blossoms, like gos- 
 samer threads and nodding flowers, heavy with dew. 
 She grew delighted with her own work, and, full 
 of confidence, went on with amazing success. 
 There was one particular pattern, however, 
 which she considered worth all the rest, for its ori- 
 ginality of design, and bold, yet faultless, coloring.
 
 6ECRET SCHEMES. 1^9 
 
 She tried again and again, but to her judgment could 
 produce nothing at all equal to it. She called it the 
 acanthus-pattern, because the first idea was sug- 
 gested, though she hardly knew how, by an acan- 
 thus-leaf upon a Grecian capital, among the marbles 
 of the British Museum, and that particular leaf, 
 most accurately sketched, continued in the design. 
 Jack was with her at the time she sketched the leaf; 
 and one little fact connected with that circumstance 
 made it memorable. But more of that in its place. 
 
 Twelve of Grace's best designs, and the acan- 
 thus-pattern, of course, among them, were carried 
 by Jack, on his next holiday, to Mr. Ferrand, who 
 in the interim had, through his son, reminded him 
 of his promise. 
 
 " Now I have brought you some thing," said he, 
 opening the little portfolio, in which Grace had 
 carefully laid the designs ; " you never saw such as 
 these, Mr. Ferrand." 
 
 Jack arranged them on the table, as he thought, 
 most advantageously. " What do you say to them, 
 Mr. Ferrand ?" asked he, as that person delayed 
 to give an opinion, though he could not conceal 
 his surprise. 
 
 " I say," said he, " that I have seen worse, and I 
 may have seen better ; but all depends upon trial," 
 added he, gathering them up.
 
 130 SECRET SCHEMES. 
 
 " But, Stop," said Jack, seizing the acanthus, " is 
 not that a beauty ?" 
 
 "It's not an ugly thing," replied Mr. Ferrand, 
 coolly. 
 
 " What may such a design as that be worth ?" 
 asked Jack. 
 
 " A nnatter of ten or fifteen shillings," said the 
 other. 
 
 " Ten or fifteen shillings !" replied Jack ; 
 *'why, Mr. Ferrand, there is not such a design 
 as that in all Mr. Aukland's works ; and you 
 said you would give any money for some original 
 designs." 
 
 "Pho! Pho!" said Mr. Ferrand; ''but come 
 here's two sovereigns for you, for the whole batch 
 of them ; and I can't stand argufying," added he, 
 taking up his hat, and dropping the designs very 
 deliberately into his pocket. 
 
 "The designs are not mine," said Jack, think- 
 ing Mr. Ferrand meant to be dishonest, " and I 
 brought them neither to give, nor yet to sell, at 
 this rate !" 
 
 "Pocket your two sovereigns, and be off with 
 you," said Ferrand, growing red in the face. 
 
 "You are not behaving at all like a gentleman," 
 said Jack, doggedly, but without touching the 
 money.
 
 SECRET SCHEMES. 131 
 
 " Will you take these, and be off with you ?" 
 said the other, again putting the sovereigns to- 
 wards him. 
 
 " No," said Jack, " but I'll have the designs back 
 again." 
 
 " Will you ?" exclaimed Ferrand, now growing 
 pale with passion ; " we'll see, then !" and, taking 
 Jack by the shoulders, and not very gently either, he 
 turned him out of the house. 
 
 Poor Jack ! In the whole course of his life he 
 had never been in such a passion as he was then. 
 " He's the shabbiest scoundrel in all London," said 
 he, as, in the very childishness of his rage, he flung 
 a stone against the black wooden gates within which 
 Mr. Ferrand's house stood. 
 
 " And what shall I say to poor Grace ?" thought 
 he, when tlie first ebullition of his anger was over ; 
 and, from having walked with impetuous speed, 
 he now relaxed into a saunter. " What a fine 
 fellow I shall seem to her, after all the swagger I 
 made about the money she was to get, and which 
 she ought to have got ; for there never were such 
 beautiful designs seen ! Pve a good mind to go to 
 Mr. Aukland myself," said he, speaking aloud, in the 
 very energy of his perplexity, "and tell him all 
 about it ; for that Ferrand is a downright shabby, 
 swindling fellow !"
 
 133 SECRET SCHEMES. 
 
 " Thy language is somewhat free for thy years," 
 said a cahn voice behind, which made Jack suddenly 
 turn round. It was a middle-aged Quaker, who, in 
 his plain brown suit, and well-varnished brown 
 walking-cane, was leisurely bending his steps to- 
 wards some anti-slavery or Bible meeting. 
 
 " And no wonder, sir," said Jack, in reply to 
 his observation, " for 1 have been shamefully 
 swindled." 
 
 " What may thy case be ?" asked the Friend. 
 
 Jack told him exactly, and about the acanthus- 
 pattern also, and concluded by saying, that " Fer- 
 rand was the greatest swindler in all London." 
 
 " Thou certainly hast not been well-used," replied 
 the Friend, " if those designs of which thou speakest 
 are worth more than the two sovereigns." 
 
 "They are worth ten times the money, sir," 
 said Jack, with emphasis. 
 
 " See the man again," said the Quaker, " and 
 calmly represent to him the injustice of his con- 
 duct ; but be calm, my young friend," said he, 
 laying his hand kindly on Jack's shoulder, " for 
 anger produces nothing but evil ; and if he still 
 refuses to restore thee either thy property or its 
 true value, thou shouldst see John Aukland, this 
 person's emplo -er ; he is an upright man, and 
 will not see injustice done to thee. And, further,
 
 SECRET SCHEMES. 133 
 
 I advise thee," said the Friend, beginning to 
 quicken his pace, " to moderate thy temper. Go 
 home now, and tell thy sister of this man's un- 
 fair conduct ; and if she be, as thou sayest, so 
 excellent and so amiable, she will not blame thee. 
 Farewell !" 
 
 Jack thought there was good sense in what the 
 Quaker advised, and, accordingly, calming himself 
 into as much stocial philosophy as he was capa- 
 ble of, he related to Grace the end of this grand 
 scheme. Grace did not belie tlie character which 
 Jack had given of her, /or she did not blame him; 
 on the contrary, she assumed an indifference which 
 she did not feel, and, both by word and manner, 
 did all in her power to reconcile poor Jack to 
 himself. 
 
 In a week or two, on his very first leave-day, 
 he went again to Mr, Ferrand, and inquired after 
 the designs, with as much politeness as he could 
 possibly assume. Mr. Ferrand far more than 
 equalled him in civility ; he apologized for his 
 former rudeness ; he was sorry he had used vio- 
 lence towards him. As to the designs, they had 
 turned out absolutely nothing ; there was no 
 judging of a design in paper ; every one must be 
 tried with the blocks and proper dyes, before an 
 opinion could be formed of its worth ; not one
 
 134 SECRET SCHEMES. 
 
 design out of ten worked well on the calico. 
 Upon his honor, he assured Jack, that not one of 
 them was worth a i Tthing ; but he had not time 
 then to spare. Jack was confounded by his civil 
 wordiness, but he did not believe even his protesta- 
 tions ; before, howc"er, he could frame an answer, 
 Mr. Ferrand was gone. 
 
 Outside the gate was a gentleman alighting from 
 his phaeton. " Was it Mr. Aukland ;" inquired 
 Jack ; for he thouglit, spite of Mr. Ferrand's polite 
 protestations, he w vjld take the Quaker's advice, 
 and relate the whole affair to him. " Was it," he 
 asked, " Mr. Aukland ?" The answer was affirma- 
 tive. The moment Jack spoke of designs, Mr. 
 Aukland referred him to Mr. Ferrand— he was the 
 proper person, and to him he must go. " But," — 
 said Jack. " These are matters I have nothing to 
 do with," interrupted Mr. Aukland, impatiently ; " I 
 can not be detained." Mr. Aukland bustled through 
 the black gates, the groom leisurely drove the 
 phaeton down the street, and Jack walked away 
 more discontented than ever.
 
