****<*
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 .IRVINE 
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 IRVINE 
 
 GIFT OF 
 
 MR. H. B. McAfee
 
 MY NOVEL;" 
 
 OR, 
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 
 
 BY PISISTRATUS CAXTON. 
 
 u WTf\ 
 SIR EDWAR BULWER LYTTON, BART. 
 
 " NKQUE ENIM NOTARE SINGULOS MENS EST MIHI, 
 VERAM IPSAM VITAM ET MORES HOMINUM OSTENDERE." 
 
 Phcedrus. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 
 JOHN W. LOVELL COMPANY, 
 
 14 AND 16 VESEY STREET. 
 
 1883.
 
 MY NOVEL. 
 
 BOOK FIRST. 
 
 INITIAL CHAPTER. 
 
 SHOWING HOW MY NOVEL CAME TO BE WRITTEN. 
 
 SCENE, The Hall in Uncle Roland's Tower TIME, Night 
 SEASON, Winter. 
 
 Mr. Caxton is seated before a great geographical globe, 
 which he is turning round leisurely, and "for his own re- 
 creation," as, according to Sir Thomas Browne, a philoso- 
 pher should turn round the orb of which that globe pro- 
 fesses to be the representation and effigies. My mother 
 having just adorned a very small frock with a very smart 
 braid, is holding it out at arm's-length, the more to admire 
 the effect. Blanche, though leaning both hands on my 
 mother's shoulder, is not regarding the frock, but glances 
 toward PISISTRATUS, who, seated near the fire, leaning back 
 in the chair, and his head bent over his breast, seems in a 
 very bad humor. Uncle Roland, who has become a great 
 novel-reader, is deep in the mysteries of some fascinating 
 third volume. Mr. Squills has brought The Times in his 
 pocket for his own special profit and delectation, and is now 
 bending his brows over "the state of the money market," 
 in great doubt whether railway shares can possibly fall 
 lower ; for Mr. Squills, happy man ! has large savings, and 
 does not know what to do with his money, or, to use his 
 own phrase, " how to buy in at the cheapest, in order to sell 
 out at the dearest." 
 
 MR. CAXTON (musingly). It must have been a mon-
 
 4 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 strous long journey. It would be somewhere hereabouts, 
 I take it, that they would split off. 
 
 My MOTHER (mechanically, and in order to show Austin 
 that she paid him the compliment of attending to his re- 
 marks). Who split off, my dear ? 
 
 " Bless me, Kitty," said my father, in great admiration, 
 "you ask just the question which it is most difficult to 
 answer. An ingenious speculator on races contends that 
 the Danes, whose descendants make the chief part of our 
 northern population (and indeed, if his hypothesis could be 
 correct, we must suppose all the ancient worshippers of 
 Odin), are of the same origin as the Etrurians. And why, 
 Kitty I just ask you, why ?" 
 
 My mother shook her head thoughtfully, and turned the 
 frock to the other side of the light. 
 
 " Because, forsooth," cried my father, exploding " be- 
 cause the Etrurians called their gods ' the yEsar,' and the 
 Scandinavians called theirs the ^Esir, or Aser ! And where 
 do you think this adventurous scholar puts their cradle ?" 
 
 " Cradle !" said my mother, dreamily "it must be in 
 the nursery." 
 
 MR. CAXTON. Exactly in the nursery of the human 
 race just here [and my father pointed to the globe], 
 bounded, you see, by the river Halys, and in that region 
 which, taking its name from Ees, or As (a word designa- 
 ting light or fire), has been immemorially called Asia. 
 Now, Kitty, from Ees or As our ethnological speculator 
 would derive not only Asia, the land, but ^Esar, or Aser, its 
 primitive inhabitants. Hence he supposes the origin of 
 the Etrurians and the Scandinavians. But if we give him 
 so much, we must give him more, and deduce from the 
 same origin the Es of the Celt and the Ized of the Persian, 
 and what will be of more use to him, I dare say, poor man, 
 than all the rest put together the yEs of the Romans, that 
 is, the God of Copper-Money a very powerful household 
 god he is to this day ! 
 
 My mother looked musingly at her frock, as if she were 
 taking my father's proposition into serious consideration. 
 
 "So perhaps," resumed my father, "and not uncon- 
 formably with sacred records, from one great parent horde 
 came all those various tribes, carrying with them the -name 
 of their beloved Asia ; and, whether they wandered north, 
 south, or west, exalting their own emphatic designation of 
 'Children of the Land of Light' into the title of gods.
 
 VARIETIES Iff ENGLISH LIFE. 5 
 
 And to think " (added Mr. Caxton pathetically, gazing upon 
 that speck in the globe on which his forefinger rested), 
 " to think how little they changed for the better when they 
 got to the Don, or entangled their rafts amidst the icebergs 
 of the Baltic so comfortably off as they were here, if they 
 could but have stayed quiet." 
 
 "And why the deuce could not they?" asked Mr. 
 Squills. 
 
 " Pressure of population, and not enough to live upon, 
 I suppose," said my father. 
 
 PISISTRATUS (sulkily). More probably they did away 
 with the Corn Laws, sir. 
 
 " Papa!" quoth my father; "that throws a new light 
 on the subject." 
 
 PISISTRATUS (full of his grievances, and not caring three 
 straws about the origin of the Scandinavians). I know that 
 if we are to lose ,500 every year on a farm which we hold 
 rent-free, and which the best judges allow to be a perfect 
 model for the whole country, we had better make haste and 
 turn JEsir, or Aser, or whatever you call them, and fix a set- 
 tlement on the property of .other nations otherwise, I sus- 
 pect, our probable settlement will be on the parish. 
 
 MR. SQUILLS (who, it must be remembered, is an enthu- 
 siastic Free-trader). You have only got to put more capital 
 on the land. 
 
 PISISTRATUS. Well, Mr. Squills, as you think so well of 
 that investment, putyeur capital on it. I promise that you 
 shall have every shilling of profit. 
 
 MR. SQUILLS (hastily retreating behind The Times). I 
 don't think the Great Western can fall any lower ; though 
 it is hazardous I can but venture a few hundreds 
 
 PISISTRATUS. On our land, Squills ? Thank you. 
 
 MR. SQUILLS. No, no anything but that on the Great 
 Western. 
 
 Pisistratus relaxes into gloom. Blanche steals up coax- 
 ingly, and gets snubbed for her pains. 
 
 A pause. 
 
 MR. CAXTON. There are two golden rules of life : one 
 relates to the mind, and the other to the pockets. The first is 
 If our thoughts get into a low, nervous, aguish condition, 
 we should make them change the air ; the second is com- 
 prised in the proverb, " It is good to have two strings to 
 one's bow." Therefore, Pisistratus, I tell you what you must 
 do Write a Book !
 
 6 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 PISISTRATUS. Write a Book ! Against the abolition of 
 the Corn Laws ? Faith, sir, the mischief's done. It takes a 
 much better pen than mine to write down an Act of Parlia- 
 ment. 
 
 MR. CAXTON. I only said " Write a book." All the rest 
 is the addition of your own headlong imagination. 
 
 PISISTRATUS (with the recollection of The Great Book ris- 
 ing before him). Indeed, sir, I should think that that would 
 just finish us ! 
 
 MR. CAXTON (not seeming to heed the interruption). A 
 book that will sell. A book that will prop up the fall of 
 prices ! A book that will distract your mind from its dismal 
 apprehensions, and restore your affection to your species, 
 and your hopes in the ultimate triumph of sound principles 
 by the sight of a favorable balance at the end of the yearly 
 accounts. It is astonishing what a difference that little cir- 
 cumstance makes in our views of things in general. I re- 
 member when the bank in which Squills had incautiously left 
 ^1,000 broke, one remarkably healthy year, that he became 
 a great alarmist, and said that the country was on the verge 
 of ruin ; whereas you see now, when, thanks to a long suc- 
 cession of sickly seasons, he has a surplus capital to risk in 
 the Great Western, he is firmly persuaded that England was 
 never in so prosperous a condition. 
 
 MR. SQUILLS (rather sullenly). Pooh, pooh. 
 
 MR. CAXTON. Write a book, my son write a book. 
 Need I tell you that Money or Moneta, according to Hy- 
 ginus, was the mother of the Muses ? Write a book. 
 
 BLANCHE and my MOTHER (in full chorus). O yes, Sisty 
 a book a book ! you must write a book. 
 
 " I am sure," quoth my Uncle Roland, slamming down 
 the volume he had just concluded, "he could write a devil- 
 ish deal better book than this ; and how I come to read such 
 trash, night after night, is more than I could possibly explain 
 to the satisfaction of an intelligent jury, if I were put into 
 a witness-box, and examined in the mildest manner by my 
 own counsel." 
 
 MR. CAXTON. You see that Roland tells us exactly what 
 sort of a book it shall be. 
 
 PISISTRATUS. Trash, sir ? 
 
 MR. CAXTON. No that is, not necessarily trash but a 
 book of that class which, whether trash or not, people can't 
 help reading. Novels have become a necessity of the age ; 
 you must write a novel.
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 7 
 
 PISISTRATUS (flattered, but dubious). A novel ! But every 
 subject on which novels can be written is preoccupied. 
 There are novels of low life, novels of high life, military 
 novels, naval novels, novels philosophical, novels religious, 
 novels historical, novels descriptive of India, the Colonies, 
 Ancient Rome, and the Egyptian Pyramids. From what 
 bird, wild eagle, or barn-door fowl, can I 
 
 " Pluck one unwearied plume from Fancy's wing ? " 
 
 MR. CAXTON (after a little thought). You remember the 
 story which Trevanion (I beg his pardon, Lord Ulswater) 
 told us the other night. That gives you something of the 
 romance of real life for your plot puts you chiefly among 
 scenes with which you are familiar, and furnishes you with 
 characters which have been very sparingly dealt with since 
 the time of Fielding. You can give us the Country Squire, 
 as you remember him in your youth ; it is a specimen of a 
 race worth preserving the old idiosyncrasies of which are 
 rapidly dying off, as the railways bring Norfolk and York- 
 shire within easy reach of the manners of London. You can 
 give us the old-fashioned Parson, as in all essentials he may 
 yet be found ; but before, you had to drag him out of the 
 great Tractarian bog ; and for the rest, I really think that 
 while, as I am told, many popular writers are doing their 
 best, especially in France, and perhaps a little in England, 
 to set class against class, and pick up every stone in the 
 kennel to shy at a gentleman with a good coat on his back, 
 something useful might be done by a few good-humored 
 sketches of those innocent criminals a little better off than 
 their neighbors, whom, however we dislike them, I take it 
 for granted we shall have to endure, in one shape or another, 
 as long as civilization exists ; and they seem, on the whole, as 
 good in their present shape as we are likely to get, shake 
 the dice-box of society how we will. 
 
 PISISTRATUS. Very well said, sir ; but this rural country- 
 gentleman life is not so new as you think. There's Wash- 
 ington Irving 
 
 MR. CAXTON. Charming ; but rather the manners of the 
 last century than this. You may as well cite Addison and 
 Sir Roger de Coverley. 
 
 PISISTRATUS. Tremaine and De Vere. 
 
 MR. CAXTON. Nothing can be more graceful, nor more 
 unlike what I mean. The Pales and Terminus I wish you
 
 8 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 to put up in the fields are familiar images, that you may cut 
 out of an oak-tree not beautiful marble statues, on por- 
 phyry pedestals, twenty feet high. 
 
 PISISTRATUS. Miss Austin ; Mrs. Gore in her masterpiece 
 of Mrs. Armytagc j Mrs. Marsh, too; and then (for Scotch 
 manners) Miss Ferrier ! 
 
 MR. CAXTON (growing cross). Oh, if you cannot treat on 
 bucolics, but what you must hear some Virgil or other cry 
 " Stop thief," you deserve to be tossed by one of your own 
 " short-horns." [Still more contemptuously] I am sure I 
 don't know why we spend so much money on sending our 
 sons to school to learn Latin, when that Anachronism of 
 yours, Mrs. Caxton, can't even construe a line and a half of 
 Phaedrus. Phaedrus, Mrs. Caxton a book which is in 
 Latin what Goody Two-Shoes is in the vernacular ! 
 
 MRS. CAXTON. (alarmed and indignant). Fie ! Austin ! 
 I am sure you can construe Phaedrus, dear. 
 
 Pisistratus prudently preserves silence. 
 
 MR. CAXTON I'll try him 
 
 " Suacuique sit animi cogitatio 
 Colorque propius." 
 
 What does that mean ? 
 
 PISISTRATUS (smiling). That every man has some color- 
 ing matter within him, to give his own tinge to 
 
 " His own novel," interrupted my father. " Contentus 
 peragis ! " 
 
 During the latter part of this dialogue, Blanche had 
 sewn together three quires of the best Bath paper, and 
 she now placed them on a little table before me, with her 
 own inkstand and steel pen. 
 
 My mother put her finger to her lip, and said, " Hush ! " 
 my father returned to the cradle of the ^Esar ; Captain 
 Roland leant his cheek on his hand, and gazed abstractedly 
 on the fire ; Mr. Squills fell into a placid doze ; and, after 
 three sighs that would have melted a heart of stone, I 
 rushed into MY NOVEL.
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 " THERE has never been occasion to use them since I've 
 been in the Parish," said Parson Dale. 
 
 "What does that prove?" quoth the Squire, sharply, 
 and looking the Parson full in the face. 
 
 " Prove ! " repeated Mr. Dale, with a smile of benign, 
 yet too conscious superiority " What does experience 
 prove ? " 
 
 " That your forefathers were great blockheads, and that 
 their descendant is not a whit the wiser." 
 
 " Squire," replied the Parson, " although that is a 
 melancholy conclusion, yet if you mean it to apply uni- 
 versally, and not to the family of the Dales in particular, 
 it is not one which my candor as a reasoner, and my 
 humility as a mortal, will permit me to challenge." 
 
 " I defy you," said Mr. Hazeldean, triumphantly. " But 
 to stick to the subject (which it is monstrous hard to do 
 when one talks with a parson), I only just ask you to look 
 yonder, and tell me on your conscience I don't even say 
 as a parson, but as a parishioner whether you ever saw a 
 more disreputable spectacle ?" 
 
 While he spoke, the Squire, leaning heavily on the 
 Parson's left shoulder, extended his cane in a line parallel 
 with the right eye of that disputatious ecclesiastic, so 
 that he might guide the organ of sight to the object he 
 had thus unflatteringly described. 
 
 " I confess," said the Parson, " that, regarded by the 
 eye of the senses, it is a thing that in its best day had 
 small pretensions to beauty, and is not elevated into the 
 picturesque even by neglect and decay. But, my friend, 
 regarded by the eye of the inner man of the rural phi- 
 losopher and parochial legislator I say it is by neglect 
 and decay that it is rendered a very pleasing feature in 
 what I may call ' the moral topography of a parish.' " 
 
 The Squire looked at the Parson as if he could have 
 beaten him ; and, indeed, regarding the object in dispute 
 not only with the eye of the outer man, but the eye of 
 law and order the eye of a country gentleman and a 
 justice of the peace, the spectacle was scandalously dis-
 
 io MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 reputable. It was moss-grown ; it was worm-eaten ; it was 
 broken right in the middle ; through its four socketless 
 eyes, neighbored by the nettle, peered the thistle : the 
 thistle ! a forest of thistles ! and to complete the degrada- 
 tion of the whole, those thistles had attracted the donkey 
 of an itinerant tinker ; and the irreverent animal was in the 
 very act of taking its luncheon out of the eyes and jaws of 
 THE PARISH STOCKS. 
 
 The Squire looked as if he could have beaten the 
 Parson ; but, as he was not without some slight command 
 of temper, and a substitute was luckily at hand, he gulphed 
 down his resentment, and made a rush at the donkey ! 
 
 Now the donkey was hampered by a rope to its fore- 
 feet, to the which was attached a billet of wood, called 
 technically "a clog," so that ot had no fair chance of es- 
 cape from the assault its sacrilegious luncheon had justly 
 provoked. But, the ass turning round with unusual nim- 
 bleness at the first stroke of the cane, the Squire caught his 
 foot in the rope, and went head over heels among the 
 thistles. The donkey gravely bent down, and thrice smelt 
 or sniffed its prostrate foe ; then, having convinced itself 
 that it had nothing farther to apprehend for the present, 
 and very willing to make the best of the reprieve, accord- 
 ing to the poetical admonition, "Gather your rosebuds 
 while you may," it cropped a thistle in full bloom close to 
 the ear of the Squire ; so close, indeed, that the Parson 
 thought the ear was gone ; and with the more probability, 
 inasmuch as the Squire, feeling the warm breath of the 
 creature, bellowed out with all the force of lungs accus- 
 tomed to give a View-hallo ! 
 
 " Bless me, is it gone ? " said the Parson, thrusting his 
 person between the ass and the Squire. 
 
 " Zounds and the devil ! " cried the Squire, rubbing him- 
 self as he rose to his feet. 
 
 "Hush," said the Parson, gently. "What a horrible 
 oath ! " 
 
 " Horrible oath ! If you had my nankeens on," said the 
 Squire, still rubbing himself, "and had fallen into a thicket 
 of thistles, with a donkey's teeth within an inch of your 
 ear ! " 
 
 " It is not gone, then ? " interrupted the Parson. 
 
 " No that is, I think not," said the Squire, dubiously ; 
 and he clapped his hand to the organ in question. "No! 
 it is not gone ! "
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. U 
 
 " Thank Heaven ! " said the good clergyman, kindly. 
 
 " Hum," growled the Squire, who was now once more 
 engaged in rubbing himself. " Thank heaven indeed, when 
 I am as full of thorns as a porcupine ! I should like to 
 know what use thistles are in the world." 
 
 " For donkeys to eat, if you will let them, Squire," 
 answered the Parson. 
 
 "Ugh, you beast!" cried Mr. Hazeldean, all his wrath 
 re-awakened, whether by reference to the donkey species, 
 or his inability to reply to the Parson, or perhaps by some 
 sudden prick too sharp for humanity especially humanity 
 in nankeens to endure without kicking ; " Ugh, you 
 beast ! " he exclaimed, shaking his cane at the donkey, 
 which, at the interposition of the Parson, had respectfully 
 recoiled a few paces, and now stood switching its thin tail, 
 and trying vainly to lift one of its fore-legs for the flies 
 teased it. 
 
 " Poor thing ! " said the Parson, pityingly. " See, it 
 has a raw place on the shoulder, and the flies have found 
 out the sore." 
 
 "I am devilish glad to hear it," said the Squire, vin- 
 dictively. 
 
 " Fie, fie ! " 
 
 " It is very well to say ' Fie, fie.' It was not you who 
 fell among the thistles. What's the man about now, I 
 wonder ? " 
 
 The parson had walked toward a chestnut-tree that 
 stood on the village green ; he broke off a bough re- 
 turned to the donkey whisked away the flies, and then 
 tenderly placed the broad leaves over the sore, as a protec- 
 tion from the swarms. The donkey turned round its head, 
 and looked at him with mild wonder. 
 
 " I would bet a shilling," said the Parson, softly, " that 
 this is the first act of kindness thou hast met with this many 
 a day. And slight enough it is, Heaven knows." 
 
 With that the Parson put his hand into his pocket, and 
 drew out an apple. It was a fine, large, rose-cheeked 
 apple one of the last winter's store, from the celebrated 
 tree in the parsonage garden ; and he was taking it as a 
 present to a little boy in the village, who had notably dis- 
 tinguished himself in the Sunday-school. " Nay, in com- 
 mon justice, Lenny Fairfield should have the preference," 
 muttered the Parson. The ass pricked up one of its ears, 
 and advanced its head timidly. " But Lenny Fairfield
 
 12 MY NO TEL; OR, 
 
 would be as much pleased with twopence ; and what could 
 twopence do to thee ? " The ass's nose now touched the 
 apple. ''Take it, in the name of Charity," quoth the Par- 
 son ; "Justice is accustomed to be served last;" and the 
 ass took the apple. " How had you the heart ? " said the 
 Parson, pointing to the Squire's cane. 
 
 The ass stopped munching, and looked askant at the 
 Squire. 
 
 " Pooh ! eat on ; he'll not beat thee now." 
 
 "No," said the Squire, apologetically. "But, after all, 
 he is not an Ass of the Parish ; he is a vagrant, and he 
 ought to be pounded. But the pound is in as bad a 
 state as the stocks, thanks to your new-fashioned doc- 
 trines." 
 
 " New-fashioned !" cried the Parson, almost indignantly, 
 for he had a great disdain of new fashions "They are as 
 old as Christianity ; nay, as old as Paradise, which, you 
 will observe, is derived from a Greek or rather a Persian 
 word, and means something more than 'garden,' correspond- 
 ing," pursued the Parson, rather pedantically, " with the 
 Latin vivarium, viz., grove or park full of innocent dumb 
 creatures. Depend on it, donkeys were allowed to eat 
 thistles there." 
 
 "Very possibly," said the Squire, dryly. "But Hazel- 
 dean, though a very pretty village, is not Paradise. The 
 stocks shall be mended to-morrow ay, and the pound too, 
 and the next donkey found trespassing shall go into it, 
 as sure as my name's Hazeldean." 
 
 " Then," said the Parson, gravely, " I can only hope 
 that the next parish may not follow your example ; or that 
 you and I may never be caught straying." 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 PARSON DALE and Squire Hazeldean parted company ; 
 the latter to inspect his sheep, the former to visit some of 
 his parishioners, including Lenny Fairfield, whom the don- 
 key had defrauded of his apple. 
 
 Lenny Fairfield was sure to be in the way, for his 
 mother rented a few acres of grass-land from the Squire, 
 and it was now hay-time. And Leonard, commonly called
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 13 
 
 Lenny, was an only son, and his mother a widow. The 
 cottage stood apart, and somewhat remote, in one of the 
 many nooks of the long, green, village lane. And a 
 thoroughly English cottage it was three centuries old at 
 least ; with walls of rubble let into oak frames, and duly 
 whitewashed every summer, a thatched roof, small panes of 
 glass, an old doorway raised from the ground by two steps. 
 There was about this little dwelling all the hpmely rustic 
 elegance which peasant life admits of ; a honeysuckle was 
 trained over the door ; a few flower-pots were placed on the 
 window-sills ; the small plot of ground in front of the house 
 was kept with great neatness, and even taste ; some large 
 rough stones on either side the little path having been 
 formed into a sort of rock-work, with creepers that were 
 now in flower ; and the potato-ground was screened from 
 the eye by sweet-peas and lupine, Simple elegance, all 
 this, it is true ; but how well it speaks for peasant and land- 
 lord, when you see that the peasant is fond of his home, and 
 has some spare time and heart to bestow upon mere embel- 
 lishment. Such a peasant is sure to be a bad customer to 
 the ale-house, and a safe neighbor to the Squire's preserves. 
 Ail honor and praise to him, except a small tax upon both, 
 which is due to the landlord ! 
 
 Such sights were as pleasant to the Parson as the most 
 beautiful landscapes of Italy can be to the dilettante. He 
 paused a moment at the wicket to look around him, and 
 distended his nostrils voluptuously to inhale the smell of 
 the sweet-peas, mixed with that of the new-mown hay in the 
 fields behind, which a slight breeze bore to him. He then 
 moved on, carefully scraped his shoes, clean and well- 
 polished as they were for Mr. Dale was rather a beau in 
 his own clerical way, on the scraper without the door, 
 and lifted the latch. 
 
 Your virtuoso looks with artistical delight on the figure 
 of some nymph painted on an Etruscan vase, engaged in 
 pouring out the juice of the grape from her classic urn. 
 And the Parson felt as harmless if not as elegant a pleasure 
 in contemplating Widow Fairfield brimming high a glitter- 
 ing can, which she designed for the refreshment of the 
 thirsty haymakers. 
 
 Mrs. Fairfield was a middle-aged, tidy woman, with that 
 alert precision of movement which seems to come from an 
 active, orderly mind ; and as she now turned her head 
 briskly at the sound of the Parson's footstep, she showed
 
 1 4 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 a countenance prepossessing, though not handsome a 
 countenance from which a pleasant, hearty smile, breaking 
 forth at that moment, effaced some lines that in repose 
 spoke " of sorrows, but of sorrows past ; " and her cheek, 
 paler than is common to the complexions even of the fair 
 sex, when born and bred amidst a rural population, might 
 have favored the guess that the earlier part of her life had 
 been spent in the languid air and "within-doors " occupa- 
 tions of a town. 
 
 "Never mind me," said the Parson, as Mrs. Fairfield 
 dropped her quick curtsey, and smoothed her apron ; "if 
 you are going into the hay-field, I will go with you ; I have 
 something to say to Lenny an excellent boy." 
 
 WIDOW. Well, sir, and you are kind to say it ; but so 
 he is. 
 
 PARSON. He reads uncommonly well, he writes toler- 
 ably ; he is the best lad in the whole school at his Cate- 
 chism and in the Bible lessons ; and I assure you, when I 
 see his face at church, looking up so attentively, I fancy 
 that I shall read my sermon all the better for such a lis- 
 tener ! 
 
 WIDOW (wiping her eyes with the corner of her apron). 
 'Deed, sir, when my poor Mark died, I never thought I 
 could have lived on as I have done. But that boy is so 
 kind and good, that when I look at him sitting there in 
 dear Mark's chair, and remember how Mark loved him, 
 and all he used to say to me about him, 1 feel somehow or 
 other as if my goodman smiled on me, and would rather I 
 was not with him yet, till the lad had grown up, and did not 
 want me any more. 
 
 PARSON (looking away, and after a pause). You never 
 hear anything of the old folks at Lansmere ? 
 
 " 'Deed, sir, sin" poor Mark died, they han't noticed me 
 nor the boy ; but," added the Widow, with all a peasant's 
 pride, " it isn't that I w r ants their money ; only it's hard to 
 feel strange-like to one's own father and mother ! " 
 
 PARSON. You must excuse, them. Your father, Mr. 
 Avenel, was never quite the same man after that sad event 
 which but you are weeping, my friend ; pardon me. 
 Your mother is a little proud ; but so are you, though in 
 another way. 
 
 WIDOW. I proud ! Lord love ye, sir, I have not a bit o' 
 pride in me ! and that's the reason they always looked down 
 on me.
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 15 
 
 PARSON. Your parents must be well off ; and I shall 
 apply to them in a year or two on behalf of Lenny, for 
 they promised me to provide for him when he grew up, as 
 they ought. 
 
 WIDOW (with flashing eyes). I am sure, sir, I hope you 
 will do no such thing ; for I would not have Lenny be- 
 holden to them as has never given him a kind word sin' he 
 was born ! 
 
 The Parson smiled gravely, and shook his head at poor 
 Mrs. Fairfield's hasty confutation of her own self-acquittal 
 from the charge of pride ; but he saw that it was not the 
 time or moment for effectual peace-making in the most ir- 
 ritable of all rancors, viz., that nourished against one's 
 nearest relations. He therefore dropped the subject, and 
 said : "Well, time enough to think of Lenny's future pro- 
 spects ; meanwhile, we are forgetting the hay-makers. 
 Come." 
 
 The widow opened the back door, which led across a 
 little apple orchard into the fields. 
 
 PARSON. You have a pleasant place here ; and I see 
 that my friend Lenny should be in no want of apples. I 
 had brought him one, but I have given it away on the road. 
 
 WIDOW. Oh, sir, it is not the deed it is the will, as I 
 felt when the Squire, God bless him ! took two pounds off 
 the rent the year he that is, Mark died. 
 
 PARSON. If Lenny continues to be such a help to you, 
 it will not be long before the Squire may put the two 
 pounds on again. 
 
 "Yes, sir," said the Widow, simply ; "I hope he will." 
 
 " Silly woman ! " muttered the Parson. " That's not ex- 
 actly what the schoolmistress would have said. You don't 
 read nor write, Mrs. Fairfield ; yet you express yourself 
 with great propriety." 
 
 " You know Mark was a schollard, sir, like my poor, poor 
 sister ; and though I was a sad stupid girl afore I married, 
 I tried to take after him when we came together." 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THEY were now in the hay-field ; and a boy of about 
 sixteen, but, like most country lads, to appearance much 
 younger than he was, looked up from his rake, with lively
 
 Z 6 My NOVEL; OR, 
 
 blue eyes beaming forth under a profusion of brown curly 
 hair. 
 
 Leonard Fairfield was indeed a very handsome boy 
 not so stout nor so ruddy as one would choose for the ideal 
 of rustic beauty ; nor yet so delicate in limb and keen in 
 expression as are those children of cities, in whom the mind 
 is cultivated at the expense of the body ; but still he had the 
 health of the country in his cheeks, and was not without 
 the grace of the city in his compact figure and easy move- 
 ments. There was in his physiognomy something inter- 
 esting from its peculiar character of innocence and sim- 
 plicity. You could see that he had been brought up by a 
 woman, and much apart from familiar contact with other 
 children ; and such intelligence as was yet developed in 
 him was not ripened by the jokes and cuffs of his coevals, 
 but fostered by decorous lecturings from his elders, and 
 good-little-boy maxims in good-little-boy books. 
 
 PARSON. Come hither, Lenny. You know the benefit 
 of school, I see ; it can teach you nothing better than to be 
 a support to your mother. 
 
 LENNY (looking down sheepishly, and with a heightened 
 glow over his face). Please, sir, that may come one of 
 these days. 
 
 PARSON. That's right, Lenny. Let me see ! why, you 
 must be nearly a man. How old are you ? 
 
 Lenny looks up inquiringly at his mother. 
 
 PARSON. You ought to know, Lenny; speak for your- 
 self. Hold your tongue, Mrs. Fairfield. 
 
 LENNY (twirling his hat, and in great perplexity). Well, 
 and there is Flop, neighbor Button's old sheep-dog. He be 
 very old now. 
 
 PARSON. I am not asking Flop's age, but your own. 
 
 LENNY. ' Deed, sir, I have heard say as how Flop and I 
 were pups together. That is, I I 
 
 For the Parson is laughing, and so is Mrs. Fairfield ; 
 and the hay-makers, who have stood still to listen, are 
 laughing too. And poor Lenny has quite lost his head, and 
 looks as if he would like to cry. 
 
 PARSON (patting the curly locks, encouragingly). Never 
 mind ; it is not so badly answered, after all. And how old 
 is Flop ? 
 
 LENNY. Why, he must be fifteen year and more. 
 
 PARSON. Hoxv old, then, are you ?
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 17 
 
 LKNNY (looking up, with a beam of intelligence). Fif- 
 teen year and more. 
 
 Widow sighs and nods her head. 
 
 "That's what we call putting two and two together," 
 said the Parson. " Orj in other words," and here he raised 
 his eyes majestically toward the hay-makers "in other 
 words thanks to his love for his book simple as he stands 
 here, Lenny Fairfield has shown himself capable of INDUCT- 
 IVE RATIOCINATION. 
 
 At those words, delivered ore rotundo, the hay-makers 
 ceased laughing ; for even in lay matters they held the Par- 
 son to be an oracle, and words so long must have a great 
 deal in them. 
 
 Lenny drew up his head proudly. 
 
 "You are very fond of Flop, I suppose?" 
 
 "'Deed he is," said the Widow, "and of all poor dumb 
 creatures." 
 
 " Very good. Suppose, my lad, that you had a fine apple, 
 and that you met a friend who wanted it more than you ; 
 what would you do with it ? " 
 
 "Please you, sir, I would give him half of it." 
 
 The Parson's face fell. " Not the whole, Lenny ? " 
 
 Lenny considered. " If he was a friend, sir, he would 
 not like me to give him all ?" 
 
 " Upon my word, Master Leonard, you speak so well that 
 I must e'en tell the truth. I brought you an apple, as a 
 prize for good conduct in school ; but I met by the way 
 a poor donkey, and some one beat him for eating a thistle, 
 so I thought I would make it up by giving him the apple. 
 Ought I only to have given him the half ?" 
 
 Lenny's innocent face became all smile ; his interest 
 was aroused. "And did the donkey like the apple ?" 
 
 " Very much," said the Parson, fumbling in his pocket ; 
 but thinking of Leonard Fairfield's years and understand- 
 ing ; and moreover, observing, in the pride of his heart, 
 that there were many spectators to his deed, he thought the 
 meditated twopence not sufficient, and he generously pro- 
 duced a silver sixpence. 
 
 "There, my man, that will pay for the half-apple which 
 you would have kept for yourself." The parson again pat- 
 ted the curly locks, and, after a hearty word or two with the 
 other hay-makers, and a friendly " Good-day " to Mrs. Fair- 
 field, struck into the path that led toward his own glebe. 
 
 He had just crossed the stile, when he heard hasty but
 
 i8 MY NOVEL; OA', 
 
 timorous feet behind him. Ho turned, and saw his friend 
 Lenny. 
 
 LENNY (half-crying, and holding out the sixpence). 
 Indeed, sir, I would rather not. I would have given all to 
 the Neddy. 
 
 PARSON. Why, then, my man, you have a still greater 
 right to the sixpence. 
 
 LENNY. No, sir, 'cause you only gave it to make up for 
 the half-apple. And if I had given the whole, as I ought 
 to have done, why, I should have had no right to the six- 
 pence. Please, sir, don't be offended ; do take it back, Avill 
 you ? 
 
 The Parson hesitated. And the boy thrust the sixpence 
 into his hand, as the ass had poked its nose there before in 
 quest of the apple. 
 
 " I see," said Parson Dale, soliloquizing, " that if one 
 don't give Justice the first place at the table, all the other 
 Virtues eat up her share." 
 
 Indeed, the case was perplexing. Charity, like a for- 
 ward*, impudent baggage as she is, always thrusting herself 
 in the way, and taking other people's apples to make her 
 own little pie, had defrauded Lenny of his due ; and now 
 Susceptibility, who looks like a shy, blush-faced, awkward 
 Virtue in her teens but who, nevertheless, is always en- 
 gaged in picking the pockets of her sisters, tried to filch 
 from him his lawful recompense. The case was perplexing ; 
 for the Parson held Susceptibility in great honor, despite 
 her hypocritical tricks, and did not like to give her a slap 
 in the face, which might frighten her away for ever. So 
 Mr. Dale stood irresolute, glancing from the sixpence to 
 Lenny, and from Lenny to the sixpence. 
 
 ' Buon giorno, Good-day to you," said a voice behind, 
 in an accent slightly but unmistakably foreign, and a 
 strange-looking figure presented itself at the stile. 
 
 Imagine a tall and exceedingly meagre man, dressed in 
 a rusty suit of black the pantaloons tight at the calf and 
 ankle, and there forming a loose gaiter over thick shoes, 
 buckled high at the instep ; an old cloak, lined with red, 
 was thrown over one shoulder, though the day was sultry ; 
 a quaint, red, outlandish umbrella, with a carved brass 
 handle, was thrust under one arm, though the sky was 
 cloudless ; a profusion of raven hair, in waving curls that 
 seemed as fine as silk, escaped from the sides of a straw 
 hat of prodigious brim ; a complexion sallow and swarthy,
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 19 
 
 and features which, though not without considerable beauty 
 to the eye of the artist, .were not only unlike what we fair, 
 well-fed, neat-faced Englishmen are wont to consider 
 comely, but exceedingly like what we are disposed to regard 
 as awful and Satanic to wit., along hooked nose, sunken 
 cheeks, black eyes, whose piercing brilliancy took some- 
 thing wizard-like and mystical from the large spectacles 
 through which they shone ; a mouth round which played 
 an ironical smile, and in which a physiognomist would have 
 remarked singular shrewdness, and some closeness, com- 
 plete the picture. Imagine this figure, grotesque, peregri- 
 nate, and to the eye of a peasant certainly diabolical ; then 
 perch it on the stile in the midst of those green English 
 fields, and in sight of that primitive English village ; there 
 let it sit straddling, its long legs dangling down, a short 
 German pipe emitting clouds from one corner of those sar- 
 donic lips, its dark eyes glaring through the spectacles full 
 upon the Parson, yet askant upon Lenny Fairfield. Lenny 
 Fairfield looked exceedingly frightened. 
 
 " Upon my word, Dr. Riccabocca," said Mr. Dale, smil- 
 ing, "you come in good time to solve a very nice question 
 in casuistry ; " and herewith the Parson explained the case, 
 and put the. question " Ought Lenny Fairfield to have the 
 sixpence, or ought he not?" 
 
 " Cospetto ! " said the Doctor, " if the hen would but 
 hold her tongue nobody would know that she had laid an 
 egg- " 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 " GRANTED," said the Parson ; " but what follows ? The 
 saying is good, but I don't see the application." 
 
 "A thousand pardons!" replied Dr. Riccabocca, with 
 all the urbanity of an Italian ; "but it seems to me that if 
 you had given the sixpence to the fanciullo that is, to this 
 good little boy without telling him the story about the 
 donkey, you would never put him and yourself into this 
 awkward dilemma." 
 
 " But, my dear sir," whispered the Parson mildly, as he 
 inclined his lips to the Doctor's ear, " I should then have 
 lost the opportunity of inculcating a moral lesson you 
 understand."
 
 SO My NOVEL; OR, 
 
 Dr. Riccabocca shrugged his shoulders, restored his 
 pipe to his mouth, and took a long whiff. It was a whiff 
 eloquent, though cynical a whiff peculiar to your phi- 
 losophical smoker a whiff that implied the most absolute, 
 but the most placid incredulity as to the effect of the Par- 
 son's moral lesson. 
 
 " Still you have not given us your decision," said the 
 Parson, after a pause. 
 
 The Doctor withdrew his pipe. " Cospetto ! " said he 
 " He who scrubs the head of an ass wastes his soap." 
 
 " If you scrubbed mine fifty times over with those enig- 
 matical proverbs of yours," said the Parson, testily, "you 
 would not make it any the wiser." 
 
 "Mvgood sir," said the Doctor, bowing low from his 
 perch on the stile, " I never presumed to say that there 
 were more asses than one in the story ; but I thought that 
 I could not better explain my meaning, which is simply 
 this you scrubbed the ass's head, and therefore you must 
 lose the soap. Let the fanciullo have the sixpence ; and a 
 great sum it is too, for a little boy, Avho may spend it all as 
 pocket-money ! " 
 
 " There, Lenny you hear ? " said the Parson, stretching 
 out the sixpence. But Lenny retreated, and cast on the 
 umpire a look of great aversion and disgust. 
 
 " Please, Master Dale," said he, obstinately, "I'd rather 
 not." 
 
 " It is a matter of feeling, you see," said the Parson, 
 turning to the umpire; "and I believe the boy is 
 right." 
 
 "If it be a matter of feeling," replied Dr. Riccabocca, 
 " there is no more to be said on it. When Feeling comes in 
 at the door, Reason has nothing to do but to jump out of 
 the window." 
 
 "Go, my good boy," said the Parson, pocketing the 
 coin ; " but stop ! give me your hand first. There I under- 
 stand you ; good-by !" 
 
 Lenny's eyes glistened as the Parson shook him by the 
 hand, and, not trusting himself to speak, he walked off 
 sturdily. The Parson wiped his forehead, and sat himself 
 down on the stile beside the Italian. The view before them 
 was lovely, and both enjoyed it (though not equally) enough 
 to be silent for some moments. On the other side the lane 
 seen between gaps in the old oaks and chestnuts that hung 
 over the moss-grown pales of Hazeldean Park, rose gentle,
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 21 
 
 verdant slopes, dotted with sheep and herds of deer ; a 
 stately avenue stretched far away to the left, and ended at 
 the right-hand, within a few yards of a haha that divided 
 the park from a level sward of table-land gay with shrubs 
 and flower-pots, relieved by the shade of two mighty cedars. 
 And on this platform, only seen in part, stood the Squire's 
 old-fashioned house, red-brick, with stone mullions, gable- 
 ends, and quaint chimney-pots. On this side the road, im- 
 mediately facing the two gentlemen, cottage after cottage 
 whitely emerged from the curves in the lane, while, beyond, 
 the ground declining, gave an extensive prospect of woods 
 and corn-fields, spires and farms. Behind, from a belt of 
 lilacs and evergreens, you caught a peep of the parsonage- 
 house, backed by woodlands, and a little noisy rill running 
 in front. The birds were still in the hedge-rows, only, as 
 if from the very heart of the most distant woods, there 
 came now and then the mellow note of the cuckoo. 
 
 " Verily," said Mr. Dare, softly, "my lot has fallen on a 
 goodly heritage." 
 
 The Italian twitched his cloak over him, and sighed al- 
 most inaudibly. Perhaps he thought of his own Summer 
 Land, and felt that, amidst all that fresh verdure of the 
 North, there was no heritage for the stranger. 
 
 However, before the Parson could notice the sigh, or 
 conjecture the cause, Dr. Riccabocca's thin lips took an ex- 
 pression almost malignant. 
 
 "Per Bacco ! " said he ; "in every country I observe that 
 the rocks settle where the trees are the finest. I am sure 
 that, when Noah first landed on Ararat, he must have found 
 some gentleman in black already settled in the pleasantest 
 part of the mountain, and waiting for his tenth of the cattle 
 as they came out of the Ark." 
 
 The Parson fixed his meek eyes on the philosopher, and 
 there was in them something so deprecating, rather than 
 reproachful, that Dr. Riccabocca turned away his face, and 
 refilled his pipe. Dr. Riccabocca abhorbed priests ; but 
 though Parson Dale was emphatically a parson, he seemed at 
 that moment so little of what Dr. Riccabocca understood by 
 a priest, that the Italian's heart smote him for his irreverent 
 jest on the cloth. Luckily at this moment there was a 
 diversion to that untoward commencement of conversation, 
 in the appearance of no less a personage than the donkey 
 himself I mean the donkey who ate the apple.
 
 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE Tinker was a stout swarthy fellow, jovial and musical 
 withal, for he was singing a stave as he flourished his staff, 
 and at the end of each refrain down carne the staff on the 
 quarters of the donkey. The Tinker went behind and sung, 
 the donkey went before and was thwacked. 
 
 "Yours is a droll country," quoth Dr. Riccabocca ; "in 
 mine, it is not the ass that walks first in the procession that 
 gets the blows." 
 
 The parson jumped from the stile, and looking over the 
 hedge that divided the field from the road " Gently, gently," 
 said he ; "the sound of the stick spoils the singing ! O, Mr. 
 Sprott, Mr. Sprott ! a good man is merciful to his beast." 
 
 The donkey seemed to recognize the voice of its friend, 
 for it stopped short, pricked one ear wistfully, and looked up. 
 
 The Tinker touched his hat, and looked up too. " Lord 
 bless your reverence ! he does not mind it, he likes it. I 
 vould not hurt thee ; vould I, Neddy ?" 
 
 The donkey shook his head and shivered ; perhaps a fly 
 had settled on the sore, which the chestnut-leaves no longer 
 protected. 
 
 " I am sure you did not mean to hurt him, Sprott," said 
 the Parson, more politely I fear than honestly for he had 
 seen enough of that cross-grained thing called the human 
 heart, even in the little world of a country parish, to know 
 that it requires management, and coaxing, and flattering, to 
 interfere successfully between a man and his own donkey 
 " I am sure you did not mean to hurt him ; but he has already 
 got a sore on his shoulder as big as my hand, poor thing ! " 
 
 " Lord, love 'un ! yes ; that was done a-playing with the 
 manger, the day I gave 'un oats ! " said the Tinker. 
 
 Dr. Riccabocca adjusted his spectacles, and surveyed the 
 ass. The ass pricked up his other ear, and surveyed Dr. 
 Riccabocca. In that mutual survey of physical qualifica- 
 tions, each being regarded according to the average symme- 
 try of its species, it may be doubted whether the advantage 
 was on the side of the philosopher. 
 
 The Parson had a great notion of the wisdom of his 
 friend, in all matters not purely ecclesiastical :
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 23 
 
 " Say a good word for the donkey ! " whispered he. 
 
 " Sir," said the Doctor, addressing Mr. Sprott, with a 
 respectful salutation, " there's a great kettle at my house 
 the Casino which wants soldering ; can you recommend 
 me a tinker?" 
 
 " Why, that's all in my line," said Sprott, " and there 
 ben't a tinker in the country that I vould recommend like 
 myself, thof I say it." 
 
 "You jest, good sir," said the Doctor, smiling pleasantly. 
 " A man who can't mend a hole in his own donkey, can 
 never demean himself by patching up my great kettle." 
 
 " Lord, sir ! " said the Tinker, archly, " if I had known 
 that poor Neddy had had two sitch friends in court, I'd had 
 seen he vas a gintleman, and treated him as sitch." 
 
 " Corpo di Bacco ! " quoth the Doctor, " though that jest's 
 not new, I think the Tinker comes very well out of it." 
 
 " True ; but the donkey ! " said the Parson ; " I've a great 
 mind to buy it." 
 
 " Permit me to tell you an anecdote in point," said Dr. 
 Riccabocca. 
 
 ' ; Well ? " said the Parson, interrogatively. 
 
 "Once in a time," pursued Riccabocca, "the Emperor 
 Adrian, going to the public baths, saw an old soldier, who 
 had served under him, rubbing his back against the marble 
 wall. The Emperor, who was a wise, and therefore a curi- 
 ous, inquisitive man, sent for the soldier, and asked him 
 why he resorted to that sort of friction. ' Because,' an- 
 swered the veteran, ' I am too poor to have slaves to rub me 
 down.' The Emperor was touched, and gave him slaves 
 and money. The next day, when Adrian went to the baths, 
 all the old men in the city were to be seen rubbing them- 
 selves against the marble as hard as they could. The 
 Emperor sent for them, and asked them the same question 
 which he had put to the soldier ; the cunning old rogues, of 
 course, made the same answer. 'Friends,' said Adrian, 
 'since there are so many of you, you will just rub one 
 another!' Mr. Dale, if you don't want to have all the don- 
 keys in the country with holes in their shoulders, you had 
 better not buy the Tinker's ! " 
 
 " It is the hardest thing in the world to do the least bit 
 of good," groaned the Parson, as he broke a twig off the 
 hedge nervously, snapped it in two, and flung away the 
 fragments ; one of them hit the donkey on the nose. If 
 the ass could have spoken Latin, he would have said, "t
 
 34 MY NOVEL; OK, 
 
 tu, Brute ! " As it was, he hung down his ears, and walked 
 on. 
 
 " Gee hup ! " said the Tinker ; and he followed the ass. 
 Then stopping, he looked over his shoulder, and seeing 
 that the parson's eyes were gazing mournfully on his 
 protdgc, " Never fear, your reverence," cried the Tinker, 
 kindly ; " I'll not spite ' un." 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 "FouR o'clock," cried the Parson, looking at his watch ; 
 " half an hour after dinner-time, and Mrs. Dale particularly 
 begged me to be punctual, because of the fine trout the 
 Squire sent us. Will you venture on what 'our homely 
 language calls ' pot luck,' Doctor ? " 
 
 Now Riccabocca was a professed philosopher, and valued 
 himself on his penetration into the motives of human con- 
 duct. And when the Parson thus invited him to pot luck, he 
 smiled with a kind of lofty complacency ; for Mrs. Dale en- 
 joyed the reputation of having what her friends styled, "her 
 little tempers." And, as well-bred ladies rarely indulge 
 "little tempers " in the presence of a third person not of 
 the family, so Dr. Riccabocca instantly concluded that he 
 was invited to stand between the pot and the luck ! 
 Nevertheless as he was fond of trout, and a much more 
 good-natured man than he ought to have been according 
 to his principles he accepted the hospitality ; but he did 
 so with a sly look from over his spectacles, which brought a 
 blush into the guilty cheeks of the Parson. Certainly 
 Riccabocca had for once guessed right, in his estimate of 
 human motives. 
 