 135 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 LA BELLE FLORA. 
 
 As month after month rolled on, if Grace thought 
 less of her disappointed hopes, she found that any 
 chance of emancipation from the needle was more 
 distant than ever; for her salin-stitch and em- 
 broidery grew more in demand every day. Mrs. 
 Walsingham often thought Grace was too closely 
 confined, and she devised many little schemes of 
 pleasure, many little excursions into the country, 
 to diversify, as much as might be, the monoto- 
 nous life of her daughter. Several young women, 
 it is true, were now associated rvith Grace in her 
 tasks ; but as she had no talent for instructing 
 others, each was left to her own abilities, and, as 
 might be expected, not one equalled her. Mrs. 
 Walsingham's customers, therefore, soon learned 
 to distinguish her work froiii Lh-'t of all others ; 
 and, had poor Grace, like the goddess of the 
 Ephesians, been gifted with six hands instead of 
 two, she might fully have employed them all.
 
 136 LA- BELLE FLOHA. 
 
 " Now, Mrs. Walsingham," said that same Mrs. 
 Aukland, who, in the early days of the little shop, 
 had triumphantly carried off the damaged doll at 
 less than its prime cost, and who had just now 
 alighted from her carriage, " I want another velvet 
 dress for my August!is, embroidered in gold thread." 
 Mrs. Walsingham bowed her thanks. 
 
 " But I must have a perfectly original design — 
 some thing very striking, and very new," said the 
 lady. 
 
 " I have no doubt of our pleasing you," replied 
 Mrs. Walsingham, 
 
 " The last dress that he had," the lady continued, 
 " was the sweetest thing I ever saw ; many gentle- 
 men, artists, noticed it, and pronounced the style 
 perfect." 
 
 " And you now wish for some thing quite unlike 
 this ?" inquired Mrs. Walsingham. 
 
 " Of a style quite dissimilar," said the lady, "for 
 though that dress is still as good as new, it has 
 been so imitated by every body, that I can not bear 
 to see the child in it. It is so very impertinent of 
 people to imitate one I" 
 
 Mrs. Walsingham suggested that it might be 
 taken as a compliment, and then proceeded to lay 
 several of Grace's newest designs for such work 
 before her. She did not quite approve of any of
 
 LA BELLE FLORA. 137 
 
 these ; she wanted some thing very different — very 
 striking and original. ^' And, remember, Mrs. 
 Walsingham," said she, " that I purchase the 
 pattern, which is to be destroyed the moment it is 
 done with." 
 
 It was then agreed that fresh patterns were to be 
 designed, and sent by post for her choice. Two 
 guineas were to be paid for the embroidering, and 
 two also for the pattern ; and Mrs. Walsingham 
 was to furnish the velvet and gold thread. These 
 important preliminaries being thus arranged, the 
 lady passed forth to her splendid carriage. During 
 Easter week. Jack had the pleasure of morning 
 strolls through the streets of London, with 
 the joyful prospect of dining at home each 
 day. Towards noon, however, on the '^Thursday, 
 he came in with a very hurried air, and 
 begged Grace would go with him into Regent 
 Street, for that he had some thing very strange 
 to show her. Not a word could Grace obtain 
 from her brother, as to the object of their walk ; 
 " it was a some thing," he said, " which was 
 worth seeing." 
 
 ♦' And now," said he, " as he suddenly stopped 
 
 before a fashionable shop, the windows of which 
 
 were filled with dresses of the newest spring 
 
 fashions, " what do you see there ?" Grace made 
 
 12
 
 138 LA BELLE FLORA. 
 
 a rapid survey, and then, with a sudden start, 
 exclaimed, " The acanthus-pattern ! and how beau- 
 tiful it is !" 
 
 " And what a false-hearted scoundred that was !" 
 exclaimed he, losing all sense of the beauty of the 
 pattern in his extreme indignation. 
 
 "It must be my own design," said Grace, 
 thoughtfully, " for no one else would conceive 
 exactly the same idea !" 
 
 " It's your own, and nobody else's," said 
 Jack ; " and I'll tell you why : don't you remember 
 sketching it that night at the British Museum — 
 and the little mouse's face in the middle of the 
 acanthus leaf ?" 
 
 " Yes," said Grace, smiling, " and there it is, to 
 be sure !" 
 
 " And you threw that scarlet flower, that ecry- 
 mocarpus across it, and I declared that it still peeped 
 through — and so it does, though nobody but you or 
 I would find it out." 
 
 " Yes," said Grace, " it must be my design." 
 
 " I'm confident it is !" said Jack ; " but, to make 
 assurance sure, I'll go in and ask whose print 
 it is." 
 
 The people of the shop were not busy just 
 then ; and as Jack put his question to the gentleman 
 of the shop, he received a direct and very civil
 
 LA BELLE FLORA. 
 
 139 
 
 answer. It was, the shop-keeper said, one of Auk- 
 land's, and would be, he expected, the most fashion- 
 able print of the season. It was called la belle 
 Flora. A dress of it had already been worn by the 
 Queen ; but that this was the first day it had been 
 shown in the shops. Jack expressed his thanks, 
 and ran out to communicate what he had heard 
 to his sister. 
 
 " And now," said he, " what had best be done ? 
 for that fellow shall not have the credit of la belle 
 Flora to himself." 
 
 " We must tell mother all about it," replied Grace, 
 " for she is the properest person to give us good 
 counsel. But, dear me, it will be no use making 
 any disturbance about it, for we shall never get any 
 good by it : but still it is a great satisfaction to see 
 that I have succeeded so well, and that the very 
 pattern which pleased me so much, is likely to be a 
 general favorite !" 
 
 "1 tell you what," said Jack, "if there's justice 
 to be had in London, we'll have it ! — and don't 
 you be chicken-hearted now; — that's the fault 
 every body blames women for," said he, half 
 vexed. Grace laughed, and called him her " Cceur 
 de Lion." 
 
 When they got home, they found their mother 
 closely occupied by a constant succession of im-
 
 140 LA BELLE FLORA. 
 
 portant customers ; there seemed no chance of them 
 two being able to speak a word with her before 
 evening. " I'm completely out of patience," said 
 Jack, as he went away from the door of his 
 mother's room ; " she/11 never be at liberty !" At 
 length, however, the door opened, and three 
 ladies, accompanied by his mother, came out. 
 Jack stole softly into the shop after them, intending 
 to secure his mother the moment they were gone. 
 But the lady who had ordered the embroidered 
 velvet dress was alighting from her own carriage, 
 and had entered the shop before Jack had spoken 
 a single word. " I shall not detain you many 
 minutes, Mrs. Walsingham," said the lady ; " and 
 I will remain here, thank you." Jack saw in- 
 stantly that she wore a dress of la belle Flora 
 pattern, and he stole sofily outside the counter, to 
 get a nearer survey. 
 
 " You like these designs, T hope," said Mrs. 
 Walsingham, taking them from the lady's hand. 
 
 " They are all exquisite — the sweetest things I 
 ever saw," replied she ; " but this is my choice." 
 
 "It is ceriainly very striking," said Mrs. Wal- 
 singham, " and will produce great effect." 
 
 " I can not think," said the lady, " how you get 
 such things made ; and then the work itself is so 
 perfect! Do you employ the Jewesses ?"
 
 LA BELLE FLORA. 141 
 
 " Frequently," she replied ; " but these designs 
 are made, and this particular work is done, by my 
 daughter." 
 
 " Indeed !" said the lady, " she must be wonder- 
 fully clever !" 
 
 "That she is!" exclaimed Jack, suddenly pre- 
 senting himself, to the no small astonishment of 
 his mother and the lady ; " and she invented the 
 pattern of that beautiful print which you are wear- 
 ing." 
 
 " Impossible !" said the lady, half laughing. 
 
 " But indeed, ma'am, she did," said Jack, not 
 standing on ceremony, even M'ith a rich lady — 
 " only she has been swindled out of it !" 
 