 The two walked on, crossed a little bridge that spanned 
 the rill, and entered the parsonage lawn. Two dogs, that 
 seemed to have sate on watch for their master, sprang to- 
 ward him, barking ; and the sound drew the notice of Mrs. 
 Dale, who, with parasol in hand, sallied out from the sash 
 window which opened on the lawn. Now, O reader ! I 
 know that, in thy secret heart, thou art chuckling over the 
 want of knowledge in the sacred arcana of the domestic 
 hearth, betrayed by the author ; thou art saying to thyself, 
 "A pretty way to conciliate 'little tempers,' indeed, to add
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 25 
 
 to the offence of spoiling the fish the crime of bringing an 
 unexpected friend to eat it. Pot luck, quotha, when the 
 pot's boiled over this half hour ! " 
 
 But, to thy utter shame and confusion, O reader ! learn 
 that both the author and Parson Dale knew very well what 
 they were about. 
 
 Dr. Riccabocca was the special favorite of Mrs. Dale, 
 and the only person in the whole county who never put 
 her out, by dropping in. In fact, strange though it may 
 seem at first glance, Dr. Riccabocca had that mysterious 
 something about him, which we of his own sex can so little 
 comprehend, but which always propitiates the other. He 
 owed this, in part, to his own profound but hypocritical 
 policy ; for he looked upon woman as the natural enemy 
 to man against whom it was necessary to be always on the 
 guard ; whom it was prudent to disarm by every species of 
 fawning servility and abject complaisance. He owed it 
 also, in part, to the compassionate and heavenly nature of 
 the angels whom his thoughts thus villanously traduced 
 for women like one whom they can pity without despising ; 
 and there was something in Signer Riccabocca's poverty, 
 in his loneliness, in his exile, whether voluntary or com- 
 pelled, that excited pity ; while, despite the threadbare 
 coat, the red umbrella, and the wild hair, he had, especially 
 when addressing ladies, that air of gentleman and cavalier, 
 which is or was more innate in an educated Italian, of 
 whatever rank, than perhaps in the highest aristocracy of 
 any other country in Europe. For, though I grant that 
 nothing is more exquisite than the politeness of your French 
 marquis of the old regime nothing more frankly gracious 
 than the cordial address of a high-bred English gentleman 
 nothing more kindly prepossessing than the genial good- 
 nature of some patriarchal German, who will condescend to 
 forget his sixteen quarterings in the pleasure of doing you a 
 favor yet these specimens of the suavity of their several 
 nations are rare ; whereas blandnessand polish are common 
 attributes with your Italian. They seem to have been im- 
 memorially handed down to him, from ancestors emulating 
 the urbanity of Caesar, and refined by the grace of Horace. 
 
 " Dr. Riccabocca consents to dine with us," cried the 
 Parson, hastily. 
 
 " If Madame permit ?" said tbe Italian, bowing over the 
 hand extended to him, which, however, he forbore to take, 
 seeing it was already full of the watch.
 
 26 MY NOVEL; OA\ 
 
 " I am only sorry that the trout must be quite spoiled," 
 began Mrs. Dale, plaintively. 
 
 " It is not the trout one thinks of when one dines with 
 Mrs. Dale," said the infamous dissimulator. 
 
 " But I see James coming to say that dinner is ready," 
 observed the Parson. 
 
 " He said that three quarters of an hour ago, Charles 
 dear," retorted Mrs. Dale, taking the arm of Dr. Ricca- 
 bocca. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 WHILE the Parson and his wife are entertaining their 
 guest, I propose to regale the reader with a small treatise 
 apropos of that " Charles dear," murmured by Mrs. Dale 
 a treatise expressly written for the benefit of THE DOMESTIC 
 CIRCLE. 
 
 It is an old jest that there is not a word in the language 
 that conveys so little endearment as the word "dear." 
 But though the saying itself, like most truths, be trite and 
 hackneyed, no little novelty remains to the search of the in- 
 quirer into the varieties of inimical import comprehended 
 in that malign monosyllable. For instance, I submit to ihc 
 experienced that the degree of hostility it betrays is in 
 much proportion to its collocation in the sentence. When, 
 gliding indirectly through the rest of the period, it takes its 
 stand at the close, as in that " Charles dear " of Mrs. Dale, 
 it has spilt so much of its natural bitterness by the way 
 that it assumes even a smile, "amara lento temperet risu.' 1 
 Sometimes the smile is plaintive, sometimes arch. Ex. Gr. 
 
 {Plaintive.} " I know very well that whatever I do is 
 wrong, Charles dear." 
 
 " Nay, I am very glad you amused yourself so much 
 without me, Charles dear." 
 
 " Not quite so loud ! If you had but my poor head, 
 Charles dear," etc. 
 
 (Arch} " If you could spill the ink anywhere but on 
 the best table-cloth, Charles dear ! " 
 
 " But though you must always have your own way, you 
 are not quite faultless, own, Charles dear," etc. 
 
 When the enemy stops' in the middle of the sentence, 
 its venom is naturally less exhausted. Ex. gr.
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH 'LIFE. 27 
 
 " Really, I must say, Charles dear, that you are the 
 most fidgety person," etc. 
 
 "And if the house bills were so high last week, ^Charles 
 dear, I should just like to know whose fault it was that's 
 all." 
 
 " But you know, Charles dear, that you care no more 
 for me and the children than " etc. 
 
 But if the fatal word spring up, in its primitive fresh- 
 ness, at the head of the sentence, bow your head to the 
 storm. It then assumes the majesty of "my" before it; 
 it is generally more than objurgation it prefaces a sermon. 
 My candor obliges me to confess that this is the mode in 
 which the hateful monosyllable is more usually employed 
 by the marital part of the one flesh ; and has something 
 about it of the odious assumption of the Petruchian pater- 
 familias the head of the family boding, not perhaps 
 "peace and love, and quiet life," but certainly "awful rule 
 and right supremacy." Ex. gr. 
 
 " My dear Jane I wish you would just put by that 
 everlasting crochet, and listen to me for a few moments," 
 etc. 
 
 " My dear Jane I Avish you Would understand me for 
 once don't think I am angry no, but I am hurt. You 
 must consider," etc. 
 
 " My dear Jane I don't know if it is your intention to 
 ruin me, but I only wish you would do as all other women 
 do who care three straws for their husband's property," etc. 
 
 " My dear Jane I wish you to understand that I am 
 the last person in the world to be jealous ; but I'll be 
 d d if that puppy, Captain Prettyman," etc. 
 
 Now, few so carefully cultivate the connubial garden, 
 as to feel much surprise at the occasional sting of a homely 
 nettle or two ; but who ever expected, before entering 
 that garden, to find himself pricked and lacerated by an 
 insidious exotical " dear," which he had been taught to 
 believe only lived in a hothouse, along with myrtles and 
 other tender and sensitive shrubs, which poets appropriate 
 to Venus ? Nevertheless Parson Dale, being a patient 
 man, and a pattern to all husbands, would have found no 
 fault with his garden, though there had not been a single 
 specimen of " dear," whether the dear humilis, or the dear 
 snperba ; the deaf pallida, rubra, or nigra ; the dear suai'is, 
 or the dear horrida ; no, not a single "dear" in the 
 whole horticulture of matrimony, which Mrs. Dale had not
 
 2S Jl/y NOVEL; OR, 
 
 brought to perfection. But this was far from being the 
 case Mrs. Dale, living much in retirement, was unaware 
 of the modern improvements, in variety of color and sharp- 
 ness of prickle, which have rewarded the persevering skill 
 of our female florists. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 IN the cool of the evening Dr. Riccabocca walked home 
 across the fields. Mr. and Mrs. Dale had accompanied him 
 half-way ; and as they now turned back to the parsonage, 
 they looked behind to catch a glimpse of the tall, outlandish 
 figure, winding slowly through the path amidst the waves 
 of the green corn. 
 
 " Poor man ! " said Mrs. Dale, feelingly ; "and the but- 
 ton was off his wristband ! What a pity he has nobody to 
 take care of him! He seems very, domestic. Don't you 
 think, Charles, it would be a great blessing if we could get 
 him a good wife ? " 
 
 " Um," said the parson ; " I doubt if he values the mar- 
 ried state as he ought." 
 
 "What do you mean, Charles? I never saw a man 
 more polite to ladies in my life." 
 
 "Yes, but 
 
 " But what ? You are always so mysterious, Charles 
 dear." 
 
 " Mysterious ! No, Carry ; but if you could hear what 
 the Doctor says of the ladies sometimes." . 
 
 " Ay, when you men get together, my dear. I know 
 what that means pretty things you say of us. But you 
 are all alike ; you know you are, love ! " 
 
 " I am sure," said the Parson simply, "that I have good 
 cause to speak well of the sex when I think of you, and 
 my poor mother." 
 
 Mrs. Dale, who, with all her "tempers," was an excel- 
 lent woman and loved her husband with the whole of her 
 little heart, was touched. She pressed his hand, and did 
 not call him dear all the way home. 
 
 Meanwhile the Italian passed the fields^ and came upon 
 the high-road about two miles from Hazeldean. On one 
 side stood an old-fashioned solitary inn, such as English
 
 I VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 9 
 
 inns used to be before they became railway hotels square, 
 solid, old-fashioned, looking so hospitable and comfortable, 
 with their great signs swinging from some elm-tree in 
 front, and the long row of stables standing a little back, 
 with a chaise or two in the yard, and the jolly landlord 
 talking of the crop to some stout farmer, whose rough 
 pony halts of itself at the well-known door. Opposite this 
 inn, on the other side of the road, stood the habitation of 
 Dr. Riccabocca. 
 
 A few years before the date of these annals, the stage- 
 coach on its way to London from a seaport town stopped at 
 the inn, as was its wont, .for a good hour, that its passengers 
 might dine like Christian Englishmen not gulp down a 
 basin of scalding soup, like everlasting heathen Yankees, 
 with that cursed railway whistle shrieking like a fiend in 
 their ears ! It was the best dining-place on the whole road, 
 for the trout in the neighboring rill were famous, and so 
 was the mutton which came from Hazeldean Park. 
 
 From the outside of the coach had descended two pas- 
 sengers, who, alone insensible to the attraction of mutton 
 and trout, refused to dine two melancholy-looking foreign- 
 ers, of whom one was Signor Riccabocca, much the same as- 
 we see him now, only that the black suit was less threadbare, 
 the tall form less meagre, and he did not then wear specta- 
 cles ; and the other was his servant. "They would walk 
 about while the coach stopped." Now the Italian's eye had 
 been caught by a mouldering, dismantled house on the 
 other side of the road, which nevertheless was well situated ; 
 half-way up a green hill, with its aspect due south, a little 
 cascade falling down artificial rock-work, a terrace with a 
 balustrade, and a few broken urns and statues before its 
 Ionic portico ; while on the roadside stood a board, with 
 characters already half-effaced, implying that the house was 
 " To be let unfurnished, with or without land." 
 
 The abode that looked so cheerless, and which had so 
 evidently hung long on hand, was the property of Squire Ha- 
 zeldean. It had been built by his grandfather on the female 
 side a country gentleman who had actually been in Italy 
 (a journey rare enough to boast of in those days), and who, 
 on his return home, had attempted a miniature imitation of 
 an Italian villa. He left an only daughter and sole heiress, 
 who married Squire Hazeldean's father ; and since that time, 
 the house, abandoned by its proprietors for the larger resi- 
 dence of the Hazeldeans, had been uninhabited and neg-
 
 30 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 lected. Several tenants, indeed, had offered themselves ; 
 but your true country squire is slow in admitting upon his 
 own property a rival neighbor. Some wanted shooting. 
 " That," said the Hazeldeans, who were great sportsmen and 
 strict preservers, "was quite out of the question." Others 
 were fine folks from London. "London servants," said 
 the Hazeldeans, who were moral and prudent people, 
 "would corrupt their own, and bring London prices." 
 Others, again, were retired manufacturers, at whom the 
 Hazeldeans turned up their agricultural noses. In short, 
 some were too grand, and others too vulgar. Some were 
 refused because they w r ere known -so well : " Friends are 
 best at a distance," said the Hazeldeans. Others because 
 they were not known at all : " No good comes of strangers," 
 said the Hazeldeans. And finally, as the house fell more 
 and more into decay, no one would take it unless it was put 
 into thorough repair: "As if one was made of money!" 
 said the Hazeldeans. In short, there stood the house un- 
 occupied and ruinous ; and there, on its terrace, stood the 
 two forlorn Italians, surveying it with a smile at each other, 
 as for the first time since they set foot in England, they re- 
 cognized, in dilapidated pilasters and broken statues, in a 
 weed-grown terrace, and the remains of an orangery, some- 
 thing that reminded them of the land they had left behind. 
 On returning to the inn, Dr. Riccabocca took the occa- 
 sion to learn from the innkeeper (who was indeed a tenant 
 of the Squire's) such particulars as he could collect ; and a 
 few days afterward Mr. Hazeldean received a letter from 
 a solicitor of repute in London, stating that a very respect- 
 able foreign gentleman had commissioned him to treat for 
 Clump Lodge, otherwise called the "Casino ;" that the said 
 gentleman did not shoot lived in great seclusion and, 
 having no family, did not care about the repairs of the 
 place, provided only it were made weather-proof if the 
 omission of more expensive reparations could render the 
 rent suitable to his finances, which were very limited. 
 The offer came at a fortunate moment when the steward 
 had just been representing to the Squire the necessity of 
 doing something to keep the Casino from falling into posi- 
 tive ruin, and the Squire was cursing the fates which had 
 put the Casino into an entail so that he could not pull it 
 down for the building materials. Mr. Hazeldean therefore 
 caught at the proposal even as a fair lady, who has refused 
 the best offers in the kingdom, catches, at last, at some bat-
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 3 r 
 
 tercel old captain on half-pay, and replied that, as for rent, 
 if the solicitor's client was a quiet, respectable man, he did 
 not care for that, but that the gentleman might have it for 
 the first year rent-free, on condition of paying the taxes 
 and putting the place a little in order. If they suited each 
 other, they could then come to terms. Ten days subse- 
 quently to this gracious reply, Signor Riccabocca and his 
 servant arrived ; and, before the year's end, the Squire 
 was so contented with his tenant that he gave him a 
 running lease of seven, fourteen, or twenty one years, at a 
 rent merely nominal, on condition that Signor Riccabocca 
 would put and maintain the place in repair, barring the 
 roof and fences, which the Squire generously renewed at 
 his -own expense. It was astonishing, by little and little, 
 what a pretty place the Italian had made of it, and, what is 
 more astonishing, how little it had cost him.- He had, in- 
 deed, painted the walls of the hall, staircase, and the rooms 
 appropriated to himself, with his own hands. His servant 
 had done the greater part of the upholstery. The two be- 
 tween them had got the garden into order. The Italians 
 seemed to have taken a joint love to the place, and to deck 
 it as they would have done some favorite chapel to their 
 Madonna. 
 
 It was long before the natives reconciled themselves to 
 the odd ways of the foreign settlers the first thing that 
 offended them was the exceeding smallness of their house- 
 hold bills. Three days out of the seven, indeed, both man 
 and master dined on nothing else but the vegetables in the 
 garden, and the fishes in the neighboring rill ; when no 
 trout could be caught, they fried the minnows (and cer- 
 tainly, even in the best streams, minnows are more fre- 
 quently caught than trouts). The next thing, which an- 
 gered the natives quite as much, especially the female part 
 of the neighborhood, was the very sparing employment the 
 two he creatures gave to the sex usually deemed so indis- 
 pensable in househould matters. At first, indeed, they had 
 no woman servant at all. But this created such horror, that 
 Parson Dale ventured to hint upon the matter, which Ric- 
 cabocca took in very good part, and an old woman was 
 forthwith engaged, after some bargaining at three shillings 
 a week to wash and scrub as much as she liked during the 
 daytime. She always returned to her own cottage to sleep. 
 The man-servant, who was styled in the neighborhood 
 " Jackeymo," did all else for his master smoothed his room,
 
 32 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 dusted his papers, prepared his coffee, cooked his dinner, 
 brushed his clothes, and cleaned his pipes, of which Ricca- 
 bocca had a large collection. But however close a man's 
 character, it generally creeps out in driblets ; and on many 
 little occasions the Italian had shown acts of kindness, and, 
 on some more rare occasions, even of generosity, which had 
 served to silence his calumniators, and by degrees he had 
 established a very fair reputation suspected, it is true, of 
 being a little inclined to the Black Art, and of a strange in- 
 clination to starve Jackeymo and himself, in other respects 
 harmless enough. 
 
 Signor Riccabocca had become very intimate, as we 
 have seen, at the parsonage. But not so at the hall. For 
 though the Squire was inclined to be very friendly to all^his 
 neighbors, he was, like most country gentlemen, rather 
 easily huffed. .Riccabocca had, if with great politeness, still 
 with great obstinacy, refused Mr. Hazeldean's earlier in- 
 vitations to dinner ; and Avhen the Squire found that the 
 Italian rarely declined to dine at the parsonage, he was 
 offen,ded in one of his weak points viz., his pride in the 
 hospitality of Hazeldean Hall and he ceased altogether in- 
 vitations so churlishly rejected. Nevertheless, as it was 
 impossible for the Squire, however huffed, to bear malice, 
 he now and then reminded Riccabocca of his existence by 
 presents of game, and would have called on him more often 
 than he did, but that Riccabocca received him with such ex- 
 cessive politeness, that the blunt country gentleman felt 
 shy and put out, and used to say that " to call on Rickey- 
 bockey was as bad as going to court." 
 
 But we have left Dr. Riccabocca on the high-road. By 
 this time he has ascended a narrow path that winds by the 
 side of the cascade ; he has passed a trellis-work covered with 
 vines, from the which Jackeymo has positively succeeded in 
 making what he calls wine a liquid, indeed, that if the 
 cholera had been popularly known in those days, would 
 have soured the mildest member of the Board of Health ; 
 for Squire Hazeldean, though a robust man, who daily car- 
 ried off his bottle of port with impunity, having once rashly 
 tasted it, did not recover the effect till he had had a bill 
 from the apothecary as long as his own arm. Passing this 
 trellis, Dr. Riccabocca entered upon the terrace, with its 
 stone pavement smoothed and trimmed as hands could 
 make it. Here, on neat stands, all his favorite flowers were 
 arranged ; here four orange trees were in full blossom ;
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 33 
 
 here a kind of summer-house or belvidere, built by Jackey- 
 mo and himself, made his chosen morning room from May 
 till October ; and from this belvidere there was as beauti- 
 ful an expanse of prospect as if our English nature had 
 hospitably spread on her green board all that she had to 
 offer as a banquet to the exile. 
 
 A man without his coat, which was thrown over the bal- 
 ustrade, was employed in watering the flowers ; a man with 
 movements so mechanical, with a face so rigidly grave in 
 its tawny hues, that he seemed like an automaton made 
 out of mahogany. 
 
 "Giacomo," said Dr. Riccabocca, softly. 
 
 The automaton stopped its hand, and turned its head. 
 
 " Put by the watering-pot, and come hither," continued 
 Riccabocca, in Italian ; and moving toward the balustrade, 
 he leaned over it. Mr. Mitford, the historian, calls Jean 
 Jacques "John James" Following that illustrious example, 
 Giacomo shall be Anglified into Jackeymo. Jackeymo came 
 to the balustrade also, and stood a little behind his master. 
 
 "Friend," said Riccabocca, " enterprises have not al- 
 ways succeeded with us. Don't you think, after all, it is 
 tempting our evil star to rent those fields from the land- 
 lord ? " Jackeymo crossed himself, and made some strange 
 movement with a little coral charm which he wore set in i^ 
 ringon his finger. 
 
 " If the Madonna send us luck, and we could hire a lad 
 cheap ? " said Jackeymo, doubtfully. 
 
 " Piu rale un presente che dui futuri, " said Riccabocca ("A 
 bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.") 
 
 " Chi 11011 fa quando pub, non pub fare quando vuolc " (" He 
 who will not when he may, when he will it shall have nay "), 
 answered Jackeymo, as sententiously as his master. 
 " And the Padrone should think in time that he must lay 
 by for the dower of the poor signorina " (young lady). 
 
 Riccabocca sighed, and made no reply. 
 
 " She must be that high now ! " said Jackeymo, putting 
 his hand on some imaginary line a little above the balus- 
 trade. Riccabocca's eyes, raised over the spectacles, fol- 
 lowed the hand. 
 
 " If the Padrone could but see her here 
 
 " I thought I did ! " muttered the Italian. 
 
 " He would never let her go from his side till she went 
 to a husband's," continued Jackeymo. 
 
 "But this climate she could never stand it," said Ric-
 
 34 MY NOVEL; OA\ 
 
 cabocca, drawing his cloak round him, as the north wind 
 took him in the rear. 
 
 "The orange-trees blossom even here with care," said 
 Jackeymo, turning back to draw down an awning where the 
 orange-trees faced the north. " See ! " he added, as he re- 
 turned with a sprig in full bud. 
 
 Dr. Riccabocca bent over the blossom, and then placed 
 it in his bosom. 
 
 " The other one should be there too," said Jackeymo. 
 
 " To die as this does already ! " answered Riccabocca. 
 "Say no more." 
 
 Jackeymo shrugged his shoulders ; and then, glancing 
 at his master, drew his hand over his eyes. 
 
 There was a pause. Jackeymo was the first to break it. 
 
 " But, whether here or there, beauty without money is 
 the orange-tree without shelter. If a lad could be got 
 cheap, I would hire the land, and trust for the crop to the 
 Madonna." 
 
 " I think I know of such a lad," said Riccabocca, re- 
 covering himself, and with his sardonic smile once more 
 lurking about the corners of his mouth, " a lad made for 
 us." 
 
 " Diavolo ! " 
 
 " No, not the Diavolo > Friend, I have this day seen a 
 boy who refused sixpence ! " 
 
 " Cffsa Stupenda ! " (Stupendous thing !) exclaimed 
 Jackeymo, opening his eyes, and letting fall the watering- 
 pot. 
 
 " It is true, my friend." 
 
 " Take him, Padrone, in Heaven's name, and the fields 
 will grow gold." 
 
 " I will think of it, for it must require management to 
 catch such a boy," said Riccabocca. "Meanwhile, light a 
 candle in the parlor, and bring from my bed-room that 
 great folio of Machiavelli." 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 IN my next chapter I shall present Squire Hazeldean in 
 patriarchal state not exactly under the fig-tree he has 
 planted, but before the stocks he has reconstructed Squire
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 35 
 
 Hazeldean and his family on the village green ! The can- 
 vas is all ready for the colors. 
 
 But in this chapter I must so far afford a glimpse into 
 antecedents as to let the reader know that there is one 
 member of the family whom he is not likely to meet at 
 present, if ever, on the village green at Hazeldean. 
 
 Our Squire lost his father two years after his birth ; his 
 mother was very handsome and so was her jointure ; she 
 married again at the expiration of her year of mourning ; 
 the object of her second choice was Colonel Egerton. 
 
 In every generation of Englishmen (at least since the 
 lively reign of Charles II.) there are a few whom some 
 elegant genius skims off from the milk of human nature, 
 and reserves for the cream of society. Colonel Egerton 
 was one of these ter quaturque beati, and dwelt apart on a 
 top shelf in that delicate porcelain dish not bestowed upon 
 vulgar buttermilk which persons of fashion call The Great 
 World. Mighty was the marvel of Pall Mall, and profound 
 was the pity of Park Lane, when this super-eminent person- 
 age condescended to lower himself into a husband. But 
 Colonel Egerton was not a mere gaudy butterfly ; he had 
 the provident instincts ascribed to the bee. Youth had 
 passed from him, and carried off much solid property in its 
 flight ; he saw that a time was fast coming when a home, 
 with a partner who could help to maintain it, would be con- 
 ducive to his comforts, and an occasional hum-drum even- 
 ing by the fireside beneficial to his health. In the midst of 
 one season at Brighton, to which gay place he had accom- 
 panied the Prince of Wales, he saw a widow who, though 
 in the weeds of mourning, did not appear inconsolable. 
 Her person pleased his taste the accounts of her jointure 
 satisfied his understanding he contrived an introduction, 
 and brought a brief wooing to a happy close. The late 
 Mr. Hazeldean had so anticipated the chance of the young 
 widow's second espousals, that, in case of that event, he 
 transferred, by his testamentary dispositions, the guardian- 
 ship of his infant heir from the mother to two squires, whom 
 he had named his executors. This circumstance combined 
 with her new ties somewhat to alienate Mrs. Hazeldean 
 from the pledge of her former loves ; and when she had 
 borne a son to Colonel Egerton, it was upon that child that 
 her maternal affections gradually concentrated. 
 
 William Hazeldean was sent by his guardians to a large 
 provincial academy, at which his forefathers had received
 
 36 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 their education time out of mind. At first lie spent his 
 holidays with Mrs. Egerton ; but as she now resided either 
 in London, or followed her lord to Brighton, to partake 
 of the gaieties at the Pavilion so, as he grew older, 
 William, who had a hearty affection for country life, and 
 of whose bluff manners and rural breeding Mrs. Egerton 
 (having grown exceedingly refined) was openly ashamed, 
 asked and obtained permission to spend his vacations either 
 with his guardians or at the old Hall. He went late to a 
 small college at Cambridge, endowed in the fifteenth cen- 
 tury by some ancestral Hazeldean ; and left it, on coming 
 of age, without taking a degree. A few years afterward he 
 married a young lady, country born and bred like himself. 
 
 Meanwhile his half-brother, Audley Egerton, may be 
 said to have begun his initiation into the beau monde before 
 he had well cast aside his coral and bells ; he had been 
 fondled in the lap of duchesses, and had galloped across the 
 room astride on the canes of ambassadors and princes. For 
 Colonel Egerton was not only very highly connected not 
 only one of the Dii majorcs of fashion but he had the still 
 rarer good fortune to be an exceedingly popular man with 
 all who knew him ; so popular, that even the fine ladies 
 whom he had adored and abandoned forgave him for 
 marrying out of "the set," and continued to be as friendly 
 as if he had not married at all. People who were commonly 
 called heartless were never weary of doing kind things to 
 the Egertons. When the time came for Audley to leave 
 the preparatory school at which his infancy budded forth 
 amongst the stateliest of the little lilies of the field, and go 
 to Eton, half the fifth and sixth forms had been canvassed 
 to be exceedingly civil to young Egerton. The boy soon 
 showed that he inherited his father's talent for acquiring 
 popularity, and that to this talent he added those which put 
 popularity to use. Without achieving any scholastic dis- 
 tinction, he yet contrived to establish at Eton the most 
 desirable reputation which a boy can obtain namely, that 
 among his own contemporaries, the reputation of a boy who 
 was sure so do something when he grew to be a man. As 
 a gentleman commoner at Christ Church, Oxford, he con- 
 tinued to sustain this high expectation, though he won no 
 prizes, and took but an ordinary degree ; and at Oxford the 
 future "something" became more defined it was "some- 
 thing in public life " that this young man was to do. 
 
 While he was yet at the university, both his parents died
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 37 
 
 within a few months of each other. And when Audley 
 Egerton came .of age, he succeeded to a paternal property 
 which was supposed to be large, and indeed had once been 
 so ; but Colonel Egerton had been too lavish a man to enrich 
 his heir, and about _ 1,500 a year was all that sales and 
 mortgages left of an estate that had formerly approached a 
 rental of ; 10,000. 
 
 Still, Audley was considered to be opulent, and he did 
 not dispel that favorable notion by any imprudent exhibition 
 of parsimony. On entering the world of London, the Clubs 
 tiew open to receive him, and he woke one morning to find 
 himself, not indeed famous but the fashion. To this fash- 
 ion he at once gave a certain gravity and value he asso- 
 ciated as much as possible with public men and political 
 ladies he succeeded in confirming the notion that he was 
 " born to ruin or to rule the State." 
 
 The dearest and most intimate friend of Audley Egerton 
 was Lord L'Estrange, from whom he had been inseparable 
 at Eton ; and who now, if Audley Egerton was the fashion, 
 was absolutely the rage in London. 
 
 Harley, Lord L'Estrange, was the only son of the Earl 
 of Lansmere, a nobleman of considerable wealth, and allied, 
 by intermarriages, to the loftiest and most powerful families 
 in England. Lord Lansmere, nevertheless, was but little 
 known in the circles of London. He lived chiefly on his 
 estates, occupying himself with the various duties of a great 
 proprietor, and when he came to the metropolis, it was 
 rather to save than to spend ; so that he could afford to give 
 his son a very ample allowance, when Harley, at the age of 
 sixteen (having already attained to the sixth form at Eton), 
 left school for one of the regiments of the Guards. 
 
 Few knew what to make of Harley L'Estrange and that 
 was, perhaps, the reason why he was so much thought of. 
 He had been by far the most brilliant boy of his time at 
 Eton not only the boast of the cricket-ground, but the 
 marvel of the school-room ; yet so full of whims and oddi- 
 ties, and seeming to achieve his triumphs with so little aid 
 from steadfast application, that he had not left behind him 
 the same expectations of solid eminence which his friend 
 and senior, Audley Edgerton, had excited. His eccentri- 
 cities his quaint sayings, and out-of-the-way actions, be- 
 came as notable in the great world as they had been in the 
 small one of a public school. That he was very clever there 
 was no doubt, and that the cleverness was of a high order
 
 38 MY NOVEL ; OR, 
 
 might be surmised, not only from the originality but from 
 the independence of his character. He dazzled the world, 
 without seeming to care for its praise or its censure daz- 
 zled it, as it were, because he could not help shining. He 
 had some strange notions, whether political or social, which 
 rather frightened his father. According to Southey, "A 
 man should be no more ashamed of having been a republi- 
 can than of having been young." Youth and extravagant 
 opinions naturally go together. I don't know whether 
 Harley L'Estrange was a republican at the age of eighteen ; 
 but there was no young man in London who seemed to care 
 less for being heir to an illustrious name and some forty or 
 fifty thousand pounds a year. It was a vulgar fashion in 
 that day to play the exclusive, and cut persons who wore bad 
 neckcloths, and called themselves Smith or Johnson. Lord 
 L'Estrange never cut any one, and it was quite enough to 
 slight some worthy man because of his neckcloth or his 
 birth,- to insure to the offender the pointed civilities of this 
 eccentric successor to the Belforts and the Wildairs. 
 
 It was the wish of his father that Harley, as soon as he 
 came of age, should represent the borough of Lansmere 
 (which said borough was the single plague of the Earl's life). 
 But this wish was never realized. Suddenly, when the 
 young idol of London still wanted some two or three years 
 of his majority, a new whim appeared to seize him. He 
 withdrew entirely from society he left unanswered the most 
 pressing three-cornered notes of inquiry and invitation that 
 ever strewed the table of a. young Guardsman ; he was rare- 
 ly seen anywhere in his former haunts when seen, was either 
 alone or with Egerton ; and his gay spirits seemed wholly 
 to have left him. A profound melancholy was written on 
 his countenance, and breathed in the listless tones of his 
 voice. About this time a vacancy happening to occur for 
 the representation of Lansmere, Harley made it his special 
 request to his father that the family interest might be given 
 to Audley Egerton a request which Avas backed by all the 
 influence of his lady mother, who shared in the esteem 
 which her son felt for his friend. The Earl yielded ; and 
 Egerton, accompanied by Harley, went down to Lansmere 
 Park, which adjoined the borough, in order to be intro- 
 duced to the electors. This visit made a notable epoch in 
 the history of many personages who figure in my narrative ; 
 but at present I content myself with saying, that circum- 
 stances arose which, just as the canvass for the new election
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 39 
 
 commenced, caused both L'Estrange and Audley to absent 
 themselves from the scene of action, and that the last even 
 wrote to Lord Lansmere expressing his intention of declin- 
 ing- to contest the borough. 
 
 Fortunately for the parliamentary career of Audley 
 Egerton, the election had become to Lord Lansmere not 
 only a matter of public importance, but of personal feeling. 
 He resolved that the battle should be fought out, even in 
 the absence of the candidate, and at his own expense. 
 Hitherto the contest for this distinguished borough had 
 been, to use the language of Lord Lansmere, " conducted 
 in the spirit of gentlemen," that is to say, the only oppon- 
 ents to the Lansmere interest had been found in one or the 
 other of two rival families in the same county ; and as the 
 Earl was a hospitable, courteous man, much respected and 
 liked by the neighboring gentry, so the hostile candidate 
 had always interlarded his speeches with profuse compli- 
 ments to his Lordship's high character, and civil expres- 
 sions as to his Lordship's candidate. But r thanks to 
 successive elections, one of these two families had come to 
 an end, and its actual representative was now residing with- 
 in the Rules of the Bench ; the head of the other family 
 was the sitting member, and by an amicable agreement 
 with the Lansmere interest, he remained as neutral as it is 
 in the power of any sitting member to be amidst the pas- 
 sions of an intractable committee. Accordingly, it had 
 been hoped that Egerton would come in without opposition, 
 when, the very day on which he had abruptly left the place, 
 a handbill, signed " Haverill Dashmore, Captain R. N., 
 Baker Street, Portman Square," announced, in very spirited 
 language, the intention of that gentleman " to emancipate 
 the borough from the unconstitutional domination of an 
 oligarchical faction, not with a view to his own political 
 aggrandizement iri*deed, at great personal inconvenience 
 but actuated solely by abhorrence to tyranny, and patri- 
 otic passion for the purity of election." 
 
 This. announcement was followed, within two hours, by 
 the arrival of Captain Dashmore himself, in a carriage and 
 four, covered with yellow favors, and filled, inside and out, 
 with harum-scarum-looking friends, who had come down 
 with him to share the canvass and partake the fun. 
 
 Captain Dashmore was a thorough sailor, who had, how- 
 ever, conceived a disgust to the profession from the date in 
 which a minister's nephew had been appointed to the com-
 
 40 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 mand of a ship to which the Captain considered himself 
 unquestionably entitled. It is just to the minister to add, 
 that Captain Dashmore had shown as little regard to orders 
 from a distance, as had immortalized Nelson himself ; but 
 then the disobedience had not achieved the same redeeming 
 success as that of Nelson, and Captain Dashmore ought to 
 have thought himself fortunate in escaping a severer treat- 
 ment than the loss of promotion. But no man knows when he 
 well off ; and retiring on half-pay, just as he came into un- 
 expected possession of some forty or fifty thousand pounds, 
 bequeathed by a distant relation, Captain Dashmore was 
 seized with a vindictive desire to enter Parliament, and inflict 
 oratorical chastisement on the Administration. 
 
 A very few hours sufficed to show the sea-captain to be a 
 most capital electioneerer for a popular but not enlightened 
 constituency. It is true that he talked the saddest nonsense 
 ever heard from an open window ; but then his jokes were 
 so broad, his manner so hearty, his voice so big, that in those 
 dark days, before the schoolmaster was abroad, he would 
 have beaten your philosophical Radical and moralizing 
 Democrat hollow. Moreover, he kissed all the women, old 
 and young, with the zest of a sailor who has known what it 
 is to be three years at sea without sight of a beardless lip ; 
 he threw open all the public houses, asked a numerous 
 committee every day to dinner, and, chucking his purse up 
 in the air, declared " he would stick to his guns, while there 
 was a shot in his locker." Till then, there had been but 
 little political difference between the candidate supported 
 by Lord Lansmere's interest and the opposing parties for 
 country gentlemen, in those days, were pretty much of the 
 same way of thinking, and the question had been really 
 local viz., whether the Lansmere interest should or should 
 not prevail over that of the two squirearchical families who 
 had alone, hitherto, ventured to opptfse it. But though 
 Captain Dashmore was really a very loyal man, and much 
 too old a sailor to think that the State (which, according to 
 established metaphor, is a vessel par excellence} should admit 
 Jack upon quarter-deck, yet, what with talking against lords 
 and aristocracy, jobs and abuses, and searching through no 
 very refined vocabulary for the strongest epithets to apply 
 to those irritating nouns-substantive, his bile had got the 
 better of his understanding, and he became fuddled, as it 
 were, by his own eloquence. Thus, though as innocent of 
 Jacobinical designs as he was incapable of setting the
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE, 41 
 
 Thames on fire, you would have guessed him, by his 
 speeches, to be one of the most determined incendiaries 
 that ever applied a match to the combustible materials of a 
 contested election ; while, being by no means accustomed to 
 respect his adversaries, lie could not have treated the Earl 
 of Lansmere with less ceremony if his Lordship had been a 
 Frenchman. He usually designated that respectable noble- 
 man, who was still in the prime of life, by the title of " Old 
 Pompous ;" and the Mayor, who was never seen abroad but 
 in top-boots, and the solicitor, who was of a large build, 
 received from his irreverent wit the joint sobriquet of " Tops 
 and Bottoms ! " Hence the election had now become, as I 
 said before, a personal matter with my Lord, and indeed, 
 with the great heads of the Lansmere interest. The Earl 
 seemed to consider his very coronet at stake in the question. 
 " The Man from Baker Street," with his preternatural auda- 
 city, appeared to him a being ominous and awful not so 
 much to be regarded with resentment as with superstitious 
 terror ; he felt as felt the dignified Montezuma, when that 
 ruffianly Cortez, with his handful of Spanish rapscallions, 
 bearded him in his own capital and in the midst of his Mexi- 
 can splendor. The gods were menaced if man could be so 
 insolent! wherefore, said my Lord, tremulously "The 
 Constitution is gone if the Man from Baker Street comes in 
 for Lansmere ! " 
 
 But, in the absence of Audley Egerton, the election 
 looked extremely ugly, and Captain Dashmore gained 
 ground hourly, when the Lansmere solicitor happily be- 
 thought him of a notable proxy for the missing candidate. 
 The Squire of Hazeldean, with his young wife, had been 
 invited by the earl in honor of Audley ; and in the Squire, 
 the solicitor beheld the only mortal who could cope with 
 the sea-captain a man with a voice as burly and a face as 
 bold a man who, if permitted for the nonce by Mrs. Hazel- 
 dean, would kiss all the women no less heartily than the 
 captain kissed them ; and who was, moreover, a taller, and 
 a handsomer, and a younger man all three great recom- 
 mendations in the kissing department of a contested election. 
 Yes, to canvass'the borough, and to speak from the windows, 
 Squire Hazeldean would be even more popularly presentable 
 than the London-bred and accomplished Audley Egerton 
 himself. 
 
 The Squire, applied to and urged on all sides, at first 
 said bluntly, " that he would do anything in reason to serve
 
 42 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 his brother, but that he did not like, for his own part, appear- 
 ing, even in proxy, as a lord's nominee ; and moreover, if 
 he was to be sponsor for his brother, why, he must promise 
 and vow, in his name, to be staunch and true to the land 
 they lived by ! And how could he tell that Audley, when 
 once he got into the House, would not forget the land, and 
 then he, William Hazeldean, would be made a liar, and look 
 like a turncoat ! " 
 
 But these scruples being overruled by the arguments of 
 the gentlemen, and the entreaties of the ladies, who took in 
 the election that intense interest which those gentle creatures 
 usually do take in all matters of strife and contest, the 
 Squire at length consented to confront the Man from Baker 
 Street, and went accordingly into the thing with that good 
 heart and old English spirit with which he went into every- 
 thing whereon he had once made up his mind. 
 
 The expectations formed of the Squire's capacities for" 
 popular electioneering were fully realized. He talked quite 
 as much nonsense as Captain Dashmore on every subject 
 except the landed interest ; there he was great, for he knew 
 the subject well knew it by the instinct that comes with 
 practice, and compared to which all your showy theories 
 are mere cobwebs and moonshine. 
 
 The agricultural outvoters many of whom, not living 
 under Lord Lansmere, but being small yeomen, had hitherto 
 prided themselves on their independence, and gone against 
 my Lord could not in their hearts go against one who was 
 every inch the farmer's friend. They began to share in the 
 Earl's personal interest against the Man from Baker Street ; 
 and big fellows, with legs bigger round than Captain Dash- 
 more's tight little body, and huge whips in their hands, were 
 soon seen entering the shops, "intimidating the electors," 
 as Captain Dashmore indignantly declared. 
 
 These new recruits made a great difference in the muster- 
 roll of the Lansmere books ; and when the day for polling 
 arrived, the result was a fair question for even betting. At 
 the last hour, after a neck-and-neck contest, Mr. Audley 
 Egerton beat the Captain by two votes. And the names of 
 these voters were John Avenel, resident freeman, and his 
 son-in-law, Mark Fairfield, an outvoter, who, though a 
 Lansmere freeman, had settled in Hazeldean, where he had 
 obtained the situation of head carpenter on the Squire's 
 estate. 
 
 These votes were unexpected; for, though Mark Fair-
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 43 
 
 field had come to Lansmere on purpose to support the 
 Squire's brother, and though the Avenels had been always 
 staunch supporters of the Lansmere Blue interest, yet a 
 severe affliction (as to the nature of which, not desiring to 
 sadden the opening of my story, I am considerately silent) 
 had befallen both these persons, and they had left the town 
 on the very day after Lord L'Estrange and Mr. Egerton had 
 quitted Lansmere Park. 
 
 Whatever might have been the gratification of the Squire, 
 as a canvasser and a brother, at Mr. Egerton 's triumph, it 
 was much damped when, on leaving the dinner given in 
 honor of the victory at the Lansmere Arms, and about, with 
 no steady step, to enter the carriage which was to convey 
 him to his lordship's house, a letter was put into his hands 
 by one of the gentlemen who had accompanied the Captain 
 to the scene of action ; and the perusal of that letter, and a 
 few whispered words from the bearer thereof, sent the 
 Squire back to Mrs. Hazeldean a much soberer man than she 
 had ventured to hope for. The fact was, that on the day of 
 nomination, the Captain having honored Mr. Hazledean 
 with many poetical and figurative appellations such as 
 " Prize Ox," " Tony Lumpkin," " Blood-sucking Vampire," 
 and "Brotherly Warming-pan," the Squire had retorted by 
 a joke about " Salt-water Jack ;" and the Captain, who, like 
 all satirists, was extremely susceptible and thin-skinned, 
 could not consent to be called " Salt-water Jack " by a 
 "Prize Ox " and a " Blood-sucking Vampire." 
 
 The letter, therefore, now conveyed to Mr. Hazeldean 
 by a gentleman, who, being from the Sister Country, Avas 
 deemed the most fitting accomplice in the honorable destruc- 
 tion of a brother mortal, contained nothing more nor less 
 than an invitation to single combat ; and the bearer there- 
 of, with the suave politeness enjoined by etiquette on such 
 well-bred homicidal occasions, suggested the expediency of 
 appointing the place of meeting in the neighborhood of 
 London, in order to prevent interference from the suspicious 
 authorities of Lansmere. 
 
 The natives of some countries the warlike French in 
 particular think little of that formal operation which goes 
 by the name of DUELLING. Indeed, they seem rather to like 
 it than otherwise. But there is nothing your thorough- 
 paced Englishman a Hazeldean of Hazeldean considers 
 with more regugnance and aversion, than that same cold- 
 blooded ceremonial. It is' not within the range of an Eng-
 
 44 MY NOVEL; OK, 
 
 lishman's ordinary habits, of thinking. He prefers going to 
 law a much more destructive proceeding of the two. 
 Nevertheless, if an Englishman must fight, why, he will 
 fight. He says "it is very foolish ;" he is sirre "it is most 
 unchristianlike ; " he agrees with all that Philosophy, 
 Preacher, and Press have laid down on the subject ; but he 
 makes his will, says his prayers, and goes out like a 
 heathen. 
 
 It never, therefore, occurred to the Squire to show the 
 white feather upon this unpleasant occasion. The next 
 day, feigning excuse to attend the sale of a hunting stud at 
 Tattersall's, he ruefully went up to London, after taking a 
 peculiarly affectionate leave of his wife. Indeed, the Squire 
 felt convinced that he should never, return home except in 
 a coffin. " It stands to reason," said he to himself, " that a 
 man who has been actually paid by the King's Government 
 for shooting people ever since he was a little boy in a mid- 
 shipman's jacket, must be a dead hand at the job. I should ( 
 not mind if it was with double-barrelled Mantons and small 
 shot ; but, ball and pistol ! they aren't human nor sports- 
 manlike ! " However, the Squire, after settling his worldly 
 affairs, and hunting up an old college friend who undertook 
 to be his second, proceeded to a sequestered corner of 
 Wimbledon Common, and planted himself, not sideways, as 
 one ought to do in such encounters (the which posture the 
 Squire swore was an unmanly way of shirking), but full 
 front to the mouth of his adversary's pistol, with such sturdy 
 composure, that Captain Dashmore, who, though an excel- 
 lent shot, was at bottom as good-natured a fellow as ever 
 lived, testified his admiration by letting off his gallant op- 
 ponerit with a ball in the fleshy part of the shoulder, after 
 which he declared himself perfectly satisfied. The parties 
 then shook hands, mutual apologies were exchanged, and 
 the Squire, much astonished to find himself still alive, was 
 conveyed to Limmer's Hotel, where, after a considerable 
 amount of anguish, the ball was extracted and the wound 
 healed. Now it was all over, the Squire felt very much 
 raised in his own conceit ; and when he was in a humor more 
 than ordinarily fierce, that perilous event became a favorite 
 allusion with him. 
 
 He considered, moreover, that his brother had incurred 
 at his hand the most lasting obligations ; and that, having 
 procured Audley's return to Parliament, and defended his 
 interests at risk of his own life, he had an absolute right to
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 45 
 
 dictate to that gentleman how to vote upon all matters, at 
 least, connected with the landed interest. And when, not 
 very long after Audley took his seat in Parliament (which 
 he did not do for some months), he thought proper both to 
 vote and to speak in a manner wholly belying the promises 
 the Squire had made on his behalf, Mr. Hazeldean wrote 
 him such a trimmer that it could not but produce an uncon- 
 ciliatory reply. Shortly afterward, the Squire's exaspera- 
 tion reached the culminating point ; for having to pass 
 through J^ansmere on a market-day, he was hooted by the 
 very farmers whom he had induced to vote for his brother ; 
 and justly imputing the disgrace to Audley, he never heard 
 the name of that traitor to the land mentioned without a 
 heightened color and an indignant expletive. Monsieur de 
 Ruqueville who was the greatest wit of his day had, like 
 the Squire, a half-brother, with whom he was not on the best 
 of terms, and of whom he always spoke as his " frere de 
 loin ! " Audley Egerton was thus Squire Hazeldean's " dis- 
 tant brother !" Enough of these explanatory antecedents 
 let us return to the Stocks. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 THE Squire's carpenters were taken from the park pales, 
 and set to work at the Parish Stocks. Then came the painter 
 and colored them a beautiful dark blue, with white border 
 and a white rim round the holes with an ornamental 
 flourish in the middle. It was the gayest public edifice in 
 the whole village though the village possessed no less than 
 three other monuments of the Vitruvian genius of the 
 Hazeldeans to wit, the almshouse, the school, and the 
 parish pump. 
 
 A more elegant, enticing, coquettish pair of stocks never 
 gladdened the eye of a justice of the peace. 
 
 And Squire Hazeldean's eye was gladdened. In the pride 
 of his heart he brought all the family down to look at the 
 stocks. The Squire's family (omitting the frcre dc loin] 
 consisted of Mrs. Hazeldean, his wife ; next, of Miss Jemima 
 Hazeldean, his first-cousin ; thirdly, of Mr. Francis Hazel- 
 dean, his only son ; and fourthly, of Captain Barnabas 
 Higginbotham, a distant relation who, indeed, strictly
 
 46 MY NOVEL; OK, 
 
 speaking, was not of the family, but only a visitor ten 
 months in the year. Mrs. Hazeldean was every inch the 
 lady the lady of the parish. In her comely, florid, and 
 somewhat sunburnt countenance, there was an equal ex- 
 pression of majesty and benevolence ; she had a blue eye 
 that invited liking, and an aquiline nose that commanded 
 respect. Mrs. Hazeldean had no affectation of fine airs no 
 wish to be greater and handsomer and cleverer than she was. 
 She knew herself, and her station, and thanked heaven for 
 it. There was about her speech and manner something of 
 the shortness and bluntness which often characterize 
 royalty ; and if the lady of a parish is not a queen in her 
 own circle, it is never the fault of a parish. Mrs. Hazeldean 
 dressed her part to perfection. She wore silks that seemed 
 heirlooms so thick were they, so substantial and imposing. 
 And over these, when she was in her own domain, the 
 whitest of aprons ; while at her waist was seen no fiddle- 
 faddle chatelaine, with breldques and trumpery, but a good 
 honest gold watch to mark the time, and a long pair of 
 scissors to cut off the dead leaves from her flowers for she 
 was a great horticulturist. When occasion needed, Mrs. 
 Hazeldean, could, however, lay by her more sumptuous and 
 imperial raiment for a stout riding-habit, of blue Saxony, 
 and canter by her husband's side to see the hounds throw 
 off. Nay, on the days on which Mr. Hazeldean drove his 
 famous fast-trotting cob to the market-town, it was rarely 
 that you did not see his wife on the left side of the gig. 
 She cared as little as her lord did for wind and weather, and 
 in the midst of some pelting shower, her pleasant face 
 peeped over the collar and capes of a stout dreadnough, ex- 
 panding into smiles and bloom as some frank rose, that 
 opens from its petals, and rejoices in the dews. It was easy 
 to see that the worthy couple had married for love ; they 
 Avere as little apart as they could help it. And still, on the 
 first of September, if the house was not full of company 
 which demanded her cares, Mrs. Hazeldean "stepped out" 
 over the stubbles by her husband's side, with as light a tread 
 and as blithe an eye as when, in the first bridal year, she had 
 enchanted the Squire by her genial sympathy with his 
 sports. 
 
 So there now stands Harriet Hazeldean, one hand lean- 
 ing on the Squire's broad shoulder, the other thrust into her 
 apron, and trying her best to share her husband's enthu- 
 siasm for his own public-spirited patriotism, in the renova-
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 47 
 
 tion of the parish stocks. A little behind, with two fingers 
 resting on the thin arm of Captain Barnabas, stood Miss 
 Jemima, the orphan daughter of the Squire's uncle, by a 
 runaway imprudent marriage with a young lady who be- 
 longed to a family which had been at war with the Hazel- 
 deans since the reign of Charles the First, respecting a 
 right of way to a small wood (or rather spring) of about an 
 acre, through a piece of furze land, which was let to a brick- 
 maker at twelve shillings a-year. The wood belonged to the 
 Hazeldeans, the furze land to the Sticktorights (an old 
 Saxon family, if ever there was one). Every twelfth year, 
 when the fagots and timber were felled, this feud broke 
 out afresh ; for the Sticktorights refused to the Hazeldeans 
 the right to cart off the said fagots and timber through the 
 only way by which a cart could possibly pass. It is just to 
 the Hazeldeans to say that they had offered to buy the land 
 at ten times its value. But the Sticktorights, with equal 
 magnanimity, had declared that they would not " alienate 
 the family property for the convenience of the best squire 
 that ever stood upon shoe-leather." Therefore, every twelfth 
 year, there was always a great breach of the peace on the 
 part of both Hazeldeans and Sticktorights, magistrates and 
 djputy-lieutenants though they were. The question was 
 fairly fought out by their respective dependents, and fol- 
 lowed by various actions for assault and trespass. As the 
 legal question of right was extremely obscure, it never had 
 been properly decided ; and indeed, neither party wished it 
 to be decided, each at heart having some doubt of the pro- 
 priety of its own claim. A marriage between a younger son 
 of the Hazeldeans, and a younger daughter of the Stickto- 
 rights, was viewed with equal indignation by both families ; 
 and the consequence had been that the runaway couple, 
 unblessed and unforgiven, had scrambled through life as 
 they could, upon the scanty pay of the husband, who was 
 in a marching regiment, and the interest of ^1,000, which 
 was the wife's fortune independent of her parents. They 
 died and left an only daughter (upon whom the maternal 
 ;i,ooo had been settled), about the time that the Squire 
 came of age and into possession of his estates. And though 
 he inherited all the ancestral hostility toward the Stickto- 
 rights, it was not in his nature to be unkind to a poor or- 
 phan, who was, after all, the child of a Hazeldean. There- 
 fore, he had educated and fostered Jemima with as much 
 tenderness as if she had been his sister ; put out her ^1,000
 
 43 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 at nurse, and devoted, from the ready money which had ac- 
 crued from the rents during his minority, as much as made 
 her fortune (with her o-.vn accumulated at compound inter- 
 est), no less than ^4,000, the ordinary marriage portion of 
 the daughters of Hazeldean. On her coming of age, he 
 transferred this sum to her absolute disposal, in order that 
 she might feel herself independent, see a little more of the 
 world than she could at Hazeldean, have candidates to 
 choose from if she deigned to marry ; or enough to live 
 upon, if she chose to remain single. Miss Jemima had 
 somewhat availed herself of this liberty, by occasional visits 
 to Cheltenham and other watering-places. But her grate- 
 ful affection to the Squire was such, that she could never 
 bear to be long away from the Hall. And this was the 
 more praise to her heart, inasmuch as she was far from tak- 
 ing kindly to the prospect of being an old maid. And there 
 were so few bachelors in the neighborhood of Hazeldean, 
 that she could not but have that prospect before her eyes 
 whenever she looked out of the Hall windows. Miss 
 Jemima was indeed one of the most kindly and affectionate 
 of beings feminine ; and if she disliked the thought of sin- 
 gle blessedness, it really was from those innocent and wo- 
 menly instincts toward the tender charities of hearth and 
 home, without which a lady, however otherwise estimable, 
 is little better than a Minerva in bronze. But whether or 
 not, despite her fortune and her face, which last, though 
 not strictly handsome, was pleasing, and would have been 
 positively pretty if she had laughed more often (for when 
 she laughed, there appeared three charming dimples, in- 
 visible when she was grave) whether or not, I say, it was 
 the fault of our insensibility or her own fastidiousness, Miss 
 Jemima approached her thirtieth year, and was still Miss 
 Jemima. Now, therefore, that beautifying laugh of hers 
 was very rarely heard, and she had of late become confirmed 
 in two opinions, not at all conducive to laughter. One was 
 a conviction of the general and progressive wickedness of 
 the male sex, and the other was a decided and lugubrious 
 belief that the world was coming to an end. Miss Jemima 
 was now accompanied by a small canine favorite, true Blen- 
 heim, with a snub nose. It was advanced in life, and some- 
 what obese. It sate on its haunches, with its tongue out of 
 its mouth, except when it snapped at the flies. There was 
 a strong platonic friendship between Miss Jemima and 
 Captain Barnabas Higginbotham ; for he too was unmar-
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 49 
 
 ried, and he had the same ill opinion of your sex, my dear 
 madam, that Miss Jemima had of ours. The Captain was a 
 man of a slim and elegant figure ; the less said about the 
 face the better, a truth of which the Captain .himself was 
 sensible, for it was a favorite maxim of his " that in a man, 
 everything is a slight, gentlemanlike figure." Captain Bar- 
 nabas did not absolutely deny that the world was coming to 
 an end, only he thought it. would last his time. 
 
 Quite apart from all the rest, with the nonchalant sur- 
 vey of virgin dandyism, Francis Hazeldean looked over one 
 of the high starched neckcloths which were then the fashion 
 a handsome lad, fresh from Eton for the summer holi- 
 days, but at that ambiguous age, when one disdains the 
 sport of the boy, and has not yet arrived at the resources of 
 the man. 
 
 " I should be glad, Frank," said the Squire, suddenly 
 turning round to his son, "to see you take a little more in- 
 terest in duties which, one day or the other, you may be 
 called upon to discharge. I can't bear to think that the 
 property should fall into the hands of a fine gentleman, who 
 will let things go to rack and ruin, instead of keeping them 
 up as I do." 
 
 And the Squire pointed to the stocks. 
 
 Master Frank's eye followed the direction of the cane, 
 as well as his cravat would permit ; and he said dryly 
 
 "Yes, sir ; but how came the stocks to be so long out of 
 repair? " 
 
 " Because one can't see to everything at once," retorted 
 the Squire, tartly. "When a man has got eight thousand 
 acres to look after, he must do a bit at a time." 
 
 " Yes," said Captain Barnabas. "I know that by ex- 
 perience." 
 
 " The deuce you do ! " cried the Squire, bluntly. Ex- 
 perience in eight thousand acres !" 
 
 " No ; in my apartments in the Albany No. 3 A. I 
 have had them ten years, and it was only last Christmas 
 that I bought my Japan cat." 
 
 "Dear me," said Miss Jemima; "a Japan cat! that 
 must be very curious. What sort of a creature is it ? " 
 
 " Don't you know? Bless me, a thing with three legs, 
 and holds toast ! I never thought of it, I assure you, till 
 my friend Cosey said to me, one morning when he was 
 breakfasting at my rooms ' Higginbotham, how is it that 
 you, who like to have things comfortable about you, don't 
 
 3
 
 50 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 have a cat ! ' ' Upon my life,' said I, ' one can't think of 
 everything at a time ;' just like you, Squire." 
 
 " Pshaw," said Mr. Hazeldean, gruffly "not at all like 
 me. And I'll thank you another time, Cousin Higgin- 
 botham, not to put me out, when I am speaking on matters 
 of importance ; poking your cat into my stocks ! They look 
 something like now, my stocks don't they, Harry ? I 
 declare that the whole village seems more respectable. It 
 is astonishing how much a little improvement adds to the 
 to the " 
 
 " Charm of the landscape," put in Miss Jemina, senti- 
 mentally. 
 
 The Squire neither accepted nor rejected the suggested 
 termination ; but, leaving his sentence uncompleted, broke 
 suddenly off with 
 
 " And if I had listened to Parson Dale " 
 
 " You would have done a very wise thing," said a voice 
 behind, as the Parson presented himself in the rear. 
 
 " Wise thing ! Why, surely, Mr. Dale," said Mrs. Hazel- 
 dean, with spirit, for she always resented the least contra- 
 diction to her lord and master perhaps as an interference 
 with her own special right and prerogative! "why, surety 
 if it is necessary to have stocks, it is necessary to repair 
 them." 
 
 "That's right go it, Harry!" cried the Squire, chuck- 
 ling, and rubbing his hands as if he had been setting his 
 terrier at the Parson ; " St St at him ! Well, Master 
 Dale, what do you say to that? " 
 
 "My dear ma'am," said the Parson, replying in prefer- 
 ence to the lady, " there are many institutions in the coun- 
 try which are very old, look very decayed, and don't seem 
 of much use ; but I would not pull them down for all 
 that." 
 
 "You would reform them, then," said Mrs. Hazeldean, 
 doubtfully, and with a look at her husband, as much as to 
 say, "He is on politics now that's your business." 
 
 " No, I would not, ma'am," said the Parson, stoutly. 
 
 " What on earth would you do, then ? " quoth the 
 Squire. 
 
 "Just let 'em alone," said the Parson. "Master Frank, 
 there's a Latin maxim which was often in the mouth of Sir 
 Robert Walpole, and which they ought to put into the 
 Eton grammar ' Quieta non movere.' If things are 
 quiet, let them be quiet ! I would not destroy the stocks,
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 51 
 
 because that might seem to the ill-disposed like a license 
 to offend ; and I would not repair the stocks, because that 
 puts it into people's heads to get into them." 
 
 The Squire was a staunch politician of the old school, 
 and he did not like to think that, in repairing the stocks, 
 he had perhaps been conniving at revolutionary prin- 
 ciples. 
 
 " This constant desire of innovation," said Miss Jemima, 
 suddenly mounting the more funereal of her two favorite 
 hobbies, " is one of the great symptoms of the approaching 
 crash. We are altering, and mending, and reforming, when 
 in twenty years at the utmost the world itself may be de- 
 stroyed ! " The fair speaker paused, and 
 
 Captain Barnabas said thoughtfully "Twenty years ! 
 the insurance offices rarely compute the best life at more 
 than fourteen." He struck his hand on the stocks as he 
 spoke, and added, with his usual consolatory conclusion 
 " The odds are, that it will last our time, Squire." 
 
 But whether Captain Barnabas meant the stocks or the 
 world, he did not clearly explain, and no one took the 
 trouble to inquire. 
 
 " Sir," said Master Frank to his father, with that furtive 
 spirit of quizzing, which he had acquired amongst other 
 polite accomplishments at Eton" sir, it is no use now con- 
 sidering whether the stocks should or should not have been 
 repaired. The only question is, whom you will get to put 
 into them?" 
 
 "True," said the Squire, with much gravity. 
 
 "Yes, there it is!" said the Parson, mournfully. "If 
 you would but learn ' non quieta movere ! ' ' 
 
 "Don't spout your Latin at me, Parson!" cried the 
 Squire, angrily ; " I can give you as good as you bring, any 
 day. 
 
 ' Propria quse maribus tribuuntur moscula clicas, 
 As in praesenti, perfectum format in avi.' 
 
 There," added the Squire, turning triumphantly toward 
 his Harry, who looked with great admiration at this un- 
 precedented burst of learning on the part of Mr. Hazeldean 
 " there, two can play at that game ! And now that we 
 have all seen the stocks, we may as well go home, and drink 
 tea. Will you come up and play a rubber, Dale ? No ! 
 hang it, man, I've not offended you you know my 
 ways."
 
 52 MY NOVEL ; OR, 
 
 " That I do, and they are among the things I would not 
 have altered," cried the Parson holding out his hand 
 cheerfully. The Squire gave it a hearty shake, and Mrs. 
 Hazeldean hastened to do the same. 
 
 " Do come ; I am afraid we've been very rude ; we are 
 sad blunt folks. Do come ; that's a dear good man ; and of 
 course, poor. Mrs. Dale too." Mrs. Hazeldean's favorite 
 epithet for Mrs. Dale was poor, and that for reasons to be 
 explained hereafter. 
 
 " I fear my wife has got one of her bad headaches, but I 
 will give her your kind message, and at all events you may 
 depend upon me." 
 
 " That's right," said the Squire ; " in half-an-hour, eh ? 
 How dy'e do, my little man ? " as Lenny Fairfield, on his 
 way home from some errand in the village, drew aside and 
 pulled off his hat with both hands. " Stop you see those 
 stocks eh ? Tell all the bad boys in the parish to take 
 care how they get into them a sad disgrace you'll never 
 be in such a quandary ? " 
 
 "That at least I will answer for," said the Parson. 
 
 "And I too," added Mrs. Hazeldean, patting the boy's 
 curly head. "Tell your mother I shall come and have a 
 good chat with her to-morrow evening." 
 
 And so the party passed on, and Lenny stood still on 
 the road, staring hard at the stocks, which stared back at 
 him from its four great eyes. 
 
 But Lenny did not remain long alone. As soon as the 
 great folks had fairly disappeared, a large number of small 
 folks emerged timorously from the neighboring cottages, 
 and approached the site of the stocks Avith much marvel, 
 fear, and curiosity. 
 
 In fact, the renovated appearance of this monster a 
 propos de bottes, as one may say had already excited con- 
 siderable sensation among the population of Hazeldean. 
 And even as when an unexpected owl makes his appear- 
 ance in broad daylight, all the little birds rise from tree and 
 hedgerow, and cluster round their ominous enemy, so now 
 gathered all the much-excited villagers round the intrusive 
 and portentous phenomenon. 
 
 " D'ye know what the diggins the Squire dit it for, 
 Gaffer Solomons ? " asked one many-childed matron, with 
 a baby in arms, an urchin three years old clinging fast to 
 her petticoat, and her hand maternally holding back a more 
 adventurous hero of six, who had a great desire to thrust
 
 VARIETIES IN' ENGLISH LIFE. 53 
 
 his head into one of the grisly apertures. All eyes turned 
 to a sage old man, the oracle of the village, who, leaning 
 both hands on his crutch, shook his head bodingly. 
 
 "Maw be," said Gaffer Solomons, "some of the boys 
 ha' been robbing the orchards." 
 
 " Orchards ! " cried a big lad, who seemed to think him- 
 self personally appealed to "why, the bud's scarce off the 
 trees yet ! " 
 
 " No more it in't ! " said the dame with many children, 
 and she breathed more freely. 
 
 " Maw be," said Gaffer Solomons, " some o' ye has been 
 sitting snares." 
 
 "What for?" said a stout, sullen-looking young fellow, 
 whom conscience possibly pricked to reply "what for, 
 when it bean't (he season ? And if a poor man did find a 
 hear in his pocket i' the hay-time, I should like to know if 
 ever a Squire in the world would let un off with the 
 stocks eh ? " 
 
 This last question seemed a settler, and the wisdom of 
 Gaffer Solomons went down fifty per cent, in the public 
 opinion of Hazeldean. 
 
 " Maw be," said the Gaffer this time with a thrilling 
 effect, which restored his reputation "maw be some o' ye 
 ha' been getting drunk, and making beestises o' your- 
 sels ! " 
 
 There was a dead pause, for this suggestion applied too 
 generally to be met with a solitary response. At last one 
 of the women said, with a meaning glance at her husband, 
 "God bless the Squire; he'll make some on us happy 
 women, if that's all ! " 
 
 There then arose an almost unanimous murmur of ap- 
 probation among the female part of the audience ; and the 
 men looked at each other, and then at the phenomenon, 
 with a very hang-dog expression of countenance. 
 
 " Or, maw be," resumed Gaffer Solomons, encouraged to 
 a fourth suggestion by the success of its predecessor 
 " maw be some o' the Misseses ha' been making a rumpus, 
 and scolding their goodmen. I heard say in my gran- 
 feythir's time, that arter old Mother Bang nigh died o' the 
 ducking-stool, them 'ere stocks were first made for the 
 women, out o' compassion like ! And every one knows the 
 Squire is a koind-hearted man, God bless un ! " 
 
 "God bless un !" cried the men heartily; and they 
 gathered lovingly round the phenomenon, like heathens of
 
 54 MY NOfEL; OK y 
 
 old round a ttitclary temple. But then there rose one 
 shrill clamor among the females, as they retreated with 
 involuntary steps toward the verge of the green, whence 
 they glared at Solomons and the phenomenon with eyes so 
 sparkling, and pointed at both with gestures so menacing, 
 that Heaven only knows if a morsel of either would have 
 remained much longer to offend the eyes of the justly 
 enraged matronage of Hazeldean, if fortunately Master 
 Stirn, the Squire's right-hand man, had not come up in the 
 nick of time. 
 
 Master Stirn was a formidable personage more formi- 
 dable than the Squire himself as, indeed, a Squire's right 
 hand is generally more formidable than the head can pre- 
 tend to be. He inspired the greater awe, because, like the 
 stocks, of which he was deputed guardian, his powers were 
 undefined and obscure, and he had no particular place in 
 the out-of-door establishment. He was not the steward, 
 yet he did much of what ought to be the steward's work ; 
 he was not the farm-bailiff, for the Squire called himself his 
 own farm-bailiff ; nevertheless, Mr. Hazeldean sowed and 
 ploughed, cropped and stocked, bought and sold, very 
 much as Mr. Stirn condescended to advise. He was not the 
 park-keeper, for he neither shot the deer nor superintended 
 the preserves ; but it was he who always found out who 
 had broken a park-pale or snared a rabbit. In short, 
 what may be called all the harsher duties of a large landed 
 proprietor, devolved, by custom and choice, upon M. Stirn. 
 If a laborer was to be discharged, or a rent enforced, and the 
 Squire knew that he should be talked over and that the 
 steward would be as soft as himself, Mr. Stirn was sure to 
 be the avenging ayyeXos or messenger, to pronounce the 
 words of fate ; so that he appeared to the inhabitants of 
 Hazeldean like the Poet's Saevft JVcccssitas, a vague incar- 
 nation of remorseless power, armed with whips, nails, and 
 wedges. The very brute creation stood in awe of Mr. 
 Stirn. The calves knew that it w r as he who singled out 
 which should be sold to the butcher, and huddled up into a 
 corner with beating hearts at his grim footstep ; the sow 
 grunted, the duck quacked, the hen bristled her feathers 
 and called to her chicks when Mr. Stirn drew near. Nature 
 had set her stamp upon him. Indeed, it may be questioned 
 whether the great M. de Chambray himself, surnamed the 
 brave, had an aspect so awe-inspiring as that of Mr. Stirn ; 
 albeit the face of that hero was so terrible, that a man who
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 55 
 
 had been his lackey, seeing his portrait after he had been 
 dead twenty years, fell a-trembling all over like a leaf ! 
 
 " And what the plague are you all doing here ? " said 
 Mr. Stirn, as he waved and smacked a great cart-whip 
 which he held in his hand, " making such a hullabaloo, 
 you women, you ! that I suspect the Squire will be sending 
 out to know if the village is on fire. Go home, will ye ? 
 High time indeed to have the stocks ready, when you 
 get squalling and conspiring under the very nose of a 
 justice of the peace, just as the French revolutioners did 
 afore they cut off their king's head ; my hair stands on end 
 to look at ye." But already, before half this address was 
 delivered, the crowd had dispersed in all directions the 
 women still keeping together, and the men sneaking off 
 toward the ale-house. Such was the beneficent effect of 
 the fatal stocks, on the first day of their resuscitation ! 
 
 However, in the break-up of every crowd there must 
 always be one who gets of the last ; and it so happened 
 that our friend Lenny Fairfield, who had mechanically ap- 
 proached close to the stocks, the better to hear the oracular 
 opinions of Gaffer Solomons, had no less mechanically, on 
 the abrupt appearance of Mr. Stirn, crept, as he hoped, out 
 of sight behind the trunk of the elm-tree which partially 
 shaded the stocks ; and there now, as if fascinated, he still 
 cowered, not daring to emerge in full view of Mr. Stirn, 
 and in immediate reach of the cart whip when the quick 
 eye of the right-hand man detected his retreat. 
 
 " Hallo you, sir what the deuce, laying a mine to blow 
 up the stocks ! just like Guy Fox and the Gunpowder 
 Plot, I declares ! What ha' you got in your willanous little 
 fist there ? " 
 
 " Nothing, sir," said Lenny, opening his palm. 
 
 " Nothing um ! " said Mr. Stirn, much dissatisfied ; 
 and then, as he gazed more deliberately, recognizing the 
 pattern boy of the village, a cloud yet darker gathered 
 over his brow for Mr. Stirn, who valued himself much on 
 his learning and who, indeed, by dint of more knowledge 
 as well as more wit than his neighbors, had attained his 
 present eminent station of life was extremely anxious 
 that his only son should also be a scholar ; that wish 
 
 " The gods dispersed in empty air." 
 
 Master Stirn was a notable dunce at the Parson's school, 
 while Lenny Fairfield was the pride and boast of it ; there-
 
 56 MY NOVEL; Off, 
 
 fore Mr. Stirn was naturally, and almost justifiably, ill- 
 disposed toward Lenny Fairfield, who had appropriated to 
 himself the praises which Mr. Stirn had designed for his 
 own son. 
 
 " Um ! " said the right-hand man, glowering on Lenny 
 malignantly, "you are the pattern boy of the village, are 
 you ? Very well, sir then I put these here stocks under 
 your care and you'll keep off the other boys from sitting 
 on 'em, and picking off the paint, and playing three-holes 
 and chuck-farthing, as I declare they've been a-doing, just 
 in front of the elewation. Now, you knows your 'sponsi- 
 bilities, little boy and a great honor they are too, for the 
 like o' you. If any damage be done, it is to you I shall 
 look ; d'ye understand ? and that's what the Squire says to 
 me. So you see what it is to be a pattern boy, Master 
 Lenny ! " 
 
 With that Mr. Stirn gave a loud crack of the cart-whip, 
 by way of military honors, over the head of the vice- 
 gerent he had thus created, and strode off to pay a visit to 
 two young unsuspecting pups, whose ears and tails he had 
 graciously promised their proprietor to crop that evening. 
 Nor, albeit few charges could be more obnoxious than that 
 of deputy-governor or charge-c? affaires extraordinaire* to the 
 Parish Stocks, nor one more likely to render Lenny Fair- 
 field odious to his contemporaries, ought he to have been 
 insensible to the signal advantage of his condition over that 
 of the two sufferers, against whose ears and tails Mr. Stirn 
 had no special motives of resentment. To every bad there 
 is a worse and fortunately for little boys, and even for 
 grown men, whom the Stirns of the world regard malignly, 
 the majesty of law protects their ears, and the merciful 
 forethought of nature deprived their remote ancestors of 
 the privilege of entailing tails upon them. Had it been 
 otherwise considering what handles tails would have given 
 to the oppressor, how many traps envy would have laid for 
 them, how often they must have been scratched and muti- 
 lated by the briars of life, how many good excuses would 
 have been found for lopping, docking, and trimming them 
 I fear that only the lap-dogs of Fortune would have gone 
 to the grave tail-whole.
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 57 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 THE card-table was set out in the drawing-room at Haz- 
 eldean Hall ; though the little party were still lingering in 
 the deep recess of the large bay-window which (in itself of 
 dimensions that would have swallowed up a moderate-sized 
 London parlor) held the great round tea-table, with all ap- 
 pliances and means to boot for the beautiful summer 
 moon shed on the sward so silvery a lustre, and the trees 
 cast so quiet a shadow, and the flowers and new-mown hay 
 sent up so grateful a perfume, that, to close the windows, 
 draw the curtains, and call for other lights than those of 
 heaven, would have been an abuse of the prose of life which 
 even Captain Barnabas, who regarded whist as the business 
 of town and the holiday of the country, shrank from sug- 
 gesting. Without, the scene, beheld by the clear moon- 
 light, had the beauty peculiar to the garden-ground round 
 those old-fashioned country residences which, though a lit- 
 tle modernized, still preserve their original character ; the 
 velvet lawn, studded with large plots of flowers, shaded and 
 scented here, to the left, by lilacs, laburnums, and rich 
 seringas there, to the right, giving glimpses, over low- 
 clipped yews, of a green bowling-alley, with the white col- 
 umns of a summer-house built after the Dutch taste, in the 
 reign of William III.; and in front stealing away under 
 covert of those still cedars, into the wilder landscape of the 
 well-wooded undulating park. Within, viewed by the placid 
 glimmer of the moon, the scene was no less characteristic 
 of the abodes of that race which has no parallel in other 
 lands, and which, alas ! is somewhat losing its native idio- 
 syncrasies in this the stout country gentleman, not the 
 fine gentleman of the country the country gentleman 
 somewhat softened and civilized from the mere sportsman 
 or farmer, but still plain and homely, relinquishing the old 
 hall for the drawing-room, and with books not three months 
 old on his table, instead of Fox's Martyrs and Baker's Chroni- 
 cle yet still retaining many a sacred old prejudice, that, 
 like the knots in his native oak, rather adds to the orna- 
 ment of the grain than takes from'the strength of the tree. 
 Opposite to the window, the high chimney-piece rose to
 
 5 8 My NOVEL; OR, 
 
 the heavy cornice of the ceiling, with dark panels glistening 
 against the moonlight. The broad and rather clumsy chintz 
 sofas and settees of the reign of George III., contrasted at 
 intervals with the tall-backed chairs of a far more distant 
 generation, when ladies in fardingales and gentlemen in trunk 
 hose seem never to have indulged in horizontal positions. 
 The walls, of shining wainscot, were thickly covered, chiefly 
 with family pictures ; though now and then some Dutch 
 fair, or battle-piece, showed that a former proprietor had 
 been less exclusive in his taste for the arts. The pianoforte 
 stood open near the fire-place ; a long dwarf bookcase, at 
 the far end, added its sober smile to the room. That book- 
 case contained what was called " The Lady's Library," a 
 collection commenced by the Squire's grandmother, of 
 pious memory, and completed by his mother, who had more 
 taste for the lighter letters, with but little addition from the 
 bibliomaniac tendencies of the present Mrs. Hazeldean, who, 
 being no great reader, contented herself with subscribing to 
 the Book Club. In this feminine Bodleian, the sermons 
 collected by Mrs. Hazeldean, the grandmother, stood cheek- 
 by-jowl beside the novels purchased by Mrs. Hazeldean, the 
 mother. 
 
 " Mixtaque ridenti colocasia fundet acantho ! " 
 
 But, to be sure, the novels, in spite of very inflamma- 
 tory titles, such as " Fatal Sensibility," " Errors of the 
 Heart," etc., were so harmless, that I doubt if the sermons 
 could have had much to say against their next-door neigh- 
 bors and that is all that can be expected by the best of 
 us. 
 
 A parrot dozing on his perch some gold-fish fast 
 asleep in their glass bowl two or three dogs on the rug, 
 and Flimsey, Miss Jemima's spaniel, curled into a ball on 
 the softest sofa Mrs. Hazeldean's work-table rather in dis- 
 order, as if it had been lately used the St. James s Chronicle 
 dangling down from a little tripod near the Squire's arm- 
 chair a high screen of gilt and stamped leather fencing off 
 the card-table ; all these, dispersed about a room large 
 enough to hold them all and not seem crowded, offered 
 many a pleasant resting-place for the eye, when it turned 
 from the world of nature to the home of man. 
 
 But see, Captain Barnabas, fortified by his fourth cup of 
 tea, has at length summoned courage to whisper to Mrs. 
 Hazeldean, " Don't you think the Parson will be impatient
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 59 
 
 for his rubber ?" Mrs. Hazeldean glanced at the Parson, and 
 smiled ; but she gave the signal to the Captain, and the bell 
 was rung, lights were brought in, the curtains let down ; in a 
 few moments more, the group had collected round the card- 
 table. The best of us are but human that is not a new truth, 
 I confess, but yet people forget it every day of their lives 
 and I dare say there are many who are charitably thinking 
 at this very moment, that my Parson ought not to be play- 
 ing at whist. All I can say to those rigid disciplinarians is, 
 " Every man has his favorite sin : whist was Parson Dale's ! 
 ladies and gentlemen, what is yours ?" In truth, I must 
 not set up my poor parson now-a-days, as a pattern parson 
 it is enough to have one pattern in a village no bigger 
 than Hazeldean, and we all know that Lenny Fairfield has 
 bespoken that place, and got the patronage of the stocks for 
 his emoluments ! Parson Dale was ordained, not indeed so 
 very long ago, but still at a time when churchmen took it a 
 great deal more easily than they do now. The elderly par- 
 son of that day played his rubber as a matter of course, the 
 middle-aged parson was sometimes seen riding to cover (I 
 knew a schoolmaster, a doctor of divinity, and an excellent 
 man, whose pupils were chiefly taken from the highest fam- 
 ilies in England, who hunted regularly three times a week 
 during the season), and the young parson would often sing 
 a capital song not composed by David and join in those 
 rotatory dances, which certainly David never danced before 
 the ark. 
 
 Does it need so long an exordium to excuse thee, poor 
 Parson Dale, for turning up that ace of spades with so 
 triumphant a smile at thy partner ? I must own that 
 nothing which could well add to the Parson's offence was 
 wanting. In the first place, he did not play charitably, and 
 merely to oblige other people. He delighted in the game 
 he rejoiced in the game his whole heart was in the game 
 neither was he indifferent to the mammon of the thing, as a 
 Christian pastor ought to have been. He looked- very sad 
 when he took his shillings out of his purse, and exceed- 
 ingly pleased when he put the shillings that had just before 
 belonged to other people into it. Finally, by one of those 
 arrangements common with married people, who play at 
 the same table, Mr. and Mrs. Hazeldean were invariably 
 partners, and no two people could play worse ; while Captain 
 Barnabas, who had played at Graham's with honor and 
 profit, necessarily became partner to Parson Dale, who him-
 
 63 MY NOVEL; OX, 
 
 self played a good steady parsonic game. So that, in strict 
 truth, it was hardly fair play it was almost swindling the 
 combination of these two great dons against that innocent 
 married couple ! Mr. Dale, it is true, was aware of this dis- 
 proportion of force, and had often proposed, either to 
 change partners or to give odds proposition always scorn- 
 fully scouted by the Squire and his lady, so that the Parson 
 was obliged to pocket his conscience, together with the ten 
 points which made his average winnings. 
 
 The strangest thing in the world is the different way in 
 which whist affects the temper. It is no test of temper, as 
 some pretend not at all ! The best-tempered people in the 
 world grow snappish at whist ; and I have seen the most 
 testy and peevish in the ordinary affairs of life bear their 
 losses with the stoicism of Epictetus. This was notably 
 manifested in the contrast between the present adversaries 
 of the Hall and the Rectory. The Squire, who was esteemed 
 as choleric a gentleman as most in the country, was the 
 best-humored fellow you could imagine when you set him 
 down to whist opposite the sunny face of his wife. You 
 never heard one of those incorrigible blunderers scold each 
 other ; on the contrary, they only laughed when they 
 threw away the game, with four by honors in their hands. 
 The utmost that was ever said was a " Well, Harry, that 
 was the oddest trump of yours ! Ho ho ho ! " or " Bless 
 me, Hazeldean why, they made three tricks in clubs, and 
 you had the ace in your hand all the time ! Ha ha ha ! " 
 
 Upon which occasions Captain Barnabas, with great 
 good-humor, always echoed both the Squire's Ho ho 
 ho ! and Mrs. Hazeldean's Ha ha ha ! 
 
 Not so the Parson. He had so keen and sportsmanlike 
 an interest in the game, that even his adversaries' mistakes 
 ruffled him. And you would hear him, with elevated voice 
 and agitated gestures, laying down the law, quoting Hoyle, 
 appealing to all the powers of memory and common sense 
 against the very delinquencies by which he \vas enriched 
 a waste of eloquence that always heightened the hilarity of 
 Mr. and Mrs. Hazeldean. While these four were thus en- 
 gaged, Mrs. Dale, who had come with her husband despite 
 her headache, sat on the sofa beside Miss Jemima, or rather 
 beside Miss Jemima's Flimsey, which had already secured 
 the centre of the sofa, and snarled at the very idea of being 
 disturbed. 
 
 Master Frank at a table by himself was employed
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 6t 
 
 sometimes in looking at his pumps, and sometimes at 
 Gilray's Caricatures, which his mother had provided for his 
 intellectual requirements. Mrs. Dale, in her heart liked 
 Miss Jemima better than Mrs. Hazeldean, of whom she was 
 rather in awe, notwithstanding they had been little girls to- 
 gether, and occasionally still called each other Harry and 
 Carry. But those tender diminutives belonged to the 
 " Dear " genus, and were rarely employed by the ladies, ex- 
 cept at times when had they been little girls still, and the 
 governess out of the way, they would have slapped and 
 pinched each other. Mrs. Dale was still a very pretty 
 woman, as Mrs. Hazeldean was still a very fine woman. 
 Mrs. Dale painted in water colors, and sang, and made card- 
 racks and pen-holders, and was called an " elegant, accom- 
 plished woman." Mrs. Hazeldean cast up the Squire's 
 accounts, wrote the best part of his letters, kept a large es- 
 tablishment in excellent order, and was called "a clever, 
 sensible woman." Mrs. Dale had headaches and nerves, 
 Mrs. Hazeldean had neither nerves nor headaches. Mrs. 
 Dale said " Harry had no real harm in her, but was cer- 
 tainly very masculine." Mrs. Hazeldean said " Carry would 
 be a good creature but for her airs and graces." Mrs. Dale 
 said Mrs. Hazeldean was " just made to be a country 
 squire's lady." Mrs. Hazeldean said " Mrs. Dale was the 
 last person in the world who ought to have been a parson's 
 wife." Carry, when she spoke of Harry to a third person, 
 said, " Dear Mrs. Hazeldean." Harry, when she referred 
 incidentally to Carry, said " Poor Mrs. Dale." And now 
 the reader knows why Mrs. Hazeldean called Mrs. Dale 
 " poor," at least as well as I do. For, after all, the word be- 
 longed to that class in the female vocabulary which may be 
 called "obscure significants," resembling the Konx Ompax, 
 \vhich hath so puzzled the inquirers into the Eleusinian 
 Mysteries ; the application is rather to be illustrated than 
 the meaning to be exactly explained. 
 
 " That's really a sweet little dog of yours, Jemima," said 
 Mrs. Dale, who was embroidering the word CAROLINE on 
 the border of a cambric pocket-handkerchief, but edging a 
 little farther off, as she added, " he'll not bite, will he ? "- 
 " Dear me, no ! " said Miss Jemima ; but (she added in a 
 confidential whisper) " don't say he 'tis a lady dog ! " 
 " Oh," said Mrs. Dale, edging off still farther, as if that con-, 
 fession of the creature's sex did not serve to allay her ap- 
 prehensions " Oh, then, you carry your aversion to the
 
 62 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 gentlemen even to lap-dogs that is being consistent, in- 
 deed, Jemima! " 
 
 Miss JEMIMA. I had a gentleman dog once a pug^ 
 pugs are getting very scarce now. I thought he was so 
 fond of me he snapped at every one else the battles I 
 fought for him ! Well, will you believe I had been staying 
 with my friend, Miss Smilecox, at Cheltenham. Knowing 
 that William is so hasty, and his boots are so thick, I trem- 
 bled to think what a kick might do. So, on coming here, I 
 left Buff that was his name with Miss Smilecox. (A 
 pause.) 
 
 MRS. DALE (looking up languidly). Well, my love ? 
 
 Miss JEMIMA. Will you believe it, I say, when I re- 
 turned to Cheltenham, only three months afterward, Miss 
 Smilecox had seduced his affections from me, and the un- 
 grateful creature did not even know me again. A pug, 
 too yet people say pugs are faithful ! ! ! I am sure they 
 ought to be, nasty things. I have never had a gentleman 
 dog since they are all alike, believe me, heartless, selfish 
 creatures. 
 
 MRS. DALE. Pugs ? I dare say they are ! 
 
 Miss JEMIMA (with spirit). MEN! I told you it was a 
 gentleman dog! 
 
 MRS. DALE (apologetically). True, my love, but the 
 whole thing was so mixed up ! 
 
 Miss JEMIMA. You saw that cold-blooded case of Breach 
 of Promise of Marriage in the papers an old wretch, too, 
 of sixty- four. No age makes them a bit better. And when 
 one thinks that the end of all flesh is approaching, and 
 that 
 
 MRS. DALE (quickly, for she prefers Miss Jemima's 
 other hobby to that black one upon which she is preparing 
 to precede the bier of the imiverse). Yes, my love, we'll 
 avoid that subject, if you please. Mr. Dale has his own 
 opinions, and it becomes me, you know, as a parson's wife 
 (said smilingly; Mrs. Dale has as pretty a dimple as any 
 of Miss Jemima's, and makes more of that one than Miss 
 Jemima of three), to agree with him that is in theology. 
 
 Miss JEMIMA (earnestly). But the thing is so clear, if 
 you will but look into 
 
 MRS. DALE (putting her hand on Miss Jemima's lips 
 playfully). Not a word more. Pray, what do you think of 
 the Squire's tenant at the Casino, Signor Riccabocca ? An 
 interesting creature, is not he ?
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 63 
 
 Miss JEMIMA. Interesting ! not to me. Interesting ? 
 Why is he interesting ? 
 
 Mrs. Dale is silent, and turns her handkerchief in her 
 pretty little white hands, appearing to contemplate the R 
 in Caroline. 
 
 Miss JEMIMA (half pettishly, half coaxingly). Why is 
 he interesting ? I scarcely ever looked at him ; they say 
 he smokes, and never eats. Ugly, too ! 
 
 MRS. DALE. Ugly no. A fine head very like Dante's 
 but what is beauty ? 
 
 Miss JEMIMA. Very true ; what is it, indeed ? Yes, 
 as you say, I think there is something interesting about 
 him ; he looks melancholy, but that may be because he is 
 poor. 
 
 MRS. DALE. It is astonishing how little one feels pov- 
 erty when one loves. Charles and I were very poor once 
 
 before the Squire (Mrs. Dale paused, looked toward 
 
 the Squire, and murmured a blessing, the warmth of which 
 brought tears into her eyes). Yes (she added after a 
 pause), we were very poor, but we were happy even then 
 more thanks to Charles than to me (and tears from a new 
 source again dimmed those quick, lively eyes, as the little 
 woman gazed fondly on her husband, whose brows were 
 knit into a black frown over a bad hand). 
 
 Miss JEMIMA. It is only those horrid men who think 
 of money as a source of happiness. I should be the last 
 person to esteem a gentleman less because he was poor. 
 
 MRS. DALE. I wonder the Squire does not ask Signer 
 Riccabocca here more often. Such an acquisition we find 
 him ! 
 
 The Squire's voice from the card-table. "Whom ought 
 I to ask more often, Mrs. Dale ? " 
 
 Parson's voice, impatiently. " Come come come, 
 Squire ; play to my queen of diamonds do ! " 
 
 SQUIRE. There, I trump it pick up the trick, Mrs. H. 
 
 PARSON. Stop ! stop ! trump my diamond ? 
 
 The CAPTAIN (solemnly). Trick turned ; play on, 
 Squire. 
 
 SQUIRE. The king of diamonds. 
 
 MRS. HAZELDEAN. Lord ! Hazeldean ; why, that's the 
 most barefaced revoke ha ha ha ! trump the queen of 
 diamonds and play out the king ! well I never ha ha 
 ha! 
 
 CAPTAIN BARNABAS (in tenor). Ha, ha, ha !
 
 64 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 SQUIRE. Ho ho ho ! bless my soul ; ho, ho, ho ! 
 
 CAPTAIN BARNABAS (in base). Ho ho ho ! 
 
 Parson's voice raised, but drowned by the laughter of 
 his adversaries and the firm, clear tone of Captain Barna- 
 bas " Three to our score ! game ! " 
 
 SQUIRE (wiping his eyes). No help for it, Harry deal 
 for me ! Whom ought I to ask, Mrs. Dale ? (waxing 
 angry). First time I ever heard the hospitality of Hazel- 
 dean called in question ! 
 
 MRS. DALE. My dear sir, I beg a thousand pardons, 
 but listeners you know the proverb. 
 
 SQUIRE (growling like a bear). I hear nothing but 
 proverbs ever since we had that Mounseer among us. 
 Please to speak plainly, ma'am. 
 
 MRS. DALE (sliding into a little temper at being thus 
 roughly accosted). It was of Mounseer, as you call him, 
 that I spoke, Mr. Hazeldean. 
 
 SQUIRE. What ! Rickeybockey ? 
 
 MRS. DALE (attempting the pure Italian accentuation). 
 Signer Riccabocca. 
 
 PARSON (slapping his cards on the table in despair). 
 Are we playing at whist, or are we not ? 
 
 The Squire, who is fourth player, drops the king to 
 Captain Higginbotham's lead of the ace of hearta Now 
 the Captain has left queen, knave, and t\vo other hearts 
 four trumps to the queen and nothing to win a trick with 
 in the two other suits. This hand is therefore precisely one 
 of those in which, especially after the fall of that king of 
 hearts in the adversary's hand, it becomes a matter of rea- 
 sonable doubt whether to lead trumps or not. The Captain 
 hesitates, and not liking to play out his good hearts with 
 the certainty of their being trumped by the Squire, nor, on 
 the other hand, liking to open the other suits, in which he 
 has not a card that can assist his partner, resolves, as be- 
 comes a military man, in such dilemma, to make a bold 
 push and lead out trumps, in the chance of finding his part- 
 ner strong, and so bringing in his long suit. 
 
 SQUIRE (taking advantage of the much meditating pause 
 made by the Captain). Mrs. Dale, it is not my fault. I 
 have asked Rickeybockey time out of mind. But I sup- 
 pose I am not fine enough 'for those foreign chaps. He'll 
 not come that's all I know. 
 
 PARSON (aghast at seeing the Captain play out trumps 
 of which he, Mr. Dale, has only two, wherewith he expects
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 65 
 
 to ruff the suit of spades of which he has only one the 
 cards all falling in suits while he has not a single other 
 chance of a trick in his hand). Really, Squire, we had 
 better give up playing if you put out my partner in this 
 extraordinary way jabber jabber jabber ! 
 
 SQUIRE. Well, we must be good children, Harry. 
 What ! trumps, Barney ? Thank ye for that ! ' And the 
 Squire might well be grateful, for the unfortunate adver- 
 sary has led up to ace king knave with two other trumps. 
 Squire takes the Parson's ten with his knave, and plays out 
 ace king ; then, having cleared all the trumps except the 
 Captain's queen and his own remaining two, leads off tierce 
 major in that very suit of spades of which the Parson has 
 only one and the Captain, indeed, but two forces out the 
 Captain's queen, and wins the game in a canter. 
 
 PARSON (with a look at the Captain which might have 
 become the awful brows of Jove, when about to thunder). 
 That, I suppose, is the new-fashioned London play ! In 
 my time the rule was, " First save the game, then try to 
 win it." 
 
 CAPTAIN. Could not save it, sir. 
 
 PARSON (exploding). Not save it ! two ruffs in my own 
 hand two tricks certain till you took them out ! Monstrous ! 
 The rashest trump Seizes the cards spreads them on the 
 table, lip quivering, hands trembling tries to show how 
 five tricks could have been gained (N.B. It is short whist, 
 which Captain Barnabas had introduced at the Hall) can't 
 make out more than four Captain smiles triumphantly 
 Parson in a passion, and not at all convinced, mixes all 
 the cards together again, and falling back in his chair, 
 groans, with tears in his voice " The cruelest trump ! the 
 most wanton cruelty ! " 
 
 The Hazeldeans in chorus. " Ho ho ho ! Ha ha 
 ha!" 
 
 The Captain, who does not laugh this time, and whose 
 turn it is to deal, shuffles the cards for the conquering game 
 of the rubber with as much caution and prolixity as Fabius 
 might have employed in posting his men. The Squire gets 
 up to stretch his legs, and, the insinuation against his hos- 
 pitality recurring to his thoughts,, calls out to his wife 
 " Write to Rickeybockey to-morrow yourself, Harry, and 
 ask him to come and spend two or three days here. There, 
 Mrs. Dale, you hear me?" 
 
 " Yes," said Mrs. Dale, putting her hands to her ears
 
 66- My NOVEL; OR, 
 
 in implied rebuke at the loudness of the Squire's tone. 
 " My dear sir, do remember that I'm a sad nervous creature." 
 
 "Beg pardon," muttered Mr. Hazeldean, turning to his 
 son, who, having got tired of the caricatures, had fished 
 out for himself the great folio County History, which was 
 the only book in the library that the Squire much valued, 
 and which' he usually kept under lock and key, in his study, 
 together with the field-books and steward's accounts, but 
 which he had reluctantly taken into the drawing-room 
 that day, in order to oblige Captain Higginbotham. For 
 the Higginbothams an old Saxon family, as the name evi- 
 dently denotes had once possessed lands in that very 
 county. And the Captain, during his visits to Hazeldean 
 Hall, was regularly in the habit of asking to look into the 
 County History, for the purpose of refreshing his eyes, and 
 renovating his sense of ancestral dignity, with the following 
 paragraph therein : " To the left of the village of Dunder, 
 and pleasantly situated in a hollow, lies Botham Hall, the 
 residence of the ancient family of Higginbotham, as it is 
 now commonly called. Yet it appears by the county rolls, 
 and sundry old deeds, that the family formerly styled itself 
 Higges, till the Manor House lying in Botham, they gradu- 
 ally assumed the appellation of Higges-in-Botham, and in 
 process of time, yielding to the corruptions of the vulgar, 
 Higginbotham." 
 