 " You are a most impertinent boy," returned the 
 lady, "for this print, which is the most fashionable 
 print of the season, was invented by a French gen- 
 tleman, of the name of Du Roc." 
 
 *' They may" say so," returned Jack, steadily ; 
 " and they call it, I know, la belle Flora ; but my 
 own sister Grace herself, and nobody else, designed 
 it, and she called it the acanthus-pattern." 
 
 " This is very extraordinary behavior, Mrs. 
 Walsingharn," said the lady, looking very much 
 insulted. " Pray, who is this boy ?" 
 
 " He is my son," returned Mrs. Walsingharn ; 
 12*
 
 142 LA BELLE FLORA. 
 
 " and the facts which I now hear are quite as ex- 
 traordinary to myself as to you." 
 
 "The/ac^5/" replied the lady — ^' the falsehoods, 
 Mrs. VValsingham; for this print belongs to my 
 husband, Mr. Aukland, the great calico-printer; 
 and every word which this boy has spoken is a 
 gross falsehood !" 
 
 " I trust not," returned Mrs. Walsingham — " at 
 all events, not wilfully false. But how is this, 
 John ?" said she, turning to him, " for I never 
 heard that Grace had designed any patterns for 
 printing." 
 
 "No, mother," returned he, "you never did; 
 nobody ever knew, but Grace and myself, and Mr. 
 Ferrand, and some old Quaker gentleman ; but 
 W'hom 1 do not know : but we were going to tell 
 you all about it directly ; for they've got the pat- 
 tern printed, as you see, and Grace has been 
 swindled out of it ; and now they give it a fine 
 French name, and say it was invented by a French- 
 man!" 
 
 "There must be some mistake about it, John," 
 said his mother; " this, most likely, is not the pat- 
 tern which Grace designed." 
 
 " It is, indeed, mother," returned he, earnestly ; 
 " for I know the pattern as well as if I had drawn 
 it myself!"
 
 LA BELLE FLORA. 143 
 
 " Unless some apology is made for the extreme 
 impertinence of that boy," said Mrs. Aukland, " I 
 shall not again enter this shop !" 
 
 " I understand the whole affair so imperfectly," 
 replied Mrs. Walsingham, with great composure, 
 " that I am not able to judge if he be really as 
 blameable as you suppose." 
 
 " Every word he has uttered," returned she, " is 
 false !" And then giving orders that the velvet 
 dress should be finished, without fail, in two days, 
 she drove off in extreme indignation. 
 
 Quite unperceived by the whole party, an old 
 gentleman had entered the shop while this circum- 
 stance occurred, and he stood a quiet listener to 
 the conversation that passed. He was a stout 
 old gentleman, with a merry eye, and had been an 
 early and constant purchaser of Mrs. Walsingham's 
 nice lamb's-wool stockings. The moment Mrs. 
 Aukland was gone, he burst into a loud fit of 
 laughter, and, clapping Jack on the back, called 
 him a fine fellow, and said that, like John Knox, 
 he was not afraid of the fair face of a gentlewo- 
 man. 
 
 " Sir," replied Jack, " I knew I was right." 
 " That's a fine spirit," said the old gentleman ; 
 " stand up for the right as bold as a lion ! But I'll 
 tell you what, my stout fellow, you've got into a
 
 144 LA BELLE FLORA. 
 
 hornet's nest — this Aukland is a fiery chap, and 
 his lady seems a bit of a Tartar ; but, however, 
 if your sister really did invent that new-fashioned 
 print, that all the world is going mad about, she 
 can do something else perhaps, as good." 
 
 " I am sure, sir, she could," replied Jack. 
 
 " Then here's my hand, my fine fellow ; I'm a 
 sort of calico-printer myself — that is, it's in the 
 family — and if you'll send me a score of designs, 
 only half as good as this fine French thing, I'll make 
 it worth your while." 
 
 " I'll bring them, sir," said Jack ; " but what's 
 your address?" 
 
 " Take them to Wells and Wilson's, the calico- 
 printers, and ask for Mr. Matthew Wilson, any 
 day between ten and two ; I live at the next 
 house, and I'll see you." 
 
 "Thank you, sir," said Jack; and, running up 
 stairs to communicate all his news to Grace, he 
 left Mr. Matthew Wilson and his mother to do 
 their business about the lamb's-wool stockings.
 
 145 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 Mrs. Aukland soon communicated to her hus- 
 band the circumstance which had occurred in Mrs. 
 Walsingham's shop, and how this most insolent of 
 all Blue-coat School boys declared his sister to 
 have invented la belle Flora ; and that, in the pub- 
 lic shop, before she knew not how many shop-wo- 
 men and customers, he insisted that his sister had 
 been swindled out of it. Mr. Aukland, as Mr. 
 Matthew Wilson had said, was a gentleman of a 
 hot temper, and he instantly inquired who had 
 swindled her out of the pattern. " Yourself, of 
 course," returned his wife. " The varlet," muttered 
 Mr. Aukland, and, getting up, he pulled the bell 
 violently. " Bid John take the first omnibus," said 
 he to the footman who answered the bell, " and go 
 and tell Mr. Ferrand, at the works, to come up to 
 me instantly. Let him tell Mr. Ferrand to take a 
 cab, and lose no time." 
 
 Mr. Ferrand, having lost no more time than was 
 necessary to get rid of the fumes of the brandy
 
 146 DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 which he was drinking when the message arrived, 
 made his appearance. " What a monstrous time 
 you are in getting up here," said Mr. Aukland, who 
 having questioned and cross-questioned his wife, 
 found himself in an ill humor with every body. Mr. 
 Ferrand, with alt humility, protested that he had 
 not lost a moment, and that he had even paid 
 an extra sixpence to the cab driver, to make 
 speed. 
 
 " Where did you get the design of la belle 
 Flora ?" asked Mr. Aukland. Ferrand was con- 
 founded at the abruptness of the question ; but, 
 after a moment's pause, he replied, that he had it 
 from one Du Roc, who lodged at Leicester Square. 
 
 •' I remember you said so : that man I must see," 
 said his superior, 
 
 " Nothing easier, sir," replied Ferrand, suppos- 
 ing that Mr. Aukland was thinking of fresh de- 
 signs. 
 
 " There is a family of the name of Walsingham : 
 do you know them ?" asked Mr. Aukland. 
 
 Ferrand felt almost as if a thunderbolt had 
 struck him ; and, uncertain how much his employer 
 knevvT of the la belle Flora affair, he dared not ven- 
 ture upon a direct answer. " Walsingham ?" said 
 he, as if considering with himself. " Yes," said 
 Mr. Aukland, " the mother keeps a haberdasher's 
 shop, or something of that kind. "
 
 DIFFICULTIES. 147 
 
 The tone of his patron's voice reassured Ferrand, 
 and he fearlessly replied, " I know now, sir, who 
 you mean. One of the boys in the Blue-coat 
 School." 
 
 " Have you, at any time," asked Mr. Aukland, 
 " received any designs for printed muslins from that 
 boy, said to be done by his sister ?" 
 
 "Never!" returned Ferrand. "That boy has 
 had old designs from me : I took rather a fancy to 
 him at one time, and he used to come a good deal 
 about the place ; but he grew so impertinent at 
 last, that I was obliged to order him oft' the pre- 
 mises. T have not seen him there since that 
 time." 
 
 " Stop," said Mr. Aukland, putting his fore- 
 finger to his temple, " don't I remember a Blue- 
 coat School boy stopping me at the gate, to ask 
 something about designs which he had brought?" 
 
 " Which he wanted to beg, sir, far more likely, if 
 you will excuse me for interrupting you," said Fer- 
 rand, anxious to pervert the fact in his patron's 
 memory ; " to heg, I will be bound to say, for he 
 was always begging patterns. " 
 
 " It might be to beg," said Mr. Aukland ; — « this 
 boy, however, claims now the invention of la belle 
 Flora for his sister, and declares publicly that she 
 has been swindled out of it by sonie of us."
 
 148 DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 "I would be sorry to injure a widow's son," 
 said Ferrand ; " but that boy vvill come to the gal- 
 lows if he does not mind what he is about : but as 
 to the swindling, sir, of course he means that for 
 me ; and, if you will give me leave, I will take the 
 matter into my own hands. I will see the boy my- 
 self, and stop his mouth." 
 
 " I will thank you to do so, Mr. Ferrand," said 
 his employer: "and you tell his mother from me, 
 that I will have her son prosecuted if I hear of his 
 raentic ning another word on the subject !" 
 
 "I will, sir," was Mr. Ferrand's reply; and, 
 glad to escape, but yet filled with apprehension, he 
 went back to his own house. 
 
 Early the next morning, Ferrand went to the 
 Blue-coat School, desiring to speak with Walsing- 
 ham, 
 
 " Now, my good fellow," began he in a tone of 
 friendly reproof, " you have got us into a pretty 
 scrape about that design of your sister's !" 
 
 "1?" said Jack. 
 
 " Yes, you ! talking about swindling, and all that 
 nonsense, as if one did not mean to do the hand- 
 some thing by you." 
 
 " Was it handsome," replied Jack, " to tell me 
 the patterns were not worth a farthing , and then, 
 when that famous one was printed, go and say a
 
 DIFFICULTIES. 149 
 
 Frenchman had done it ? Was that handsome, Mr. 
 Ferrand?^' 
 
 " But my dear fellow," said Ferrand, " this fa- 
 mous la belle Flora is not your sister's design : I 
 grant you it was taken from it." 
 
 "It is the very same !" asserted Jack, stoutly, 
 twisting his shoulder from Ferrand's hand ; " I 
 know it by the mouse's face !" 
 
 " By the what ?" asked Ferrand. 
 
 " A private mark we set upon it," replied Jack. 
 
 " A private fiddlestick !" returned Ferrand : " but 
 come, I know you are a lad of spirit ; here is 
 five pounds for you, and do not say another word 
 about it !" 
 
 " I scorn your five pounds !" said Jack. 
 
 " Hark ye," returned Mr. Ferrand, not a little 
 alarmed at Jack's steadfastness, " It will be worse 
 for you if you refuse my offer. I stand between 
 you and Mr. Aukland's displeasure, and he vows 
 to have the whole strength of the law on you for 
 defamation, and your mother must pay damages. 
 It will be the ruin of her !" 
 
 " It would break my heart," said Jack, " to bring 
 any trouble on my mother. But what have I done, 
 that I need fear Mr, Aukland, or any body else ? 
 I only have said what you know to be true ; and I'll 
 stick to it — that I will ! — and I won't tako your five 
 13
 
 150 DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 pounds," added he, putting both his hands behind 
 hill), as if to remove them from the temptation. Mr. 
 Ferrand swore a fierce oath that he would make 
 him repent, and that he would be the ruin of them 
 all; and then, turning out of the court, stalked 
 swiftly to Leicester Square. 
 
 To his friend Du Roc he communicated the un- 
 toward circumstance which had occurred ; and it 
 was agreed that Du Roc should acknowledge the 
 idea of la belle Flora to have been derived from a 
 design of Grace Walsingham's, and that a pattern 
 should be drawn, having some resemblance to it, 
 which should be brought forward as hers. This 
 was accordingly done. The paper was assidu- 
 ously soiled and crumpled, to give it a worn 
 look ; and with this the two set off for the print- 
 works. 
 
 Ferrand, with a sufRciently unembarrassed and 
 honest look, told his patron that he had now learned 
 what he was not before aware of, that la belle 
 Flora was in reality originated by a design of very 
 moderate merit, made by this Miss Walsingham, 
 which he supposed her brother had brought, and 
 which, he protested, he had never seen ; and this, 
 he added, explained the boy's speaking to Mr. 
 Aukland on the subject of designs. Du Roc then 
 look up the word, and said that this design had
 
 DIFFICULTIES. 151 
 
 been brought by young Walsingham one day when 
 he was at Ferrand's ; and that he had carried it 
 home with him, and worked out la belle Flora from 
 it. He had been fortunate enough, he said, to find 
 it, and had now brought it with him. After feeling 
 first in one pocket, and then in another, as if un- 
 certain where he had put a thing of so little value, 
 he drew it forth. 
 
 All this seemed straight-forward, and perfectly 
 probable, and Mr. Aukland professed himself satis- 
 fied. He then desired Ferrand to take this design 
 to Miss Walsingham, and convince her of her 
 mistake. " And since," added he, "the idea of this 
 successful design was suggested by her, I am not 
 unwilling to give her five or ten guineas : you can 
 arrange it, Mr. Ferrand, as you see best ; but let 
 her family perfectly understand, that this discharges 
 all obligation on my part ; and that I will pros- 
 ecute any one who couples my name with swind- 
 ling !" 
 
 So far Ferrand thought they had managed admi- 
 rably, and taking Du Roc with him, they set out 
 for Mrs. Walsingham's. Ferrand felt that his task 
 here was much more difficult than with Mr. Auk- 
 land ; but, as it was no use standing on trifles, 
 he must even tell the falsehood boldly, and stick 
 to it.
 
 152 DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 " You are under a strange mistake about this 
 printed musiio, Miss Walsingham," said he, " as I 
 am sure you will confess in a moment. Your de- 
 sign was not this la belle Flora." 
 
 " Indeed, Mr. Ferrand," replied Grace, firmly, " it 
 is precisely that which my brother took you," 
 
 " With your permission," said Du Roc, " I will 
 show you your own ; or, if it is not your own, that, 
 at least, which gave me the fortunate idea of la 
 belle Flora ;" and he presented to her the false 
 design. 
 
 " That," said Ferrand, " is the very thing your 
 brother brought to me. I would swear to it in any 
 court in England !" 
 
 " This is no design of mine," said Grace, hand- 
 ing it to her mother, with a look that expressed her 
 astonishment. 
 
 " Gentlemen," said Mrs. Walsingham, after she 
 had carefully examined it, " although I never saw 
 my daughter's design for the printed muslin, I am 
 convinced that this is not done by her. There is 
 some unjustifiable attempt here ; for it is not even 
 the paper we have been in the habit of using. 
 
 " Do ladies always use the same paper?" asked 
 Du Roc, sarcastically : " might not this be the 
 back of a letter ?" Grace said that her finished de- 
 signs were never made on the backs of letters.
 
 DIFFICULTIES. 153 
 
 Ferrand grew very hot and uneasy, and declared 
 that he would swear to that being the design which 
 young Walsingham had brought. 
 
 " I have four several designs of this pattern," 
 said Grace, " from the very first idea to its finished 
 state, and my own actual knowledge can not be thus 
 imposed upon." 
 
 " Would the young lady permit him the sight of 
 those things ?" asked Du Roc. Mrs. Walsingham 
 forbade it. " She was convinced,'' she said, that 
 her daughter was the sole designer of the pattern 
 in question, which had been printed from it, un- 
 altered ; and these copies should only be produced 
 at a proper opportunity. Ferrand and Du Roc 
 then began to speak together, but Ferrand having 
 the louder voice, surpassed the other. He was or- 
 dered, he said, by Mr. Aukland, to forbid any of the 
 family coming near the place ; but still, that he 
 was commissioned by that gentleman to offer Miss 
 Walsingham five, or even ten guineas for the idea 
 which had been worked out by another ; and 
 that, if it was refused, he would go to law with 
 them, and never rest till he had their last shil- 
 ling. 
 
 Grace turned deadly pale, as she heard the angry 
 man's threat, but her mother was unmoved. She 
 would not allow her daughter, she said, to receive 
 13*
 
 154 DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 the money, neither did she believe that the threat 
 which had been expressed had proceeded from Mr. 
 Aukland. 
 