 " What, Frank ! my County History ! " cried the Squire. 
 " Mrs. H., he has got my County History ! " 
 
 "Well, Hazeldean, it is time he should know something 
 about the County." 
 
 "Ay, and History too," said Mrs. Dale, malevolently, 
 for the little temper was by no means blown over. 
 
 FRANK. I'll not hurt it, I assure you, sir. But I'm very 
 much interested just at present. 
 
 The CAPTAIN (putting down the cards to cut). You've 
 got hold of that passage about Botham Hall, page 706, 
 eh? 
 
 FRANK. No ; I was trying to make out how far it is to 
 Mr. Leslie's place, Rood Hall. Do you know, mother ? 
 
 MRS. HAZELDEAN. I can't say I do. The Leslies don't 
 mix with the country ; and Rood lies very much out of the 
 way. 
 
 FRANK. Why don't they mix with the country ? 
 
 MRS. HAZELDEAN. I believe they are poor, and there- 
 fore I suppose they are proud ; they are an old family.
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 6? 
 
 PARSON (thrumming on the table with great impatience). 
 Old Fiddledee ! talking of old families when the cards 
 have been shuffled this half-hour ! 
 
 CAPTAIN BARNABAS. Will you cut for your partner, 
 ma'am ? 
 
 SQUIRE (who has been listening to Frank's inquiries 
 with a musing air). Why do you want to' know the distance 
 to Rood Hall ? 
 
 FRANK (rather hesitatingly). Because Randal Leslie is 
 there for the holidays, sir. 
 
 PARSON. Your wife has cut for you, Mr. Hazeldean ; I 
 don't think it was quite fair ; and my partner has turned 
 up a deuce deuce of hearts. Please to come and play, if 
 you mean to play. 
 
 The Squire returns to the table, and in a few minutes 
 the game is decided by a dexterous finesse of the Captain 
 against the Hazeldeans. The clock strikes ten ; the ser- 
 vants enter with a tray ; the Squire counts up his own and 
 his wife's losings ; and the Captain and Parson divide six- 
 teen shillings between them. 
 
 SQUIRE. There, Parson, I hope now you'll be in a 
 better humor. You win enough out of us to set up a coach- 
 and-four. 
 
 "Tut ! " muttered the Parson ; "at the end of the year, 
 I'm not a penny the richer for it all." 
 
 And indeed, monstrous as that assertion seemed, it was 
 perfectly true, for the Parson portioned out his gains into 
 three divisions. One-third he gave to Mrs. Dale, for her 
 own special pocket-money ; what became of the second 
 third he never owned even to his better half ; but certain it 
 was, that every time the Parson won seven-and-sixpence, 
 half-a-crown, which nobody could account for, found its 
 way to the poor-box ; while the remaining third the Par- 
 son, it is true, openly and avowedly retained ; but I have no 
 manner of ddubt that, at the year's end, it got to the poor 
 quite as safely as if it had been put into the box. 
 
 The party had now gathered round the tray, and were 
 helping themselves to wine and water, or wine without 
 water except Frank, who still remained poring over the 
 map in the County History, with his head leaning on his 
 hands, and his fingers plunged in his hair. 
 
 " Frank," said Mrs. Hazeldean, " I never saw you so 
 studious before."
 
 63 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 Frank started up and colored, as if ashamed of being 
 accused of too much study in anything. 
 
 The SQUIRE (with a little embarrassment in his voice). 
 Pray, Frank, what do you know of Randal Leslie ? 
 
 "Why, sir, he is at Eton." 
 
 " What sort of a boy is he ?" asked Mrs. Hazeldean. 
 
 Frank hesitated, as if reflecting, and then answered, 
 " They say he is the cleverest boy in the school. But then 
 he saps." 
 
 " In other words," said Mr. Dale, with proper parsonic 
 gravity, " he understands that he was sent to school to 
 learn his lessons, -and he learns them. You call that sap- 
 ping, I call it doing his duty. But, pray, who and what 
 is this Randal Leslie, that you look so discomposed, 
 Squire ? " 
 
 " Who and what is he ? " repeated the Squire, in a low 
 growl. "Why, you know, Mr. Audley Egerton married 
 Miss Leslie, the great heiress ; and this boy is a relation of 
 hers. I may say," added the Squire, "that he is a near re- 
 lation of mine, for his grandmother was a Hazeldean. But 
 all I know about the Leslies is, that Mr. Egerton, as I am 
 told, having no children of his own, took up young Randal 
 (when his wife died, poor woman), pays for his schooling, 
 and has, I suppose, adopted the boy as his heir. Quite 
 welcome. Frank and I want nothing from Mr. Audley 
 Egerton, thank Heaven ! " 
 
 " I can well believe in your brother's generosity to his 
 wife's kindred," said the Parson, sturdily, "for I am sure 
 Mr. Egerton is a man of strong feeling." 
 
 "What the deuce do you know about Mr. Egerton? I 
 don't suppose you could ever have even spoken to him. " 
 
 "Yes,"' said the Parson, coloring up, and looking con- 
 fused, " I had some conversation with him once ;" and ob- 
 serving the Squire's surprise, he added, "when I was 
 curate at Lansmere, and about a painful busifless connected 
 with the family of one of my parishioners." 
 
 " Oh ! one of your parishioners at Lansmere, one of 
 the constituents Mr. Audley Egerton threw over, after 
 all the pains I had taken to get him his seat. Rather odd 
 you should never have mentioned this before, Mr. Dale ! " 
 
 " My dear sir," said the Parson, sinking his voice, and 
 in a mild tone of conciliatory expostulation, " you are so 
 irritable whenever Mr. Egerton's name is mentioned at 
 all,"
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 69 
 
 " Irritable ! " exclaimed the Squire, whose wrath had 
 long been simmering, and now fairly boiled over. " Irrita- 
 ble, sir! I should think so ; a man for whom I stood god- 
 father at the hustings, Mr. Dale! a man for whose sake I 
 was called a 'prize ox,' Mr. Dale ! a man for whom I was 
 hissed in a market-place, Mr. Dale! a man for whom I 
 was shot at, in cold blood, by an officer in his Majesty's ser- 
 vice, who lodged a ball in my right shoulder, Mr. Dale ! 
 a man who had the ingratitude, after all this, to turn his 
 back on the landed interest, to deny that there was any 
 agricultural distress in a year which broke three of the best 
 farmers I ever had, Mr. Dale! a man, sir, who made a 
 speech on the Currency, which was complimented by Ri- 
 ciirdo, a Jew ! Good Heavens ! a pretty parson you are, 
 to stand up for a fellow complimented by a Jew ! Nice 
 ideas you must have of Christianity. Irritable, sir ! " now 
 fairly roared the Squire, adding to the thunder of his voice 
 the cloud of a brow which evinced a menacing ferocity that 
 might have done honor to Bussy d'Amboise or Fighting 
 Fitzgerald. " Sir, if that man had not been my own half- 
 brother, I'd have called him out. I have stood my ground 
 before now. I have had a ball in my right shoulder. Sir, 
 I'd have called him out." 
 
 "Mr. Hazeldean ! Mr. Hazeldean ! I'm shocked at you," 
 cried the Parson ; and, putting his lips close to the Squire's 
 ear, he went on in a whisper, "What an example to your 
 son ! You'll have him fighting duels one of these days, and 
 nobody to blame but yourself." 
 
 This warning cooled Mr. Hazeldean ; and muttering, 
 "Why the deuce did you set me off? " he fell back into his 
 chair, and began to fan himself with his pochet-handker- 
 chief. 
 
 The Parson skilfully and remorselessly pursued the ad- 
 vantage he had gained. "And now, that you may have it 
 in your power to show civility and kindness to the boy 
 whom Mr. Edgerton has taken up, out of respect to his 
 wife's memory a kinsman, you say, of your own, and who 
 has never offended you, a boy whose diligence in his stud- 
 ies proves him to be an excellent companion to your son 
 Frank (here the parson raised his voice), I suppose you 
 would like to call on young Leslie, as you were studying 
 he county map so attentively ?" 
 
 "Why, yes," answered Frank, rather timidly, "if my 
 father does not object to it. Leslie has been very kind
 
 70 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 to me, though he is in the sixth form, and, indeed, almost 
 the head of the school." 
 
 " Ah !" said Mrs. Hazeldean, "one studious boy has a 
 fellow-feeling for another ; and though you enjoy your 
 holidays, Frank, I am sure you read hard at school." 
 
 Mrs. Dale opened her eyes very wide, and stared in 
 astonishment. 
 
 Mrs. Hazeldean retorted that look with great anima- 
 tion. " Yes, Carry," said she, tossing her head, "though 
 you may not think Frank clever, his masters find him so. 
 He got a prize last half. That beautiful book, Frank 
 hold up your head, my love, what did you get it for ? " 
 
 FRANK (reluctantly). Verses, ma'am. 
 
 MRS. HAZKLDEAN (with triumph). Verses ! there, 
 Carry, verses ! 
 
 FRANK (in a hurried tone). Yes, but Leslie wrote them 
 for me. 
 
 MRS. HAZELDEAN (recoiling). O Frank ! a prize for 
 what another did for you that was mean. 
 
 FRANK (ingenuously). You can't be more ashamed, 
 mother, than I was when they gave me the prize. 
 
 MRS. DALE (though previously provoked at being 
 snubbed by Harry, now showing the triumph of generosity 
 over temper). I beg your pardon, Frank. Your mother 
 must be as proud of that shame as she was of the prize. 
 
 Mrs. Hazeldean puts her arm round Frank's neck, 
 smiles beamingly on Mrs. Dale, and converses with her 
 son in a low tone about Randal Leslie. Miss Jemima 
 now approached Carry, and said in an "aside," " But 
 we are forgetting poor Mr. Riccabocca. Mrs. Hazel- 
 dean, though the dearest creature in the world, has such 
 a blunt way of inviting people don't you think if you 
 were to say a word to him, Carry ? " 
 
 MRS. DALE (kindly, as she wraps her shawl round her). 
 Suppose you write the note yourself. Meanwhile, I 
 shall see him, no doubt. 
 
 PARSON (putting his hand on the Squire's shoulder). 
 You forgive my impertinence, my kind friend. We 
 parsons, you know, are apt to take strange liberties, when 
 we honor and love folks, as I do. 
 
 " Pish," said the Squire ; but his hearty smile came to 
 his lips in spite of himself. "You always get your own 
 way, and I suppose Frank must ride over and see this pet 
 of my "
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 71 
 
 "Brother's" quoth the Parson, concluding the sentence 
 in a tone which gave to the sweet word so sweet a sound 
 that the Squire would not correct the Parson, as he had 
 been about to correct himself. 
 
 Mr. Dale moved on ; but as he passed Captain Barnabas, 
 the benignant character of his countenance changed sadly. 
 
 " The crudest trump, Captain Higginbotham ! " said 
 he sternly, and stalked by majestic. 
 
 The night was so fine that the Parson and his wife, as 
 they walked home, made a little detour through the shrub- 
 bery. 
 
 MRS. DALE. I think I have done a good piece of work 
 to-night. 
 
 PARSON (rousing himself from a reverie). Have you, 
 Carry ? it will be a very pretty handkerchief. 
 
 MRS. DALE. Handkerchief! nonsense, dear. Don't 
 you think it would be a very happy thing for both, if 
 Jemima and Signor Riccabocca could be brought together ? 
 
 PARSON. Brought together ! 
 
 MRS. DALE. You do snap up one so, my dear I mean, 
 if I could make a match of it. 
 
 PARSON. I think Riccabocca is a match already, not 
 only for Jemima, but yourself into the bargain. 
 
 MRS. DALE (smiling loftily). Well, we shall see. Was 
 not Jemima's fortune about ^4,000 ? 
 
 PARSON (dreamily, for he is relapsing fast into his in- 
 terrupted reverie). Ay ay I dare say. 
 
 MRS. DALE. And she must have saved! I dare say it 
 is nearly ^6,000 by this time ; eh ! Charles dear, you 
 really are so good gracious, what's that ! 
 
 As Mrs. Dale made this exclamation, they had just 
 emerged from the shrubbery into the village green. 
 
 PARSON. What's what ? 
 
 MRS. DALE (pinching her husband's arm very nippingly). 
 That thing there there ! 
 
 PARSON. Only the new stocks, Carry ; I don't wonder 
 they frighten you, for you are a very sensible woman. I 
 only wish they would frighten the Squire.
 
 MY NOVEL; OK, 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 SUPPOSED TO BE A LETTER FROM MRS. HAZELDEAN TO A. 
 RICCABOCCA, ESQ., THE CASINO J BUT EDITED, AND INDEED 
 COMPOSED, BY MISS JEMIMA HAZELDEAN. 
 
 "DEAR SIR, To a feeling heart it must always be pain- 
 ful to give pain to another, and (though I am sure uncoun- 
 sciously) you have given the greatest pain to poor Mr. 
 Hazeldean and myself, indeed to all our little circle, in so 
 cruelly refusing our attempts to become better acquainted 
 with a gentleman we so highly ESTEEM. Do, pray, dear 
 sir, make us the amende honorable, and give us the pleasure 
 of your company for a few days at the Hall ! May we 
 expect you Saturday next ? our dinner hour is six o'clock. 
 
 " With the best compliments of Mr. and Miss Jemima 
 Hazeldean, 
 
 " Believe me, my dear Sir, yours truly, 
 
 "H. H. 
 
 " Hazeldean Hall." 
 
 Miss Jemima having carefully sealed this note, which 
 Mrs. Hazeldean had very willingly deputed her to write, 
 took it herself into the stable-yard, in order to give the 
 groom proper instructions to wait for an answer. But 
 while she was speaking to the man, Frank, equipped for 
 riding with more than his usual dandyism, came into the 
 yard, calling for his pony in a loud voice, and singling out 
 the very groom whom Miss Jemima was addressing for, 
 indeed, he was the smartest of all in the Squire's stables 
 told him to saddle the gray pad, and accompany the pony. 
 
 "No, Frank," said Miss Jemina, "you can't have 
 George ; your father wants him to go on a message you 
 can take Mat." 
 
 " Mat, indeed ! " said Frank, grumbling with some rea- 
 son ; for Mat was a surly old fellow, who tied a most inde- 
 fensible neckcloth, and always contrived to have a great 
 patch in his boots; besides, he called Frank "Master," 
 and obstinately refused to trot down hill; "Mat, indeed I 
 let Mat take the message, and George go with me."
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 73 
 
 But Miss Jemina had also her reasons for rejecting Mat. 
 Mat's foible was not servility, and he always showed true 
 English independence in all houses where he was riot in- 
 vited to take his ale in the servants' hall. Mat might offend 
 Signor Riccabocca, and spoil all. An animated altercation 
 ensued, in the midst of which the Squire and his wife en- 
 entered the yard, with the intention of driving in the con- 
 jugal gig to the market-town. The matter was referred to 
 the natural umpire by both the contending parties. 
 
 The Squire looked with great contempt on his son. 
 " And what did you want a groom at all for ? Are you 
 afraid of tumbling off the pony?" 
 
 FRANK. No, sir ; but I like to go as a gentleman, when 
 I pay a visit to a gentleman ! 
 
 SQUIRE (in high wrath). You precious puppy ! I think 
 I'm as good a gentleman as you any day, and I should like 
 to know when you ever saw me ride to call on a neighbor 
 with a fellow jingling at my heels, like that upstart Ned 
 Spankie, whose father kept a cotton-mill. First time I ever 
 heard of a Hazeldean thinking a livery-coat was necessary 
 to prove his gentility ! 
 
 MRS. HAZELDEAN (observing Frank coloring, and about 
 to reply). Hush, Frank, never answer your father and 
 you are going to call on Mr. Leslie ? 
 
 " Yes, ma'am, and I am very much obliged to my father 
 for letting me," said Frank, taking the Squire's hand. 
 
 "Well, but Frank," continued Mrs. Hazeldean, "I think 
 you heard that the Leslies were very poor." 
 
 FRANK. Eh, mother? 
 
 MRS. HAZELDEAN. And would you run the chance of 
 wounding the pride of a gentleman, as well born as your- 
 self, by affecting any show of being richer than he is ? 
 
 SQUIRE (with great admiration). Harry, I'd give ten 
 pounds to have said that ! 
 
 FRANK (leaving the Squire's hand to take his mother's). 
 You're quite right, mother nothing could be more 
 snobbish ! 
 
 SQUIRE. Give us your fist, too, sir ; you'll be a chip of 
 the old block, after all. 
 
 Frank smiled, and walked off to his pony. 
 
 MRS. HAZELDEAN (to Miss Jemima). Is that the note you 
 were to write for me ? 
 
 Miss JEMIMA. Yes ; I supposed you did not care about 
 seeing it, so I have sealed it, and given it to George.
 
 74 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 MRS. HAZELDEAN. But Frank will pass close by the Ca- 
 sino on his way to the Leslies'. It may be more civil if he 
 leaves the note himself. 
 
 Miss JEMIMA (hesitatingly). Do you think so ? 
 
 MRS. HAZELDEAN. Yes, certainly. Frank Frank as 
 youpass by the Casino, call on Mr. Riccabocca, give this 
 note and say we shall be heartily glad if he will come. 
 
 Frank nods. 
 
 " Stop a bit," cried the Squire. " If Rickeybockey's at 
 home, 'tis ten to one if he don't ask you to take a glass of 
 wine ! If he does, mind, 'tis worse than asking you to take 
 a turn on the rack. Faugh ! you remember, Harry ? I 
 thought it was all up with me." 
 
 " Y"es," cried Mrs. Hazeldean ; " for Heaven's sake, not 
 a drop. Wine, indeed ! " 
 
 "Don't talk of it," cried the Squire, making a wry face. 
 
 " I'll take care, sir !" said Frank, laughing as he disap- 
 peared within the stable, followed by Miss Jemima, who now 
 coaxingly makes it up with him, and does not leave off her 
 admonitions to be extremely polite to the poor foreign 
 gentleman till Frank gets his foot into the stirrup, and 
 the pony, who knows whom he has got to deal with, gives a 
 preparatory plunge or two, and then darts out of the yard.
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 75 
 
 BOOK SECOND. 
 
 INITIAL CHAPTER. 
 
 INFORMING THE READER HOW THIS WORK CAME TO HAVE 
 INITIAL CHAPTERS. 
 
 "THERE can'fbe a~ doubt," said my father, "that to each 
 of the main divisions of your work whether you call them 
 Books or Parts you should prefix an Initial or Introduc- 
 tory Chapter." 
 
 PISISTRATUS. Can't be a doubt, sir ! Why so ? 
 
 MR. CAXTON. Fielding lays it down as an indispensable 
 rule, which he supports by his example ; and Fielding was 
 an artistical writer, and knew what he was about. 
 
 PISISTRATUS. Do you remember any of his reasons, 
 sir? 
 
 MR. CAXTON. Why, indeed, Fielding says very justly, 
 that he is not bound to assign any reason ; but he does as- 
 sign a good many, here and there to find which, I refer 
 you to Tom Jones. I will only observe, that one of his rea- 
 sons, which is unanswerable, runs to the effect that thus, 
 in every Part or Book, the reader has the advantage of be- 
 ginning at the fourth or fifth page instead of the first "a 
 matter by no means of trivial consequence," saith Fielding, 
 " to persons who read books with no other view than to 
 say they have read them a more general motive to read- 
 ing than is commonly imagined ; and from which not only 
 law books and good books, but the pages of Homer and 
 Virgil, of Swift and Cervantes, have been often turned 
 over." There, cried my father triumphantly, I will lay a 
 shilling to twopence that f have quoted the very words. 
 
 MRS. CAXTON. Dear me ! that only means skipping ; I 
 don't see any great advantage in writing a chapter, merely 
 for people \Q skip it. 
 
 PISISTRATUS. 'Neither do I.
 
 76 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 MR. CAXTON (dogmatically). It is the repose in the pic- 
 ture Fielding calls it " contrast " (still more dogmatically) 
 I say there can't be a doubt about it. Besides (added my 
 father after a pause), besides, this usage gives you opportu- 
 nities 'to explain what has gone before, or to prepare for 
 what's coming ; or, since Fielding contends, with great truth, 
 that some learning is necessary for this kind of historical 
 composition, it allows you, naturally and easily, the intro- 
 duction of light and pleasant ornaments of that nature. At 
 each flight in the terrace, you may give the eye the relief 
 of an urn or a statue. Moreover, when so inclined, you 
 create proper pausing places for reflection ; and complete 
 by a separate, yet harmonious ethical department, the de- 
 sign of a work, which is but a mere Mother Goose's tale if 
 it does not embrace a general view -of the thoughts and 
 actions of mankind. 
 
 PISISTRATUS. But then, in these initial chapters, the 
 author thrusts himself forward ; and just when you want to 
 get on with the dramatis persona, you find yourself face to 
 face with the poet himself. 
 
 MR. CAXTON. Pooh ! you can contrive to prevent that ! 
 Imitate the chorus of the Greek stage, who fill up the in- 
 tervals between the action by saying what the author would 
 otherwise say in his own person. 
 
 PISISTRATUS (slily). That's a good idea, sir ; and I have 
 a chorus, and a choregus too, already in my eye. 
 
 MR. GAXT.QN (unsuspectingly). Aha! you are not so dull 
 a fellow as you would make yourself, out to be ; and, even 
 if an author did thrust himself forward, what objection is 
 there to that ? It is a mere affectation to suppose that a 
 book can come into the world without an author. Every 
 child has a father one father at least, as the great Conde 
 says very well in his poem. 
 
 PISISTRATUS. The great Concle a poet ! I never heard 
 that before. 
 
 MR. CAXTON. I don't say he was a poet, but he sent a 
 poem to Madame do Montansier. Envious critics think that 
 he must have paid somebody else to write it ; but there is 
 no reason why a great captain should not write a poem ; I 
 don't say a good poem, but a poem. I wonder, Roland, if 
 the Duke ever tried his hand at " Stanzas to Mary," or 
 " Lines to a sleeping babe." 
 
 CAPTAIN ROLAND. Austin, I'm ashamed of you. Of 
 course, the Duke could write poetry if he pleased some-
 
 VARIETIES IN EN CL IS PI LIFE. 7. 
 
 thing, I dare say, in the way of the great Conde ; that is, 
 something warlike and heroic, I'll be bound. Let's hear. 
 MR. CAXTON (reciting) 
 
 " Telle est du Ciella loi severe 
 
 Qu'il faut qiruu enfant ait un pere ; 
 
 \)n dit meme quelquefoLs 
 
 Tel enfant en a jusqu'a trois." * 
 
 CAPTAIN ROLAND (greatly disgusted). Conde write such 
 stuff ! I don't believe it. 
 
 PISISTRATUS. I do, and accept the quotation ; you and 
 Roland shall be joint fathers to my child as well as myself. 
 
 " Tel enfant en a jusqu'a trois." 
 
 MR. CAXTON (solemnly). I refuse the proffered pater- 
 nity ; but so far as -administering a little wholesome castiga- 
 tion, now and then, I have no objection to join in the dis- 
 charge of a father's duty. 
 
 PISISTRATUS. Agreed. Have you anything to say against 
 the infant hitherto ? 
 
 MR. CAXTON. He is in long clothes at present ; let us 
 wait till he can walk. 
 
 BLANCHE. But pray, whom do you mean for a hero ? 
 and is Miss Jemima your heroine ? 
 
 CAPTAIN ROLAND. There is some mystery about the 
 
 PISISTRATUS (hastily). Hush, uncle ; no letting the cat 
 out of the bag yet. Listen all of you ! I left Frank Hazel- 
 dean on his way to the Casino. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 " IT is a sweet, pretty place," thought Frank, as he 
 opened the gate which led across the fields to the Casino, 
 that smiled down upon him with its plaster pilasters. " I 
 wonder, though, that my father, who is so particular in gen- 
 eral, suffers the carriage-road to be so full of holes and 
 weeds. Mounseer does not receive many visits, I take it." 
 
 * Paraphrase : 
 
 " That each chi'.J has a father 
 
 Is Nature's decree ; 
 But, to judge by a rumor, 
 Some children have three."
 
 78 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 But when Frank got into the ground immediately before 
 the house, he saw no cause of complaint as to want of 
 order and repair. Nothing could be kept more neatly. 
 Frank was ashamed of the dint made by the pony's hoofs 
 in the smooth gravel ; he dismounted, tied the anirmil 
 to the wicket, and went on foot toward the glass-door in 
 front. 
 
 He rang the bell once, twice, but nobody came, for the 
 old woman-servant, who was hard of hearing, was far away 
 in the yard, searching for any eggs which the hen might 
 have scandalously hidden from culinary purposes ; and 
 Jackeymo was fishing for the sticklebacks and minnows, 
 which Avere, when caught, to assist the eggs, when found, 
 in keeping together the bodies and souls of himself and 
 his master. The old woman had been lately put upon 
 board-wages lucky old woman ! Frank rang a third time, 
 and with the impetuosity of his age. A face peeped from 
 the belvidere on the terrace. " Diavolo ! " said Dr. ,Ricca- 
 bocca to himself. "Young cocks crow hard on their own 
 dunghill ; it must be a cock of a high race to crow so loud 
 at another's." 
 
 Therewith he shambled out of the summer-house, and 
 appeared suddenly before Frank, in a very wizard-like 
 dressing-robe of black serge, a red cap on his head, and a 
 cloud of smoke coming rapidly from his lips, as a final con- 
 solatory whiff, before he removed the pipe from them. 
 Frank had indeed seen the doctor before, but never in so 
 scholastic a costume, and he was alittled startled by the ap- 
 parition at his elbow, as he turned round. 
 
 " Signorino " (young gentleman), said the Italian, taking 
 off his cap with his usual urbanity, " pardon the negligence 
 of my people I am too happy to receive your commands 
 in person." 
 
 " Dr. Rickeybockey ? " stammered Frank, much con- 
 fused by this polite address, and the low, yet stately, bow 
 with which it was accompanied. " I I have a note from 
 the Hall. Mamma that is, my mother and Aunt Jemi- 
 ma beg their best compliments, and hope you will come, 
 sir." 
 
 The doctor took the note with another bow, and, open- 
 ing the glass door, invited Frank to enter. 
 
 The young gentleman, with a schoolboy's usual blunt- 
 ness, was about to say that he was in a hurry, and had rather 
 not ; but Dr. Riccabocca's grand manner awed him, while a
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 79 
 
 glimpse of the hall excited his curiosity so he silently 
 obeyed the invitation. 
 
 The hall, which was of an octagon shape, had been 
 originally panelled off into compartments, and in these the 
 Italian had painted landscapes, rich with the warm sunny 
 light of his native climate. Frank was no judge of the art 
 displayed ; but he was greatly struck with the scenes de- 
 picted ; they were all views of some lake, real or imaginary 
 in all, dark-blue shining waters reflected dark -blue placid 
 skies. In one, a flight of steps descended to the lake, and a 
 gay group was seen feasting on the margin ; in another, 
 sunset threw its rose-hues over a vast villa or palace, backed 
 by Alpine hills, and flanked by long arcades of vines, while 
 pleasure-boats skimmed over the waves below. In short, 
 throughout all the eight compartments, the scene, though 
 it differed in details, preserved the same general character, 
 as if illustrating some favorite locality. The Italian did 
 not, however, evince any desire to do the honors of his own 
 art, but, preceding Frank across the hall, opened the door 
 of his usual sitting-room, and requested him to enter. Frank 
 did so, rather reluctantly, and seated himself with unwonted 
 bashfulness on the edge of a chair. But here new speci- 
 mens of the Doctor's handicraft soon riveted attention. The 
 room had been originally papered ; but Riccabocca had 
 stretched canvas over the walls, and painted thereon sundry 
 satirical devices, each separated from the other by scroll- 
 works of fantastic arabesques. Here a Cupid was trundling 
 a wheel-barrow full of hearts, which he appeared to be 
 selling to an ugly old fellow, with a money-bag in his hand 
 probably Plutus. There Diogenes might be seen walking 
 through a market-place, with his lantern in his hand, in 
 search of an honest man, w r hilst the children jeered at him, 
 and the curs snapped at his heels. In another place, a lion 
 was seen half dressed in a fox's hide, while a wolf in a sheep's 
 mask was conversing very amicably with a young lamb. 
 Here again might be seen the geese stretching out their 
 necks from the Roman Capitol in full cackle, while the stout 
 invaders were beheld in the distance, running off as hard as 
 they could. In short, in all these quaint entablatures some 
 pithy sarcasm was symbolically conveyed ; only over the 
 mantelpiece was the design graver and more touching. It 
 was the figure of a man in a pilgrim's garb, chained to the 
 earth by small, but innumerable ligaments, while a phantom 
 likeness of himself, his shadow, was seen hastening down
 
 So MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 what seemed an interminable vista ; and underneath were 
 written the pathetic words of Horace 
 
 " Patrice quis exul 
 Se quoque fugit ? " 
 
 (" What exile from his country can also fly from himself ? ") 
 The furniture of the room was extremely simple, and some- 
 what scanty ; yet it was arranged so as to impart an air of 
 taste and elegance to the room. Even a few plaster busts 
 and statues, though bought but of some humble itinerant, 
 had their classical effect, glistening from out stands of flow- 
 ers that were grouped around them, or backed by graceful 
 screen-works formed from twisted osiers, which, by the 
 simple contrivance of trays at the bottom filled with earth, 
 served for living parasitical plants, with gay flowers con- 
 trasting thick ivy leaves, and gave to the whole room the 
 aspect of a bower. 
 
 " May I ask your permission ? " said the Italian, with his 
 finger on the seal of the letter. 
 
 " Oh, yes," said Frank with naivete. 
 
 Riccabocca broke the seal, and a slight smile stole over 
 his countenance. Then he turned a little aside from Frank, 
 shaded his face with his hand, and seemed to muse. " Mrs. 
 Hazeldean," said he at last, " does me very great honor. I 
 hardly recognize her hand-writing, or I should have been 
 more impatient to open the letter." The dark eyes were 
 lifted over the spectacles, and went right into Frank's un- 
 protected and undiplomatic heart. The doctor raised the 
 note, and pointed to the characters with his forefinger. 
 
 " Cousin Jemima's hand," said Frank, as directly as if 
 the question had been put to him. 
 
 The Italian smiled. " Mr. Hazeldean has company stay- 
 ing with him ?" 
 
 " No ; that is, only Barney the Captain. There's seldom 
 much company before the shooting season," added Frank, 
 with a slight sigh ; "and then, you know, the holidays arc 
 over. For my part, I think we ought to break up a month 
 later." 
 
 The Doctor seemed re-assured by the first sentence in 
 Frank's reply, and, seating himself at the table, wrote his 
 answer not hastily, as we English write, but with care and 
 precision, like one accustomed to weigh the nature of words 
 in that stiff Italian hand, which allows the writer so much 
 time to think while he forms his letters. He did not, there-
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 81 
 
 fore, reply at once to Frank's remark about the holidays, 
 but was silent till he had concluded his note, read it three 
 times over, sealed it by the taper he slowly lighted, and then, 
 giving it to Frank, he said 
 
 " For your sake, young gentleman, I regret that your 
 holidays are so early; for mine, I must rejoice, since I 
 accept the kind invitation you have rendered doubly grati- 
 fying by bringing it yourself." 
 
 "Deuce take the fellow and his fine speeches ! One don't 
 know which way to look," thought English Frank. 
 
 The Italian smiled again, as if this time he had read the 
 boy's heart, without need of those piercing black eyes, and 
 said, less ceremoniously than before, "You don't care much 
 for compliments, young gentleman ? " 
 
 "No, I don't indeed," said Frank heartily. 
 " So much the better for you, since your way in the 
 world is made ; it would be so much the worse, if you had 
 to make it ! " 
 
 Frank looked puzzled ; the thought was too deep for 
 him so he turned to the pictures. 
 
 " Those are very funny," said he ; " they seem capitally 
 done. Who did "em?" 
 
 " Signorino Hazeldean, you are giving me what you 
 refused yourself." 
 
 " Eh ? " said Frank inquiringly. 
 
 "Compliments !" 
 
 " Oh I no ; but they are well done ; ar'n't they, sir ? " 
 
 " Not particularly ; you speak to the artist." 
 
 " What ! you painted them ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " And the pictures in the hall ? " 
 
 " Those too." 
 
 " Taken from nature, eh"? " 
 
 " Nature," said the Italian sententiously, perhaps evasiv- 
 ely, "lets nothing be taken from her." 
 
 " Oh ! " said Frank, puzzled again. " Well, I must wish 
 you good morning, sir ; I am very glad you are coming." 
 
 "Without compliment ?" 
 
 " Without compliment." 
 
 "A rivedersi good-by for the present, my young Signo- 
 rino. This way," observing Frank made a bolt toward the 
 wrong door. 
 
 " Can I offer you a glass of wine ! it is pure, of our own 
 making."
 
 82 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 "No, thank you, indeed, sir," cried Frank, suddenly re- 
 collecting his father's admonition. " Good-by, don't trouble 
 yourself, sir ; I know my way now." 
 
 But the bland Italian followed his guest to the wicket, 
 where Frank had left the pony. The young gentleman, 
 afraid lest so courteous a host should hold the stirrup for 
 him, twitched off the bridle, and mounted in haste, not even 
 staying to ask if the Italian could put him in the way to 
 Rood Hall, of which way he was profoundly ignorant. The 
 Italian's eye followed the boy as he rode up the ascent in 
 the lane, and the Doctor sighed heavily. " The wiser we 
 grow," said he to himself, " the more we regret the age of 
 our follies ; it is better to gallop with a light heart up the 
 the stony hill than sit in the summer-house and cry ' How 
 true ! ' to the stormy truths of Machiavelli ! " 
 
 With that he turned back into the belvidere ; but he 
 could not resume his studies. He remained some minutes 
 gazing on the prospect, till the prospect reminded him of 
 the fields which Jackeymo was bent on his hiring, and the 
 fields reminded him of Leririy Fairfield. He returned to the 
 house, and in a few moments re-emerged in his out-of-door 
 trim, with cloak and umbrella, re-lighted his pipe, and 
 strolled toward Hazeldean village. 
 
 Meanwhile Frank, after cantering on for some distance, 
 stopped at a cottage, and there learned that there was a 
 short cut across the field to Rood Hall, by which he could 
 save nearly three miles. Frank, however, missed the short 
 cut, and came out into the high road ; a turnpike keeper, after 
 first taking his toll, put him back again into the short cut ; 
 and finally, he got into some green la.nes, where a dilapidated 
 finger-post directed him to Rood. Late at noon, having 
 ridden fifteen miles in the desire to reduce ten to seven, he 
 came suddenly upon a wild and primitive piece of ground, 
 that seemed half chase, half common, with crazy tumble- 
 down cottages of villanous aspect scattered about in odd 
 nooks and corners ; idle, dirty children were making mud 
 pies on the road ; slovenly-looking women were plaiting 
 straw at the thresholds ; a large but forlorn and decayed 
 church, that seemed to say that the generation which saw 
 it built was more pious than the generation which now re- 
 sorted to it, stood boldly and nakedly out by the roadside. 
 
 " Is this the village of Rood ? " asked Frank of a stout 
 young man breaking stones on the road sad sign that no 
 better labor could be found for him !
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 83 
 
 The man sullenly nodded, and continued his work. 
 
 " And where's the Hall Mr. Leslie's ? " 
 
 The man looked up in stolid surprise, and this time 
 touched his hat. 
 
 " Be you going there ? " 
 
 "Yes, if I can find out where it is." 
 
 " I'll show your honor," said the boor alertly. 
 
 Frank reined in the pony, and the man walked by his 
 side. 
 
 Frank was much of his father's son, despite the difference 
 of age, and that more fastidious change of manner which 
 characterizes each succeeding race in the progress of civili- 
 zation. Despite all his Eton finery, he was familiar with 
 peasants, and had the quick eye of one country-born as to 
 country matters. 
 
 " You don't seem very well off in this village, my man ? " 
 said he, knowingly. 
 
 " Noa ; there be a deal of distress here in the winter 
 time, and summer too, for that matter ; and the parish ben't 
 much help to a single man." 
 
 " But, surely, the farmers want work here as well as 
 elsewhere ? " 
 
 " 'Deed, and there ben't much farming work here 
 most o' the parish be all wild ground loike." 
 
 "The poor have a right of common, I suppose," said 
 Frank, surveying a large assortment of vagabond birds and 
 quadrupeds. 
 
 " Yes ; neighbor Timmins keeps his geese on the com- 
 mon, and some has a cow and them be neighbor Jowlas's 
 pigs. I don't know if there's a right, loike ; but the folks 
 at the Hall does all they can to help us, and that ben't 
 much ; they ben't as rich as some folks ; but," added the 
 peasant proudly, "they be as good blood as any in the 
 shire." 
 
 " I'm glad to see you like them, at all events." 
 
 "Oh yes, I loikes them well eno' ; mayhap you are at 
 school with the young gentleman ? " 
 
 "Yes," said Frank. 
 
 " Ah ! I heard the clergyman say as how Master Ran- 
 dal was a mighty clever lad, and would get rich some day. 
 I'se sure I wish he would, for a poor squire makes a poor 
 parish. There's the Hall, sir."
 
 84 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 FRANK looked right abend, and saw a square house 
 that, in spite of modern sash-windows, was evidently of 
 remote antiquity ; a high conical roof ; a stack of tall quaint 
 chimney-pots of red baked clay (like those at Sutton Place, 
 in Surrey) dominating over isolated vulgar smoke-conductors, 
 of the ignoble fashion of present times ; a dilapidated groin- 
 work, encasing within a Tudor arch a door of the comfort- 
 able date of George III., and the peculiarly dingy and 
 weather-stained appearance of the small finely finished 
 bricks, of which the habitation was built all showed the 
 abode of former generations adapted with tasteless irrever- 
 ence to the habits of descendants unenlightened by Pugin, 
 or indifferent to the poetry of the past. The house had 
 emerged suddenly upon Frank out of the gloomy waste 
 land, for it was placed in a hollow, and sheltered from sight 
 by a disorderly group of ragged, dismal, valetudinarian fir- 
 trees, until an abrupt turn of the road cleared that screen, 
 and left the desolate abode bare to the discontented eye. 
 Frank dismounted ; the man held his pony ; and after 
 smoothing his cravat, the smart Etonian sauntered up to 
 the door, and startled the solitude of the place with a loud 
 peal from the modern brass knocker a knock which in- 
 stantly brought forth an astonished starling who had built 
 under the eaves of the gable roof, and called up a cloud of 
 sparrows, tomtits, and yellow-hammers, who had been re- 
 galing themselves amongst the litter of a slovenly farm-yard 
 that lay in full sight to the right of the house, fenced off by 
 a primitive, paintless wooden rail. In process of time^a 
 sow, accompanied by a thriving and inquisitive family, 
 strolled up to the gate of the fence, and, leaning her nose 
 on the lower bar of the gate, contemplated the visitor with 
 much curiosity and some suspicion. 
 
 While Frank is still without, impatiently swingeing his 
 white trousers with his whip, we will steal a hurried glance 
 toward the respected members of the family within. Mr. 
 Leslie, \\\Q pater-familias, is in a little room called his " study," 
 to which he regularly retires every morning after breakfast, 
 rarely re-appearing till one o'clock, which is his unfashion-
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 85 
 
 able hour for dinner. In what mysterious occupations Mr. 
 Leslie passes those hours, no one ever formed a conjecture. 
 At the present moment he is seated before a little rickety 
 bureau, one leg of which (being shorter than the other) is 
 propped up by sundry old letters and scraps of newspapers ; 
 and the bureau is open, and reveals a great number of pig- 
 eon-holes and divisions, filled with various odds and ends, 
 the collection of many yeais. In some of these compart- 
 ments are bundles of letters, very yellow, and tied in pack- 
 ets with faded tape ; in another, all by itself, is a fragment 
 of plum-pudding stone, which Mr. Leslie has picked up in 
 his walks, and considered a rare mineral. It is neatly 
 labelled, "Found in Hollow Lane, May 2ist, 1804, by 
 Maunder Slugge Leslie, Esq." The next division holds 
 several bits of iron in the shape of nails, fragments of 
 horse-shoes, etc., which Mr. Leslie has met with in his ram- 
 bles, and according to a harmless popular superstition, 
 deemed it highly unlucky not to pick up, and, once picked 
 up, no less unlucky to throw away. Item, in the adjoining 
 pigeon-hole, a goodly collection of pebbles with holes in 
 them, preserved for the same reason. In company with 
 a crooked sixpence ; item, neatly arranged in fanciful 
 mosaics, several periwinkles, Blackmoor's teeth (I mean the 
 shell so called), and other specimens of the conchiferous 
 ingenuity of Nature, partly inherited from some ancestral 
 spinster, partly amassed by Mr. Leslie himself in a youth- 
 ful excursion to the sea-side. There were the farm-bailiff's 
 accounts, several files of bills, an old stirrup, three sets of 
 knee and shoe buckles, which had belonged to Mr. Leslie's 
 father, a few seals tied together by a shoe-string, a shagreen 
 tooth-pick case, a tortoise-shell magnifying-glass to read 
 with, his eldest son's first copybooks, his second son's ditto, 
 his daughter's ditto, and a lock of his wife's hair arranged 
 in a true lover's knot, framed and glazed. There were also 
 a small mouse-trap ; a patent cork-screw, too good to be 
 used in common ; fragments of a silver tea-spoon, that 
 had, by natural decay, arrived at a dissolution of its parts, a 
 small brown Holland bag, containing half-pence of various 
 dates, as far back as Queen Anne, accompanied by two 
 French sous, and a German silber gros ; the which miscel- 
 lany Mr. Leslie magniloquently called " his coins," and had 
 left in. his will as a family heir-loom. There were many 
 other curiosities of a congenial nature and equal value 
 qu<x nunc describere longum est. Mr. Leslie was engaged
 
 86 'MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 at this time in what is termed " putting things to rights " 
 an occupation he performed with exemplary care once a- 
 week. This was his day ; and he had just counted his coins, 
 and was slowly tying them up again in the brown Holland 
 bag, when Frank's knock reached his ears. 
 
 Mr. Maunder Slugge Leslie paused, shook his head as if 
 incredulously, and was about to resume his occupation, 
 when he was seized with a fit of yawning which prevented 
 the bag being tied for full two minutes. 
 
 While such the employment of the study, let us turn to 
 the recreations in the drawing-room, or rather parlor. A 
 drawing-room there was on the first floor, with a charming 
 look-out, not on the dreary fir-trees, but on the romantic 
 undulating forest-land ; but the drawing-room had not been 
 used since the death of the last Mrs. Leslie. It was deemed 
 too good to sit in, except when there was company ; there 
 never being company, it was never sate in. Indeed, now 
 the paper was falling off the walls with the damp, and the 
 rats, mice, and moths those " edaces rerum " had eaten, 
 between them, most of the chair-bottoms and a considerable 
 part of the floor. Therefore, the parlor was the sole general 
 sitting-room ; and being breakfasted in, dined and supped 
 in, and, after supper, smoked in by Mr. Leslie to the accom- 
 paniment of rum-and-water, it is impossible to deny that it 
 had what is called " a smell " a comfortable, wholesome 
 family smell speaking of numbers, meals, and miscellaneous 
 social habitation. There were two windows : one looked full 
 on the fir-trees ; the other on the farm-yard, with the pig-sty 
 closing the view. Near the' fir-tree window sate Mrs. Les- 
 lie ; before her, on a high stool, was a basket of the children's 
 clothes that wanted mending. A work-table of rose-wood 
 inlaid with brass, which had been a wedding-present, and 
 was a costly thing originally, but in that peculiar taste which 
 is vulgarly called " Bramagen," stood at hand ; the brass 
 had started in several places, and occasionally made great 
 havoc in the children's fingers and in Mrs. Leslie's gown ; in 
 fact, it was the liveliest piece of furniture in the house, 
 thanks to that petulant brass-work, and could not have been 
 more mischievous if it had been a monkey. Upon the work- 
 table lay a housewife and a thimble, and scissors, and skeins 
 of worsted and thread, and little scraps of linen and cloth 
 for patches. But Mrs. Leslie was not actually working 
 she was preparing to work ; she had been preparing to work 
 for the last hour and a half. Upon her lap she supported a
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 87 
 
 novel, by a lady who wrote much for a former generation, 
 under the name of "Mrs. Bridget Blue Mantle." She had 
 a small needle in her left hand, and a very thick piece of 
 thread in her right ; occasionally she applied the end of the 
 said thread to her lips, and then her eyes fixed on the 
 novel made a blind, vacillating attack at the eye of the 
 needle. But a camel would have gone through it with quite 
 as much ease. Nor did the novel alone engage Mrs. Leslie's 
 attention, for ever and anon she interrupted herself to scold 
 the children, to inquire "what o'clock it was;" to observe 
 that " Sarah would never suit ;" and to wonder "why Mr. 
 Leslie would not see that the work-table was mended." 
 Mrs. Leslie has been rather a pretty woman. In spite of a 
 dress at once slatternly and economical, she has still the air 
 of a lady rather too much so, the hard duties of her situa- 
 tion considered. She is proud of the antiquity of her family 
 on both sides ; her mother was of the venerable stock of the 
 Daudles of Dandle Place, a race that existed before the Con- 
 quest. Indeed, one has only to read our earliest chronicles, 
 and to glance over some of those long-winded moralizing 
 poems which delighted the thanes and ealdermen of old, in 
 order to see that the Daudles must have been a very influen- 
 tial family before William the First turned the country topsy- 
 turvy. While the mother's race was thus indubitably Saxon, 
 the father's had not only the name but the peculiar idiosyn- 
 crasy of the Normans, and went far to establish that crotchet 
 of the brilliant author of Sibyl, or the Two Nations, as to the 
 continued distinction between the conquering and conquered 
 populations. Mrs. Leslie's father boasted the name of 
 Montfydget ; doubtless of the same kith and kin as those 
 great barons Montfichet, who once owned such broad lands 
 and such turbulent castles. A high-nosed, thin, nervous, 
 excitable progeny, those same Montfydgets, as the most 
 troublesome Norman could pretend to be. This fusion of 
 race was notable to the most ordinary physiognomist in the 
 physique and in the morale of Mrs. Leslie. She had the spec- 
 ulative blue eye of the Saxon, and the passionate high nose 
 of the Norman ; she had the musing do-nothingness of the 
 Dandles, and the reckless have-at-every-thingness of the 
 Montfydgets. At Mrs. Leslie's feet, a little girl with her 
 hair about her ears (and beautiful hair it was too) was amus- 
 ing herself with a broken-nosed doll. At the far end of the 
 room, before a high desk, sate Frank's Eton school-fellow, 
 the eldest son. A minute or two before Frank's alarum had
 
 GS My NOVEL; OR, 
 
 disturbed the tranquillity of the household, he had raised 
 his eyes from the books on the desk to glance at a very 
 tattered copy of the Greek Testament, in which his brother 
 Oliver had found a difficulty that he came to Randal to 
 solve. As the young Etonian's face was turned to the light, 
 your first impression, on seeing it, would have been melan- 
 choly, but respectful, interest for the face had already lost 
 the joyous character of youth there was aivrinkle between 
 the brows ; and the lines that speak of fatigue were already 
 visible under the eyes and about the mouth ; the complexion 
 was sallow, the lips were pale. Years of study had already 
 sown in the delicate organization the seeds of many an in- 
 firmity and many a pain ; but if your look had rested long on 
 that countenance, gradually your compassion might have 
 given place to some feeling uneasy and sinister a feeling 
 akin to fear. There was in the whole expression so much 
 of cold, calm force, that it belied the debility of the frame. 
 You saw there the evidence of a mind that was cultivated, 
 and you felt that in that cultivation there was something 
 formidable. A notable contrast to this countenance, pre- 
 maturely worn, and eminently intelligent, was the round 
 healthy face of Oliver, with slow blue eyes fixed hard on the 
 penetrating orbs of his brother, as if trying with might and 
 main to catch from them a gleam of that knowledge with 
 which they shone clear and frigid as a star. 
 