 The Walsinghams' firmness only made Ferrand 
 more desperate ; and, knowing that every thing de- 
 pended upon his maintaining Du Roc to be the 
 author of la belle Flora, he seized an early oppor- 
 tunity to represent his case as forcibly as possible. 
 The Walsinghams, he said, were even more artful 
 and unprincipled than he had imagined, for that 
 this girl now actually denied that to be her sketch 
 from which the design of Du Roc was made, 
 although it was the very thing which her own brother 
 had brought ; that not a word which they said could 
 be believed ; and that mother, son, and daughter, 
 were all alike. They had refused the money, he 
 said, no doubt with the intention of extorting a 
 larger sum ; but that, if he might presume to give 
 advice, they should not have a farthing now ; for 
 that he and Du Roc would swear to la belle Flora 
 in any court, and the Walsinghams could not bring 
 forth a single proof of llieir right to it. Ferrand's 
 words had their effect, and ]\Ir. Aukland bestowed 
 upon the whole Walsingham family the epithet of 
 swindlers. 
 
 Things went on quietly at the print-works for 
 about a week, and Ferr^ind was beginning to feel
 
 DIFFICULTIES. 155 
 
 quite at his ease again ; in the meantime, a little 
 circumstance occurred which we must relate. Mrs;. 
 Aukland had a large evening party, at which Master 
 Augustus appeared in the splendidly embroidered 
 dress ; but it is not of that we would particularly 
 speak — only, as we have lost sight of Grace's 
 needle-work for several pages, we would just let our 
 readers know that the poor girl had been busied over 
 this same dress the while. 
 
 There was a lady among the company wearing 
 a la belle Flora muslin. " You have one of these 
 exquisite dresses !" said another to her. " What 
 a sweet thing it is !" said a third ; and the whole 
 company then began talking of la belle Flora. 
 
 " But have you noticed, Mrs. Aukland," said a 
 young lady, " some thing very odd in this pattern, 
 beautiful as it is ?" She had not — what could it 
 be ? " Something so like a mouse's face — the 
 tiniest little face, as if peeping from behind that 
 scarlet flower!" "You saucy girl!" exclaimed 
 Mrs. Aukland, " you really are quite disagreeable !" 
 " What do you think Miss Welwood says, Mr. 
 Auklaudi" exclaimed several voices; "she has 
 spied out a mouse's foce in la belle Flora ?" " The 
 very same thing may be seen in an acanthus leaf 
 on one of the marbles in the British Museum," 
 said a young man of the party, who was a student
 
 156 DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 of the fine arts ; " and I declare," added he, ex- 
 amining the pattern, '•' this very leaf is copied from 
 it ; I know it so well, for I have copied it myself: 
 and, notice one thing, Mr, Aukland, if you please — 
 the designer of this pattern has thrown that flower 
 over it to correct the effect, or defect, if you will ; 
 but he could not quite have concealed it without 
 injuring the contour of the leaf; it has been done 
 by a person of fine taste." " Is it fair to inquire the 
 designer, Mr. Aukland ?" asked another gentleman. 
 " Perfectly," replied Mr Aukland ; " the designer is 
 a Frenchman of the name of Du Roc." " Well, I 
 would swear to that acanthus leaf any where," said 
 the student. The entrance of Master Augustus in 
 the full glory of his embroidered velvet diverted the 
 thoughts of all from la belle Flora. " Did Du Roc 
 design the elegant style of that embroidery, Mrs. 
 Aukland ?" asked the student, when he could make 
 himself heard through the babble of admiring 
 tongues. " What a strange question," said Mrs. 
 Aukland ; " what could put it in your head ?" The 
 student could not exactly tell, but he had fancied 
 there was a similar spirit in the thing. " Oh no, 
 replied Mrs. Aukland ; " and yet it was designed and 
 worked even by the very person who would fain usurp 
 poor Du Roc's glory in that very la belle Flora !" 
 Every one was at once interested and curious.
 
 DIFFICULTIES. 157 
 
 "Yes,'' she said, " a daughter of Mrs. Walsingham's, 
 
 in -Street : and, by the bye, Mrs. Digby," said 
 
 she, turning to an elerly lady, " I am sorry I recom- 
 mended that woman to you, for they are all a most 
 artful, unprincipled, impertinent set of people!" 
 She then gave an exaggerated account of Jack's 
 championship for his sister ; and then appealed to 
 her husband for his further testimony. He gave it 
 with all the artful coloring of Ferrand's malice, and 
 ended by saying that all the Walsinghams were 
 swindlers. 
 
 There are very few who have not pleasure in 
 believing an evil report ; and most of Mrs. Aukland's 
 visiters went away, giving entire credit to all 
 which had been spoken to the disadvantage of the 
 widow and her family. 
 
 A few days afterwards, Mrs. Digby felt herself 
 compelled, by the remembered glory of the em- 
 broidered velvet dress, to order one similar for her 
 grandson. 
 
 " But I must have it precisely like little Auk- 
 lands's," said she, after she had introduced the 
 subject to Mrs. Walsingham. "That is impos- 
 sible," replied she, " as the pattern was purchased 
 by Mrs. Aukland, and I am bound not to work 
 another precisely the same." " Nonsense, Mrs. 
 Walsingham !" said the lady, " I must have it
 
 158 A FRIEND IN NEED. 
 
 done ! You need not be scrupulous in disobliging 
 Mrs. Aukland :" and then she narrated all that had 
 been said about la belle Flora and her family at the 
 evening party. 
 
 Mrs. Walsingham was shocked and astonished, 
 but she still persisted that she would keep faith with 
 her employers. Mrs. Digby could not understand 
 such punctilious honor in trades-people ; but, as 
 she supposed the artful Mrs. "Walsingham had her 
 own interests to serve, and knew what she was 
 about, she countermanded the order, and drove off, 
 intending to call on Mrs. Aukland, and assure her 
 that every word was true which she had spoken 
 about this designing haberdasher. 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 A FRIEND IN NEED. 
 
 But we must now return to the time of Du Roc's 
 and Ferrand's visit to Mrs. Walsingham. 
 
 No sooner were these two worthies gone, than 
 her first idea was to take counsel with some friend 
 as to the line of conduct which it would be best for 
 her to pursue : but unfortunately Mr. Spenser, the
 
 A FRIEND IN NEED. 159 
 
 friend who naturally occurred to her mind, had set 
 out with all his family for a summer residence in 
 France. William was also gone with them as far 
 as Paris, whence he was to proceed to Leghorn, 
 where he was to reside for the next twelve months 
 with Mr. Spenser's agent there. The next best 
 thing, therefore, seemed to be to write to Mr. Auk- 
 land himself, and to request an interview. She 
 did so ; but his answer was such as Ferrand's ad- 
 vice morally suggested: he treated her offer as a 
 scheme to extort money, and defied her to prove 
 her daughter's claim. But how could that claim 
 be proved ? Grace had her four progressive 
 sketches, but in themselves they contained no proof 
 of design anterior to the printing of the muslin 
 itself. There were the eleven other designs which 
 had accompanied the acanthus : if any of them had 
 been printed they might afford some clue ; but, after 
 all possible inquiry, none of Mr. Aukland's late 
 prints bore any resemblance to them. Witnesses 
 there were none, for the whole thing had been a 
 secret. 
 
 " There is no one in this wide world," said Jack, 
 one holiday, as he sat in counsel with his mother and 
 sister, " that could at all be considered a witness, 
 but that old Quaker gentleman with whom I talked 
 the day 1 took the designs to Ferrand ; but who he
 
 160 A FRIfeNi) IN NEED. 
 
 is, or whether he even lives in London, I don't 
 tnow." 
 
 "And the Quakers," said Grace, '-are all so 
 much alike, that if you attempt to describe one, you 
 describe the whole sect." 
 
 " I'd give any thing to meet him again," said 
 Jack ; " for he said he knew Mr. Aukland ; and I 
 am sure he would bear his testimony for us." 
 
 Mr. Matthew Wilson then presented himself to 
 Mrs. Walsingham's mind ; and, as Grace had de- 
 signed several patterns for him, as he had requested, 
 it was immediately determined that she and Jack 
 should go there, and not only take tliese, but dupli- 
 cates of the eleven which had gone with the acan- 
 thus to Ferrand, and the four progressive sketches 
 of the acanthus also. From him Mrs. Walsingham 
 thought she could ask counsel ; and, as he had 
 spoken of himself as connected with calico-printing, 
 his advice would be still more valuable. 
 
 Mrs. Walsingham and her son were taken through 
 a back part of Wells and Wilson's print-factory, 
 into an inner court, where stood Mr. INIatthew Wil- 
 son's house. The old gentlem.an was courtesy itself; 
 and at the same time that he made himself very 
 merry at the remembrance of Jack confronting the 
 lady, he listened with the utmost interest to the full 
 relation which Mrs. Walsingham gave him, declar-
 
 A FRIEND IN NEED. 161 
 
 ing himself entirely convinced of the justice of their 
 claim. He then sent for patterns of all Aukland's 
 late prints, but still no resemblance could be found 
 between them and the eleven duplicates. He com- 
 pared the finished drawing of the acanthus-pattern 
 with the printed la belle Flora, and there was not a 
 shade of difference. He next took up the new de- 
 signs which Grace had sent for his inspection ; he 
 cursorily turned them over, very little to Jack's 
 satisfaction ; and, merely giving three or four little 
 nods when he had done, said his brother must see 
 these, and then turned to the subject of more imme- 
 diate importance. He said that he, however, was 
 not the person to take up their cause with Mr. Auk- 
 land : it was his brother's partner, Mr. Wells, who 
 must be enlisted in their service ; for that Mr. Auk- 
 land and he were on very good terms. 
 
 A servant was therefore despatched with a request 
 that Mr. Wells would step in ; and in ten minutes' 
 time the identical Quaker, whom Jack had so long 
 looked for in vain, entered. 
 
 "Thou and I have met before, I think," said 
 the good man, eyeing him attentively. Jack, 
 overjoyed, declared that they had, and that their 
 meeting now was the most fortunate thing in the 
 world. 
 
 14
 
 162 A FRIEND IN NEED. 
 
 The whole affair was then related to him, and 
 his friendly interference solicited. Good Samuel 
 Wells needed not to be solicited twice. He ex- 
 amined the duplicate designs and the progressive 
 sketches ; and then, requesting that every detail 
 might be circumstantially reiterated, that he might 
 have a clear idea of every thing, he proposed 
 that Jack should accompany him the next morning 
 to Mr. Aukland's house, "where we will catch 
 him at breakfast, and have him all to ourselves," said 
 the good man. 
 
 Jack said to-morrow was not a holiday, nor 
 even a leave-day, and that, therefore, he could 
 not go. 
 
 " We'll manage it," said Mr. Wells : " my part- 
 ner is friendly with some masters in thy school ; we 
 will get thee liberated, and I will call for thee at 
 eight o'clock to-morrow morning." 
 
 He then wrote to Mr. Aukland, stating the 
 purport of his intended visit, and requesting that, 
 at all events, a patient hearing might be given 
 him. Mr. Aukland, who had his own private 
 motives for not disobliging the rich Quaker, ac- 
 corded the interview, making up his mind, never- 
 theless, not to be convinced, and amusing himself 
 with the thought that the shrewd old Quaker was 
 famously gulled.
 
 A FRIEND IN NEED. 163 
 
 Mrs, Aukland, who had been late the night before 
 at a party, took her breakfast in her chamber ; and 
 Mr. Wells and his companion found Mr. Auk- 
 land quite alone. The subject was introduced, 
 and Mr. Aukland advanced all Ferrand's ar- 
 guments. 
 
 " Thou must now oblige me," said Samuel Wells, 
 " by hearing what I have to say." And he then 
 related his first meeting with Jack, and all that had 
 passed between them at the time. " But thou canst 
 produce," said he to Jack, " those progressive 
 sketches of thy sister's ?" 
 
 Jack laid them proudly before Mr. Aukland. 
 
 " But," said that gentleman, eyeing them care- 
 lessly, " these prove nothing : sketches of this kind 
 may easily be made after any print is pub- 
 lished." 
 
 " Sir," returned Jack, feeling quite hot at the 
 imputation, " this sketch was made months ago. 
 I was with her when she did it in the British 
 Museum, and this is that very acanthus leaf which 
 is in the finished print, only this is copied from an 
 old marble. Indeed, sir, it is : and here's the 
 something like the mouse's face which is in the 
 original." 
 
 " That is not much to the purpose, my young 
 friend," said Samuel Wells.
 
 164 A FRIEND IN NEED. 
 
 " With your permission, sir," said Mr. Auk- 
 land, " it is : allow him to finish what he was 
 saying." 
 
 " I wish some body would go with me to the 
 British Museum," said Jack, " and I would show 
 them the very marble. Grace copied in the 
 mouse's face, because she said it must be right ; 
 and then, because I said I would set a trap to catch 
 it, she said she would give it a flower to run behind; 
 so she threw the ecrymocarpus across the leaf; 
 but the little mouse peeps out still — and so it does 
 in the printed muslin." 
 
 " Very singular this !" said Mr. Aukland ; " but 
 this circumstance of the mouse's face has been 
 noticed before : it was pointed out to me by a young 
 artist ; and he recognized it to be copied from such 
 a leaf in the British Museum." 
 
 Jack made an exclamaion of delight. 
 
 " Stay, sir," said Mr. Aukland, very coolly ; 
 "this proves nothing. Du Roc himself, to whom 1 
 mentioned the circumstance, allowed that he also 
 had copied it from this acanthus leaf." 
 
 " I don't believe lie did, sir," said Jack earnestly. 
 
 " It would be worth thy while, friend Auk- 
 land," said Mr. Weils, " to take both parties to 
 the Museum, and see if both point out the same 
 leaf."
 
 A FRIEND IN NEED. 165 
 
 " I will search the matter to the bottom now, you 
 may depend upon it," replied Mr. Aukland. 
 
 It was accordingly arranged that Mr. Aukland 
 should take Du Roc to the Museum the next morn- 
 ing, and that Grace and her brother should be there 
 also — Mr. Wells having undertaken that Jack should 
 have another leisure-day awarded him for so impor- 
 tant a purpose. 
 
 "But what hast thou here!" said Mr. Wells, 
 as they had risen to depart, putting his hand to- 
 wards some designs for prints, which lay on a side- 
 table. 
 
 " Designs for the next season," said Aukland, 
 keeping his hand upon them, as if unwilling 
 that they should meet the eye of a rival calico- 
 printer. 
 
 " I shall make no ungenerous use of them," ob- 
 served the Friend. 
 
 Mr. Aukland declared that he had not the least 
 suspicion, and gave them into the other's hand. 
 
 " These, or some of them at least," remarked 
 Mr. Wells, " will tend to substantiate this young 
 woman's claim." 
 
 He then proceeded to tell that eleven other de- 
 signs had been furnished by Grace at. the same time 
 with la belie Flora ; and, as he had seen duplicates 
 of them, he could now recognize them again " But 
 14*
 
 166 A FRIEND IX NEED. 
 
 thou canst better point out thy sister's designs," 
 said he, giving them to Jack. 
 
 " Yes," said he, " this is one ; and this, and 
 this !" 
 
 " Very strange, indeed !" remarked Mr, Aukland, 
 who was now beginning to let in doubts readily ; 
 " these were all given to me two weeks ago by Fer- 
 rand, as new designs by himself and Du Roc : — 
 they have cost me a deal of money !" 
 
 '* Eight of them are my sister's," said Jack. 
 
 " Thou wouldpt like to see those duplicates ?" 
 observed Mr. Wells ; " for here, at least, can be no 
 collusion." 
 
 " Undoubtedly I should," returned he. 
 
 " I will send them to thee to-day," he replied ; 
 "I have them safely under lock and key: no one 
 but Matthew Wilson and myself have seen them." 
 