 At Frank's knock, Oliver's slow blue eyes sparkled into 
 animation, and he sprang from his brother's side. The 
 little girl flung back the hair from her face, and stared at 
 her mother with a look which spoke wonder and affright. 
 
 The young student knit his brows, and then turned 
 wearily back to the books on his desk. 
 
 " Dear me," cried Mrs. Leslie, "who can that possibly 
 be ? Oliver, come from the window, sir, this instant ; 
 you will be seen ! Juliet, run ring the bell no, go to the 
 head of the kitchen stairs, and call out to Jenny, 'Not at 
 home.' Not at home on any account," repeated Mrs. Leslie, 
 nervously, for the Montfydget blood was now in full flow. 
 
 In another minute or so, Frank's loud, boyish voice was 
 distinctly heard at the outer door. 
 
 Randal slightly started. 
 
 " Frank Hazeldean's voice," said he ; " I should like to 
 see him, mother." 
 
 "See him," repeated Mrs. Leslie, in amaze ; "see him! 
 and the room in this state ! "
 
 VARIETIES Iff ENGLISH LIFE. 89 
 
 Randal might have replied that the room was in no worse 
 state than visual ; but he said nothing. A slight flush came 
 and went over his pale face ; and then he leaned his cheek 
 on his hand, and compressed his lips firmly. 
 
 The outer door closed with a sullen, inhospitable jar, 
 and a slip-shod female servant entered with a card between 
 her finger and thumb. 
 
 "Who is that for? give it to me, Jenny," cried Mrs. 
 Leslie. 
 
 But Jenny shook her head, laid the card on the desk be- 
 side Randal, and vanished without saying a word. 
 
 " Oh look, Randal, look up," cried Oliver, who had again 
 rushed to the window ; " such a pretty gray pony ! " 
 
 Randal did look up ; nay, he went deliberately to the 
 window, and gazed, a moment on the high-mettled pony, 
 and the well-dressed, spirited rider. In that moment 
 changes passed over Randal's countenance more rapidly 
 than clouds over the sky in a gusty day. Now envy and dis- 
 content, with the curled lip and the gloomy scowl ; now hope 
 and proud self-esteem, with the clearing brow and the lofty 
 smile ; and then again all became cold, firm, and close, as 
 he walked back to his books, seated himself resolutely, and 
 said, half aloud 
 
 " Well, KNOWLEDGE IS POWER." 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 MRS. LESLIE came up in fidget and in fuss ; she leaned 
 over Randal's shoulder and read the card. Written in pen 
 and ink, with an attempt at imitation of printed Roman 
 character, there appeared first " MR. FRANK HAZELDEAN ; " 
 but just over these letters, and scribbled hastily and less 
 legibly in pencil, was 
 
 " Dear Leslie sorry you were out come and see us 
 Do ! " 
 
 "You will go, Randal ?" said Mrs. Leslie, after a pause. 
 
 " I'm not sure." 
 
 " Yes, you can go ; you have clothes like a gentleman ; 
 you can go anywhere, not like those children ;" and Mrs. 
 Leslie glanced almost spitefully at poor Oliver's coarse 
 threadbare jacket, and little Juliet's torn frock.
 
 90 MY NOVEL ; OR, 
 
 " What I have I owe at present to Mr. Egerton, and I 
 should consult his wishes ; he is not on good terms with 
 these Hazeideans. " Then turning toward his brother, who 
 looked mortified, he added, with a strange sort of haughty 
 kindness, " What I may have hereafter, Oliver, I shall owe 
 to myself ; and then if I rise, I will raise my family." 
 
 " Dear Randal," said Mrs. Leslie, fondly kissing him on 
 the forehead, " what a good heart you have ! " 
 
 " No, mother ; my books don't tell me that it is a good 
 heart that gets on in the world ; it is the hard head," replied 
 Randal, with a rude and scornful candor. " But I can read 
 no more just now ; come out, Oliver." 
 
 So saying, he slid from his mother's hand, and left the 
 room. 
 
 When Oliver joined him, Randal was already on the 
 common ; and, without seeming to notice his brother, he 
 continued to walk quickly, and with long strides, in pro- 
 found silence. At length he paused under the shade of an 
 old oak, that, too old to be of value save for firewood, had 
 escaped the axe. The tree stood on a knoll, and the spot 
 commanded a view of the decayed house the dilapidated 
 church the dreary village. 
 
 " Oliver," said Randall, between his teeth, so that his 
 voice had the sound of a hiss, " it was under this tree that 
 I first resolved to " 
 
 He paused. 
 
 " What, Randal ? " 
 
 " Read hard : knowledge is power ! " 
 
 " But you are so fond of reading." 
 
 " I ! " cried Randal. " Do you think, when Wolsey a.nd 
 Thomas-a-Becket became priests, they were fond of telling 
 their beads and pattering aves ? I fond of reading ! " 
 
 Oliver stared ; the historical allusions were beyond his 
 comprehension. 
 
 "You know," continued Randal, "that we Leslies were 
 not always the beggarly poor gentlemen we are now. You 
 know that there is a man who lives in Grosvenor Square,- 
 and is very rich very. His riches come to him from a 
 Leslie ; that man is my patron, Oliver, and he is very good 
 to me." 
 
 Randal's smile was withering 1 as he spoke. "Come on," 
 he said, after a pause "come on." Again the walk was 
 quick, and the brothers were silent. 
 
 They came at length to a little shallow brook, across
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 9 i 
 
 which some large stones had been placed at short intervals, 
 so that the boys walked over the ford dry-shod. " Will you 
 pull down that bough, Oliver ? " said Randal, abruptly, 
 pointing to a tree. Oliver obeyed mechanically ; and Ran- 
 dal, stripping the leaves, and snapping off the twigs, left 
 a fork at the end ; with this he began to remove the step- 
 ping-stones. 
 
 "What are you about, Randal?" asked Oliver, won- 
 deringly. 
 
 *' We are on the other side* of the brook now, and we 
 shall not come back this way. We don't want the stepping- 
 stones any more ! away with them ! " 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE morning after this visit of Frank Hazeldean's to 
 Rood Hall, the Right Honorable Audley Egerton, member 
 of parliament, privy councillor, and minister of a high de- 
 partment in the state just below the rank of the cabinet 
 was seated in his library, awaiting the delivery of the post, 
 before he walked down to his office. In the meanwhile, he 
 sipped his tea, and glanced over the newspapers Avith that 
 quick and half-disdainful eye with which your practical 
 man in public life is wont to regard the abuse or the eulo- 
 gium of the Fourth Estate. 
 
 There is very little likeness between Mr. Egerton and 
 his half-brother ; none, indeed, except that they are both of 
 tall stature, and strong, sinewy, English build. But even 
 in this last they do not resemble each other ; for the 
 Squire's athletic shape is already beginning to expand into 
 that portly embonpoint which seems the natural development 
 of contented men as they approach middle life. Audley, 
 on the contrary, is inclined to be spare ; and his figure, 
 though the muscles are as firm as iron, has enough of the 
 slender to satisfy metropolitan ideas of elegance. His 
 dress, his look his tout ensemble are those of the London 
 man. In the first, there is more attention to fashion than 
 is usual amongst the busy members of the House of Com- 
 mons ; but then Audley Egerton has always been something 
 more than a mere busy member of the House of Commons. 
 He has always been a person of mark in the best society ;
 
 9 2 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 and one secret of his success in life has been his high repu- 
 tation as " a gentleman." 
 
 As he now bends over the journals, there is an air of 
 distinction in the turn of the well-shaped head, with the 
 dark brown hair dark in spite of a reddish tinge cut 
 close behind, and worn away a little toward the crown, so 
 as to give additional height to a commanding forehead. 
 His profile is very handsome, and of that kind of beauty 
 which imposes on men if it pleases women ; and is, there- 
 fore, unlike that of your mere pretty fellows, a positive 
 advantage in public life. It is a profile with large features 
 clearly cut, masculine, and somewhat severe. The expres- 
 sion of his face is not- open, like the Squire's ; nor has it the 
 cold closeness which accompanies the intellectual character 
 of young Leslie's ; but it is reserved and dignified, and 
 significant of self-control, as should be the physiognomy of 
 a man accustomed to think before he speaks. When you 
 look at him, you are not surprised to learn that he is not a 
 florid orator nor a smart debater he is a "weighty speaker." 
 He is fairly read, but without any great range either of 
 ornamental scholarship or constitutional lore. He has not 
 much humor ; but he has that kind of wit which is essen- 
 tial to grave and serious irony. He has not much imagina- 
 tion, nor remarkable subtlety in reasoning ; but if he does 
 not dazzle, he does not bore : he is too much of the man of 
 the world for that. lie is considered to have sound sense 
 and accurate judgment. Withal, as he now lays aside the 
 journals, and his face relaxes its austercr lines, you will not 
 be astonished to hear that he is a man who is said to have 
 been greatly beloved by women, and still to exercise much 
 influence in drawing-rooms and boudoirs. At least, no one 
 was surprised when the great heiress, Clementina Leslie, 
 kinswoman and ward to Lord Lansmere a young lad}* who 
 had refused three earls and the heir-apparent to a dukedom 
 was declared by her dearest friends to. be dying of love 
 for Audley Egerton. It had been the natural wish of the 
 Lansrneres that this lady should marry their son, Lord 
 L'Estrange. But that young gentlemah, whose opinions 
 on matrimony partook of the eccentricity of his general 
 character, could never be induced to propose, and had, 
 according to the on-dits of town, been the principal party 
 to make up the match between Clementina and his friend 
 Audley ; for the match required making-up, despite the 
 predilections of the young heiress. Mr. Egerton had had
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 93 
 
 scruples of delicacy. He avowed, for the first time, that 
 his fortune was much less than had been generally sup- 
 posed, and he did not like the idea of owing all to a wife, 
 however highly he might esteem and admire her. Now, 
 Lord L'Estrange (not long after the election at Lansmere, 
 which had given to Audley his first scat in parliament) had 
 suddenly exchanged from the battalion of the Guards to 
 which he belonged, and .which was detained at home, into a 
 cavalry regiment on active service in the Peninsula. Never- 
 theless, even abroad, and amidst the distractions of war, his 
 interest in all that could forward Egerton's career was 
 unabated ; and, by letters to his father, and to his cousin 
 Clementina, he assisted in the negotiations for the mar- 
 riage between Miss Leslie and his friend ; and, before the 
 year in which Audley was returned for Lansmere had 
 expired, the young senator received 'the hand of the great 
 heiress. The settlement of her fortune, which was chiefly 
 in the funds, had been unusually advantageous to the hus- 
 band ; for though the capital was tied up so long as both 
 survived for the benefit of any children they might have 
 yet, in the event of one of the parties dying without issue 
 by the marriage, the whole passed without limitation to the 
 survivor. Miss Leslie, in spite of all remonstrance from 
 her own legal adviser, had settled this clause with Eger- 
 ton's confidential solicitor, one Mr. Levy, of whom we shall 
 see more hereafter ; and Egerton was to be kept in ignorance 
 of it till after the marriage. If in this Miss Leslie showed 
 a generous trust in Mr. Egerton, she still inflicted no posi- 
 tive wrong on . , her relations, for she had none sufficiently 
 near to .her to. warrant their claim to the succession. Her 
 nearest kinsman, and therefore her natural heir, was Har- 
 Icy L'Estrange ; and if he was contented, no one had a 
 right to complain. The tie of blood between herself and 
 tiie Leslies of Rood Hall was, as we shall see presently, 
 extremely distant. 
 
 It was not till after his marriage that Mr. Egerton took 
 an active part in the business of the House of Commons. 
 Me was then at the most advantageous starting-point for the 
 career of ambition. His words on the state of the country 
 took importance from his stake in it. His talents from ac- 
 cessories in the opulence of Grosvenor Square, the dignity 
 of a princely establishment, the respectability of one firmly 
 settled in life, the reputation of a fortune in reality very 
 large, and which was magnified by popular report into the
 
 94 MY NOVEL: OA\ 
 
 revenues of a Croesus. Audley Egerton succeeded in Par- 
 liament beyond the early expectations formed of him. He 
 took, from the first, that station in the House which it re- 
 quires tact to establish, and great knowledge of the world 
 to free from the charge of impracticability and crotchet, 
 but which, once established, is peculiarly imposing from 
 the rarity of its independence ; that is to say, the station of 
 the moderate man, who belongs sufficiently to a party to 
 obtain its support, but is yet sufficiently disengaged from 
 a party to make his vote and word, on certain questions, 
 matter of anxiety and speculation. 
 
 Professing Toryism (the word Conservative, which 
 would have suited him better, was not then known), he 
 separated himself from the country party, and always 
 avowed great respect for the opinions of the large towns. 
 The epithet given to the views of Audley Egerton was "en- 
 lightened." Never too much in advance of the passion of 
 the day, yet never behind its movement, he had that shrewd 
 calculation of odds which a consummate mastery of the world 
 sometimes bestows on politicians, perceived the chances 
 for and against a certain question being carried within a 
 certain time, and nicked the question between wind and 
 water. He was so good a barometer of that changeful 
 weather called Public Opinion, that he might have had 
 a hand in the Times newspaper. He soon quarrelled, 
 and purposely, with his Lansmere constituents ; nor had 
 he ever revisited that borough, perhaps because it was as- 
 sociated with unpleasant reminiscences in the shape of the 
 Squire's epistolary trimmer, and in that of his own effigies 
 Avhich his agricultural constituents had burned in the corn- 
 market. But the speeches that produced such indignation 
 at Lansmere had delighted one of the greatest of our com- 
 mercial towns, which at the next general election honored 
 him with its representation. In those days, before the 
 Reform Bill, great commercial towns chose men of high 
 mark for their members ; and a proud station it was for 
 him who was delegated to speak the voice of the princely 
 merchants of England. 
 
 Mrs. Egerton survived her marriage but a few years ; 
 she left no children ; two had been born, but died in their 
 first infancy. The property of the wife, therefore, passed 
 without control or limit to the husband. 
 
 Whatever might have been the grief of the widower, he 
 disdained to betray it to the world. Indeed, Audley Eger-
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 95 
 
 ton was a man who had early taught himself to conceal 
 emotion. He buried himself in the country, none knew 
 where, for some months. When he returned, there was a 
 deep wrinkle on his brow ; but no change in his habits and 
 avocations, except that shortly afterward he accepted office, 
 and thus became more busy than ever. 
 
 Mr. Egerton had always been lavish and magnificent in 
 money matters. A rich man in public life has many claims 
 on his fortune, and no one yielded to those claims with an 
 air so regal as Audley Egerton. But amongst his many 
 liberal actions there was none which seemed more worthy 
 of paneygric than the generous favor he extendad to the 
 son of his wife's poor and distant kinsfolk, the Leslies of 
 Rood Hall. 
 
 Some four generations back, there had lived a certain 
 Squire Leslie, a man of large acres and active mind. He 
 had cause to be displeased with his eldest son, and though 
 he did not disinherit him, he left half his property to a 
 younger. 
 
 The younger had capacity and spirit, which justified 
 the parental provision. He increased his fortune, lifted 
 himself into notice and consideration by public services 
 and a noble alliance. His descendants followed his ex- 
 ample, and took rank among the first commoners in Eng- 
 land, till the last male, dying, left his sole heiress and 
 representative in one daughter, Clementina, afterward 
 married to Mr. Egerton. 
 
 Meanwhile the elder son of the forementioned squire 
 had muddled and sotted away much of his share in the 
 Leslie property, and by low habits and mean society, low- 
 ered in repute his representation of the name. 
 
 His successors imitated him, till nothing was left to 
 Randal's father, Mr. Maunder Slugge Leslie, but the de- 
 cayed house, which was what the Germans call the stamm 
 schloss or " stem hall " of the race, and the wretched lands 
 immediately around it. 
 
 Still, though all intercourse between the two branches 
 of the family had ceased, the younger had always felt a re- 
 spect for the elder, as the head of the house. And it was 
 supposed that, on her death-bed, Mrs. Egerton had recom- 
 mended her impoverished namesakes and kindred to the 
 care of her husband ; for, when he returned to town, after 
 Mrs. Egerton's death, Audley had sent to Mr. Maunder 
 Slugge Leslie the sum of .5,000, which he said his wife,
 
 g6 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 leaving no written will, had orally bequeathed as a legacy 
 to that gentleman ; and he requested permission to charge 
 himself with the education of the eldest son. 
 
 Mr. Maunder Slugge Leslie might have done great 
 things for his little property with those ^5,000, or even 
 (kept in the Three per Cents) the interest would have 
 afforded a material addition to his comforts. But a neigh- 
 boring solici tor, having caught scent of the legacy, hunted 
 it down into his own hands, on pretence of having found a 
 capital investment in a canal. And when the solicitor had 
 got possession of the ^5,000, he went off with them to 
 America. 
 
 Meanwhile Randal, placed by Mr. Egerton at an ex- 
 cellent preparatory school, at first gave no signs of industry 
 or talent ; but just before he left it, there came to the school, 
 as classical tutor, an ambitious young Oxford man ; and 
 his zeal for he was a capital teacher produced a great 
 effect generally on the pupils, and especially on Randal 
 Leslie. He talked to them much in private on the ad- 
 vantages of learning, and shortly afterward he exhibited 
 those advantages in his own person ; for, having edited a 
 Greek play with much subtle scholarship, his college, 
 which some slight irregularities of his had displeased, 
 recalled him to its venerable bosom by the presentation of 
 a fellowship. After this he took orders, became a college 
 tutor, distinguished himself yet more by a treatise on the 
 Greek accent, got a capital living, and was considered on 
 the high road" to a bishopric. This young man, then, 
 communicated to Randal the thirst for knowledge ; and 
 when the boy went afterward to Eton, he applied with 
 such earnestness and resolve, that his fame soon reached 
 the ears of Audley ; and that person, who had the sym- 
 pathy for talent, and yet more for purpose, which often 
 characterizes ambitious men, went to Eton to see him. 
 From that time Audley evinced great and almost fatherly 
 interest in the brilliant Etonian ; and Randal always spent 
 with him some days in each vacation. 
 
 I have said that Egerton's conduct with respect to this 
 boy, was more praiseworthy than most of those generous 
 actions for which he was renowned, since to this the world 
 gave no applause. What a man does within the range 
 of his family connections does not carry with it that 'eclat 
 which invests a munificence exhibited on public occasions. 
 Either people care nothing about it, or tacitly suppose it
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 97 
 
 to be but his duty. It was true, too, as the Squire had 
 observed, that Randal Leslie was even less distantly re- 
 lated to the Hazeldeans than to Mrs, Egerton, since 
 Randal's grandfather had actually married a Miss Hazel- 
 dean (the highest worldly connection that branch of the 
 family had formed since the great split I have commemo- 
 rated). But Audley Egerton never appeared aware of that 
 fact. As he was not himself descended from the Hazel- 
 deans, he did not trouble himself about their genealogy ; 
 and he took care to impress it upon the Leslies that his 
 generosity on their behalf was solely to be ascribed to his 
 respect for his wife's memory and kindred. Stillthe Squire 
 had felt as if his " distant brother" implied a rebuke on his 
 own neglect of these poor Leslies, by the liberality Audley 
 evinced toward them ; and this had made him doubly sore 
 when the name of Randal Leslie was mentioned. But the 
 fact really was, that the Leslies of Rood had so shrunk 
 out of all notice that the Squire had actually forgotten 
 their existence, until Randal became thus indebted to his 
 brother ; and then he felt a pang of remorse that any one 
 save himself, the head of the Hazeldeans, should lend a 
 helping hand to the grandson of a Hazeldean. 
 
 But having thus, somewhat too tediously, explained the 
 position of Audley Egerton, whether in the world or in re- 
 lation to his young protege, I mav now permit him to re- 
 ceive and to read his letters. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 MR. EGERTON glanced over the pile of letters placed 
 beside him, and first he tore up some, scarcely read, and 
 threw them into the waste-basket. Public men have such 
 odd, out-of-the-way letters, that their waste-baskets are 
 never empty : letters from amateur financiers proposing 
 new ways to pay off the National Debt ; letters from 
 America (never free), asking for autographs ; letters from 
 fond mothers in country villages, recommending some 
 miracle of a son for a place in the King's service ; letters 
 from freethinkers in reproof of bigotry : letters from 
 bigots in reproof of freethinkers ; letters signed Brutus 
 Redivivus, containing the agreeable information that the
 
 9 My NOVEL; OR, 
 
 writer has a dagger for tyrants, if the Danish claims are 
 not forthwith adjusted ; letters signed Matilda or Caroline, 
 stating that Caroline or Matilda has seen the public man's 
 portrait at the Exhibition, and that a heart sensible to its 
 attractions may be found at No. , Piccadilly ; letters from 
 beggars, impostors, monomaniacs, speculators, jobbers all 
 food for the waste-basket. 
 
 From the correspondence thus winnowed, Mr. Egerton 
 first selected those on business, which he put methodically 
 together in one division of his pocket-book : and secondly, 
 those of a private nature, which he as carefully put into 
 another. Of these last there were but three one from his 
 steward, one from Harvey L'Estrange, one from Randal 
 Leslie. It was his custom to answer his correspondence at 
 his office ; and to his office, a few minutes afterward, he 
 slowly took his way. Many a passenger turned back to look 
 again at the firm figure, which, despite the hot summer day, 
 was buttoned up to the throat ; and the black frock-coat 
 thus worn well became . the erect air, and the deep, full 
 chest of the handsome senator. When he, entered Parlia- 
 ment Street, Audley Egerton was joined by one of his 
 colleagues, also on his way to the cares of office. 
 
 After a few observations on the last debate, this gentle- 
 man said 
 
 " By the w-ay, can you dine with me next Saturday, to 
 meet Lansmere ? He comes up to town to vote for us on 
 Monday." 
 
 " I had asked some people to dine with me," answered 
 Egerton, " but I will put them off. I see Lord Lansmere 
 too seldom to miss any occasion to meet a man whom I re- 
 spect so much." 
 
 "So seldom ! True, he is very little in town ; but why 
 don't you go and see him in the country? Good shooting 
 pleasant, old-fashioned house." 
 
 " My dear Westbourne, his house is 'minium vicina Cre- 
 mona,' close to a borough in which I have been burned in 
 effigy." 
 
 "Ha ha yes I remember you first came into Parlia- 
 ment for that snug little place ; but Lansmere himself never 
 found fault with your votes, did he ? " 
 
 " He behaved very handsomely, and said he had not pre- 
 sumed to consider me his mouth-piece ; and then, too, I am 
 so intimate with L'Estrange." 
 
 " Is that queer fellow ever coming back to England ?"
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 99 
 
 ''He comes, generally, every year, for a few days, just 
 to see his father and mother, and then returns to the 
 Continent." 
 
 " I never met him." 
 
 " He comes in September or October, when you, of 
 course, are not in town, and it is in town that the Lans- 
 meres meet him." 
 
 " Why does he not go to them ? " 
 
 "A man in England but once a year, and for a few days, 
 has so much to do in London, I suppose ? " 
 
 " Is he as amusing as ever ? " 
 
 Egerton nodded. 
 
 " So distinguished as he might be ! " remarked Lord 
 Westbourne. 
 
 " So distinguished as he is ! " said Egerton formally ; 
 " an officer selected for praise, even in such fields as Quatre 
 Bras and Waterloo ; a scholar, too, of the finest taste ; and 
 as an accomplished gentleman, matchless ! " 
 
 " I like to hear one man praise another so warmly in 
 these ill-natured days," answered Lord Westbourne. " But 
 still, though L'Estrange is doubtless all you say, don't you 
 think he rather wastes his life living abroad ? " 
 
 "And trying to be happy, Westbourne? Are you sure 
 it is not we who waste our lives ? but I can't stay to hear 
 your answer. Here we are at the door of my prison." 
 
 "On Saturday, then?" 
 
 " On Saturday. Good-day." 
 
 For the next hour, or more, Mr. Egerton was engaged 
 on the affairs of the state. He then snatched an interval 
 of leisure (while awaiting a report, which he had instructed 
 a clerk to make him), in order to reply to his letters. Those 
 on public business were soon despatched ; and throwing his 
 replies aside, to be sealed by a subordinate hand, he drew 
 out the letters which he had put apart as private. 
 
 He attended first to that of his steward : the steward's 
 letter was long, the reply was contained in three lines. Pitt 
 himself was scarcely more negligent of his private interests 
 and concerns than Audley Egerton yet, withal, Audley 
 Egerton was said by his enemies to be an egotist. 
 
 The next letter he wrote was to Randal, and that, though 
 longer, was far from prolix : it ran thus 
 
 " Dear Mr. Leslie, I appreciate your delicacy in con- 
 sulting me whether you should accept Frank Hazeldean's
 
 ioo MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 invitation to call at the Hall. Since you are asked, I can 
 see no objection to it. I should be sorry if you appeared to 
 force yourself there ; and for the rest, as a general rule, I 
 think a young man who has his own way to make in life 
 had better avoid all intimacy with those of his own age who 
 have no kindred objects nor congenial pursuits. 
 
 "As soon as this visit is paid, I wish you to come to Lon- 
 don. The report 1 receive of your progress at Eton renders 
 it unnecessary, in my judgment, that you should return 
 there. If your father has no objection, I propose that you 
 should go to Oxford at the ensuing term. Meanwhile, I 
 have engaged a gentleman, who is a fellow of Baliol, to read 
 with you. He is of opinion, judging only by your high re- 
 pute at Eton, that you may at once obtain a'scholarship in 
 that college. If you do so, I shall look upon your career 
 in life as assured. 
 
 "Your affectionate friend, and sincere well-wisher, 
 
 "A. E." 
 
 The reader will remark that, in this letter, there is a cer- 
 tain tone of formality. Mr. Egerton does not call his 
 protege " Dear Randal," as would seem natural, but coldly 
 and stiffly, "Dear Mr. Leslie." He hints, also, that the boy 
 has his own way to make in life. Is this meant to guard 
 against too sanguine notions of inheritance, which his gen- 
 erosity may have excited ? 
 
 The letter to Lord L'Estrange was of a very different 
 kind from the others. It was long, and full of such little 
 scraps of news and gossip as may interest friends in a for- 
 eign land ; it was written gayly, and as with a wish to cheer 
 his friend ; you could see that it was a reply to a melan- 
 choly letter ; and in the whole tone and spirit there was an 
 affection, even to tenderness, of which those who most liked 
 Audley Egerton would have scarcely supposed him capable. 
 Yet, notwithstanding, there was a kind of constraint in the 
 letter, which perhaps only the fine tact of a woman would 
 detect. It had not the abandon, that hearty self-outpouring, 
 which you might expect would characterize the letters of 
 two such friends, who had been boys at school together, and 
 which did breathe indeed in all the abrupt rambling sen- 
 tences of his correspondent. But where was the evidence 
 of the constraint ? Egerton is off-hand enough where his 
 pen runs glibly through paragraphs that relate to others ; 
 it is simply that he says nothing about himself that he
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE, 10* 
 
 avoids all reference to the inner world of sentiment and 
 feeling. But perhaps, after all, the man has no sentiment 
 and feeling ! How can you expect that a steady personage 
 in practical life, whose mornings are spent in Downing 
 Street, and whose nights are consumed in watching Govern- 
 ment bills through a committee, can write in the same 
 style as an idle dreamer amidst the pines of Ravenna, or on 
 the banks of Como ? 
 
 Audley had just finished this epistle, such as it was, 
 when the attendant in waiting announced the arrival of a 
 deputation from a provincial trading town, the members of 
 which deputation he had appointed to meet at two o'clock. 
 There was no office in London at which deputations were 
 kept waiting less than at that over which Mr. Egerton 
 presided. 
 
 The deputation entered some score or so of middle-aged, 
 comfortable-looking persons, who, nevertheless, had their 
 grievance and considered their own interests, and those of 
 the country, menaced by a certain clause in a bill brought 
 in by Mr. Egerton. 
 
 The Mayor of the town was the chief spokesman, and 
 he spoke well but in a style to which the dignified official 
 was not accustomed. It was a slap-dash style unceremo- 
 nious, free, and easy an American style. And, indeed, 
 there was something altogether in the appearance and bear- 
 ing of the Mayor which savored of residence in the Great 
 Republic. He was a very handsome man, but with a look 
 sharp and domineering the look of a man who did not care 
 a straw for president or monarch, and who enjoyed the lib- 
 erty to speak his mind and " wallop his own nigger ! " 
 
 His fellow-burghers evidently regarded him with great 
 respect ; and Mr. Egerton had penetration enough to per- 
 ceive that Mr. Mayor must be a rich man, as well as an 
 eloquent one, to have overcome those impressions of sore- 
 ness or jealousy which his tone was calculated to create to 
 the self-love of his equals. 
 
 Mr. Egerton was far too wise to be easily offended by 
 mere manner ; and, though he stared somewhat haughtily 
 when he found his observations actually pooh-poohed, he 
 was not above being convinced. There was much sense 
 and much justice in Mr. Mayor's arguments, and the states- 
 man civilly promised to take them into full considera- 
 tion. 
 
 He then bowed out the deputation ; but scarcely had the
 
 102 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 door closed before it opened again, and Mr. Mayor pre- 
 sented himself alone, saying aloud to his companions in the 
 passage, " I forgot something I had to say to Mr. Egerton 
 wait below for me." 
 
 " Well, Mr. Mayor," said Audley, pointing to a seat, " what 
 else would you suggest ? " 
 
 The Mayor looked round to see that the door was 
 closed ; and then, drawing his chair close to Mr. Egerton's, 
 laid his forefinger on that gentleman's arm, and said, " I 
 think I speak to a man of the world, sir ? " 
 
 Mr. Egerton bowed, and made no reply by word, but 
 he gently removed his arm from the touch of the fore- 
 finger. 
 
 MR. MAYOR. You observe, sir, that I did not ask the 
 members whom we return to Parliament to accompany 
 us. Do better without 'em. You know they are both in 
 Opposition out-and-outers. 
 
 MR. EGERTON. It is a misfortune which the Govern- 
 ment cannot remember, when the question is whether the 
 trade of the town itself is to be served or injured. 
 
 MR. MAYOR. Well, I guess ycm speak handsome, sir. 
 But you'd be glad to have two members to support Minis- 
 ters after the next election. 
 
 MR. EGERTON (smiling). Unquestionably, Mr. Mayor. 
 
 MR. MAYOR. And I can do it, Mr. Egerton. I may say 
 I have the town in my pocket ; so I ought I spend a great 
 deal of money in it. Now, you see, Mr. Egerton, I have 
 passed a part of my life in a land of liberty the United 
 States and I come to the point when I speak to a man of 
 the world. I'm a man of the world myself, sir. And so, 
 if the Government will do something for me, why, I'll do 
 something for the Government. Two votes for a free and 
 independent town like ours that's something, isn't it ? 
 
 MR. EGERTON (taken by surprise). Really, I 
 
 MR. MAYOR (advancing his chair still nearer, and inter- 
 rupting the official). No nonsense, you see, on one side or 
 the other. The fact is, that I've taken it into my head that 
 I should like to be knighted. You may well look surprised, 
 Mr. Egerton trumpery thing enough, I dare say ; still, 
 every man has his weakness, and I should like to be Sir 
 Richard. Well, if you can get me made Sir Richard, you 
 may just name your two members for the next election 
 that is, if they belong to your own set, enlightened men, 
 up to the times. That's speaking fair and manful, isn't it ?
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 103 
 
 MR. EGERTON (drawing himself up). I am at a loss to 
 guess why you should select me, sir, for this very extraor- 
 dinary proposition. 
 
 MR. MAYOR (nodding good-humoredly).' Why, you see, 
 I don't go along with the Government ; you're the best of 
 the bunch. And may be you'd like to strengthen your own 
 party. This is quite between you and me, you understand ; 
 honor's a jewel ! 
 
 MR. EGERTON (with great gravity). Sir, I am obliged by 
 your good opinion ; but I agree with my colleagues in 
 all the great questions that affect the government of the 
 country, and 
 
 MR. MAYOR (interrupting him). Ah, of course, you must 
 say so ; very right. But I guess things would go different- 
 ly if you were Prime Minister. However, I have another 
 reason for speaking to you about' my little job. You see 
 you were member for Lansmere once, and I think you only 
 came in by a majority of two, eh ? 
 
 MR. EGERTON. I know nothing of the particulars of that 
 election ; I was not present. 
 
 MR. MAYOR. No ; but luckily for you, two relations of 
 mine were, and they voted for you. Two votes, and you 
 came in by two. Since then, you have got into very snug 
 quarters here, and I think we have a claim on you 
 
 MR. EGERTON. Sir, I acknowledge no such claim ; I was 
 and am a stranger to Lansmere ; and, if the electors did me 
 the honor to return me to Parliament, it was in compli- 
 ment rather to 
 
 MR. MAYOR (again interrupting the official). Rather to 
 Lord Lansmere, you were going to say ; unconstitutional 
 doctrine that, I fancy. Peer of the realm. But never mind, 
 I know the world ; and I'd ask Lord Lansmere to do my 
 affair for me, only he is a pompous sort of man ; might be 
 qualmish : antiquated notions. Not up to snuff like you 
 and me. 
 
 MR. EGERTON (in great disgust, and settling his papers 
 before him). Sir, it is not in my department to recommend 
 to his Majesty candidates for the honor of knighthood, and 
 it is still less in my department to make bargains for seats 
 in Parliament. 
 
 MR. MAYOR. Oh, if that's the case you'll excuse me ; I 
 don't know much of the etiquette in these matters. But I 
 thought that, if I put two seats in your hands, for your own 
 friends, you might contrive to take the affair into your de-
 
 104 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 partment, whatever it was. But, since you say you agree 
 with your colleagues, perhaps it comes to the same thing. 
 Now, you must not suppose I want to sell the town, and 
 that I can change and chop my politics for my own pur- 
 pose. No such thing ! I don't like the sitting members ; 
 I'm all for progressing, but they go too much ahead for me ; 
 and, since the Government is disposed to move a little, why, 
 I'd as lief support them as not. But, in common grati- 
 tude, you see (added the Mayor, coaxingly), I ought to be 
 knighted ! I can keep up the dignity, and do credit to his 
 Majesty. 
 
 MR. EGERTON (without looking up from his papers). I 
 can only refer you, sir, to the proper quarter. 
 
 MR. MAYOR (impatiently). Proper quarter ! Well, since 
 there is so much humbug in this old country of ours, that 
 one must go through all the forms and get at the job regu- 
 larly, just tell me whom I ought to go to. 
 
 MR. EGERTON (beginning to be amused as well as indig- 
 nant). If you want a knighthood, Mr. Mayor, you must 
 ask the Prime Minister ; if you want to give the Govern- 
 ment information relative to seats in Parliament, you must 
 introduce yourself to Mr. , the Secretary of the Treas- 
 ury. 
 
 MR. MAYOR. And if I go to the last chap, what do you 
 think he'll say ? 
 
 MR. EGERTON (the amusement prepondering over the in- 
 dignation). He will say, I suppose, that you must not put 
 the thing in the light in which you have put it to me ; that 
 the Government will be very proud to have the confidence of 
 yourself and your brother electors ; and that a gentleman 
 like you, in the proud position of Mayor, may well hope to 
 be knighted on some fitting occasion, but that you must not 
 talk about the knighthood just at present, and must confine 
 yourself to converting the unfortunate political opinions of 
 the town. 
 
 MR. MAYOR. Well, I guess that chap there would want 
 to do me ! Not quite so green, Mr. Egerton. Perhaps I 
 had better go at once to the fountain head. How do you 
 think the Premier would take it ? 
 
 MR. EGERTON (the indignation preponderating over the 
 amusement). Probably just as I am about to do. 
 
 Mr. Egerton rang the bell ; the attendant appeared. 
 
 "Show Mr. Mayor the way out," said the Minister. 
 
 The Mayor turned round sharply, and his face was pur-
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 105 
 
 pie. He walked straight to the door : but suffering the at- 
 tendant to precede him along the corridor, he came back 
 with a rapid stride, and clenching his hands, and with a 
 voice thick with passion, cried, " Some day or other I will 
 make you smart for this, as sure as my name's Dick 
 Avenel ! " 
 
 " Avenel ! " repeated Egerton, recoiling " Avenel ! " 
 
 But the Mayor was gone. 
 
 Audley fell into a deep and musing reverie, which 
 seemed gloomy, and lasted till the attendant announced 
 that the horses were at the door. 
 
 He then looked up, still abstractedly, and saw his letter 
 to Harley L'Estrange open on the table. He drew it to- 
 ward him, and wrote, " A man has just left me, who calls 
 himself Aven " In the middle of the name his pen stopped. 
 " No, no, muttered the writer, " what folly to re-open the 
 old wounds there" and he carefully erased the words. 
 
 Audley Egerion did not ride in the Park that day, as 
 was his wont, but dismissed his groom ; and, turning his 
 horse's head toward Westminster Bridge, took his solitary 
 way into the country. He rode at first slowly, as if in 
 thought ; then fast, as if trying to escape from thought. He 
 was later than usual at the House that evening, and he 
 looked pale and fatigued. But he had to speak, and he 
 spoke well. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 IN spite of all his Machiavellian wisdom, Dr. Ricca- 
 bocca had been foiled in his attempt to seduce Leonard 
 Fairfield into his service, even though he succeeded in par- 
 tially winning over the widow to his views. For to her he 
 represented the worldly advantages of the thing. Lenny 
 would learn to be fit for more than a day-laborer ; he would 
 learn gardening in all its branches rise some day to be a 
 head gardener. "And," said Riccabocca, U I will take care 
 of his book-learning, and teach him whatever he has a head 
 for." 
 
 " He has a head for everything," said the widow. 
 
 " Then," said the wist; man, " everything shall go into it." 
 
 The widow was certainly dazzled ; for, as we have seen, 
 she highly prized scholarly distinction, and she knew that 
 
 5*
 
 106 MY NOVEL ; OK, 
 
 the Parson looked upon Riccabocca as a wondrous learned 
 man. But still Riccabocca was said to be a Papist, and sus- 
 pected to be a conjurer. Her scruples on both these points 
 the Italian, who was an adept in the art of talking over the 
 fair sex, would no doubt have dissipated, if there had been 
 any use in it ; but Lenny put a dead stop to all negotiations. 
 He had taken a mortal dislike to Riccabocca: he was very 
 much frightened by him and the spectacles, the pipe, the 
 cloak, the long hair, and the red umbrella ; and said so 
 sturdily, in reply to every overture " Please, sir, I'd rather 
 not ; I'd rather stay along with mother," that Riccabocca 
 was forced to suspend all further experiments in his Machia- 
 vellian diplomacy. He was not at all cast down, however, 
 by his first failure ; on the contrary, he was one of those 
 men whom opposition stimulates. And what before had 
 been but a suggestion of prudence, became an object of de- 
 sire. Plenty of other lads might no doubt be had, on as 
 reasonable terms as Lenny Fairfield ; but the moment Len- 
 ny presumed to baffle the Italian's designs upon him, the 
 special acquisition of Lenny became of paramount impor- 
 tance in the eyes of Riccabocca. 
 
 Jackeymo, however, lost all his interest in the traps, 
 snares, and gins which his master proposed to lay for 
 Leonard Fairfield, in the more immediate surprise that 
 awaited him on learning that Dr. Riccabocca had accepted 
 an invitation to pass a few days at the Hall. 
 
 "There will be no one there but the family," said 
 Riccabocca. " Poor Giacomo, a little chat in the servants' 
 hall will do you good ; and the Squire's beef is more 
 nourishing, after all, than the stickle-backs and minnows. 
 It will lengthen your life." 
 
 "The Padrone jests," said Jackeymo, statelily; "as if 
 any one could starve in his service." 
 
 " Um," said Riccabocca. "At least, faithful friend, you 
 have tried that experiment as far as human nature will 
 permit ;" and he extended his hand to his fellow T -exile with 
 that familiarity which exists between servant and master 
 in the usages of the Continent. Jackeymo bent low, and a 
 tear fell upon the hand he kissed. 
 
 "Cospetto!" said Dr. Riccabocca, " a thousand mock 
 pearls do not make up the cost of a single true one ! The 
 tears of women we know their worth ; but the tear of an 
 
 honest man Fie, Giacomo ! at least I can never repay 
 
 you this ! Go and see to our wardrobe."
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 107 
 
 So far as his master's wardrobe was concerned, that 
 order was pleasing to Jackeymo ; for the Doctor had in 
 his drawers suits which Jackeymo pronounced to be as 
 good as new, though many a long year had passed since 
 they left the tailor's hands. But when Jackeymo came to 
 examine the state of his own clothing department, his face 
 grew considerably longer. It was not that he was without 
 other clothes than those on his back quantity was there, 
 but the quality ! Mournfully he gazed on two suits com- 
 plete in the three separate members of which man's rai- 
 ments are composed : the one suit extended at length upon 
 his bed, like a veteran stretched by pious hands after 
 death ; the other brought piecemeal to the invidious light 
 the torso placed upon a chair, the limbs dangling down 
 from Jackeymo's melancholy arm. No bodies long exposed 
 at the Morgue could evince less sign of resuscitation than 
 those respectable defuncts ! For, indeed, Jackeymo had 
 been less thrifty of his apparel more prof usus sni than his 
 master. In the earliest days of their exile, he preserved 
 the decorous habit of dressing for dinner it was a respect 
 due to the Padrone and that habit had lasted till the two 
 habits on which it necessarily depended had evinced the 
 first symptoms of decay ; then the evening clothes had been 
 taken into morning wear, in which hard service they had 
 breathed their last. 
 
 The Doctor, notwithstanding his general philosophical 
 abstraction from such household details, had more than 
 once said, rather in pity to Jackeymo than with an eye to 
 that respectability which the costume of the servant reflects 
 on the dignity of the master, " Giacomo, thou wantest 
 clothes ; fit thyself out of mine ! " 
 
 And Jackeymo had bowed his gratitude, as if the dona- 
 tion had been accepted ; but the fact was, that that same 
 fitting-out was easier said than done. For though thanks 
 to an existence mainly upon stickle-backs and minnows 
 both Jackeymo and Riccabocca had arrived at that state 
 which the longevity of misers proves to be most healthful 
 to the human frame viz. : skin and bone yet the bones 
 contained in the skin of Riccabocca all took longitudinal 
 directions ; while those in the skin of Jackeymo spread 
 out latitudinally. And you might as well have made the 
 bark of a Lombardy poplar serve for the trunk of some 
 dwarfed and pollarded oak in whose hollow the Babes of 
 the Wood could have slept at their ease as have fitted out
 
 io8 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 Jackeymo from the garb of. Riccabocca. Moreover, if the 
 skill of the tailor could have accomplished that undertaking, 
 the faithful Jackeymo would never have had the heart to 
 avail himself of the generosity of his master. He had a sort 
 of religious sentiment, too, about those vestments of the 
 Padrone. The ancients, we know, when escaping from 
 shipwreck, suspended in the votive temple the garments 
 in which they had struggled through the wave. Jackeymo 
 looked on those relics of the past with a kindred supersti- 
 tion. " This coat the Padrone wore on such an occasion. 
 I remember the very evening the Padrone last put on 
 those pantaloons ! " And coat and pantaloons were ten- 
 derly dusted, and carefully restored to their sacred rest. 
 
 But now, after all, what was to be done ? Jackeymo 
 was much too proud to exhibit his person to the eyes of 
 the Squire's butler, in habiliments discreditable to himself 
 and the Padrone. In the midst of his perplexity the bell 
 rang, and he went down into the parlor. 
 
 Riccabocca was standing on the hearth, under his sym- 
 bolical representation of the " Patriae Exul." 
 
 " Giacomo," quoth he, " I have been thinking that thou 
 hast never done what I told thee, and fitted thyself out 
 from my superfluities. But we are going now into the 
 great world ; visiting once begun, Heaven knows where 
 it may stop ! Go to the nearest town, and get thyself 
 clothes. Things are dear in England. Will this suffice ? " 
 And Riccabocca extended a ^5 note. 
 
 Jackeymo, we have seen, was more familiar with his 
 master than we formal English permit our domestics to 
 be with us. But in his familiarity he was usually respect- 
 ful. This time, however, respect deserted him. 
 
 "The Padrone is mad !" he exclaimed ; "he would fling 
 away his whole fortune if I would let him. Five pounds 
 English, or a hundred and twenty-six pounds Milanese ! * 
 Santa Maria ! Unnatural father ! And what is to become 
 of the poor Signorina ? Is this the way you are to marry 
 her in the foreign land ? " 
 
 "Giacomo," said Riccabocca, bowing his head to the 
 storm, "the Signorina to-morrow; to-day the honor of the 
 house. Thy small-clothes, Giacomo. Miserable man, thy 
 small-clothes ! " 
 
 "It is just," said Jackeymo, recovering himself, and with 
 humility ; " and the Padrone does right to blame me,, but 
 
 * By the pounds Milanese, Giacomo means the Milanese lira.
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 109 
 
 not in so cruel a way. It is just the Padrone lodges and 
 boards me, and gives me handsome wages, and he has a 
 right to expect that I should not go in this figure." 
 
 " For the board and the lodgment, good," said Ricca- 
 bocca. " For the handsome wages, they are the visions of 
 thy fancy ! " 
 
 "They are no such things," said Jackeymo ; "they are 
 only in arrear. As if the Padrone could not pay them some 
 day or other as if I was demeaning myself by serving a 
 master who did not intend to pay his servants ! And can't I 
 wait ? Have I not my savings too ? But be cheered, be 
 cheered ; you shall be contented with me. I have two beau- 
 tiful suits still. I was arranging them when you rang for 
 me. You shall see, you shall see." 
 