 " I shall say nothing to Ferrand or Du Roc of my 
 suspicion to-day," said Mr. Aukland ; " I will have 
 complete proof first.'' 
 
 " Thou art quite right," returned the other.
 
 167 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 NEW CONNEXIONS. 
 
 The next morning Grace snd her brother were 
 puntually at the British Museum by ten o'clock. 
 In about half an hour Mr. Aukland came, but Du 
 Roc was not with him. 
 
 " This, sir," said Grace, pausing before the 
 fragment of a beautiful Corinthian capital, " is the 
 marble, and this is the very acanthus leaf;" and, 
 showing her first sketch at the same time, Mr. Auk- 
 land perceived the beautiful accuracy of the draw- 
 ing. At that moment the young artist who had 
 recognized the leaf at Mr. Aukland's, and who 
 was then copying an antique in the Museum, 
 came up. 
 
 " Good morning, Mr. Aukland," said he , " you 
 are looking at the acanthus, I see — your belle 
 Flora. Had I been the designer of that beautiful 
 pattern, I would have called it the acanthus." 
 
 " So she did !" exclaimed Jack, involuntarily ; 
 " that was the very name that Grace gave to this 
 pattern !"
 
 168 NEW CONNEXIONS. 
 
 " It was written on the back of my design, sir," 
 said Grace, blushing deeply ; " and, if you will 
 be so very good as to look, you will see it written 
 there." 
 
 " Unless it has been scratched off," said Jack. 
 
 " I expect Du Roc every moment," observed Mr. 
 Aukland, who was beginning to be quite interested 
 in these young people. " You have satisfied me so 
 far; walk on, if you please," 
 
 The young student joined them, for he imme- 
 diately concluded this to be the young person of 
 whom he had heard so unfavorable a report at 
 Mrs. Aukland's, but whose appearance and manner 
 interested him deeply. Jack told him, in a few 
 words, the true history of la belle Flora, and the 
 young artist was more interested than ever. 
 
 " I was sure," said he, " that that beautiful em- 
 broidery and la belle Flora were designed by the 
 same hand." 
 
 After Mr. Aukland's patience was completely 
 exhausted, Du Roc made his appearance. He had 
 the paper, which he professed to be his drawing, in 
 his hand, as he had been told to bring it with him ; 
 and he was evidently most anxiously prying about 
 for some acanthus which might suit it. 
 
 "This, perhaps, is it," said Mr. Aukland, stopping 
 before a broken capital, whose leaves bore no resem- 
 blance whatever to it.
 
 NEW CONNEXIONS. 169 
 
 "Ah! yes — the very one!" reph'ed Du Roc, 
 hoping that any might do : " your apprehension was 
 much quicker than mine ; this is it!" 
 
 " But where is the mouse's face, of which I hear 
 so much ?" demanded Mr. Aukland. 
 
 " Oh, that was one little fancy of my own," re- 
 plied the Frenchm.an. 
 
 " But," said Mr. Auldand, " artists tell me it is 
 very conspicuous in the original." 
 
 Du Roc protested that it was there, and, with the 
 help of fancy, was plainly to be seen. 
 
 "That will do," said Mr. Aukland, now com- 
 pletely convinced ; " you may go about your 
 business !" 
 
 Du Roc bowed low ; and, not suspecting the trap 
 into which he had fallen, adjourned to a tavern for a 
 day's carouse. 
 
 Mr. Aukland examined the back of the paper 
 which Du Roc had left with him, but no writing 
 appeared upon it. 
 
 " Let me see," said the young artist, when this 
 deficiency was pointed out ; and, holding it 
 between his eye and the light, a very careful 
 erasure with the knife was discernible, over 
 which the words la belle Flora had been coarsely 
 written.
 
 170 NEW CONNEXIONS. 
 
 Mr. Aukland was a man of strong impulses, and 
 a violent re-action now took place in his feelings. 
 He parted with the brother and sister in the most 
 cordial manner, and declared that ample justice 
 should be done them. 
 
 How joyful was their return home, our readers 
 may conceive ; and Jack was despatched with the 
 news of their successful visit to the Museum, to 
 good Mr. Wells, to whom they thought it would give 
 great pleasure. 
 
 " I am obliged to thee, my young friend," said 
 Samuel Wells, when Jack had finished his relation ; 
 " thou didst me justice in supposing me interested 
 in your welfare ; and John Aukland, I told 
 thee, was an upright man ; — thy sister will find 
 herself in good hands. But my partner," said 
 he, turning round, with a bustling air, " wishes 
 to see thy sister on business. Bid friend Wilson 
 step here," said he to a clerk, who was passing at 
 that moment. 
 
 Mr. John Wilson, Mr. Wells's partner, appeared: 
 he was a much younger man than either his brother 
 or partner, and belonged altogether to a more modern 
 school. 
 
 " This is our young friend Walsingham," said 
 Samuel Wells : " he tells me that they have com- 
 pletely proved their claim to the new pattern."
 
 NEW CONNEXIONS. 171 
 
 " Aukland will rid himself of his man Ferrand, I 
 should think, now," returned Mr. John Wilson. 
 Samuel Wells thought also, that, without doubt, he 
 would. " But," said he to his partner, " thou hadst 
 better accompany this youth home, and arrange that 
 little business with his sister." 
 
 Jack .hoped they were not going to return the 
 designs ; and, as Mr. John Wilson declared him- 
 self ready to go at that moment, he sounded him 
 by the way, as to his opinion of them : but Mr. 
 John Wilson was a close man of business, and not 
 even Jack could extract the shadow of an opinion 
 from him. 
 
 It seemed a very formidable thing to Grace, to 
 be shut up in a room with this methodical man of 
 business, who introduced the occasion of his call 
 with as much precision as he made his entries in his 
 ledger ; and she proposed, therefore, that her mother 
 should be admitted to their conference. Mr. John 
 Wilson quite approved. He had called, he said, to 
 purchase the twelve designs which had been brought 
 to him the other day ; but, in the first place, he must 
 inquire if they had been seen by, or had been offered 
 to any other house. They had been seen by no one 
 but themselves and her own family, Grace replied. 
 " They were willing, then," said Mr. John Wilson, 
 "to give fifty guineas for them: would that sum
 
 172 NEW COXNEXIONS. 
 
 satisfy her {" " Yes, indeed it would !" replied poor 
 Grace, to whom the idea of possessing fifty guineas 
 of her own, seemed incredible. An important- 
 looking stamped paper, partly printed, and partly 
 fdled up, was then produced, for her to sign, which 
 consigned over all her right and title in those patterns 
 to the house of Wells and Wilson. Grace wrote 
 her name very tremulously — it seemed to her alto- 
 gether like a dream : and when the fifty-two gold 
 sovereigns and a half were counted out before her, 
 the room seemed to turn round. She had been a 
 poor penniless girl but a day before ; she had now 
 signed over mere traces of her pen, which, like 
 actual houses and land, had produced golden coin of 
 the realm ! 
 
 Her mother, and Mr. John Wilson, seemed to be 
 talking very amicably, and Grace was roused out 
 out of her reverie by her mother's voice. " Grace, 
 my love, Mr. Wilson speaks to you !" Grace 
 started, and apologized. 
 
 " He and his partner," he said, " would be ex- 
 tremely glad to engage her as a designer of patterns 
 for the next twelve months, at least." Grace looked 
 at her mother, as if doubtful of her approbation. 
 " Certainly, my dear,-' replied her mother, " if you 
 would like the occupation." Grace then thanked 
 Mr. John Wilson, and said she should be most happy.
 
 NEW CONNEXIONS. 173 
 
 Again, he had a stamped, printed paper in readiness ; 
 and, supplying the blanks as he went on, he read to 
 the purport, that she engaged to furnish, during the 
 next twelve months, for the firm of Wells and V/ilson, 
 original designs, solely and exclusively for their 
 use ; and for which designs she should receive one 
 hundred and fifty guineas : that during the term of 
 her engagement with them, she should not furnish 
 any design, or designs whatsoever, to any other 
 similar house, nor suffer any of her designs to be 
 seen by them. 
 
 Mrs. Walsingham said, their restrictions were 
 perfectly reasonable, and she was sure her daughter 
 Avould be satisfied with the terms. Grace also ex- 
 pressed her thanks. " We may then fill up this 
 agreement," said Mr. John Wilson ; and while he 
 was so doing, the mother and daughter exchanged 
 glances perfectly intelligible, though poor Grace's 
 eyes were glistening with tears. 
 
 " We shall need two witnesses," said Mr. John 
 Wilson ; and the very formality of all this repelled 
 Grace's emotion, and she again wondered to find 
 herself a person of so much importance. 
 
 No sooner was Mr. John Wilson out of the house, 
 than Jack's anns were round Grace's neck, and he 
 was kissing her cheeks and forehead ; for he saw 
 15
 
 174 NEW CONNEXIONS, 
 
 the gold which lay on the table, and his delight #^s 
 too great to satisfy itself in mere words. 
 
 "I shall just finish that set of handkerchiefs 
 for Mrs. Spenser," said Grace, afier the first flush 
 of their happy talk was over, " and then, dearest 
 mother, you must excuse me doing any more fine 
 work." 
 
 " My dear girl," replied her mother, " why should 
 you?" 
 
 " How kind you are," was Grace's reply ; and 
 then Jack began to tell how Grace, for all these 
 years, had done that sort of work without com- 
 plaining, although it was so hateful to her ; and 
 how she v;oi;]d like, of all things, to be an en- 
 graver ; and what schemes they two had had 
 together, but how Grace had determined never to 
 desert her mother till she could obtain more money 
 some other way. 
 
 " The Almighty has blessed you, my dear children," 
 said Mrs. Walsingham, deeply moved ; and, kissing 
 them both, she thanked God for having given her his 
 choicest blessings of life, even in the midst of poverty 
 — virtuous children. 
 
 Jack returned to his school, and Grace sat down 
 to write a long letter to her brother and sister, which 
 she hoped might reach them before William left 
 Paris. "While she was in the very middle of it, Mr.
 
 NEW CONNEXIONS. 175 
 
 Aukland was announced. What a cheerful, cordial 
 man he then seemed ! He shook hands with Grace 
 and her mother, and, as if he had been an old ac- 
 quaintance, sat down in a jfireside chair. He had 
 not dismissed Ferrand, he said, for he was reserv- 
 ing that till he had confronted him on the morrow 
 with Du Roc ; but he had discovered one or two 
 facts since morning, that had further convinced him 
 of his utterly base character. Mrs. Aukland, how- 
 ever, was so wrapped up in Ferrand's wife, who had 
 been her maid, that he should have some trouble to 
 get rid of them ; but at this moment, he said, he was 
 come to make what reparation lay in his power. 
 He had paid, he said, already largely for la belle 
 Flora, but that was no reason why the real author 
 should go unrewarded — he would ofier her ffty 
 pounds. Grace started, and even Mrs. Walsinghani 
 said it was a large sum. Mr. Aukland had his purse 
 in his hand, when Grace, springing up, exclaimed, 
 " No, Mr. Aukland, I will not receive the money. 
 It is enough for me that my favorite design has been 
 successful, and that you acknowledge my right to it. 
 The very charm of that pattern would be gone, sir, 
 if I received its price in money !" 
 
 " But, my dear young lady," argued Mr. Auk- 
 land, " this money you must receive as payment
 
 176 NEW CONNEXIONS. 
 
 for the eleven other designs — all of which I now 
 possess." 
 
 " Sir," said Grace, "it is quite too much. It will 
 be the second fifty I have received to-day." 
 
 " Indeed !" returned Mr. Aukland, with an ex- 
 pression of surprise. 
 
 " I received fifty," continued Grace, " from Mr. 
 John Wilson." 
 
 " What !" said Mr. Aukland, " have you engaged 
 yourself to him ?" 
 
 " I have, sir," replied Grace, " for the next twelve 
 months." 
 
 Mr. Aukland struck his fist upon the table, and 
 looked very much disappointed. " That old Quaker," 
 said he, " is more than a match for us all ! — well, I 
 really am vexed ; I thought to have made sure of 
 you !" 
 
 Grace found all at once that she was become a 
 very important person ; and she could not help 
 wondering what would happen next. 
 
 The next event which occurred, was the arrival 
 of a spendid gold bracelet, beautifully worked in the 
 style of the acanthus pattern ; of which, in a most 
 friendly note, Mr. Aukland begged her acceptance. 
 Du Roc, he added, in a postscript, had left the 
 country, and Ferrand had confessed all; but he had 
 not yet been dismissed entirely from his service, 
 because Ferrand's wife had friends at court.
 
 177 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 Let us now pass over upwards of twelve months, 
 and look in upon the Walsingham family on the 
 evening of Christmas day. 
 
 Grace had fulfilled her engagement with Wells 
 and Wilson so much to their satisfaction — so much, 
 indeed, to the advantage of their yearly balance- 
 sheet — that they offered her her own terms for a 
 second twelve month's engagement. But the desire 
 of her heart was now to be accomplished; and, with 
 the advice of the friendly young artist who had met 
 them in the British Museum, and who ever since had 
 been a welcome visiter at their fireside, she had 
 devoted herself to engraving, with every prospect of 
 success. Jack, who was now just fifteen, had left 
 the Blue-coat School, and was Svefang man's apparel 
 — a very goodly and pleasant-countenanced youth ; 
 and William, too, who had but lately returned from 
 his travels, had shot up, at once, into a ni?ai. Mary 
 and Margaret also, were both spenJirg their holi- 
 days at home. 
 
 In all the wide, rich world of London, there was 
 no more happy Christmas fireside than that of good 
 Mrs. Walsingham !
 
 178 CONCLUSION. 
 
 " What an old fellow I must be," said Jack, " if a 
 man's age is to be reckoned by what he can remem- 
 ber ! I can remember many strange things in my 
 days. I can remember, mother, when you first came 
 here, and I spent my first holiday at h9i?ie— you 
 were very low-spirited then !" 
 
 " God has wonderfully blessed me !" said his 
 mother. 
 
 "And I can remember your great misfortune, 
 Maggie," said he, " when you broke the wax-doll ; 
 and I can remember teaching you English Gram- 
 mar, William ; and Mary, I remember ypur first 
 silk frock ; and, Mistress Grace," said he, with the 
 most arch smile in the world, " what can't I remem- 
 ber about you ! — all the bags, and purses, ^nd babies' 
 caps, and embroidered hstndkerchiefs, and satin- 
 stitch collars that I have seen you do." 
 
 " I can bear to hear of it," said Grace, smiling. 
 
 " And then, I can remember your saying," con- 
 tinued Jack, " or some body told me that you said, 
 you were to be the only useless member of the family ! 
 Bless me, what wonderful things one lives to see. I 
 can remember thinking, too, that 1 should be Arch- 
 bishop of Canterbury, or my Lord Chancellor, pr 
 some thing very grand ; but by living to my lime of 
 life, I've seen things change a good (Jeal. You, 
 mother, are becoming a tolerably rich woman ;
 
 CONCLUSION. 179 
 
 Maggie will be the lady of the family ; William 
 has been in foreign parts, and may die a great 
 merchant ; Mary is a travelled lady, too, with dozens 
 of silk gowns, for any thing I know; and dear little 
 Grace, here, will beat Angelica Kauffman, and 
 Artemisia Gentilescki hollow, with money only for 
 the asking ; while I, your very obedient servant, 
 instead of being either a Right Reverend Bishop, 
 or his Lordship of the woolsack, must e'en take 
 to shop-keeping, dear mother, and help you ; and 
 really," said he, in his own heartsome voice, " when 
 my hair is grown, I shall be a very decent fellow 
 behind a counter ! What say you all ?" 
 
 Every eye was turned on Jack with the most 
 beaming affection, but he did not get many words 
 in reply. 
 
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