 And Jackeymo hurried from the room, hurried back into 
 his own chamber, unlocked a little trunk which he kept 
 at his bed head, tossed out a variety of small articles, and 
 from the deepest depth extracted a leather purse. He 
 emptied the contents on the bed. They were chiefly Italian 
 coins, some five-franc pieces, a silver medallion, enclosing 
 a little image of his patron saint San Giacomo one solid 
 English guinea, and somewhat more than a pound's worth 
 in English silver. Jackeymo put back the foreign coins, 
 saying, prudently, "One will lose on them here : " he seized 
 the English coins, and counted them out. "But are you 
 enough, you rascals ! " quoth he, angrily, given them a good 
 shake. His eye caught sight of the medallion he paused ; 
 and after eyeing the tiny representation of the saint with 
 great deliberation, he added in a sentence which he must 
 have picked up from the proverbial aphorisms of his 
 master 
 
 " What's the difference between the enemy who does not 
 hurt me, and the friend who does not serve me ? Monsignore 
 San Giacomo, my patron saint, you are of very little use to 
 me in the leather bag. But if you help me to get into a 
 new pair of small-clothes on this important occasion, you 
 will be a friend indeed. Alia bisogna, Mon^ignore." Then, 
 gravely kissing the medallion, he thrust it into one pocket, 
 the coins into the other, made up a bundle of the two de- 
 funct suits, and muttering to himself, " Beast, miser that I 
 am, to disgrace the Padrone, with all these savings in his 
 service ! '' ran down stairs into his pantry, caught up his hat 
 and stick, and in a few moments more was seen trudging off 
 to the neighboring town of L .
 
 no MY NOVEL; OK, 
 
 Apparently the poor Italian succeeded, for he came back 
 that evening, in time to prepare the thin gruel which made 
 his master's supper, with a suit of black a little threadbare, 
 but still highly respectable two shirt fronts, and two white 
 cravats. But, out of all this finery, Jackeymo held the 
 small-clothes in especial veneration ; for, as they had cost 
 exactly what the medallion had sold for, so it seemed to him 
 that San Giacomo had heard his prayer in that quarter to 
 which he had more exclusively directed the saint's attention. 
 The other habiliments came to him in the merely human 
 process of sale and barter ; the small-clothes were the per- 
 sonal gratuity of San Giacomo ! 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 LIFE has been subjected to many ingenious comparisons ; 
 and if we do not understand it any better, it is not for want 
 of what is called "reasoning by illustration." Amongst 
 other resemblances, there are moments when, to a quiet 
 contemplator, it suggests the image of one of those rotatory 
 entertainments commonly seen in fairs and known by the 
 name of "whirligigs or roundabouts," in which each par- 
 ticipator of the pastime, seated on his hobby, is always 
 apparently in the act of pursuing some one before him, while 
 he is pursued by some one behind. Men, and women too, 
 are naturally animals of chase ; the greatest still find some- 
 thing to follow, and there is no one too humble not to be an 
 object of prey to another. Thus, confining our view to the 
 village of Hazeldean, we behold in this whirligig Dr. Ric- 
 cabocca spurring his hobby after Lenny Fairfield ; and Miss 
 Jemima, on her decorous side-saddle, whipping after Dr. 
 Riccabocca. Why, with so long and intimate a conviction 
 of the villany of our sex, Miss Jemima should resolve upon 
 giving the male animal one more chance of redeeming itself 
 in her eyes, I leave to the explanation of those gentlemen 
 who profess to find "their only books in woman's looks." 
 Perhaps it might be from the over-tenderness and clemency 
 of Miss Jemima's nature ; perhaps it might be that, as yet, 
 she had only experienced the villany of man born and reared 
 in these cold northern climates ; and in the land of Petrarch 
 and Romeo, of the citron and myrtle, there was reason to
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. in 
 
 expect that the native monster would be more amenable to 
 gentle influences, less obstinately hardened in his iniquities. 
 Without entering further into these hypotheses, it is sufficient 
 to say, that, on Signor Riccabocca's appearance in the 
 drawing-room at Hazeldean, Miss Jemima felt more than 
 ever rejoiced that she had relaxed in his favor her general 
 hostility to men. In truth, though Frank saw something 
 quizzical in the old-fashioned and outlandish cut of the 
 Italian's sober dress ; in his long hair, and the chapeatt bras, 
 over which he bowed so gracefully and then pressed it, as 
 if to his heart, before tucking it under his arm, after the 
 fashion in which the gizzard reposes under the wing of a 
 roasted pullet ; yet it was impossible that even Frank could 
 deny to Riccabocca that praise which is due to the air and 
 manner of an unmistakable gentleman. And certainly as, 
 after dinner, conversation grew more familiar, and the Par- 
 son and Mrs. Dale, who had been invited to meet their 
 friend, did their best to draw him out, his talk, though 
 sometimes a little too wise for his listeners, became eminently 
 animated and agreeable. It was the conversation of a man 
 who, besides the knowledge which is acquired from books 
 and life, had studied the art which becomes a gentleman 
 that of pleasing in polite society. 
 
 The result was that all were charmed with him, and 
 that even Captain Barnabas postponed the whist-table for 
 a full hour after the usual time. The Doctor did not play 
 he thus became the property of the two ladies, Miss Jemi- 
 ma and Mrs. Dale. 
 
 Seated between the two, in the place rightly appertain- 
 ing to Flimsey, who this time was fairly dislodged, to her 
 great wonder and discontent, the Doctor was the emblem of 
 true Domestic Felicity, placed between Friendship and 
 Love. 
 
 Friendship, as became her, worked quietly at the em- 
 broidered pocket-handkerchief, and left Love to more ani- 
 mated operations. " You must be very lonely at the Casino," 
 said Love, in a sympathizing tone. 
 
 "Madam," replied Riccabocca, gallantly, "I shall think 
 so when I leave you." 
 
 Friendship cast a sly glance at Love Love blushed, or 
 looked down on the carpet, which comes to the same thing. 
 "Yet," began Love again "yet solitude to a feeling 
 heart , 
 
 Riccabocca thought of the note of invitation, and invol-
 
 ii2 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 untarily buttoned his coat, as if to protect the individual 
 organ thus alarmingly referred to. 
 
 "Solitude, to a feeling heart, has its charms. It is so 
 hard even for us poor ignorant women to find a congenial 
 companion but i^r you! " Love stopped short, as if it had 
 said too much, and smelt confusedly at its bouquet. 
 
 Dr. Riccabocca cautiously lowered his spectacles, and 
 darted one glance, which, with the rapidity and comprehen- 
 siveness of lightning, seemed to envelop and take in, as it 
 were, the whole inventory of Miss Jemima's personal attrac- 
 tions. Now, Miss Jemima, as I have before observed, had 
 a mild and pensive expression of countenance, and she 
 would have been positively pretty had the mildness looked 
 a little more alert, and the pensiveness somewhat less lack- 
 adaisical. In fact, though Miss Jemima was constitutionally 
 mild, she was not de naturd pensive ; she had too much of 
 the Hazeldean blood in her veins for that sullen and viscid 
 humor called melancholy, and therefore this assumption of 
 pensiveness really spoiled her character of features, which 
 only wanted to be lighted up by a cheerful smile to be ex- 
 tremely prepossessing. The same remark might apply to 
 the figure, which thanks to the same pensiveness lost all 
 the undulating grace which movement and animation be- 
 stow on the fluent curves of the feminine form. The figure 
 was a good figure, examined in detail a little thin, perhaps, 
 but by no means emaciated with just and elegant propor- 
 tions, and naturally light and flexible. But that same un- 
 fortunate pensiveness gave to the whole a character of inert- 
 ness and languor ; and when Miss Jemima reclined on the 
 sofa, so complete seemed the relaxation of nerve and muscle 
 that you would have thought she had lost the use of her 
 limbs. Over her face and form, thus defrauded of the 
 charms Providence had bestowed on them, Dr. Riccabocca's 
 eye glanced rapidly ; and then moving nearer to Mrs. Dale 
 " Defend me " (he stopped a moment, and added) "from 
 the charge of not being able to appreciate congenial com- 
 panionship." 
 
 "Oh, I did not say that ! " cried Miss Jemima. 
 
 "Pardon me," said the Italian, "if I am so dull as to 
 misunderstand you. One may well lose one's head, at least, 
 in such a neighborhood as this." He rose as he spoke, and 
 bent over Frank's shoulder to examine some Views of Italy, 
 which Miss Jemima (with what, if wholly unselfish, would
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 113 
 
 have been an attention truly delicate) had extracted from 
 the library in order to gratify the guest. 
 
 "Most interesting creature, indeed," sighed Miss Jemi- 
 ma, "but too too flattering." 
 
 "Tell me," said Mrs. Dale, gravely, "do you think, love, 
 that you could put off the end of the world a little longer, 
 or must we make haste in order to be in time ?" 
 
 " How wicked you are! " said Miss Jemima, turning aside. 
 
 Some few minutes afterward, Mrs. Dale contrived it so 
 that Dr. Riccabocca and herself were in a further corner 
 of the room, looking at a picture said to be by Wouver- 
 mans. 
 
 MRS. DALE. She is very amiable, Jemima, is she not ? 
 
 RICCABOCCA. Exceedingly so. Very fine battle-piece ! 
 
 MRS. DALE. So kind-hearted. 
 
 RICCABOCCA. All ladies are. How naturally that war- 
 rior makes his desperate cut at the runaway ! 
 
 MRS. DALE. She is not what is called regularly hand- 
 some, but she has something very winning. 
 
 RICCABOCCA (with a smile). So winning, that it is strange 
 she is not won. That gray mare in the foreground stands 
 out very boldly ! 
 
 MRS. DALE (distrusting the smile of Riccabocca, and 
 throwing in a more effective grape charge). Not won yet; 
 and it is strange ! she will have a very pretty fortune. 
 
 RICCABOCCA. Ah ! 
 
 MRS. DALE. Six thousand pounds, I dare say certainly 
 four. 
 
 RICCABOCCA (suppressing a sigh, and with his wonted 
 address). If Mrs. Dale were still single, she would never 
 need a friend to say what her portion might be ; but Miss 
 Jemima is so good that I am quite sure it is not Miss Jemi- 
 ma's fault that she is still Miss Jemima ! 
 
 The foreigner slipped away as he spoke, and sate himself 
 down beside the whist-players. 
 
 Mrs. Dale was disappointed, but certainly not offended. 
 "It would be such a good thing for both," muttered she, 
 almost audibly. 
 
 "Giacomo," said Riccabocca, as he was undressing that 
 night in the large, comfortable, well-carpeted English bed- 
 room, with that great English four-posted bed in the recess 
 which seems made to shame folks out of single-blessedness 
 " Giacomo, I have had this evening the offer of probably 
 six thousand pounds certainly of four thousand. "
 
 ii 4 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 " Cosa meravigliosa ! " exclaimed Jackeymo "miracu- 
 lous thing!" and he crossed himself with great fervor. 
 "Six thousand pounds English ! why, that must be a hun- 
 dred thousand blockhead that I am! more than a hun- 
 dred and fifty thousand pounds Milanese ! " And Jackeymo, 
 who was considerably enlivened by the Squire's ale, com- 
 menced a series of gesticulations and capers, in the midst 
 of which he stopped and cried, " But not for nothing?" 
 
 " Nothing ! no." 
 
 " These mercenary English ! the Government wants to 
 bribe you." 
 
 " That's not it." 
 
 "The priests want you to turn heretic." 
 
 " Worse than that," said the philosopher. 
 
 " Worse than that ! O Padrone ! for shame ! " 
 
 " Don't be a fool, but pull off my pantaloons they want 
 me never to wear these again ! " 
 
 " Never to wear what ? " exclaimed Jackeymo, staring 
 outright at his master's long legs in their linen drawers 
 " never to wear ' 
 
 "The breeches," said Riccabocca, laconically.. 
 
 " The barbarians ! " faltered Jackeymo. 
 
 " My nightcap ! and never to have any comfort in this," 
 said Riccabocca, drawing on the cotton head-gear; "and 
 never to have any sound sleep in that," pointing to the four- 
 posted bed. "And to be a bondsman and a slave," con- 
 tinued Riccabocca, waxing wroth ; " and to be wheedled 
 and purred at, and pawed, and clawed, and scolded, and 
 fondled, and blinded, and deafened, and bridled, and saddled 
 bedevilled and married ! " 
 
 " Married ! " said Jackeymo, more dispassionately 
 " that's -very bad, certainly ; but more than a hundred 
 and fifty thousand lire, and perhaps a pretty young lady, 
 and " 
 
 " Pretty young lady ! " growled Riccabocca, jumping 
 into bed and drawing the clothes fiercely over him. " Put 
 out the candle, and get along with you do, you villanous 
 old incendiary ! "
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 115 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 IT was not many days since the resurrection of those 
 ill-omened stocks, and it was evident already, to an ordinary 
 observer, that something wrong had got into the village. 
 The peasants wore a sullen expression of countenance ; 
 when the Squire passed, they took off their hats with more 
 than ordinary formality, but they did not return the same 
 broad smile to his quick, hearty " Good day, my man." The 
 women peered at him from the threshold of the case- 
 ment, but did not, as was their wont (at least the wont of 
 the prettiest), take occasion to come out to catch his pass- 
 ing compliment on their own good looks, or their tidy 
 cottages. And the children, who used to play after work on 
 the side of the old stocks, now shunned the place, and, 
 indeed, seemed to cease play altogether. 
 
 On the other hand, no man likes to build, or rebuild, a 
 great public work for nothing. Now that the Squire had 
 resuscitated the stocks, and made them so exceedingly 
 handsome, it was natural that he should wish to put some- 
 body into them. Moreover, his pride and self-esteem had 
 been wounded by the Parson's opposition ; and it would be 
 a justification to his own forethought, and a triumph over 
 the Parson's understanding, if he could satisfactorily and 
 practically establish a proof that the stocks had not been 
 repaired before they were wanted. 
 
 Therefore, unconsciously to himself, there was some- 
 thing about the Squire more burly, and authoritative, and 
 menacing than heretofore. Old Gaffer Salomons observed, 
 that " they had better moind well what they were about, 
 for that the Squire had a wicked look in the tail of his eye 
 just as the dun bull had afore it tossed neighbor Barnes's 
 little boy." 
 
 For two or three days these mute signs of something 
 brewing in the atmosphere had been rather noticeable than 
 noticed, without any positive overt act of tyranny on the 
 one hand, or rebellion on the other. But on the very 
 Saturday night in which Dr. Riccabocca was installed in the 
 four-posted bed in the chintz chamber, the threatened re- 
 volution commenced. In the dead of that night, personal
 
 n6 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 outrage was committed on the stocks. And on the Sunday 
 morning, Mr. Stirn, who was the earliest riser in the parish, 
 perceived, in going to the farm-yard, that the knob of the 
 column that flanked the board had been feloniously broken 
 off ; that the four holes were bunged up with mud ; and 
 that some Jacobinical villain had carved on the very centre 
 of the flourish or scroll-work, " Dam the stoks ! " Mr. Stirn 
 was much too vigilant a right-hand man, much too zealous 
 a friend of law and order, not to regard such proceedings 
 with horror and alarm. And when the Squire came into his 
 dressing-room at half-past seven, his butler (who fulfilled 
 also the duties of valet) informed him, with a mysterious 
 air, that Mr. Stirn had something " very partikler to com- 
 municate, about a most howdacious midnight 'spiracy and 
 'sault." 
 
 The Squire stared, and bade Mr. Stirn be admitted. 
 
 " Well ? " cried the Squire, suspending the operation of 
 stropping his razor. 
 
 Mr. Stirn groaned. 
 
 " Well, man, what now ? " 
 
 <l I never knowed such a thing in this here parish 'afore," 
 began Mr. Stirn, " and I can only 'count for it-by s'posing 
 that them foreign Papishers have been semminating " 
 
 " Been what ? " 
 
 " Semminating " 
 
 " Disseminating, you blockhead disseminating what ?" 
 
 " Damn the stocks," began Mr. Stirn, plunging right in 
 medias res, and by a fine use of one of the noblest figures in 
 rhetoric. 
 
 " Mr. Stirn !" cried the Squire, reddening, "did you say, 
 ' Damn the stocks ? ' damn my new handsome pair of 
 stocks ! " 
 
 "Lord forbid, sir; that's what they say ; that's what they 
 have digged on it with knives and daggers, and they have 
 stuffed mud in its four holes, and broken the capital of the 
 elewation." 
 
 The Squire took the napkin off his shoulder, laid down 
 strop and razor ; he seated himself in his arm-chair majesti- 
 cally, crossed his legs, and, in a voice that affected tranquil- 
 lity, said 
 
 " Compose yourself, Stirn ; you have a deposition to 
 make, touching an assault upon can I trust my senses ? 
 upon my new stocks. Compose yourself becalm. NOW! 
 What the devil is come to the parish ? "
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 117 
 
 "Ah, sir, what indeed?" replied Mr. Stirn ; and then 
 laying the fore-finger of the right hand on the palm of the 
 left, he narrated the case. 
 
 " And whom do you suspect ? Be calm now ; don't 
 speak in a passion. You are a witness, sir a dispassionate, 
 unprejudiced witness. Zounds and fury! this is the most 
 insolent, unprovoked, diabolical but whom do you sus- 
 pect, I say ? " 
 
 Stirn twirled his hat, elevated his eyebrows, jerked his 
 thumb over his shoulder, and whispered " I hear as how 
 the two Papishers slept at your honor's last night." 
 
 "What, dolt! do you suppose Dr. Rickeybockey got 
 out of his warm bed to bung tip the holes in my new 
 stocks ? " 
 
 "Noa; he's too cunning to do it himself, but he may 
 have been semminating. He's mighty thick with Parson 
 Dale, and your honor knows as how the Parson set his face 
 ag'in the stocks. Wait a bit, sir don't fly at me yet. 
 There be a boy in this here parish 
 
 " A boy ah, fool, now you are nearer the mark. The 
 Parson write ' Damn the stocks,' indeed ! What boy do 
 you mean ? " 
 
 "And that boy be cockered up much by Mr. Dale ; and 
 the Papisher went and sat with him and his mother a whole 
 hour t'other day ; and that boy is as deep as a well ; and I 
 seed him lurking about the place, and hiding hisself under 
 the tree the day the stocks was put up and that 'ere boy is 
 Lenny Fairfield." 
 
 "Whew," said the Squire, whistling, "you have not your 
 usual senses about you to-day, man. Lenny Fairfield 
 pattern boy of the village. If old your tongue. I dare say 
 it is not done by any one in the parish, after all ; some 
 good-for-nothing vagrant that cursed tinker, who goes 
 about with a very vicious donkey donkey that I caught 
 picking thistles out of the very eyes of the old stocks ! 
 Shows how the tinker brings up his donkeys ! Well, keep 
 a sharp look-out. To-day is Sunday ; worst day of the 
 week, I'm sorry and ashamed to say, for rows and depreda- 
 tions. Between the services, and after evening church, 
 there are always idle fellows from all the neighboring coun- 
 try about, as you know too well. Depend on it, the real 
 culprits will be found gathering round the stocks, and will 
 betray themselves ; have your eyes, ears, and wits about 
 you, and I've no doubt we shall come to the rights of the
 
 Ii8 My NOVEL; OR, 
 
 matter before the day's out. And if we do," added the 
 Squire, "we'll make an example of the ruffian ! " 
 
 "In course," said Stirn ; "and if we don't find him, we 
 must make an example all the same. That's what it is, sir. 
 That's why the stocks ben't respected ; they has not had an 
 example yet we want an example." 
 
 " On my word, I believe that's very true ; and we'll clap 
 in the first idle fellow you catch in anything wrong, and 
 keep him there for two hours at least." 
 
 " With the biggest pleasure, your honor that's what 
 it is." 
 
 And Mr. Stirn, having now got what he considered a 
 complete and unconditional authority over all the legs and 
 wrists of Hazeldean parish, quoad the stocks, took his de- 
 parture. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 " RANDAL," said Mrs. Leslie, on this memorable Sunday 
 " Randal, do you think of going to Mr. Hazeldean's ?" 
 
 "Yes, ma'am," answered Randal. "Mr. Egerton does 
 not object to it ; and as I do not return to Eton, I may have 
 no other opportunity of seeing Frank for some time. I 
 ought not to fail in respect to Mr. Egerton's natural heir." 
 
 " Gracious me ! " cried Mrs. Leslie, who, like many wo- 
 men of her cast and kind, had a sort of worldliness in her 
 notions, which she never evinced in her conduct "gracious 
 me ! natural heir to the old Leslie property ! " 
 
 " He is Mr. Egerton's nephew, and," added Randal, in- 
 genuously letting out his thoughts, " I am no relation to 
 Mr. Egerton at all." 
 
 " But," said poor Mrs. Leslie, with tears in her eyes, " it 
 would be a shame in the man, after paying your schooling 
 and sending you to Oxford, and having you to stay with 
 him in the holidays, if he did not mean anything by it." 
 
 " Anything, mother yes but not the thing you sup- 
 pose. No matter. It is enough that he has armed me for 
 life, and I shall use the weapons as seems to me best." 
 
 Here the dialogue was suspended by the entrance of the 
 other members of the family, dressed for church. 
 
 " It can't be time for church ! No ! it can't ! " exclaimed 
 Mrs. Leslie. She was never in time for anything.
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 
 
 119 
 
 " Last bell ringing," said Mr. Leslie, who, though a slow 
 man, was methodical and punctual. Mrs. Leslie made a 
 frantic rush at the door, the Montfydget blood being now in 
 ablaze dashed up the stairs burst into her room, tore her 
 best bonnet from the peg, snatched her newest shawl from 
 the drawers, crushed the bonnet on her head, flung the 
 shawl on her shoulders, thrust a desperate pin into its folds, 
 in order to conceal a buttonless yawn in the body of her 
 gown, and then flew back like a whirlwind. Meanwhile 
 the family were already out of doors, in waiting ; and just 
 as the bell ceased, the procession moved from the shabby 
 house to the dilapidated church. 
 
 The church was a large one, but the congregation was 
 small, and so was the income of the Parson. It was a lay 
 rectory, and the great tithes had belonged to the Leslies, 
 but they had been long since sold. The vicarage, still in 
 their gift, might be worth a little more than ,100 a year. 
 The present incumbent had nothing else to live upon. He 
 was a good man, and not originally a stupid one ; but 
 penury and the anxious cares for wife and family, combined 
 with what may be called solitary confinement for the cultiva- 
 ted mind, when, amidst the two-legged creatures round, it 
 sees no other cultivated mind with which it can exchange 
 one extra-parochial thought had lulled him into a lazy 
 mournfulness, which at times was very like imbecility. His 
 income allowed him to do no good to the parish, whether 
 in work, trade, or charity ; and thus he had no moral weight 
 with the parishioners beyond the example of his sinless 
 life, and such negative effect as might be produced by his 
 slumberous exhortations. Therefore his parishioners trou- 
 bled him very little ; and but for the influence which, in 
 hours of Montfydget activity, Mrs. Leslie exercised over 
 the most tractable that is, the children and the aged not 
 half a dozen persons would have known or cared w r hether 
 he shut up his church or not. 
 
 But our family were seated in state in their old seignorial 
 pew, and Mr. Dumdrum, with a nasal twang, went lugubri- 
 ously through the prayers ; and the old people who could 
 sin no more, and the children who had not yet learned to 
 sin, croaked forth responses that might have come from the 
 choral frogs in Aristophanes. And there was a long sermon 
 a propos to nothing which could possibly interest the con- 
 gregationbeing, in fact, some controversial homily, which 
 Mr. Dumdrum had composed and preached ye'ars before.
 
 120 MY NOVEL: OR, 
 
 And when this discourse was over there was a loud universal 
 grunt, as if of relief and thanksgiving, and a great clatter 
 of shoes and the old hobbled, and the young scrambled, 
 to the church door. 
 
 Immediately after church, the Leslie family dined ; and, 
 as soon as dinner was over, Randal set out on his foot 
 journey to Hazeldean Hall. 
 
 Delicate and even feeble though his frame, he had the 
 energy and quickness of movement which belongs to nerv- 
 ous temperaments ; and he tasked the slow stride of a 
 peasant, whom he took to serve him as a guide for the first 
 two or three miles. Though Randal had not the gracious, 
 open manner with the poor which Frank inherited from his 
 father, he was still (despite many a secret hypocritical vice 
 at war with the character of a gentleman) gentleman enough 
 to have no churlish pride to his inferiors. He talked little 
 but he suffered his guide to talk ; and the boor, who was> 
 the same whom Frank had accosted, indulged in eulogistic 
 comments on that young gentleman's pony, from which he 
 diverged into~some compliments on the young gentleman 
 himself. Randal drew his hat over his brows. There is a 
 wonderful tact and fine breeding in your agricultural peas- 
 ant ; and though Tom Stowell w T as but a brutish specimen 
 of the class, he suddenly perceived that he was giving pain. 
 He paused, scratched his head, and glancing affectionately 
 toward his companion, exclaimed 
 
 "But I shall live to see you on a handsomer beastis than 
 that little pony, Master Randal ; and sure I ought, for you 
 be as good a gentleman as any in the land." 
 
 "Thank you," said Randal. " But I like walking better 
 than riding I am more used to it." 
 
 " Well, and you walk bra'ly there ben't a better walker 
 in the country. And very pleasant it is walking ; and 'tis a 
 pretty country afore you, all the way to the Hall." 
 
 Randal strode on, as if impatient of these attempts to 
 .flatter or to soothe ; and, coming at length into a broader 
 land, said "I think I can find my way now. Many thanks 
 to you, Tom ; " and he forced a shilling into Tom's horny 
 palm. The man took it reluctantly, and a tear started to his 
 eye. He felt more grateful for that shilling than he had for 
 Frank's liberal half-crown ; and he thought of the poor 
 fallen family, and forgot his own dire wrestle with the wolf 
 at his door. 
 
 He stayed lingering in the lane till the figure of Randal
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 121 
 
 was out of sight, and then returned slowly. Young Leslie 
 continued to walk on at a quick pace. With all his intel- 
 lectual culture, and his restless aspiration?, his breast 
 afforded him no thought so generous, no sentiment so 
 poetic, as those with which the unlettered clown crept 
 slouchingly homeward. 
 
 As Randal gained a point where several lanes met on a 
 broad piece of waste land, be began to feel tired, and his 
 step slackened. Just then a gig emerged from one of these 
 by-roads, and took the same direction as the pedestrian. 
 The road was rough and hilly, and the driver proceeded at a 
 foot's pace ; so that the gig and the pedestrian went pretty 
 well abreast. 
 
 "You seem tired, sir," said the driver, a stout young 
 farmer of the higher class of tenants and he looked down 
 compassionately on the boy's pale countenance and weary 
 stride, " Perhaps we are going the same way, and I can 
 gift you a lift J " 
 
 It was Randal's habitual policy to make use of every ad- 
 vantage proffered to him, and he accepted the proposal 
 frankly enough to please the honest farmer. 
 
 " A nice day, sir," said the latter, as Randal sat by his 
 side. " Have you come far?" 
 
 " From Rood Hall." 
 
 ''Oh, you be young Squire Leslie," said the farmer, 
 more respectfully, and lifting his hat. 
 
 " Yes, my name is Leslie. You know Rood, then 1 " 
 
 " I was brought up on your father's land, sir. You may 
 have heard of Farmer Bruce ? " 
 
 RANDAL. I remember, when I was a little boy, a Mr. 
 Bruce who rented, I believe, the best part of our land, and 
 who used to bring us cakes when he called to see my father. 
 He is a relation of yours ? " 
 
 FARMER BRUCE. He was my uncle. He is dead now, 
 poor man. 
 
 RANDAL. Dead ! I am grieved to hear it. He was very 
 kind to us children. But it is long since he left my father's 
 farm. 
 
 FARMER BRUCE (apologetically). I am sure he was very 
 sorry to go. But, you see, he had an unexpected legacy 
 
 RANDAL. And retired from business 1 
 
 FARMER BRUCE. No. But, having capital, he could 
 afford to pay a good rent for a real good farm, 
 6
 
 122 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 RANDAL (bitterly). All capital seems to- fly from the 
 lands of Rood. And whose farm did he take? 
 
 FARMER BRUCE. He took Hawleigh, under Squire 
 Hazeldean. I rent it now. We've laid out a power o' 
 money on it. But I don't complain. It pays well. 
 
 RANDAL. Would the money have paid as well, sunk on 
 my father's land .' 
 
 FARMER BRUCE. Perhaps it might, in the long run. 
 But then, sir, we wanted new premises barns and cattle- 
 sheds, and a deal more which the landlord should do ; but 
 it is not every landlord as can afford that. Squire Hazel- 
 dean's a rich man. 
 
 RANDAL. Ay ! 
 
 The road now became pretty good, and the farmer put 
 his horse into a brisk trot. 
 
 " But which way be you going, sir? I don't care for a 
 few miles more or less, if I can be of service." 
 
 " I am going to Hazeldean," said Randal, rousing him- 
 self from a reverie. " Don't let me take you out of your way." 
 
 " Oh, Hawleigh. Farm is on the other side of the village, 
 so it be quite my way, sir." 
 
 The farmer, then, who was really a smart young fellow 
 one of that race which the application of capital to land 
 has produced, and which, in point of education and refine- 
 ment, are at least on a par with the squires of a former ge- 
 nerationbegan to talk about his handsome horse, about 
 horses in general, about hunting and coursing ; he handled 
 all these subjects with spirit, yet with modesty.' Randal 
 pulled his hat still lower down over his brows, and did not 
 interrupt him till they passed the Casino, when, struck by 
 the classic air of the place, and catching a scent from the 
 orange-trees, the boy asked abruptly " Whose house is 
 that ? " 
 
 "Oh, it belongs to Squire Hazeldean, but it is let or lent 
 to a foreign Mounseer. They say he is quite the gentle- 
 man, but uncommonly poor." 
 
 " Poor," said Randal, turning back to gaze on the trim 
 garden, the neat terrace, the pretty belvidere, and (the door 
 of the house being open) catching a glimpse of the painted 
 hall within " poor ? the place seems well kept. What do 
 you call poor, Mr. Bruce?" 
 
 The farmer laughed. " Well, that's a home question, 
 sir. But I believe the Mounseer is as poor as a man can 
 be who makes no debts and does not actually starve."
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 123 
 
 " As poor as my father ? " asked Randal, openly and 
 abruptly. 
 
 " Lord, sir ! your father be a very rich man compared to 
 him." 
 
 Randal continued to gaze, and his mind's eye conjured 
 up the contrast of his slovenly shabby home, with all its 
 neglected appurtenances ! No trim garden at Rood Hall, 
 no scent from odorous orange-blossoms Here poverty at 
 least was elegant there, how squalid ! He did not com- 
 prehend at how cheap a rate the luxury of the Beautiful 
 can be effected. They now approached the extremity of 
 the Squire's park pales ; and Randal, seeing a little gate, 
 bade the farmer stop his gig, and descended. The boy 
 plunged amidst the thick oak-groves ; the farmer went his 
 way blithely, and his mellow merry whistle came to Ran- 
 dal's moody ear as he glided quick under the shadow of the 
 trees. 
 
 He arrived at the Hall, to find that all the family were 
 at church ; and, according to the patriarchal custom, the 
 church-going family embraced nearly all the servants. It 
 was therefore an old invalid housemaid who opened the 
 door to him. She was rather deaf, and seemed so stupid 
 that Randal dit not ask leave to enter and wait for Frank's 
 return. He therefore said briefly that he would just stroll 
 on the lawn, and call again when church was over. 
 
 The old woman stared, and strove to hear him ; mean- 
 while Randal turned round abruptly, and sauntered toward 
 the garden side of the handsome old house. 
 
 There was enough to attract any eye in the smooth 
 greensward of the spacious lawn in the numerous parterres 
 of variegated flowers in the venerable grandeur of the two 
 mighty cedars, which threw their still shadows over the 
 grass and in the picturesque building, with its projecting 
 mullions and heavy gables; yet I fear that it was with no 
 poet's nor painter's eye that this young old man gazed on 
 the scene before him. 
 
 He beheld the evidence of wealth and the envy ol 
 wealth jaundiced his soul. 
 
 Folding his arms on his breast, he stood awhile, looking 
 all around him, with closed lips and lowering brow ; then 
 he walked slowly on, his eyes fixed on the ground, and 
 muttered to himself 
 
 " The heir to this property is little better than a dunce ; 
 and they tell me I have talents and learning, and I have
 
 124 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 taken to my heart the maxim, ' Knowledge is power.' And 
 yet, with all my struggles, will knowledge ever place me on 
 the same level as that on which this dunce is born ? I don't 
 wonder that the poor should hate the rich. But of all the 
 poor, who should hate the rich like the pauper gentleman ? 
 I suppose Audley Egerton means me to come into Parlia- 
 ment, and be a Tory like himself! What! keep things as 
 they are ! No ; for me not even Democracy, unless there 
 first come Revolution. I understand the cry of a Marat 
 'More blood!' Marat had lived as a poor man, and cul- 
 tivated science in -the sight of a prince's palace." 
 
 He turned sharply round, and glared vindictively on the 
 poor old Hall, which, though a very comfortable habitation, 
 was certainly no palace ; and, with his arm still folded on 
 his breast, he \valked backward, as if not to lose the view, 
 nor the chain of ideas it conjured up. 
 
 "But," he continued to soliloquize "but of revolution 
 there is no chance. Yet the same wit and will that would 
 thrive in revolutions should thrive in this common-place 
 life. Knowledge is power. Well, then, shall I have no 
 power to oust this blockhead ? Oust him what from ? 
 His father's halls ? Well, but if he were dead, who would 
 be the heir of Hazeldean ? Have I not heard my mother 
 say that I am as near in blood to this Squire as any one, if 
 he had no children ? Oh, but the boy's life is worth ten of 
 mine ! Oust him from what ? At least from the thoughts 
 of his Uncle Egerton an uncle who has never even seen 
 him ! That, at least, is more feasible. ' Make my way in 
 life,' sayest thou, Audley Egerton. Ay and to the fortune 
 thou hast robbed from my ancestors. Simulation simula- 
 tion. Lord Bacon allows simulation. Lord Bacon prac- 
 tised it and " 
 
 Here the soliloquy came to a sudden end ; for as, rapt 
 in his thoughts, the boy had continued to walk backward, 
 he had come to the verge, where the lawn slided off into 
 the ditch of the ha-ha ; and, just as he was fortifying him- 
 self by the precept and practice of my Lord Bacon, the 
 ground went from under him, and slap into the ditch 
 went Randal Leslie ! 
 
 It so happened that the Squire, whose active genius 
 was always at some repair or improvement, had been but 
 a few days before widening and sloping off the ditch just 
 in that part, so that the earth was fresh and damp, and 
 not yet either turfed or flattened down. Thus when Ran-
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 125 
 
 dal, recovering his first surprise and shock, rose to his feet, 
 he found his clothes covered with mud ; while the rude- 
 ness of the fall was evinced by the fantastic and extraor- 
 dinary appearance of his hat, which, hollowed here, bulg- 
 ing there, and crushed out of all recognition generally, 
 was as little like the hat of a decorous, hard-reading young 
 gentleman prot/gJ of the dignified Mr. Audley Egerton 
 as any hat picked out of a kennel after some drunken 
 brawl possibly could be. 
 
 Randal was dizzy, and stunned, and bruised, and it was 
 some moments before he took heed of his raiment. When 
 he did so, his spleen was greatly aggravated. He was still 
 boy enough not to like the idea of presenting himself to 
 the unknown Squire, and the dandy Frank, in such a trim ; 
 he resolved incontinently to regain the lane and turn 
 home, without accomplishing the object of his journey ; 
 and seeing the footpath right before him, which led to a 
 gate that he conceived would admit him into the highway 
 sooner than the path by which he had came, he took it at 
 once. 
 
 It is surprising how little we human creatures heed the 
 warnings of our good genius. I have no doubt that some 
 benignant power had precipitated Randal Leslie into the 
 ditch, as a significant hint of the fate of all who choose 
 what is, now-a-days, by no means an uncommon step in 
 the march of intellect viz., the walking backward, in 
 order to gratify a vindictive view of one's neighbor's pro- 
 perty ! I suspect that, before this century is out, many a 
 fine fellow will thus have found his ha-ha, and scrambled 
 out of the ditch with a much shabbier coat than he had on 
 when he fell into it. But Randal did not thank his good 
 genius for giving him a premonitory tumble ; and I never 
 yet knew a man who did ! 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 THE Squire was greatly ruffled at breakfast that morn- 
 ing. He was too much of an Englishman to bear insult 
 patiently, and he considered that he had been personally 
 insulted in the outrage offered to his recent donation to 
 the parish. His feelings, too, were hurt as well as his
 
 126 MY NOVEL; Off, 
 
 pride. There was something so ungrateful in the whole 
 thing, just after he had taken so much pains, not only in 
 the resuscitation, but the embellishment of the stocks. It 
 was not, however, so rare an occurrence for the Squire to 
 be ruffled, as to create any remark. Riccabocca, indeed, 
 as a stranger, and Mrs. Hazeldean, as a wife, had the quick 
 tact to perceive that the host was glum and the husband 
 snappish ; but the one was too discreet, and the other too 
 sensible, to chafe the new sore, whatever it might be ; and 
 shortly after breakfast the Squire retired into his study, 
 and absented himself from morning service. 
 
 In his delightful Life of Oliver Goldsmith, Mr. Forster 
 takes care to touch our hearts by introducing his hero's 
 excuse for not entering the priesthood : " He did not feel 
 himself good enough." Thy Vicar of Wakefield, poor 
 Goldsmith, was an excellent substitute for thee ; and Dr. 
 Primrose at least will be good enough for the world until 
 Miss Jemima's fears are realized. Now, Squire Hazeldean 
 had a tenderness of conscience much less reasonable than 
 Goldsmith's. There were occasionally days in which he 
 did not feel good enough I don't say for a priest, but 
 even for one of the congregation " days in which," said the 
 Squire in his own blunt way, "as I have never in my life met 
 a worse devil than a devil of a temper, I'll not carry mine 
 into the family pew. He shan't be growling out hypocritical 
 responses from my poor grandmother's prayer-book." So 
 the Squire and his demon stayed at home. But the demon 
 was generally cast out before the day was over ; and, on 
 this occasion, when the bell rang for afternoon service, it 
 may be presumed that the Squire had reasoned or fretted 
 himself into a proper state of mind ; for he was then seen 
 sallying forth from the porch of his hall, arm-in-arm with 
 his wife, and at the head of his household. The second 
 service was (as is commonly the case in rural districts) 
 more numerously attended than the first one ; and it was 
 our Parson's wont to devote to this service his most effec- 
 tive discourse. 
 
 Parson Dale, though a very fair scholar, had neither 
 the deep theology nor the archaeological learning that dis- 
 tinguishes the rising generation of the clergy. I must 
 doubt if he could have passed what would now be called a 
 creditable examination in the Fathers ; and as for all the 
 nice formalities in the Rubric, he would never have been 
 the man to divide a congregation or puzzle a bishop.
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 127 
 
 Neither was Parson Dale very erudite in ecclesiastical 
 architecture ; lie did not much care whether all the details 
 in the church were purely Gothic or not ; crockets and 
 finiais, round arch and pointed arch, were matters, I fear, 
 on which he had never troubled his head. But one secret 
 Parson Dale did possess, which is perhaps of equal import- 
 ance with those subtler mysteries he knew how to fill his 
 church ! Even at morning service no pews were empty, 
 and at evening service the church overflowed. 
 
 Parson Dale, too, may be considered, now-a-days, to 
 hold but a mean idea of the spiritual authority of the 
 Church. He had never been known to dispute on its 
 exact bearing with the State whether it was incorporated 
 with the State, or above the State whether it was antece- 
 dent to the Papacy or formed from the Papacy, etc., etc. 
 According to his favorite maxim, Quieta nan movere (not to 
 disturb things that are quiet), I have no doubt that he 
 would have thought that the less discussion is provoked 
 upon such matters the better for both Church and laity. 
 Nor had he ever been known to regret the disuse of the 
 ancient custom of excommunication, nor any other diminu- 
 tion of the powers of the priesthood, whether minatory or 
 militant ; yet, for all this. Parson Dale had a great notion 
 of the sacred privilege of a minister of the gospel to ad- 
 vise to deter to persuade to reprove. And it was for 
 the evening service that he prepared those sermons, which 
 may be called " sermons that preach at you." He preferred 
 the evening for that salutary discipline, not only because 
 the congregation was more numerous, but also because, 
 being a shrewd man in his own innocent way, he knew that 
 people bear better to be preached at after dinner than be- 
 fore ; that you arrive more insinuatingly at the heart when 
 the stomach is at peace. There was a genial kindness in 
 Parson Dale's way of preaching at you. It was done in so 
 imperceptible fatherly a manner, that you never felt of- 
 fended. He did it, too, with so much art that nobody but 
 your own guilty self knew that you were the sinner he was 
 exhorting. Yet he did not spare rich nor poor ; he preached 
 at the Squire, and that great fat farmer, Mr. Bullock, 
 the churchwarden, as boldly as at Hodge the ploughman 
 and Scrub the hedger. As for Mr. Stirn, he had preached 
 at him more often than at any one in the parish ; but Stirn, 
 though he had the sense to know it, never had the grace to 
 reform. There was, too, in Parson Dale's sermons some-
 
 128 MY NOVEL; OK, 
 
 thing of that boldness of illustration which would have been 
 scholarly if he had not made it familiar, and which is found 
 in the discourses of our elder divines. Like them, he did 
 not scruple, now and then, to introduce an anecdote from 
 history, or borrow an allusion from some non-scriptural 
 author, in order to enliven the attention of his audience, or 
 render an argument more plain. And the good man had 
 an object in this, a little distinct from, though wholly sub- 
 ordinate to, the main purpose of his discourse. He was a 
 friend to knowledge but to knowledge accompanied by 
 religion ; and sometimes his references to sources not 
 within the ordinary reading of his congregation would 
 spirit up some farmer's son, with an evening's leisure on 
 his hands, to ask the Parson for farther explanation, and so 
 to be lured on to a little solid or graceful instruction, under 
 a safe guide. 
 
 Now, on the present occasion, the Parson, who had 
 always his eye and heart on his flock, and who had seen 
 with great grief the realization of his fears at the revival 
 of the stocks ; seen that a spirit of discontent was already 
 at work amongst the peasants, and that magisterial and 
 inquisitorial designs were darkening the natural benevo- 
 lence of the Squire ; seen, in short, the signs of a breach 
 between classes, and the precursors of the ever-inflammable 
 feud between the rich and the poor, meditated nothing 
 less than a great Political Sermon a sermon that should 
 extract from the roots of social truths a healing virtue for 
 the wound that lay sore, but latent, in the breast of his 
 parish of Hazeldean. 
 
 And thus ran 
 
 THE POLITICAL SERMON OF PARSON DALE. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 " For every man shall bear his own burden." GAL., vi., 5. 
 
 " BRETHREN, every man has his burden. If God de- 
 signed our lives to end at the grave, may we not believe 
 that he would have freed an existence so brief from the 
 cares and sorrows to which, since the beginning of the 
 world, mankind has been subjected ? Suppose that I am
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 129 
 
 a kind father, and have a child whom I dearly love, but I 
 know by a Divine revelation that he will die at the age 
 of eight years, surely I should not vex his infancy by 
 needless preparations for the duties of life. If I am a rich 
 man, I should not send him from the caresses of his mother 
 to the stern discipline of school. If I am a poor man, I 
 should not take him with me to hedge and dig, to scorch in 
 the sun, to freeze in the winter's cold ; why inflict hard- 
 ships on his childhood for the purpose of fitting him for 
 manhood, when I know that he is doomed not to grow into 
 man ? But if, on the other hand, I believe my child is re- 
 served for a more durable existence, then should I not, out 
 of the very love I bear to him, prepare his childhood for 
 the struggle of life, according to that station in which he 
 is born, giving many a toil, many a pain, to the infant, in 
 order to rear and strengthen him for his duties as man ? 
 So it is with our Father that is in heaven. Viewing this 
 life as our infancy, and the next as our spiritual maturity, 
 where, ' in the ages to come, he ma}' show the exceeding 
 riches of his grace,' it is in his tenderness, as in his wisdom, 
 to permit the toil and the pain which, in tasking the powers 
 and developing the virtues of the soul, prepare it for ' the 
 earnest of our inheritance.' Hence it is that every man has 
 his burden. Brethren, if you believe that God is good, yea, 
 but as tender as a human father, you will know that your 
 troubles in life are a proof that you are reared for an eter- 
 nity. But each man thinks his own burden the hardest to 
 bear ; the poor man groans under his poverty, the rich man 
 under the cares that multiply with wealth. For, so far from 
 wealth freeing us from trouble, all the wise men who have 
 written in all the ages have repeated, with one voice, the 
 words of the wisest : ' When goods increase, they are in- 
 creased that eat them ; and what good is there to the 
 owners thereof, saving the beholding them with their eyes ? ' 
 And this is literally true, my brethren ; for, let a man be 
 as rich as was the great King Solomon himself, unless he 
 lock up all his gold in a chest, it must go abroad to be 
 divided amongst others ; yea, though, like Solomon, he 
 make him great works though he build houses and plant 
 vineyards, and make him gardens and orchards, still the 
 gold that he spends feeds but the mouths he employs ; and 
 Solomon himself could not eat with a better relish than the 
 poorest mason who builded the house, or the humblest 
 laborer who planted the vineyard. Therefore, ' when 
 6*
 
 1 30 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 goods increase, they are increased that eat them.' And 
 this, my brethren, may teach us toleration and compassion 
 for the rich. We share their riches, whether they will or 
 not ; we do not share their cares. The profane history of 
 our own country tells us that a princess, destined to be the 
 greatest queen that ever sat on this throne, envied the milk- 
 maid singing ; and a profane poet, whose wisdom was only 
 less than that of the inspired writers, represents the man 
 who by force and wit had risen to be a king, sighing for 
 the sleep vouchsafed to the meanest of his subjects all 
 bearing out the words of the son of David : ' The sleep of 
 the laboring man is sweet, whether he eat little or much ; 
 but the abundance of the rich will not suffer him to sleep.' 
 
 " Amongst my brethren now present, there is doubtless 
 some one who has been poor, and by honest industry has 
 made himself comparatively rich. Let his heart answer me 
 while I speak ; are not the chief cares that now disturb him 
 to be found in the goods he hath acquired ? has he not 
 both vexations to his spirit and trials to his virtue, which 
 he knew not when he went forth to his labor, and took no 
 heed of the morrow ? But it is right, my brethren, that to 
 every station there should be its care to every man his 
 burden ; for if the poor did not sometimes so far feel 
 poverty to be a burden as to desire to better their condi- 
 tion, and (to use the language of the world) ' seek to rise in 
 life,' their most valuable energies would never be aroused ; 
 and we should not witness that spectacle, which is so 
 common in the land we live in namely, the successful 
 struggle of manly labor against adverse fortune a struggle 
 in which the triumph of one gives hope to the thousands. 
 It is said that necessity is the mother of invention ; and the 
 social blessings which are now as common to us as air and 
 sunshine, have come from that law of our nature which 
 makes us aspire toward indefinite improvement, enriches 
 each successive generation by the labors of the last, and 
 and in free countries often lifts the child of the laborer to a 
 place amongst the rulers of the land. Nay, if necessity is 
 the mother of invention, poverty is the creator of the arts. 
 If there had been no poverty, and no sense of poverty, 
 where would have been that which we call the wealth of a 
 country ? Subtract from civilization all that has been pro- 
 duced by the poor, and what remains ? the state of the 
 savage. Where you now see laborer and prince, you would 
 see equality indeed the equality of wild men. No ; not
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 131 
 
 even equality there ! For there brute force becomes lord- 
 ship and woe to the weak ! Where you now see some in 
 frieze, some in purple, you would see nakedness in all. 
 Where stand the palace and the cot, you would behold but 
 mud huts and caves. As far as the peasant excels the king 
 among savages, so far does the society exalted and enriched 
 by the struggles of labor excel the state in which Poverty 
 feels no disparity, and Toil sighs for no ease. On the other 
 hand, if the rich were perfectly contented with their wealth, 
 their hearts would become hardened in the sensual enjoy- 
 ments it procures. It is that feeling, by Divine Wisdom 
 implanted in the soul, that there is vanity and vexation of 
 spirit in the things of Mammon, which still leaves the rich 
 man sensitive to the instincts of heaven, and teaches him to 
 seek for happiness in those beneficent virtues which distri- 
 bute his wealth to the profit of others. If you could ex- 
 clude the air from the rays of the fire, the fire itself would 
 soon languish and die in the midst of its fuel ; and so a 
 man's joy in his wealth is kept alive by the air which it 
 warms ; and if pent within itself is extinguished. 
 
 " And this, my brethren, leads me to another view of the 
 vast subject opened to us by the words of the apostle 
 ' Every man shall bear his own burden.' The worldly con- 
 ditions of life are unequal. Why are they unequal ? O 
 my brethren, do you not perceive ? Think you that, if it 
 had been better for our spiritual probation that there should 
 be neither great nor lowly, rich nor poor, Providence would 
 not so have ordered the dispensations of the world, and so, 
 by its mysterious but merciful agencies, have influenced the 
 framework and foundations of society ? But if from the 
 remotest period of human annals, and in all the numberless 
 experiments of government which the wit of man has de- 
 vised, still this inequality is ever found to exist, may we not 
 suspect that there is something in the very principles of our 
 nature to which that inequality is necessary and essential ? 
 Ask why this inequality? Why? as well ask why life is 
 the sphere of duty and the nursery of virtues ! For if all 
 men were equal, if there were no suffering and no ease, no 
 poverty and no wealth, would you not sweep with one blow 
 the half, at least, of human virtues from the world ? If 
 there were no penury and no pain, what would become of 
 fortitude ? what of patience ? what of resignation ? If 
 there were no greatness and no wealth, what would become 
 ot benevolence, of charity, of the blessed human pity, of
 
 !33 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 temperance in the midst of luxury, of justice in the exercise 
 of power ? Carry the question further ; grant all conditions 
 the same no reverse, no rise, and no fall nothing to hope 
 for, nothing to fear what a moral death you would at once 
 inflict upon all the energies of the soul, and what a link be- 
 tween the Heart of man and the Providence of God would 
 be snapped asunder ! If we could annihilate evil, we should 
 annihilate hope ; and hope, my brethren, is the avenue to 
 faith. If there be ' a time to weep and a time to laugh,' it 
 is that he who mourns may turn to eternity for comfort, 
 and he who rejoices may bless God for the happy hour. 
 Ah ! my brethren, were it possible to annihilate the in- 
 equalities of human life, it would be the banishment of our 
 worthiest virtues, the torpor of our spiritual nature, the 
 palsy of our mental faculties. The moral world, like the 
 world without us, derives its health and its beauty from 
 diversity and contrast. 
 
 " ' Every man shall bear his own burden.' True ; but 
 now turn to an earlier verse in the same chapter, ' Bear 
 ye one another's burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ.' 
 Yes ; while heaven ordains to each his peculiar suffering, 
 it connects the family of man into one household, by that 
 feeling which, more perhaps than any other, distinguishes 
 us from the brute creation I mean the feeling to which 
 we give the name of sympathy the feeling for each other ! 
 The flock heedeth not the sheep that creeps into the shade 
 to die ; but man has sorrow and joy not in himself alone, 
 but in the joy and sorrow of those around him. He who 
 feels only for himself abjures his very nature as man ; for 
 do we not say of one who has no tenderness for mankind 
 that he is inhuman ? and do we not call him who sorrows 
 with the sorrowful, humane ? 
 
 " Now, brethren, that which especially marked the divine 
 mission of our Lord, is the direct appeal to this sympathy 
 which distinguishes us from the brute. He seizes, not upon 
 some faculty of genius given but to few, bilt upon that 
 ready impulse of heart which is given to us all ; and in say- 
 ing; 'Love one another,' 'Bear ye one another's burdens,' 
 he elevates the most delightful of our emotions into the 
 most sacred of His laws. The lawyer asks our Lord, 'Who 
 is my neighbor?' Our lord replies by the parable of the 
 good Samaritan. The priest and the Levite saw the 
 wounded man that fell among the thieves, and passed by 
 on the other side. That priest might have been austere in
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 133 
 
 his doctrine, that Levite might have been learned in the 
 law ; but neither to the learning of the Levite, nor to the 
 doctrine of the priest, does our Savior even deign to allude. 
 He cites but the action of the Samaritan, and saith to the 
 lawyer, ' Which now of these three, thinkest thou, was 
 neighbor unto him that fell among the thieves ? And he 
 said, He that showed mercy unto him. Then said Jesus 
 unto him, Go, and do thou likewise.' 
 
 " O shallowness of human judgments ! It was enough 
 to be born a Samaritan in order to be rejected by the priest, 
 and despised by the Levite. Yet now, what to us the priest 
 and the Levite of God's chosen race though they were ? 
 They passed from the hearts of men when they passed the 
 sufferer by the wayside ; while this loathed Samaritan, half 
 thrust fiom the pale of the Hebrew, becomes of our family, 
 of our kindred ; a brother amongst the brotherhood of 
 Love, so long as Mercy and affliction shall meet in the com- 
 mon thoroughfare of Life ! 
 
 " ' Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfil the law 
 of Christ.' Think not, O my brethren, that this applies 
 only to almsgiving to that relief of distress which is com- 
 monly called charity to the obvious duty of devoting, 
 from our superfluities, something that we scarcely miss, to 
 the wants of a starving brother. No. I appeal to the 
 poorest amongst ye, if the worst burdens are those of the 
 body if the kind word and the tender thought have not 
 often lightened your hearts more than bread bestowed with 
 a grudge, and charity that humbles you by a frown. Sympa- 
 thy is a beneficence at the command of us all, yea, of the 
 pauper as of the king ; and sympathy is Christ's wealth. 
 Sympathy is brotherhood. The rich are told to have char- 
 ity for the poor, and the poor are enjoined to respect their 
 superiors. Good ; I say not to the contrary. But I say 
 also to the poor, ' In your turn have charity for the rich ; ' and 
 I say to the rich, ' In your turn respect the poor.' 
 
 " ' Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfil the law 
 of Christ.' Thou, O poor man, envy not nor grudge thy 
 brother his larger portion of worldly goods. Believe that 
 he hath his sorrows and crosses like thyself, and perhaps, as 
 more delicately nurtured, he feels them more ; nay, hath he 
 not temptations so great that our Lord hath exclaimed 
 ' How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the 
 kingdom of heaven ! ' And what are temptations but trials? 
 what are trials but perils and sorrows ? Think not that
 
 134 MY NOVEL; Of!, 
 
 you can bestow no charity on the rich man, even while you 
 take your sustenance from his hands. A heathen writer, 
 often cited by the earliest preachers of the gospel, hath 
 truly said 'Wherever there is room for a man, there is 
 place for a benefit.' 
 
 " And I ask any rich brother amongst you, when he hath 
 gone forth to survey his barns and his granaries, his gar- 
 dens and his orchards, if suddenly, in the vain pride of his 
 heart, he sees the scowl on the brow of the laborer if he 
 deems himself hated in the midst of his wealth if he feels 
 that his least faults are treasured up against him with the 
 hardness of malice, and his plainest benefits received with 
 the ingratitude of envy I ask, I say, any rich man, whether 
 straightway all pleasure in his worldly possessions does not 
 fade from his heart, and whether he does not feel what a 
 wealth of gladness it is in the power of the poor man to be- 
 stow ! For all these things of Mammon pass away ; but 
 there is in the smile of him whom we have served, a some- 
 thing that we may take with us into heaven. If, then, ye bear 
 one another's burdens, they who are poor will have mercy 
 on the errors, and compassion for the griefs, of the rich. 
 To all men it was said, yes, to Lazarus as to Dives, 
 'Judge not, that ye be not judged.' But think not, O rich 
 man, that we preach only to the poor. If it be their duty 
 not to grudge thee thy substance, it is thine to do all that 
 may sweeten their labor. Remember that when our Lord 
 said, ' How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the 
 kingdom of heaven,' he replied also to them who asked, 
 ' Who then shall be saved ? ' ' The things which are impos- 
 sible with men are possible with God ; ' that is, man left to 
 his own temptations would fail ; but, strengthened by God, 
 he shall be saved. If thy riches are the tests of thy trial, 
 so may they also be the instruments of thy virtues. Prove 
 by thy riches that thou art compassionate and tender, tem- 
 perate and benign ; and thy riches themselves may become 
 the evidence at once of thy faith and of thy works. 
 
 " We have constantly on our lips the simple precept, 
 ' Do unto others as you would be done by.' Why do we 
 fail so often in the practice? Because we neglect to cul- 
 tivate that SYMPATHY which nature implants as an instinct, 
 and the Savior exalts as acommand. If thou wouldst do 
 unto thy neighbor as thou wouldst be done by, ponder well 
 how thy neighbor will regard the action thou art about to do 
 to him. Put thyself into his place. If thou art strong and he
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 135 
 
 is weak, descend from thy strength and enter into his weak- 
 ness ; lay aside thy burden for the while, and buckle on his 
 own ; let thy sight see as through his eyes thy heart beat 
 as in his bosom. Do this, and thou wilt often confess that 
 what had seemed just to thy power will seem harsh to his 
 weakness. For 'as a zealous man hath not done his duty 
 when he calls his brother drunkard and beast,'* even so 
 an administrator of the law mistakes his object if he writes 
 on the grand column of society only warnings that irritate 
 the bold and terrify the timid ; and a man will be no more 
 in love with law than with virtue, ' if he be forced to it with 
 rudeness and incivilities.'f If, then, ye would bear the 
 burden of the lowly, O ye great, feel not only for them but 
 with ! Watch that your pride does not chafe them your 
 power does not wantonly gall. Your worldly inferior is of 
 the class from which the Apostles were chosen amidst 
 which the Lord of Creation descended from a throne above 
 the seraphs." 
 
 The Parson here paused a moment, and his eye glanced 
 toward the pew near the pulpit, where sat the magnate of 
 Hazeldean. The Squire was leaning his chin thoughtfully 
 on his hand, his brow inclined downward, and the natural 
 glow of his complexion much heightened. 
 
 "But," resumed the Parson softly, without turning to 
 his book, and rather as if prompted by the suggestion of the 
 moment " but he who has cultivated sympathy commits 
 not these errors, or, if committing them, hastens to retract. 
 So natural is sympathy to the good man, that he obeys it 
 mechanically when he suffers his heart to be the monitor 
 of his conscience. In this sympathy behold the bond be- 
 tween rich and poor ! By this sympathy, whatever our 
 varying worldly lots, they become what they were meant to 
 be exercises for the virtues more peculiar to each ; and. 
 thus, if in the body each man bear.his own burden, yet in 
 the fellowship of the soul all have common relief in bearing 
 the burdens of each other. 
 
 " This is the law of Christ fulfil it, O my flock ! " 
 
 Here the parson closed his sermon, and the congrega- 
 tion bowed their heads. 
 
 * JEREMY TAYLOR Of Christian Prudence. Part II. t Ibid.
 
 136 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 BOOK THIRD. 
 
 INITIAL CHAPTER 
 
 SHOWING HOW MY NOVEL CAME TO BE CALLED " MY NOVEL." 
 
 " I AM not displeased with your novel, so far as it has 
 gone," said my father, graciously ; " though as for the Ser- 
 mon " 
 
 Here I trembled ! but the ladies, Heaven bless them ! 
 had taken Parson Dale under their special protection ; and, 
 observing that my father was puckering up his brows crit- 
 ically, they rushed boldly forward in defence of The Ser- 
 mon, and Mr. Caxton was forced to beat a retreat. How- 
 ever, like a skilful general, he renewed the assault upon 
 outposts less gallantly guarded. But as it is not my busi- 
 ness to betray my weak points, I leave it to the ingenuity 
 of cavillers to discover the places at which the author of 
 Human Error directed his great guns. 
 
 " But," said the Captain "you are a lad of too much 
 spirit, Pisistratus, to keep us always in the obscure country 
 quarters of Hazeldean you will march us out into open 
 service before you have done with ifs ? " 
 
 PISISTRATUS (magisterially, for he has been somewhat 
 nettled by Mr. Caxton's remarks and he puts on an air 
 of dignity in order to awe away minor assailants). Yes, 
 Captain Roland not yet awhile, but all in good time. I 
 have not stinted myself in canvas, and behind my foreground 
 of the Hall and the Parsonage I propose, hereafter, to open 
 some lengthened perspective of the varieties of English 
 life " 
 
 MR. CAXTON. Hum ! 
 
 BLANCHE (putting her hand on my father's lip). We shall 
 know better the design, perhaps, when we know the title. 
 Pray, Mr. Author, what is the title ?
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 137 
 
 MY MOTHER (with more animation than usual). Ay, 
 Sisty the title ! 
 
 PISISTRATUS (startled). The title ! By the soul of Cer- 
 vantes ! I have never yet thought of a title ! 
 
 CAPTAIN ROLAND (solemnly). There is a great deal 
 in a good title. As a novel-reader, I know that by experi- 
 ence. 
 
 MR. SQUILLS. Certainly ; there is not a catchpenny in 
 the world but what goes down, if the title be apt and seduc- 
 ive. Witness "Old Parr's Life Pills." Sell by the thou- 
 sand, sir, when my "Pills for Weak Stomachs," which I be- 
 lieve to be just the same compound, never paid for the 
 advertising. 
 
 MR. CAXTON. Parr's Life Pills ! a fine stroke of Genius ! 
 It is not every one who has a weak stomach, or time to at- 
 tend to it, if he have. But who would not swallow a pill to 
 live to a hundred and fifty-two ? 
 
 PISISTRATUS (stirring the fire in great exitement.) My 
 title ! my title ! what shall be my title ? 
 
 MR. CAXTON (thrusting his hand into his waistcoat, and 
 in his most didactic of tones). From a remote period, the 
 choice of a title has perplexed the scribbling portion of 
 mankind. We may guess how their invention has been 
 racked by the strange contortions it has produced. To begin 
 with the Hebrews, "The Lips of the Sleeping" (Labia Dor- 
 mientiuni) what book do you suppose that title to desig- 
 nate ? A Catalogue of Rabbinical Writers ! Again, imagine 
 some young lady of old captivated by the sentimental title 
 of " The Pomegranate with its Flower," and opening on a 
 Treatise on the Jewish Ceremonials ! Let us turn to the 
 Romans. Aulus Gellius commences his pleasant gossiping 
 "Noctes" with a list of the titles in fashion in his day. 
 For instance, " The Muses" and " The Veil" " The Cornuco- 
 pia" " The Beehive" and " Tlie Meadow*" Some titles, indeed, 
 were more truculent, and promised food to those who love 
 to sup upon horrors such as " The Torch" " TJie Poniard" 
 " The Stiletto " 
 
 PISISTRATUS (impatiently). Yes, sir ; but to come to My 
 Novel. 
 
 MR. CAXTON (unheeding the interniption). You see you 
 have a fine choice here, and of a nature pleasing and not 
 unfamiliar, to a classical reader ; or you may borrow a hint 
 from the early Dramatic Writers. 
 
 PISISTRATUS (more hopefully). Ay ! there is something
 
 138 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 in the Drama akin to the Novel. Now, perhaps, I may 
 catch an idea. 
 
 MR. CAXTON. For instance, the author of the Curiosities 
 of Literature (from whom, by the way, I am plagiarizing 
 much of the information I bestow upon you) tells us of a 
 Spanish gentleman who wrote a Comedy, by which he in- 
 tended to serve what he took for Moral Philosophy. 
 
 PISISTRATUS (eagerly.) Well, sir? 
 
 MR. CAXTON. And called it "The Pain of the Sleep of 
 the World." 
 
 PISISTRATUS. Very comic indeed, sir. 
 
 MR. CAXTON. Grave things were then called Comedies, 
 as old things are now called Novels. Then there are all the 
 titles of early Romance itself at your disposal "Theagines 
 and Chariclea," or " The Ass" of Longus, or "The Golden 
 Ass " of Apuleius ; or the titles of Gothic Romance, such as 
 "The most elegant, delicious, mellifluous, and delightful 
 History of Perceforest, King of Great Britain." And there- 
 with my father ran over a list of names as long as the Direc- 
 tory, and about as amusing. 
 
 " Well, to my taste," said my mother, " the novels I used 
 to read when a girl (for I have not read many since, I am 
 ashamed to say,) 
 
 MR. CAXTON. No, you need not be at all ashamed of it, 
 Kitty. 
 
 MY MOTHER (proceeding). Were much more inviting 
 than any you mention, Austin. 
 
 THE CAPTAIN. True. 
 
 MR. SQUILLS. Certainly. Nothing like them nowa- 
 days ! 
 
 MY MOTHER. "Says she to her Neighbor, What?" 
 
 THE CAPTAIN. "The Unknown, or the Northern Gal- 
 lery " 
 
 MR. SQUILLS. " There is a Secret ; find it out! " 
 
 PISISTRATUS (pushed to the verge of human endurance, 
 and upsetting tongs, poker, and lire-shovel). What non- 
 sense you are talking, all of you ! For heaven's sake, con- 
 sider what an important matter we are called upon to decide. 
 It is not now the titles of those very respectable works 
 which issued from the Minerva Press that I ask you to re- 
 member it is to invent a title for mine My Novel ! 
 
 MR. CAXTON (clapping his hands gently). Excellent 
 capital ! Nothing can be better ; simple, natural, pertinent, 
 concise
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 139 
 
 PISISTRATUS. What is it, sir what is it ? Have you 
 really thought of a title to My Novel ? 
 
 MR. CAXTON. You have hit it yourself "My Novel." 
 It is your Novel people will know it is your Novel. Turn 
 and twist the English language as you will be as allegori- 
 cal as Hebrew, Greek, Roman Fabulist or Puritan still, 
 after all, it is your Novel, and nothing more nor less than 
 your Novel. 
 
 PISISTRATUS (thoughtfully, and sounding the words vari- 
 ous ways). " My Novel " um um ! " My Novel ! " rather 
 bold and curt, eh ? 
 
 MR. CAXTON. Add what you say you intend to depict 
 Varieties in English Life. 
 
 MY MOTHER. "My Novel; or, Varieties in English Life" 
 I don't think it sounds amiss. What say you, Roland ? 
 Would it attract you in a catalogue ? 
 
 My uncle hesitates, when Mr. Caxton exclaims imperi- 
 ously "The thing is settled ! Don't disturb Camarina." 
 
 SQUILLS. If it be not too great a liberty, pray who or 
 what is Camarina ? 
 
 MR. CAXTON. Camarina, Mr. Squills, was a lake, apt to 
 be low, and then liable to be muddy ! and " Don't disturb 
 Camarina," was a Greek proverb derived from an Oracle of 
 Apollo ; and from that Greek proverb, no doubt, comes the 
 origin of the injunction, " Quieta non movere" which became 
 the favorite maxim of Sir Robert Walpole and Parson Dale. 
 The Greek line, Mr. Squills (here my father's memory began 
 to warm), is preserved by STEPHANUS BYZANTINUS, de 
 UrbibiiS) 
 
 " Mr) Ktvei Kajuapivuv, CLKIVTJTOS yap d/u.eiVcov." 
 
 ZENOBIUS explains it in his proverbs ; SUIDAS repeats ZENO- 
 BIUS : LUCIAN alludes to it ; so does VIRGIL in the Third 
 Book of the ^ENEID ; and SILIUS ITALICUS imitates Virgil 
 
 " Et cui non licitum fatis Camarina moveri." 
 
 Parson Dale, as a clergyman and a scholar, had, no doubt, 
 these authorities at his fingers' end. " And I wonder he 
 did not quote them," quoth my father; "but, to be sure, he 
 is represented as a mild man, and so might not wish to hum- 
 ble the Squire overmuch in the presence of his family. 
 Meanwhile, My Novel is My Novel ; and now that the 
 matter is settled, perhaps the tongs, poker, and shovel may
 
 I4 o MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 be picked up, the children may go to bed, Blanche and 
 Kitty may speculate apart upon the future dignities of the 
 Neogilos, taking care, nevertheless, to finish the new pin- 
 befores he requires for the present ; Roland may cast up his 
 account-book, Mr. Squills hav^e his brandy-and-water, and 
 all the world be comfortable, each in his own way. Blanche, 
 come away from the screen, get me my slippers, and leave 
 Pisistratus to himself. M?) /aVei Ka/^aptvav don't disturb Ca- 
 marina. You see, my dear," added my father kindly, as, 
 after setting himself into his slippers, he detained Blanche's 
 hand in his own "you see, my dear, every house has its 
 Camarina. Man, who is a lazy animal, is quite content to 
 let it alone ; but woman, being the more active, bustling, 
 curious creature, is always for giving it a sly stir." 
 
 BLANCHE (with female dignity). I assure you, that if 
 Pisistratus had not called me, I should not have 
 
 MR. CAXTON (interrupting her, without lifting his eyes 
 from the book he has already taken). Certainly you would 
 not. I am now in the midst of the great Oxford Contro- 
 versy. M?) /a'uet Ka/Aaptvav don't disturb Camarina. 
 
 A dead silence for half an hour, at the end of which 
 
 PISISTRATUS (from behind the screen). Blanche, my 
 dear, I want to consult you. 
 
 Blanche does not stir. 
 
 PISISTRATUS. Blanche, I say. 
 
 Blanche glances in triumph toward Mr. Caxton. 
 
 MR. CAXTON (laying down his theological tract, and 
 rubbing his spectacles mournfully). I hear him, child ; I 
 hear him, I retract my vindication of man. Oracles warn 
 in vain : so long as there is a woman on the other side of 
 the screen, it is all up with Camarina. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 IT is greatly to be regretted that Mr. Stirn was not pres- 
 ent at the Parson's Discourse but that valuable function- 
 ary was far otherwise engaged indeed, during the summer 
 months he was rarely seen at the afternoon service. Not that 
 he cared for being preached at not he : Mr. Stirn would 
 have snapped his fingers at the thunders of the Vatican. 
 But the fact was, that Mr. Stirn chose to do a great deal of
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 141 
 
 gratuitous business upon the day of rest. The Squire al- 
 lowed all persons who -chose to walk about the park on a 
 Sunday ; and many came from a distance to stroll by the 
 lake, or recline under the elms. These visitors were ob- 
 jects of great suspicion, nay, of positive annoyance, to Mr. 
 Stirn and, indeed, not altogether without reason, for we 
 English have a natural love of liberty, which we are even 
 more apt to display in the grounds of other people than in 
 those we cultivate ourselves. Sometimes, to his inexpres- 
 sible and fierce satisfaction, Mr. Stirn fell upon a lot of boys 
 pelting the swans ; sometimes he missed a young sapling, 
 and found it in felonious hands, converted into a walking- 
 stick ; sometimes he caught a hulking fellow scrambling up 
 up the ha-ha, to gather a nosegay for his sweetheart from one 
 of poor Mrs. Hazeldean's pet parterres ; not unfrequently, 
 indeed, when all the family were fairly at church, some 
 curious impertinents forced or sneaked their way into the 
 gardens, in order to peep in at the windows. For these, 
 and various other offences of like magnitude, Mr. Stirn had 
 long, but vainly, sought to induce the Squire to withdraw 
 a permission so villainously abused. But though there were 
 times when Mr. Hazeldean grunted and growled, and swore 
 "that he would shut up the park, and fill it (illegally) with 
 man-traps and spring-guns," his anger always evaporated 
 in words. The park was still open to all the world on a 
 Sunday ; and that blessed day was therefore converted into 
 a day of travail and wrath to Mr. Stirn. But it was from 
 the last chime of the afternoon service bell until dusk, that 
 the spirit of this vigilant functionary was most perturbed ; 
 for, amidst the flocks that gathered from the little hamlets 
 round to the voice of the Pastor, there were always some 
 stray sheep, or rather climbing, desultory, vagabond goats, 
 who struck off in all perverse directions, as if for the 
 special purpose of distracting the energetic watchfulness of 
 Mr. Stirn As soon as church was over, if the day were fine, 
 the whole park became a scene animated with red cloaks, 
 or lively shawls, Sunday waistcoats, and hats stuck full of 
 wild flowers which last Mr. Stirn often stoutly maintained 
 to be Mrs. Hazeldean's newest geraniums. Now, on this 
 Sunday, especially, there was an imperative call upon an 
 extra exertion of vigilance on the part of the superintend- 
 ent he had not only to detect ordinary depredators and tres- 
 passers ; but, first to discover the authors of the conspiracy 
 against the stocks ; and, secondly, to " make an example."
 
 142 MY NOVEL; OK, 
 
 He had begun his rounds, therefore, from the early 
 morning ; and just as the afternoon bell was sounding its 
 final peal, he emerged upon the village-green from a hedge- 
 row, behind which he had been at watch to observe who 
 had the most suspiciously gathered round the stocks. At 
 that moment the place was deserted. At a distance, the su- 
 perintendent saw the fast disappearing forms of some belated 
 groups hastening toward the church ; in front, the stocks 
 stood staring at him mournfully from its four great eyes, 
 which had been cleansed from the mud, but still looked 
 bleared and stained with the marks of the recent outrage. 
 Here Mr. Stirn paused, took off his hat, and wiped his brows. 
 
 " If I had sum un to watch here," thought he, "while I 
 takes a turn by the water-side, p'r'aps summat might come 
 out; p'r'aps them as did it ben't gone to church, but will 
 come sneaking round to look on their villainy ! as they says 
 murderers are always led back to the place where they ha' 
 left the body. But in this here village there ben't a man, 
 Avoman, nor child, as has any consarn for Squire or Parish, 
 barring myself." It was just as he arrived at that misan- 
 thropical conclusion, that Mr. Stirn beheld Leonard Fair- 
 field walking very fast from his own home. The superin- 
 tendent clapped on his hat, and stuck his right arm akimbo. 
 " Hallo, you sir," said he, as Lenny now came in hearing, 
 "where be you going at that rate ? " 
 
 " Please, sir, I be going to church." 
 
 "Stop, sir stop, Master Lenny. Going to Church 
 why, the bell's done ; and you knows the Parson is very 
 angry at them as comes in late, disturbing the congrega- 
 tion. You can't go to church now ! " 
 
 " Please, sir 
 
 " I says you can't go to church now. You must learn 
 to think a little of others, lad. You sees how I sweats to 
 serve the Squire! and you must serve him too. Why, your 
 mother's got the house and premises almost rent free ; you 
 ought to have a grateful heart, Leonard Fairfield, and feel 
 for his honor ! Poor man ! his heart is well nigh bruk, I 
 am sure, w r ith the goings on." 
 
 Leonard opened his innocent blue eyes, while Mr. Stirn 
 dolorously wiped his own. 
 
 "Look at that 'ere dumb cretur," said Stirn, suddenly 
 pointing to the stocks "look at it. If it could speak, 
 what would it say, Leonard Fairfield ? Answer me that ! 
 ' Damn the stocks,' indeed ! "
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 
 
 '43 
 
 " It was very bad in them to write such naughty words," 
 said Lenny, gravely. " Mother was quite shocked when 
 she heard of it this morning." 
 
 MR. STIRN. I dare say she was, considering what she 
 pays for the premishes ; (insinuatingly) you does not know 
 who did it eh, Lenny ? 
 
 LENNY. No, sir ; indeed I does not! 
 
 MR. STIRN. Well, you see, you can't go to church 
 prayers half over by this time. You recollex that I put them 
 stocks under your " sponsibility," and see the way you's 
 done your duty by 'em. I've half a mind to 
 
 Mr. Stirn ca'st his eyes on the eyes of the stocks. 
 
 " Please, sir," began Lenny again, rather frightened. 
 
 " No, I won't please ; it ben't pleasing at all. But I 
 forgives you this time, only keep a sharp lookout, lad, in 
 future. Now you just stay here no, there under the 
 hedge, and you watches if any person comes to loiter about 
 or looks at the stocks, or laughs to hisself, while I go my 
 rounds. I shall be back either afore church is over or just 
 arter ; so you stay till I comes, and give me your report. 
 Be sharp, boy, or it will be worse for you and your mother ; 
 I can let the premishes for four pounds a-year more to- 
 morrow." 
 
 Concluding with that somewhat menacing and very 
 significant remark, and not staying for an answer, Mr. Stirn 
 waved his hand, and walked off. 
 
 Poor Lenny remained by the stocks, very much dejected, 
 and greatly disliking the neighborhood to which he was 
 consigned. At length he slowly crept off to the hedge, and 
 sate himself down in the place of espionage pointed out to 
 him. Now, philosophers tell us that what is called the point 
 of honor is a barbarous feudal prejudice. Amongst the 
 higher classes, wherein those feudal prejudices maybe sup- 
 posed to prevail, Lenny Fairfield's occupation would not 
 have been considered peculiarly honorable ; neither would 
 it have seemed so to the more turbulent spirits among the 
 humbler orders, who have a point of honor of their own 
 which consists in the adherence to each other in defiance of 
 all lawful authority. But to Lenny Fairfield, brought up 
 much apart from other boys, and with profound and grate- 
 ful reverence for the Squire instilled into all his habits of 
 thought, notions of honor bounded themselves to simple 
 honesty and straightforward truth ; and as he cherished an 
 unquestioning awe of order and constitutional authority,
 
 144 MY NOVEL; OK, 
 
 so it did not appear to him that there was anything derog- 
 atory and debasing in being thus set to watch an offender. 
 On the contrary, as he began to reconcile himself, to the 
 loss of the church service, and to enjoy the cool of the 
 summer shade, and the occasional chirp of the birds, he got 
 to look on the bright side of the commission to which he 
 was deputed. In youth, at least, everything has its bright 
 side even the appointment of Protector to the Parish 
 Stocks. For the stocks itself Leonard had no affection, it 
 is true ; but he had no sympathy with its aggressors, and he 
 could well conceive that the Squire would be very much 
 hurt at the revolutionary event of the night. " So," thought 
 poor Leonard in his simple heart " so, if I can serve his 
 honor, by keeping off mischievous boys, or letting him 
 know who did the thing, I'm sure it would be a proud day 
 for mother." Then he began to consider that, however un- 
 graciously Mr. Stirn had bestowed on him the appointment, 
 still it was a compliment to him showed trust and confi- 
 dence in him, picked him out from his contemporaries as 
 the sober moral pattern boy ; and Lenny had a great deal 
 of pride in him, especially in matters of repute and 
 character. 
 
 All these things considered, I say, Leonard Fairfield re- 
 clined on his lurking-place, if not with positive delight and 
 intoxicating rapture, at least with tolerable content and 
 some complacency. 
 
 Mr. Stirn might have been gone a quarter of ^an hour, 
 when a boy came through a little gate in the park, just op- 
 posite to Lenny's retreat in the hedge, and, as if fatigued 
 with walking, or oppressed by the heat of the day, paused 
 on the green for a moment or so, and then advanced under 
 the shade of the great tree which overhung the stocks. 
 
 Lenny pricked up his ears, and peeped out jealously. 
 
 He had never seen the boy before ; it was a strange face 
 to him. 
 
 Leonard Fairfield was not fond of strangers ; moreover, 
 he had a vague belief that strangers were at the bottom of 
 that desecration of the stocks. The boy, then, was a 
 stranger ; but what was his rank ? Was he of that grade in 
 society in which the natural offences are or are not conso- 
 nant to, or harmonious with, outrages upon stocks ? On 
 that Lenny Fairfield did not feel quite assured. Accord- 
 ing to all the experience of the villager, the boy was not 
 dressed like a young gentleman. Leonard's notions of such
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 145 
 
 aristocratic costume were naturally fashioned upon the 
 model of Frank Hazeldean. They represented to him a daz- 
 zling vision of snow-white trowsers, and beautiful blue coats, 
 and incomparable cravats. Now the dress of this stranger, 
 though not that of a peasant nor of a farmer, did not in any 
 way correspond with Lenny's notions of the costume of a 
 young gentleman ; it looked to him highly disreputable ; the 
 coat was covered with mud, and the hat was all manner of 
 shapes, with a gap between the side and crown. 
 
 Lenny was puzzled, till it suddenly occurred to him that 
 the gate through which the boy had passed was in the direct 
 path across the park from a small town, the inhabitants of 
 which were in very bad odor at the Hall they had imme- 
 morially furnished the most daring poachers to the pre- 
 serves, the most troublesome trespassers on the park, the 
 most unprincipled orchard robbers, and the most disputatious 
 asserters of various problematical rights of way, which, ac- 
 cording to the Town, were public, and, according to the 
 Hall, had been private since the Conquest. It was true that 
 the same path led also directly from the Squire's house, but 
 it was not probable that the wearer of attire so equivocal 
 had been visiting there. All things considered, Lenny had 
 no doubt in his mind but that the stranger was a shop-boy 
 or 'prentice from the town of Thorndyke ; and the notor- 
 ious repute of that town, coupled with this presumption, 
 made it probable that Lenny now saw before him one of 
 the midnigjit desecrators of the stocks. As if to confirm 
 the suspicion, which passed through Lenny's mind with a 
 rapidity wholly disproportionate to the number of lines it 
 costs me to convey it, the boy, now standing right before 
 the stocks, bent down and read that pithy anathema with 
 which it was defaced. And having read it he repeated it 
 aloud, and Lenny actually saw him smile such a smile ! 
 so disagreeable and sinister ! Lenny had never before seen 
 the smile Sardonic. 
 
 But what were Lenny's pious horror and dismay when 
 this ominous stranger fairly seated himself on the stocks, 
 rested his heels profanely on the lids of two of the four 
 round eyes, and, taking out a pencil and a pocket-book, 
 began to write. Was this audacious Unknown taking an 
 inventory of the church and the Hall for the purposes of 
 conflagration ? He looked at one, and at the other, with a 
 strange, fixed stare as he wrote not keeping his eyes on 
 the paper, as Lenny had been taught to do when he sat
 
 146 My NOVEL; OR, 
 
 down to his copy-book. The fact is, that Randal Leslie was 
 tired and faint, and he felt the shock of his fall the more, 
 after the few paces he had walked, so that he was glad to 
 rest himself a few moments ; and he took that opportunity 
 to write a line to Frank, to excuse himself for not calling 
 again, intending to tear the leaf on which he wrote out of 
 his pocket-book and leave it at the first cottage he passed, 
 with instructions to take it to the Hall. 
 
 While Randal was thus innocently engaged, Lenny came 
 up to him, with the firm and measured pace of one who has 
 resolved, cost what it may, to do his duty. And as Lenny, 
 though brave, was not ferocious, so the anger he felt, and the 
 suspicions he entertained, only exhibited themselves in the 
 following solemn appeal to the offender's sense of propriety, 
 
 " Ben't you ashamed of yourself ? Sitting on the Squire's 
 new stocks ! Do get up, and go along with you ! " 
 
 Randal turned round sharply ; and though, at any other 
 moment, he would have had sense enough to extricate him- 
 self very easily from his false position, yet. Nemo murtalium, 
 etc. No one is always wise. And Randal was in an ex- 
 ceedingly bad humor. The affability toward his inferiors, 
 for which I lately praised him, was entirely lost in the con- 
 tempt of impertinent snobs natural to an insulted Etonian. 
 
 Therefore, eyeing Lenny with great disdain, Randal 
 answered briefly, 
 
 "You are an insolent young blackguard." 
 
 So curt a rejoinder made Lenny's blood fly to his face. 
 Persuaded before that the intruder \vas some lawless ap- 
 prentice or shop-lad, he was now more confirmed in that 
 judgment, not only by language so uncivil, but by the truc- 
 ulent glance which accompanied it, and which certainly did 
 not derive any imposing dignity from the mutilated, rakish, 
 hang-dog, ruinous hat, under which it shot its sullen and 
 menacing fire. 
 
 Of all the various articles of which our male attire is 
 composed, there is perhaps not one which has so much 
 character and expression as the top covering. A neat, well- 
 brushed, short-napped, gentleman-like hat, put on with a 
 certain air, gives a distinction and respectability to the 
 whole exterior ; whereas, a broken, squashed, higgledy-pig- 
 gledy sort of a hat, such as Randal Leslie had on, would go 
 far toward transforming the stateliest gentleman who ever 
 walked down St. James's Street into the ideal of a ruffianly 
 scamp.
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 147 
 
 Now, it is well known that there is nothing more anti- 
 pathetic to your peasant-boy than a shop-boy. Even on 
 grand political occasions, the rural working-class can rarely 
 be coaxed into sympathy with the trading town-class. 
 Your true English peasant is always an aristocrat. More- 
 over, and irrespectively of this immemorial grudge of class, 
 there is something peculiarly hostile in the relationship be* 
 tween boy and boy when their backs are once up, and they 
 are alone on a quiet bit of green. Something of the game- 
 cock feeling something that tends to keep alive, in the 
 population of this island (otherwise so lamb-like and peace- 
 ful), the martial propensity to double the thumb tightly 
 over the four fingers, and make what is called " a fist of it." 
 Dangerous symptoms of these mingled and, aggressive sen- 
 timents were visible in Lenny Fairfield at the words and the 
 look of the unprepossessing stranger. And the stranger 
 seemed aware of them ; for his pale face grew more pale, 
 and his sullen eye more fixed and vigilant. 
 
 "You get off them stocks," said Lenny, disdaining to 
 reply to the coarse expressions bestowed on him ; and, suit- 
 ing the action to the word, he gave the intruder what he 
 meant for a shove, but what Randal took for a blow. The 
 Etonian sprang up, and the quickness of his movement, 
 aided by a slight touch of his hand, made Lenny lose his 
 balance, and sent him neck and crop over the stocks. 
 Burning with rage, the young villager arose alertly, and 
 flying at Randal, struck out right and left. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 AID me, O ye Nine ! whom the incomparable Persius 
 satirized his contemporaries for invoking, and then, all of a 
 sudden, invoked on his own behalf aid me to describe that 
 famous battle by the stocks, and in defence of the stocks, 
 which was waged by the two representatives of Saxon and 
 Norman England. Here, sober support of law and duty 
 and delegated trust pro aris et focis ; there, haughty inva- 
 sion, and bellicose spirit of knighthood, and that respect for 
 name and person, which we call " honor." Here, too, 
 hardy physical force there, skilful discipline. Here The 
 Nine are as deaf as a post, and as cold as a stone ! Plague 
 take the jades ! I can do better without them.
 
 I 4 8 MY NOVEL; OK, 
 
 Randal was a year or two older than Lenny, but he was 
 not so tall nor so strong, nor even so active ; and after the 
 first blind rush, when the two boys paused, and drew back 
 to breathe, Lenny, eyeing the slight form and hueless cheek 
 of his opponent, and seeing blood trickling from Randal's 
 lip, was seized with an instantaneous and generous remorse. 
 " It w r as not fair," he thought, "to fight one whom he could 
 beat so easily." So, retreating still farther,' and letting his 
 arms fall to his side, he said mildly " There, let's have no 
 more of it ; but go home and be good." 
 
 Randal Leslie had no remarkable degree of that consti- 
 tutional quality called physical courage ; but he had some 
 of those moral qualities which supply its place. He was 
 proud he \v r as vindictive he had high self-esteem he had 
 the destructive organ more than the combative ; what had 
 once provoked his wrath it became his instinct to sweep 
 away. Therefore, though all his nerves were quivering, and 
 hot tears were in his eyes, he approached Lenny with the 
 sternness of a gladiator, and said, between his teeth, which 
 he set hard, choking back the sob of rage and pain 
 
 "You have struck me and you shall not stir from this 
 ground till I have made you repent it. Put up your hands 
 defend yourself." 
 
 Lenny mechanically obeyed ; and he had good need of 
 the admonition ; for if before he had had the advantage, 
 now that Randal had recovered the surprise to his nerves, 
 the battle was not to the strong. 
 
 Though Leslie had not been a fighting boy at Eton, still 
 his temper had involved him in some conflicts when he was 
 in the lower forms, and he had learned something of the 
 art as well as the practice in pugilism an excellent thing 
 too, I am barbarous enough to believe, and which I hope 
 will never quite die out of our public schools. Ah, many a 
 young duke has been a better fellow for life from a fair set- 
 to with a trader's son ; and many a trader's son has learned 
 to look a lord more manfully in the face on the hustings, 
 from the recollection of the sound thrashing he once gave 
 to some little Lord Leopold Dawdle. 
 
 So Randal now brought his experience and art to bear ; 
 put aside those heavy roundabout blows, and darted in his 
 own, quick and sharp supplying to the natural feebleness 
 of his arm the due momentum of pugilistic mechanism. 
 Ay, and the arm, too, was no longer so feeble ; for strange 
 is the strength that comes from passion and pluck !
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 149 
 
 Poor Lenny, who had never fought before, was be- 
 wildered ; his sensations grew so entangled that he could 
 never recall them distinctly ; he had a dim reminiscence of 
 some breathless impotent rush of a sudden blindness fol- 
 lowed by quick flashes of intolerable light of a deadly 
 faintness, from which he was aroused by sharp pangs here 
 there everywhere ; and then all he could remember was, 
 that he was lying on the ground, huddled up, and panting 
 hard, while his adversary bent over him with a countenance 
 as dark and livid as Lara himself might have bent over the 
 fallen Otho. For Randal Leslie was not one who, by im- 
 pulse and nature, subscribed to the noble English maxim 
 " Never hit a foe when he is down ; " and it cost him a 
 strong if brief self-struggle, not to set his heel on that pros- 
 trate form. It was the mind, not the heart, that subdued 
 the savage within him, as muttering something inwardly 
 certainly not Christian forgiveness the victor turned 
 gloomily away. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 JUST at that precise moment, who should appear but Mr. 
 Siirn ! For, in fact, being extremely anxious to get Lenny 
 into disgrace, he had hoped that he should have found the 
 young villager had shirked the commission entrusted to 
 him ; and the Right-hand Man had slily come back, to see if 
 that amiable expectation were realized. He now beheld 
 Lenny rising with some difficulty still panting hard and 
 with hysterical sounds akin to what is vulgarly called blub- 
 bering his fine new waistcoat sprinkled with his own blood, 
 which flowed from his nose nose that seemed to Lenny Fair- 
 field's feelings to be a nose no more, but a swollen, gigantic, 
 mountainous Slawkenbergian excrescence ; in fact, he felt 
 all nose ! Turning aghast from this spectacle, Mr. Stirn 
 surveyed with no more respect than Lenny had manifested, 
 the stranger boy, who had again seated himself on the 
 stocks (whether to recover his breath, or whether to show 
 that his victory was consummated, and that he was in his 
 rights of possession). " Hollo," said Mr. Stirn, " what is all 
 this ? what's the matter, Lenny, you blockhead ? " 
 
 " He will sit there," answered Lenny, in broken gasps,
 
 150 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 "and he has beat me because I would not let him ; but I 
 doesn't mind that," added the villager, trying hard to sup- 
 press his tears, "and I'm ready again for him that I am." 
 
 "And what do you do lollopoping there on them 
 blessed stocks ? " 
 
 " Looking at the landscape ; out of my light, man ! " 
 
 This tone instantly inspired Mr. Stirn with misgivings ; 
 it was a tone so disrespectful to him, that he was seized 
 with involuntary respect ; who but a gentleman could 
 speak so to Mr. Stirn ? 
 
 "And may I ask who you be ?" said Stirn, falteringly, 
 and half inclined to touch his hat. " What's your name, 
 pray ? what's your bizness ? " 
 
 " My name is Randal Leslie, and my business was to 
 visit your master's family that is, if you are, as I guess 
 from your manner, Mr. Hazeldean's ploughman ! " 
 
 So saying, Randal rose ; and moving on a few paces, 
 turned, and throwing half-a-crown on the road, said to 
 Lenny, "Let that pay you for your bruises, and remem- 
 ber another time how you speak to a gentleman. As for 
 you, fellow," and he pointed his scornful hand toward 
 Mr. Stirn, who with his mouth open, and his hat now fairly 
 off, stood bowing to the earth "as for you, give my com- 
 pliments to Mr. Hazeldean, and say that, when he does us 
 the honor to visit us at Rood Hall, I trust that the manners 
 of our villagers will make him ashamed of Hazeldean." 
 
 O my poor Squire ! Rood Hall ashamed of Hazeldean ! 
 If that message had been delivered to you, you would 
 never have looked up again ! 
 
 With those bitter words, Randal swung himself over 
 the stile that led into the Parson's glebe, and left Lenny 
 Fairfield still feeling his nose, and Mr. Stirn still bowing 
 to the earth. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 RANDAL LESLIE had a very long walk home ; he was 
 bruised and sore from head to foot, and his mind was still 
 more sore and more bruised than his body. But if Randal 
 Leslie had rested himself in the Squire's gardens, without 
 walking backward, and indulging in speculations sug-
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 151 
 
 gested by Marat, and warranted by My Lord Bacon, he 
 would have passed a most agreeable evening, and really 
 availed himself of the Squire's wealth by going home in 
 the Squire's carriage. But, because he chose to take so 
 intellectual a view of property, he tumbled into a ditch ; 
 because he tumbled into a ditch, he spoiled his clothes ; 
 because he spoiled his clothes, he gave up his visit ; be- 
 cause he gave up his visit, he got into the village-green, 
 and sat on the stocks with a hat that gave him the air of 
 a fugitive from the treadmill ; because he sat on the stocks 
 with that hat, and a cross face under it he had been 
 forced into the most discreditable squabble with a clod- 
 hopper, and was now limping home, at war with gods and 
 men ; ergo (this is a moral that will bear repetition) 
 ergo, when you walk in a rich man's grounds, be contented 
 to enjoy what is yours, namely, the prospect ; I dare say 
 you will enjoy it more than he does ! 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 IF, in the simplicity of his heart, and the crudity of his 
 experience, Lenny Fairfield had conceived it probable 
 that Mr. Stirn would address to him some words in 
 approbation of his gallantry, and in sympathy for his 
 bruises, he /soon found himself wofully mistaken. That 
 truly great man, worthy prime-minister of Hazeldean, 
 might, perhaps, pardon a dereliction from his orders, if 
 such dereliction proved advantageous to the interest of 
 the service, or redounded to the credit of the chief ; but 
 he was inexorable to that worst of diplomatic offences 
 an ill-timed, stupid, over-zealous obedience to orders, which, 
 if it established the devotion of the employe, got the employer 
 into what is popularly called a scrape ! And though, by 
 those unversed in the intricacies of the human heart, and 
 unacquainted with the especial hearts of prime-ministers 
 and right-hand men, it might have seemed natural that 
 Mr. Stirn, as he stood still, hat in hand, in the middle of 
 the road, stung, humbled, and exasperated by the mortifi- 
 cation he had received from the lips of Randal Leslie, would 
 have felt that that young gentleman was the proper object 
 of his resentment ; yet such a breach of all the etiquette of
 
 152 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 diplomatic life as resentment toward a superior power, 
 was the last idea that would have suggested itself to the 
 profound intellect of the Premier of Hazeldean. Still, as 
 rage, like steam, must escape somewhere, Mr. Stirn, on 
 feeling as he afterward expressed it to his wife that hit 
 " buz/.om was a-burstin," turned with the natural instinct 
 of self-preservation to the safety-valve provided for the ex- 
 plosion ; and the vapors within him rushed into vent upon 
 Lenny Fairfield. He clapped his hat on his head fiercely, 
 and thus relieved his "buzzom." 
 
 " You young willain ! you howdacious wiper ! and so 
 all this blessed Sabbath afternoon, when you ought to 
 have been in church on your marrow-bones, a-praying for 
 your betters, you has been a-fitting with that young gentle- 
 man, and a wisiter to your master, on the wery place of 
 the parridge hinstitution that you was to guard and per- 
 tect ; and a-bloodying it all over, I declares, with your 
 blackguard little nose ! " Thus saying, and as if to mend 
 the matter, Mr. Stirn aimed an additional stroke at the 
 offending member ; but Lenny, mechanically putting up 
 both arms to defend his face, Mr. Stirn struck his knuckles 
 against the large brass buttons that adorned the cuff of the 
 boy's coat-sleeve an incident which considerably ag- 
 gravated his indignation. And Lenny, whose spirit was 
 fairly roused at what the narrowness of his education con- 
 ceived to be a signal injustice, placing the trunk of the 
 tree between Mr. Stirn and himself, began that task of self- 
 justification which it was equally impolitic to conceive and 
 imprudent to execute, since, in such a case, to justify was 
 to recriminate. 
 
 " I wonder at you, Master Stirn, if molher could hear 
 you ! You know it was you who would not let me go to 
 church ; it was you who told me to 
 
 "Fit a young gentleman, and break the Sabbath," said 
 Mr. Stirn, interrupting him with a withering sneer. " O 
 yes ! I told you to disgrace his honor the Squire, and me, 
 and the parridge, and bring us all into trouble. But the 
 Squire told me to make an example, and I will ! " With 
 those words, quick as lightning flashed upon Mr. Stirn's 
 mind the luminous idea of setting Lenny in the very stocks 
 which he had too faithfully guarded. Eureka ! the " ex- 
 ample " was before him ! Here he could gratify his long 
 grudge against the pattern boy ; here by such a selection of 
 the very best lad in the parish, he could strike terror into
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 153 
 
 the worst ; here he could appease the offended dignity of 
 Randal Leslie ; here was a practical apology to the Squire 
 for the affront put upon his young visitor ; here, too, there 
 was prompt obedience to the Squire's own wish that the 
 stocks should be provided as soon as possible with a tenant. 
 Suiting the action to the thought, Mr. Stirn made a rapid 
 plunge at his victim, caught him by the skirt of his jacket, 
 and, in a few seconds more, the jaws of the stocks had 
 opened, and Lenny Fairfield was thrust therein a sad 
 spectacle of the reverse of fortune. This done, and while 
 the boy was too astounded, too stupefied by the suddenness 
 of the calamity for the resistance he might otherwise have 
 made nay, for more than a few inaudible words Mr. 
 Stirn hurried from the spot, but not without first picking up 
 and pocketing the half-crown designed for Lenny, and 
 which, so great had been his first emotions, he had hitherto 
 even almost forgotten. He then made his way toward the 
 church, with the intention to place himself close by the door, 
 catch the Squire as he came out, whisper to him what had 
 passed, and lead him, with the whole congregation at his 
 heels, to gaze upon the sacrifice offered up to the joint 
 Powers of Nemesis and Themis. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 UNAFFECTEDLY I say it upon the honor of a gentleman, 
 and the reputation of an author, unaffectedly I say it no 
 words of mine can do justice to the sensations experienced 
 by Lenny Fairfield, as he sat alone in that place of penance. 
 He felt no more the physical pain of his bruises ; the 
 anguish of his mind stifled and overbore all corporeal suffer- 
 ing an anguish as great as the childish breast is capable of 
 holding. For first and deepest of all, and earliest felt, was 
 the burning sense of injustice. He had, it might be with 
 erring judgment, but with all honesty, earnestness, and zeal, 
 executed the commission intrusted to him ; he had stood 
 forth manfully in discharge of his duty ; he had fought for 
 it, suffered for it, bled for it. This was his reward ! Now, 
 in Lenny's mind there was pre-eminently that quality which 
 distinguishes the Anglo-Saxon race the sense of justice. 
 7*
 
 IS4 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 It was perhaps the strongest principle in his moral constitu- 
 tion ; and the principle had never lost its virgin bloom and 
 freshness by any of the minor acts of oppression and 
 iniquity which boys of higher birth often suffer from harsh 
 parents, or in tyrannical schools. So that it was for the first 
 time that that iron entered into his soul, and with it came 
 its attendant feeling the wrathful, galling sense of impo- 
 tence. He had been wronged, and he had no means to right 
 himself. Then came another sensation, if not so deep, yet 
 more smarting and envenomed for the time shame ! He, 
 the good boy of all good boys he, the pattern of the school, 
 and the pride of the Parson he, whom the Squire, in sight 
 of all his contemporaries, had often singled out to slap on 
 the back, and the grand Squire's lady to pat on the head, 
 with a smiling gratulation on his young and fair repute he, 
 who had already learned so dearly to prize the sweets of an 
 honorable name he, to be made, as it were, in the twinkling 
 of an eye, a mark for opprobrium, a butt of scorn, a jeer, 
 and a by-word ! The streams of his life were poisoned at 
 the fountain. And then came a tenderer thought of his 
 mother ! of the shock this would be to her she who had 
 already begun to look up to him as her stay and support : 
 he bowed his head, and the tears, long suppressed, rolled 
 down. 
 
 Then he wrestled and struggled, and strove to wrench 
 his limbs from that hateful bondage ; for he heard steps 
 approaching. And he began to picture to himself the ar- 
 rival of all the villagers from church, the sad gaze of the 
 Parson, the bent brow of the Squire, the idle, ill-suppressed 
 titter of all the boys, jealous of his unspotted character a 
 character of which the original whiteness could never, never 
 be restored ! Fie would always be the boy who had sat in 
 the stocks ! And the words uttered by the Squire came back 
 on his soul, like the voice of conscience in the ears of some 
 doomed Macbeth. "A sad disgrace, Lenny you'll never be 
 in such a quandary." " Quandary," the word was unfamiliar 
 to him ; it must mean something awfully discreditable. The 
 poor boy could have prayed for the earth to swallow him.
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 155 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 " KETTLES and frying-pans ! what has us here ? " cried 
 the Tinker. 
 
 This time Mr. Sprott was without his donkey ; for it 
 being Sunday, it is to be presumed that the donkey was en- 
 joying his Sabbath on the Common. The Tinker was in his 
 Sunday's best, clean and smart, about to take his lounge in 
 the Park. 
 
 Lenny Fairfield made no answer to the appeal. 
 
 " You in the wood, my baby ! Well, that's the last sight I 
 should ha' thought to see. But. we all lives to larn," added 
 the Tinker, sententiously. " Who gave you them leggings ? 
 Can't you speak, lad ? " 
 
 "Nick Stirn." 
 
 " Nick Stirn ! Ay, I'd ha' ta'en my davy on that ; and 
 cos vy ? " 
 
 " 'Cause I did as he told me, and fought a boy as was 
 trespassing on these very stocks; and Jie beat me but I 
 don't care for that ; and that boy was a young gentleman, 
 and going to visit the Squire ; and so Nick Stirn " Lenny 
 stopped short, choked by rage and humiliation. 
 
 " Augh," said the Tinker, staring, "you fit with a young 
 gentleman, did you ? Sorry to hear you confess that, my 
 lad ! Sit there, and be thankful you ha' got off so cheap. 
 'Tis salt and battery to fit with your betters, and a Lunnon 
 justice o' peace would have given you two months o' the 
 treadmill. But vy should you fit cos he trespassed on the 
 stocks ? It ben't your natural side for fitting, I takes it." 
 
 Lenny murmured something not very distinguishable 
 about serving the Squire, and doing as he was bid. 
 
 " Oh, I sees, Lenny," interrupted the Tinker, in a tone 
 of great contempt, " you be one of those who would ray- 
 ther 'unt with the 'ounds than run with the 'are ! You be's 
 the good pattern boy, and would peach agin your own 
 horder to curry favors with the grand folks. Fie, lad ! you 
 be sarved right ; stick by your horder, then you'll be 
 ' spected when you gets into trouble, and not be 'varsally 
 'spised as you'll be arter church-time! Veil, I can't be 
 seen 'sorting with you, now you are in this drogotary fix ;
 
 156 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 it might hurt my cracter, both with them as built the stocks, 
 and them as wants to pull 'em down. Old kettles to mend ! 
 Vy, you makes me forgit the Sabbath. Sarverit, my lad, 
 and wish you well out of it ; 'specks to your mother, and 
 say we can deal for the pan and shovel all the same for your 
 misfortin." 
 
 The Tinker went his way. Lenny's eye followed him 
 with the sullenness of despair. The Tinker, like all the 
 tribe of human comforters, had only watered the brambles 
 to invigorate the prick of the thorns. Yes, if Lenny had 
 been caught breaking the stocks, some at least would have 
 pitied him ; but to be incarcerated for defending them, you 
 might as well have expected that the widows and orphans 
 of the Reign of Terror would have pitied Dr. Guillotin when 
 he slid through the grooves of his own deadly machine. 
 And even the Tinker, itinerant, ragamuffin vagabond as he 
 was, felt ashamed to be found with the pattern boy ! Lenny's 
 head sank again on his breast heavily, as if it had been of 
 lead. Some few minutes thus passed, when the unhappy 
 prisoner became aware of the presence of another spectator 
 to his shame : he heard no step, but he saw a shadow thrown 
 over the sward. He held his breath, and would not look 
 up, with some vague idea that if he refused to see him, he 
 might escape being seen. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 "Per Bacco! " said Dr. Riccabocca, putting his hand on 
 Lenny's shoulder, and bending down to look into his face 
 " Per Bacco ! my young friend ; do you sit here from choice, 
 or necessity ? " 
 
 Lenny slightly shuddered, and winced under the touch 
 of one whom he had hitherto regarded with a sort of su- 
 perstitious abhorrence. 
 
 " I fear," resumed Riccabocca, after waiting in vain for 
 an answer to his question, "that, though the situation is 
 charming, you did not select it yourself. What is this ? "- 
 and the irony of the tone vanished "what is this, my poor 
 boy ? You have been bleeding, and I see that those tears 
 which you try to check come from a deep well. Tell me 
 povero fanciullo mio (the sweet Italian vowels, though Lenny
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 157 
 
 did not understand them, sounded softly and soothingly) 
 tell me, my child, how all this happened. Perhaps I can 
 help you we have all erred ; we should all help each other." 
 
 Lenny's heart, that just before had seemed bound in 
 brass, found itself a way as the Italian spoke thus kindly, 
 and the tears rushed down ; but he again stopped them, and 
 gulped out sturdily 
 
 " I have not done no wrong ; it ben't my fault and 'tis 
 that which kills me !" concluded Lenny, with a burst of en- 
 ergy. 
 
 "You have not done wrong? Then," said the philoso- 
 pher, drawing out his pocket-handkerchief with great com- 
 posure, and spreading it on the ground "then I may sit 
 beside you. I could only stoop pityingly over sin, but I can 
 lie down on equal terms with misfortune." 
 
 Lenny Fairfield did not quite comprehend the words, 
 but enough of their general meaning was apparent to make 
 him cast a grateful glance on the Italian. Riccabocca re- 
 sumed, as he adjusted the pocket-handkerchief, " I have a 
 right to your confidence, my child, for I have been afflicted 
 in my day ; yet I too say with thee, ' I have not done wrong.' 
 Cospetto ! " and here the Doctor seated himself deliberately, 
 resting one arm on the side-column of the stocks, in familiar 
 contact with the captive's shoulder, while his eye wandered 
 over the lovely scene around " Cospetto! my prison, if they 
 had caught me, would not have had so fair a look-out as this. 
 But, to be sure, it is all one ; there are no ugly loves, and 
 no handsome prisons." 
 
 With that sententious maxim, which, indeed, he uttered 
 in his native Italian, Riccabocca turned round, and renewed 
 his soothing invitations to confidence. A friend in need is 
 a friend indeed, even if he come in the guise of a Papist and 
 wizard. All Lenny's ancient dislike to the foreigner had 
 gone, and he told him his little tale. 
 
 Dr. Riccabocca was much too shrewd a man not to see 
 exactly the motives which had induced Mr. Stirn to incar- 
 cerate his agent (barring only that of personal grudge, to 
 which Lenny's account gave him no clue). That a man 
 high in office should make a scape-goat of his own watch- 
 dog for an unlucky snap, or even an indiscreet bark, was 
 nothing strange to the wisdom of the student of Machiavelli. 
 However, he set himself to the task of consolation with 
 equal philosophy and tenderness. He began by reminding, 
 or rather informing, Leonard Fairfield of all the instances
 
 158 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 of illustrious men afflicted by the injustice of others that 
 occurred to his own excellent memory. He told him how 
 the great Epictetus, when in slavery, had a master whose 
 favorite amusement was pinching his leg, which, as the 
 amusement ended in breaking that limb, was worse than 
 the stocks. He also told him the anecdote of Lenny's own 
 gallant countryman, Admiral Byng, whose execution gave 
 rise to Voltaire's celebrated witticism. " EnAngleterre ontue 
 un atniral pour cncourager les autres " ("In England they ex- 
 ecute one admiral in order to encourage the others"). 
 Many other illustrations, still more pertinent to the case in 
 point, his erudition supplied from the stories of history. 
 But on seeing that Lenny did not seem in the slightest de- 
 gree consoled by these memorable examples, he shifted his 
 ground, and reducing his logic to the strict argumentum ad 
 rem, began to prove, ist, that there was no disgrace at all in 
 Lenny's present position that every equitable person 
 would recognize the tyranny of Stirn, and the innocence of 
 its victim ; adly, that if even here he we're mistaken for 
 public opinion was not always righteous what was public 
 opinion, after all ? " A breath a puff," cried Dr. Ricca- 
 bocca " a thing without matter without length, breadth, 
 or substance ; a shadow a goblin of our own creating. A 
 man's own conscience is his sole tribunal, and he should 
 care no more for that phantom ' opinion ' than he should 
 fear meeting a ghost if he cross the church-yard at dark." 
 
 Now, as Lenny did very much fear meeting a ghost if he 
 crossed the church-yard at dark, the simile spoiled the ar- 
 gument, and he shook his head very mournfully. Dr. Ric- 
 cabocca was about to enter into a third course of reasoning, 
 which, had it come to an end, would doubtless have settled 
 the matter, and reconciled Lenny to sitting in the stocks 
 till doomsday, when the captive, with the quick ear and eye 
 of terror and calamity, became conscious that church was 
 over, that the congregation in a few seconds more would be 
 flocking thitherwards. He saw visionary hats and bonnets 
 through the trees, which Riccabocca saw not, despite all the 
 excellence of his spectacles heard phantasmal rustlings 
 and murmurings which Riccabocca heard not, despite all 
 that theoretical experience in plots, stratagems, and trea- 
 sons, which should have made the Italian's ear as fine as a 
 conspirator's or a mole's. And, with another violent but 
 vain effort at escape, the prisoner exclaimed
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 159 
 
 " Oh, if I could but get out before they come ! Let me 
 out let me out. O, kind sir, have pity let me out ! " 
 
 "Diavolo!" said the philosopher, startled, "I wonder 
 that I never thought of that before. After all, I believe he 
 has hit the right nail on the head," and, looking close, he 
 perceived that though the partition of ^ wood had hitched 
 firmly into a sort of spring-clasp, which.' defied Lenny's un- 
 aided struggles, still it was not locked (for, indeed, the pad- 
 lock and key were snug in the justice-room of the Squire, 
 who never dreamt that his orders would be executed so 
 literally and summarily as to dispense with all formal ap- 
 peal to himself). As soon as Dr. Riccabocca made that 
 discovery, it occurred to him that all the wisdom of all the 
 schools that ever existed can't reconcile man or boy to a 
 bad position the moment there is a fair opportunity of 
 letting him out of it. Accordingly, without more ado, he 
 lifted up the creaking board, and Lenny Fairfield darted 
 forth like a bird from a cage halted a moment as if for 
 breath, or in joy ; and then, taking at once to his heels, fled, 
 as a hare to its form fast to his mother's home. 
 
 Dr. Riccabocca dropped the yawning wood into its place, 
 picked up his handkerchief and restored it ta his pocket ; 
 and then, with some curiosity, began to examine the nature 
 of that place of duresse which had caused so much painful 
 emotion to its rescued victim. " Man is a very irrational 
 animal at best," quoth the sage, soliloquising, "and is 
 frightened by strange buggabooes ! 'Tis but a piece of 
 wood ! how little it really injures ! And, after all, the holes 
 are but rests to the legs, and keep the feet out of the dirt. 
 And this green bank to sit upon under the shade of the 
 elm-tree verily the position must be more pleasant than 
 
 otherwise ! I've a great mind " Here the Doctor 
 
 looked around, and seeing the coast still clear, the oddest 
 notion imaginable took possession of him ; yet not indeed a 
 notion so odd, considered philosophically for all phil- 
 osophy is based on practical experiment and Dr. Ricca- 
 bocca felt an irresistible desire practically to experience 
 what manner of thing that punishment of the stocks really 
 was. "I can but try ! only for a moment," he said, apolo- 
 getically to his own expostulating sense of dignity. " I have 
 time to do it before any one comes." He lifted up the par- 
 tition again ; but stocks are built on the true principle of 
 English law, and don't easily allow a man to criminate him- 
 self it was hard to get into them without the help of a
 
 160 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 friend. However, as we before noticed, obstacles only 
 whetted Dr. Riccabocca's invention. He looked round, 
 and saw a withered bit of stick under the tree this he in- 
 serted in the division of the stocks, somewhat in the man- 
 ner in which boys place a stick under a sieve for the purpose 
 of ensnaring* sparrows : the fatal wood thus propped, Dr. 
 Riccabocca sat grawly down on the bank, and thrust his 
 feet through the apertures. 
 
 "Nothing in it!" cried he triumphantly, after a .mo- 
 ment's deliberation. "The evil is only in idea. Such is the 
 boasted reason of mortals ! " With that reflection, never- 
 theless, he was about to withdraw his feet from their vol- 
 untary dilemma, when the crazy stick suddenly gave way, 
 and the partition fell back into its clasp. Dr. Riccabocca 
 was fairly caught " Facilis descenstts sed revocare gradum ! " 
 True, his hands were at liberty, but his legs w r ere so long 
 that, being thus fixed, they kept the hands from the res- 
 cue ; and as Dr. Riccabocca's form was by no means supple, 
 and the twin parts of the wood stuck together with that 
 firmness of adhesion which things newly painted possess, 
 so, after some vain twists and contortions, in which he suc- 
 ceeded at length (not without a stretch of the sinews that 
 made them crack again) in finding the clasp and breaking 
 his nails thereon, the victim of his own rash experiment 
 resigned himself to his fate. Dr. Riccabocca was one of 
 those men who never do things by halves. When I say he 
 resigned himself, I mean not only Christian but philosophi- 
 cal resignation. The position was not quite so pleasant as, 
 theoretically, he had deemed it ; but he resolved to make 
 himself as comfortable as he could. At first, as is natural 
 in all troubles to men who have grown familiar with that 
 odoriferous comforter which Sir Walter Raleigh is said first 
 to have bestowed upon the Caucasian races, the Doctor 
 made use of his hand to extract from his pocket his pipe, 
 match-box, and tobacco-pouch. After a few whiffs, he 
 would have been quite reconciled to his situation, but for 
 the discovery that the sun had shifted its place in the 
 heavens, and was no longer shaded from his face by the 
 elm-tree. The Doctor again looked round, and perceived 
 that his red silk umbrella, which he had laid aside when he 
 had seated himself by Lenny, was within arm's reach. Pos- 
 sessing himself of this treasure, he soon expanded its friend- 
 ly folds. And thus, doubly fortified within and without, 
 under shade of the umbrella, and his pipe composedly be-
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 161 
 
 tween his lips, Dr. Riccabocca gazed on his own incarcer- 
 ated legs, even with complacency. 
 
 " ' He who can despise all things,' " said he, in one of 
 his native proverbs, "'possesses all things!' if one de- 
 spises freedom, one is free ! This seat is as soft as a sofa ! 
 I am not sure," he resumed, soliloquizing, after a pause 
 " I am not sure that there is not something more witty than 
 manly and philosophical in that national proverb of mine 
 which I quoted to the fanciullo, ' that there are no handsome 
 prisons ! ' Did not the son of that celebrated Frenchman, 
 surnamed Bras de Fer, write a book not only to prove that 
 adversities are more necessary than prosperities, but that 
 among all adversities a prison is the most pleasant and 
 profitable ? * But is not this condition of mine, vol- 
 untarily and experimentally incurred, a type of my life ? 
 Is it the first time that I have thrust myself into a hobble ? 
 and if a hobble of mine own choosing, why should I 
 blame the gods ? " 
 
 Upon this, Dr. Riccabocca fell into a train of musing so 
 remote from time and place, that in a few minutes he no 
 more remembered that he was in the parish stocks than a 
 lover remembers that flesh is grass, a miser that mammon 
 is perishable, a philosopher that wisdom is vanity. Dr. 
 Riccabocca was in the clouds. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE dullest dog that ever wrote a novel (and, entre nous, 
 reader but let it go no farther we have a good many 
 dogs among the fraternity that are not Munitosf) might 
 have seen with half an eye that the Parson's discourse had 
 produced a very genial and humanizing effect upon his 
 audience. When all was over, and the congregation stood 
 up to let Mr. Hazeldean and his family walk first down the 
 aisle (for that was the custom of Hazeldean) moistened 
 eyes glanced at the Squire's sun-burned manly face, with a 
 kindness that bespoke revived memory of many a generous 
 benefit and ready service. The head might be wrong now 
 
 * " Entre tout, r ttat cfune prison est le plus doux, est le plus profitable !" 
 t Munito was the name of a dog famous for his learning (a Person of a dog) at the date of 
 my childhood. There are no such dogs now-a-days.
 
 1 62 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 and then the heart was in the right place after all. And 
 the lady, leaning on his arm, came in for a large share of 
 that gracious good feeling. True, she now and then gave a 
 little offence when the cottages were not so clean as she 
 fancied they ought to be and poor folks don't like a 
 liberty taken with their houses any more than the rich do ; 
 true that she was not quite so popular with the women as 
 the Squire was, for, if the husband went too often to the ale- 
 house, she always laid the fault on the wife, and said, " No 
 man Avould go out of doors for his comforts, if he had a 
 smiling face and a clean hearth at his home ; " whereas the 
 Squire maintained the more gallant opinion, that " if Gill 
 was a shrew, it was because Jack did not, as in duty bound, 
 stop her mouth with a kiss ! " Still, notwithstanding these 
 more obnoxious notions on her part, and a certain awe in- 
 spired by the stiff silk gown and the handsome aquiline 
 nose, it was impossible, especially in the softened tempers 
 of that Sunday afternoon, not to associate the honest, 
 comely, beaming countenance of Mrs. Hazeldean with com- 
 fortable recollections of soups, jellies, and wine in sickness, 
 loaves and blankets in winter, cheering words and ready 
 visits in every little distress, and pretexts afforded by 
 improvement in the grounds and gardens (improvements 
 which, as the Squire, who preferred productive labor, justly 
 complained, "Avould never finish") for little timely jobs of 
 work to some veteran grandsire, who still liked to earn a 
 penny, or some ruddy urchin in a family that " came too 
 fast." Nor was Frank, as he walked a little behind, in the 
 whitest of trousers and the stiffest of neckcloths with a 
 look of suppressed roguery in his bright hazel eye, that 
 contrasted his assumed stateliness of mien without his por- 
 tion of the silent blessing. Not that he had done anything 
 yet to deserve it ; but we all give youth so large a credit 
 in the future. As for Miss Jemima, her trifling foibles only 
 rose from too soft and feminine susceptibility, too ivy-like a 
 yearning for some masculine oak whereon to entwine her 
 tendrils ; and so little confined to self was the natural 
 lovingness of her disposition, that she had helped many a 
 village lass to find a husband, by the bribe of a marriage 
 gift from her own privy purse ; notwithstanding the assur- 
 ances with which she accompanied the marriage gift, viz., 
 that " the bridegroom would turn out like the rest of his 
 ungrateful sex ; but that it was a comfort to think that it 
 would be all one in the approaching crash." So that she
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 163 
 
 had her warm partisans, especially amongst the young ; 
 while the slim Captain, on whose arm she rested her fore- 
 finger, was at least a civil-spoken gentleman, who had never 
 done any harm, and who would, doubtless, do a deal of good 
 if he belonged to the parish. Nay, even the fat footman, 
 who came last, with the family Prayer-book, had his due 
 share in the general association of neighborly kindness 
 between hall and hamlet. Few were there present to whom 
 he had not extended the right-hand of fellowship with a full 
 horn of October in the clasp of it ; and he was a Hazeldean 
 man, too, born and bred, as two-thirds of the Squire's 
 household (now letting themselves out from their large 
 pew under the gallery) were. 
 
 On his part, too, you could see that the Squire was 
 "moved withal," and a little humbled moreover. Instead 
 of walking erect, and taking bow and curtsey as a matter of 
 course, and of no meaning, he hung his head somewhat, and 
 there was a slight blush on his cheek ; and as he glanced 
 upward and round him shyly, as it were and his eye met 
 those friendly looks, it returned them with an earnestness 
 that had in it something touching as well as cordial an eye 
 that said, as well as eye could say, " I don't quite deserve it, 
 I fear, neighbors ; but I thank you for your good-will with 
 my whole heart." And so readily was that glance of the 
 eye understood, that I think, if that scene had taken place 
 out of doors instead of in the church, there would have been 
 a hurrah as the Squire passed out of sight. 
 
 Scarcely had Mr. Hazeldean got clear of the church-yard, 
 ere Mr. Stirn was whispering in his ear. As Stirn whispered, 
 the Squire's face grew long, and his color rose. The con- 
 gregation, now flocking out of the church, exchanged looks 
 with each other ; that ominous conjunction between Squire 
 and man chilled back all the efforts of the Parson's sermon. 
 The Squire struck his cane violently into the ground. "I 
 would rather you had told me Black Bess had got the 
 glanders. A young gentleman, coming to visit my son, 
 struck and insulted in Hazeldean ; a young gentleman 
 'sdeath, sir, a relation his grandmother was a Hazeldean. 
 I do believe Jemima's right, and the world's coming to an 
 end ! But Leonard Fairfield in the stocks ? What will the 
 Parson say, and after such a sermon ! ' Rich man, respect 
 the poor ! ' And the good widow too ; and poor Mark, who 
 almost died in my arms. Stirn, you have a heart of stone ! 
 You confounded, lawless, merciless miscreant, who the deuce
 
 1 64 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 gave you the right to imprison man or boy in my parish of 
 Hazeldean without trial, sentence, or warrant ? Run and 
 let the boy out before any one sees him ; run, or I shall 
 
 " The Squire elevated the cane, and his eyes shot fire. 
 
 Mr. Stirn did not run, but he walked off very fast. The 
 Squire drew back a few paces, and again took his wife's arm. 
 " Just wait a bit for the Parson, while I talk to the congre- 
 gation. I want to stop 'em all, if I can, from going into the 
 village ; but how ?" 
 
 Frank heard, and replied readily 
 
 " Give 'em some beer, sir." 
 
 " Beer ! on a Sunday ! For shame, Frank ! " cried Mrs. 
 Hazeldean. 
 
 "Hold your tongue, Harry. Thank you, Frank," said 
 the Squire, and his brow grew as clear as the blue sky above 
 him. I doubt if Riccabocca could have got him out of his 
 dilemma with the same ease as Frank had done. 
 
 " Halt there, my men lads and lasses too there, halt a 
 bit. Mrs. Fairfield, do you hear ? halt. I think his rever- 
 ence has given us a capital sermon. Go up to the Great 
 House all of you, and drink a glass to his health. Frank, 
 go with them, and tell Spruce to tap one of the casks kept 
 for the haymakers. Harry [this in a whisper], catch the 
 Parson, and tell him to come to me instantly." 
 
 " My dear Hazeldean, what has happened ? you are 
 mad." 
 
 " Don't bother do what I tell you." 
 
 " But where is the Parson to find you ?" 
 
 "Where, gad zooks, Mrs. H., at the Stocks, to be 
 sure ! " 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 DR. RICCABOCCA, awakened out of his reverie by the 
 sound of footsteps, was still so little sensible of the indignity 
 of his position, that he enjoyed exceedingly, and with all 
 the malice of his natural humor, the astonishment and stupor 
 manifested by Stirn, when that functionary beheld the ex- 
 traordinary substitute which fate and philosophy had found 
 for Lenny Fairfield. Instead of the weeping, crushed, 
 broken-hearted captive whom he had reluctantly come to 
 deliver, he stared, speechless and aghast, upon the grotesque
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 165 
 
 but tranquil figure of the Doctor, enjoying his pipe, and 
 cooling himself under his umbrella, with a sang-froid that 
 was truly appalling and diabolical. Indeed, considering that 
 Stirn always suspected the Papisher of having had a hand 
 in the whole of that black and midnight business, in which 
 the stocks had been broken, bunged up, and consigned to 
 perdition, and that the Papisher had the evil reputation of 
 dabbling in the Black Art, the hocus-pocus way in which 
 the Lenny he had incarcerated was transformed into the 
 Doctor he found, conjoined with the peculiarly strange, 
 eldritch, and Mephistophelean physiognomy and person of 
 Riccabocca, could not but strike a thrill of superstitious dis- 
 may into the breast of the parochial tyrant. While to his 
 first confused and stammered exclamations and interroga- 
 tories, Riccabocca replied with so tragic an air, such ominous 
 shakes of the head, such mysterious, equivocating, long- 
 worded sentences, that Stirn every moment felt more and 
 more convinced that the boy had sold himself to the Powers 
 of Darkness ; and that he himself prematurely, and in the 
 flesh, stood face to face with the Arch-Enemy. 
 
 Mr. Stirn had not yet recovered his wonted intelligence, 
 which, to do him justice, was usually prompt enough 
 when the Squire, followed hard by the Parson, arrived at 
 the spot. Indeed, Mrs. Hazeldean's report of the Squire's 
 urgent message, disturbed manner, and most unparalleled 
 invitation to the parishioners, had given wings to Parson 
 Dale's ordinarily slow and sedate movements. And while 
 the Squire, sharing Stirn's amazement, beheld indeed a 
 great pair of feet projecting from the stocks, and saw be- 
 hind them the grave face of Doctor Riccabocca, under the 
 majestic shade of the umbrella, but not a vestige of the only 
 being his mind could identify with the tenancy of the stock?, 
 Mr. Dale catching him by the arm, and panting hard, ex- 
 claimed with a petulance he had never before known to dis- 
 play except at the whist-table, 
 
 "Mr. Hazeldean, Mr. Hazeldean, I am scandalized I 
 am shocked at you. I can bear a great deal from you, sir, 
 as I ought to do ; but to ask my whole congregation, the 
 moment after divine service, to go up and guzzle ale at the 
 Hall, and drink my health, as if a clergyman's sermon had 
 been a speech at a cattle-fair ! I am ashamed of you, and 
 of the parish ! What on earth has come to you all 1 " 
 
 "That's the very question I wish to Heaven I could an- 
 swer," groaned the Squire, quite mildly and pathetically
 
 166 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 " What on earth has come to us all ! Ask Stirn : " (then 
 bursting out) "Stirn, you infernal rascal, don't you hear? 
 what on earth has come to us all ? " 
 
 "The Papisher is at the bottom of it, sir," said Stirn, 
 provoked out of all temper. " I does my duty, but I is but 
 a mortal man, arter all." 
 
 "A mortal fiddlestick where's Leonard Fairfield, I 
 say ? " 
 
 ''Him knows best," answered Stirn, retreating mechani- 
 cally, for safety's sake, behind the parson, and pointing to 
 Dr. Riccabocca. Hitherto, though both the Squire and 
 Parson had indeed recognized the Italian, they had merely 
 supposed him to be seated on the bank. It never entered 
 into their heads that so respectable and dignified a man 
 could by any possibility be an inmate, compelled or 
 voluntary, of the parish stocks. No, not even though, as I 
 before said, the Squire had seen, just under his nose, a very 
 long pair of soles inserted in the apertures that sight had 
 only confused and bewildered him, unaccompanied, as it 
 ought to have been, with the trunk and face of Lenny Fair- 
 field. Those soles seemed to him optical delusions, phan- 
 toms of the over-heated brain ; but now, catching hold of 
 Stirn, while the Parson in equal astonishment caught hold 
 of him the Squire faltered out, " Well, this beats cock- 
 fighting ! The man's as mad as a March hare, and has taken 
 Dr. Rickeybockey for little Lenny!" 
 
 "Perhaps," said the Doctor, breaking silence with a 
 bland smile, and attempting an inclination of the head as 
 courteous as his position would permit " perhaps, if it be 
 quite the same to you, before you proceed to explanations, 
 you will just help me out of the stocks." 
 
 The Parson, despite his perplexity and anger, could not 
 repress a smile, as he approached his learned friend, and 
 bent down for the purpose of extricating him. 
 
 " Lord love your reverence, you'd better not ! " cried 
 Mr. Stirn. " Don't be tempted he only wants to get you 
 into his claws. I would not go a-near him for all the 
 
 The speech was interrupted by Dr. Riccabocca himself, 
 who now, thanks to the parson, had risen into his full 
 height, and half a head taller than all present even than 
 the tall Squire approached Mr. Stirn, with a gracious 
 Avave of the hand. Mr. Stirn retreated rapidly toward the 
 hedge, amidst the branches of which he plunged himself 
 incontinently.
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 167 
 
 " I guess whom you take me for, Mr. Stirn," said the 
 Italian, lifting his hat with his characteristic politeness. 
 " It is certainly a great honor ; but you will know better 
 one of these days, when the gentleman in question admits 
 you to a personal interview in another, and a hotter 
 world." 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 " BUT how on earth did you get into my new stocks ? " 
 asked the Squire, scratching his head. 
 
 " My dear sir, Pliny the elder got into the crater of 
 Mount Etna." 
 
 " Did he, and what for ? " 
 
 " To try what it was like, I suppose," answered Ricca- 
 bocca. 
 
 The Squire burst out a-laughing. 
 
 " And so you got into the stocks to try what it was like. 
 Well, I can't wonder it is a very handsome pair of stocks," 
 continued the Squire, with a loving look at the object of 
 his praise. " Nobody need be ashamed of being seen in 
 those stocks I should not mind it myself." 
 
 "We had better move on," said the Parson, dryly, "or 
 we shall have the whole village here presently, gazing on 
 the lord of the manor in the same predicament as that 
 from which we have just extricated the Doctor. Now, 
 pray, what is the matter with Lenny Fairfield ? I can't 
 understand a word of what has passed. You don't mean 
 to say that good Lenny Fairfield (who was absent from 
 church, by-the-by) can have done anything to get into dis- 
 grace ? " 
 
 " Yes, he has though," cried the Squire. " Stirn, I 
 say, Stirn " But Stirn had forced his way through the 
 hedge and vanished. Thus left to his own powers of 
 narrative at second-hand, Mr. Hazeldean now told all he 
 had to communicate ; the assault upon Randal Leslie, and 
 the prompt punishment inflicted by Stirn, his own indig- 
 nation at the affront to his young kinsman, and his good- 
 natured, merciful desire to save the culprit from public 
 humiliation. 
 
 The Parson, mollified toward the rude and hasty inven- 
 tion of the beer-drinking, took the Squire by the hand.
 
 168 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 "Ah, Mr. Hazeldean, forgive me," he said repentantly; 
 " I ought to have known at once that it was only some 
 ebullition of your heart that could stifle your sense of 
 decorum. But this is a sad story abont Lenny, brawling 
 and fighting on the Sabbath-day. So unlike him, too I 
 don't know what to make of it." 
 
 "Like or unlike," said the Squire, "it has been a gross 
 insult to young Leslie ; and looks all the worse because 
 I and Audley are not just the best friends in the world. I 
 can't think what it is," continued Mr. Hazeldean, musingly; 
 " but it seems that there must be always some association 
 of fighting connected with that prim half-brother of mine. 
 There was I, son of his own mother who might have been 
 shot through the lungs, only the ball lodged in the shoulder 
 and now his wife's kinsman my kinsman, too grand- 
 mother a Hazeldean a hard-reading, sober lad, as I am 
 given to understand, can't set his foot into the quietest 
 parish in the three kingdoms, but what the mildest boy 
 that ever was seen makes a rush at him like a mad bull. 
 It is FATALITY ! " cried the Squire, solemnly. 
 
 " Ancient legends record similar instances of fatality in 
 certain houses," observed Riccabocca. " There was the 
 House of Pelops and Polynices and Eteocles the sons of 
 CEdipus ! " 
 
 " Pshaw ! " said the Parson ; " but what's to be done ?" 
 
 "Done?" said the Squire; "why, reparation must be 
 made to young Leslie. And though I wished to spare 
 Lenny, the young ruffian, a public disgrace for your sake, 
 Parson Dale, and Mrs. Fairfield's ; yet a good caning in 
 private " 
 
 " Stop, sir ! " said Riccabocca, mildly, " and hear me." 
 The Italian then, with much feeling and considerable tact 
 pleaded the cause of his poor protege, and explained how 
 Lenny's error arose only from mistaken zeal for the Squire's 
 service, and in the execution of the orders received from 
 Mr. Stirn. 
 
 "That alters the matter," said the Squire, softened; 
 " and all that is necessary now will be for him to make a 
 proper apology to my kinsman." 
 
 "Yes, that is just," rejoined the Parson; "but I still 
 don't learn how he got out of the stocks." 
 
 Riccabocca then resumed his tale ; and, after confess- 
 ing his own principal share in Lenny's escape, drew a mov- 
 ing picture of the boy's shame and honest mortification.
 
 VARIETIES Iff ENGLISH LIFE. 169 
 
 " Let us march against Philip ! " cried the Athenians when 
 they heard Demosthenes 
 
 " Let us go at once and comfort the child ! " cried the 
 Parson, before Riccabocca could finish. 
 
 With that benevolent intention all three quickened their 
 pace, and soon arrived at the widow's cottage. But 
 Lenny had caught sight of their approach through the 
 window; and not doubting that, in spite of Riccabocca's 
 intercession, the Parson was coming to upbraid, and the 
 Squire to re-imprison, he darted out by the back way, got 
 amongst the woods, and lay there perdu all the evening. 
 Nay, it was not till after dark that his mother who sat 
 wringing her hands in the little kitchen, and trying in vain 
 to listen to the Parson and Mrs. Dale, who (after sending 
 in search of the fugitive) had kindly come to console the 
 mother heard a timid knock at the door and a nervous 
 fumble at the latch. She started up, opened the door, and 
 Lenny sprang to her bosom, and there buried his face, sob- 
 bing loud. 
 
 "No harm, my boy," said the Parson, tenderly; "you 
 have nothing to fear all is explained and forgiven." 
 
 Lenny looked up, and the veins on his forehead were 
 much swollen. "Sir," said he, sturdily, "I don't want to 
 be forgiven I aint done no wrong. And I've been dis- 
 graced and I won't go to school, never no more." 
 
 " Hush, Carry ! " said the Parson to his wife, who, with 
 the usual liveliness of her little temper, was about to ex- 
 postulate. " Good night, Mrs. Fairfield. I shall come and 
 talk to you to-morrow, Lenny ; by that time you will think 
 better of it." 
 
 The Parson then conducted his wife home, and went up 
 to the Hall to report Lenny's safe return ; for the Squire was 
 very uneasy about him, and had even in person shared the 
 search. As soon as he heard Lenny was safe " Well," said 
 the Squire, " let him go the first thing in the morning to 
 Rood Hall, to ask Master Leslie's pardon, and all will be 
 right and smooth again." 
 
 "A young villain!" cried Frank, with his cheeks the 
 color of scarlet; "to strike a gentleman and an Etonian, 
 who had just been to call on me. I But I wonder Randal 
 let him off so well any other boy in the sixth form would 
 have killed him ! " 
 
 " Frank," said the Parson, sternly, " if we all had our 
 deserts, what should be done to him who not only lets the
 
 170 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 sun go down on his own wrath, but strives with uncharitable 
 breath to fan the dying embers of another's ? " 
 
 The clergyman here turned away from Frank, who bit 
 his lip, and seemed abashed while even his mother said 
 not a word in his exculpation ; for when the Parson did 
 reprove in that stern tone, the majesty of the Hall stood 
 awed before the rebuke of the Church. Catching Ricca- 
 bocca's inquisitive eye, Mr. Dale drew aside the philosopher, 
 and whispered to him his fears that it would be a very hard 
 matter to induce Lenny to beg Randal Leslie's pardon, and 
 that the proud stomach of the pattern boy would not digest 
 the stocks with as much ease as a long regimen of philoso- 
 phy had enabled the sage to do. This conference Miss 
 Jemima soon interrupted by a direct appeal to the Doctor 
 respecting the number of years (even without any previous 
 and more violent incident) that the world could possibly 
 withstand its own wear and tear. 
 
 " Ma'am," said the Doctor, reluctantly summoned away 
 to look at a passage in some prophetic periodical upon that 
 interesting subject " ma'am, it is very hard that you 
 should make one remember the end of the world, since, in 
 conversing with you, one's natural temptation is to forget 
 its existence." 
 
 Miss Jemima's cheeks were suffused with a deeper scarlet 
 than Frank's had been a few minutes before. Certainly 
 that deceitful, heartless compliment justified all her con- 
 tempt for the male sex ; and yet such is human blindness 
 it went far to redeem all mankind in her credulous and 
 too-confiding soul. 
 
 " He is about to propose," sighed Miss Jemima. 
 
 " Giacomo," said Riccabocca, as he drew on his night- 
 cap, and stepped majestically into the four-posted bed, " I 
 think we shall get that boy for the garden now ! " 
 
 Thus each spurred his hobby, or drove her car, round 
 the Hazeldean whirligig. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 WHATEVER may be the ultimate success of Miss Jemima 
 Hazeldean's designs upon Dr. Riccabocca, the Machiavellian 
 sagacity with which the Italian had counted upon securing
 
 VARIETIES TN ENGLISH LIFE. 171 
 
 the services of Lenny Fairfield was speedily and triumph- 
 antly established by the result. No voice of the Parson's, 
 charmed he ever so wisely, could persuade the peasant-boy 
 to go and ask pardon of the young gentleman, to whom, 
 because he had done as he was bid, he owed an agonizing 
 defeat, and a shameful incarceration. And, to Mrs. Dale's 
 vexation, the widow took the boy's part. She was deeply 
 offended at the unjust disgrace Lenny had undergone in 
 being put in the stocks ; she shared his pride, and openly 
 approved his spirit. Nor was it without great difficulty that 
 Lenny could be induced to resume his lessons at school ; 
 nay, even to set foot beyond the precincts of his mother's 
 holding. The point of the school at last he yielded, though 
 sullenly ; and the Parson thought it better to temporize as 
 to the more unpalatable demand. Unluckily, Lenny's 
 apprehensions of the mockery that awaited him in the mer- 
 ciless world of his village were realized. Though Stirn at 
 first kept his own counsel, the Tinker blabbed the whole 
 affair. And after the search instituted for Lenny on the 
 fatal night, all attempts to hush up what had passed would 
 have been impossible. So then Stirn told his story, as the 
 Tinker had told his own ; both tales were very unfavorable 
 to Leonard Fairfield. The pattern boy had broken the 
 Sabbath, fought with his betters, and been well mauled into 
 the bargain ; the village lad had sided with Stirn and the 
 authorities in spying out the misdemeanors of his equals : 
 therefore Leonard Fairfield, in both capacities of degraded 
 pattern boy and baffled spy, could expect no mercy ; he was 
 ridiculed in the one, and hated in the other. 
 
 It is true that, in the presence of the schoolmaster, and 
 under the eye of Mr. Dale, no one openly gave vent to 
 malignant feelings ; but the moment those checks were 
 removed, popular persecution began. 
 
 Some pointed and mowed at him ; some cursed him for a 
 sneak, and all shunned his society ; voices were heard in the 
 hedgerows, as he passed through the village at dusk, "Who 
 was put in the stocks ? baa ! " " Who got a bloody nob for 
 playing spy to Nick Stirn ? baa ! " To resist this species 
 of aggression would have been a'vain attempt for a wiser 
 head and a colder temper than our poor pattern-boy's. He 
 took his resolution at once, and his mother approved it \ 
 and the second or third day after Dr. Riccabocca's return to 
 the Casino, Lenny Fairfield presented himself on the terrace 
 with a little bundle in his hand. " Please, sir," said he to
 
 172 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 the Doctor, who was sitting cross-legged on the balustrade, 
 with his red silk umbrella over his head " please, sir, if 
 you'll be good enough to take me now, and give me any 
 hole to sleep in, I'll work lor your honor night and day; 
 and as for the wages, mother says, 'just suit yourself, 
 sir.' ' 
 
 " My child," said the Doctor, taking Lenny by the hand, 
 and looking at him with the sagacious eye of a wizard, " I 
 knew you would come ! and Giacomo is already prepared 
 for you ! As to wages, we'll talk of them by-and-bye." 
 
 Lenny being thus settled, his mother looked for some 
 evenings on the vacant chair, where he had so long sate in 
 the place of her beloved Mark ; and the chair seemed so 
 comfortless and desolate, thus left all to itself, that she could 
 bear it no longer. 
 
 Indeed the village had grown as distasteful to 'her as to 
 Lenny perhaps more so ; and one morning she hailed the 
 Steward as he was trotting his hog-maned cob beside the 
 door, and bade him tell the Squire that " she would take it 
 very kind if he would let her off the six months' notice for 
 the land and premises she held there w r ere plenty to step 
 into the place at a much better rent." 
 
 " You're a fool," said the good-natured Steward ; and I'm 
 very glad you did not speak to that fellow Stirn instead of 
 to me. You've been doing extremely well here and have 
 the place, I may say, for nothing." 
 
 " Nothin" as to rent, sir, but a great deal as to feelin'," 
 said the widow ; " and now Lenny has gone to work with 
 the foreign gentleman, I should like to go and live near 
 him." 
 
 "Ah, yes I heard Lenny had taken himself off to the 
 Casino more fool he ; but, bless your heart, 'tis no distance 
 two miles or so. Can't he come home every night after 
 work ? " 
 
 " No, sir,' exclaimed the widow, almost fiercely ; " he 
 shan't come home here, to be called bad names and jeered 
 at ! he whom my dead good-man was so fond and proud of. 
 No, sir ; we poor folks have our feelings, as I said to Mrs. 
 Dale, and as I will say to the Squire hisself. Not that I 
 don't thank him for all favors he be a good gentleman if 
 let alone ; but he says he won't come near us till Lenny 
 goes and axes pardin. Pardin for what, I should like to 
 know ? Poor lamb ! I wish you could ha' seen his nose, 
 sir as big as your two fists. Ax pardin i if the Squire had
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 173 
 
 had such a nose as that, I don't think it's pardin he'd been 
 ha' axing. But I let the passion get the better of me I 
 humbly beg you'll excuse it, sir. I'm no scholard as poor 
 Mark was, and Lenny would have been, if the Lord had not 
 visited us otherways. Therefore just get the Squire to let 
 me go as soon as may be ; and as for the bit o' hay and 
 what's on the grounds and orchard, the new comer will no 
 doubt settle that." 
 
 The Steward, finding no eloquence of his could induce 
 the widow to relinquish her resolution, took her message to 
 the Squire. Mr. Hazeldean, who was indeed really offended 
 at the boy's obstinate refusal to make the amende honorable 
 to Randal Leslie, at first only bestowed a hearty curse or 
 two on the pride and ingratitude both of mother and son. 
 It may be supposed, however, that his second thoughts were 
 more gentle, since that evening, though he did not go him- 
 self to the widow, he sent his " Harry." Now, though 
 Harry was sometimes austere and brusque enough on her 
 own account, and in such business as might especially be 
 transacted between herself and the cottagers, yet she never 
 appeared as the delegate of her lord except in the capacity 
 of a herald of peace and mediating angel. It was with good 
 heart, too, that she undertook this mission, since, as we 
 have seen, both mother and son were great favorites of hers. 
 She entered the cottage with the friendliest beam in her 
 bright blue eye, and it was with the softest tone of her 
 frank, cordial voice that she accosted the widow. But she 
 was no more successful than the Steward had "been. The 
 truth is, that I don't believe the haughtiest duke in the 
 three kingdoms is really so proud as your plain English 
 rural peasant, nor half so hard to propitiate and deal with 
 when his sense of dignity is ruffled. Nor are there many 
 of my own literary brethren (thin-skinned creatures though 
 we are) so sensitively alive to the Public Opinion, wisely 
 despised by Dr. Riccabocca, as that same peasant. He can 
 endure a good deal of contumely sometimes, it is true, from 
 his superiors (though, thank Heaven ! that he rarely meets 
 with unjustly) ; but to be looked down upon, and mocked, 
 and pointed at by his own equals his own little world 
 cuts him to the soul. And if you can succeed in breaking 
 this pride, and destroying this sensitiveness, then he is a 
 lost being. He can never recover his self-esteem, and you 
 have chucked him half-way a stolid, inert, sullen victim 
 to the perdition of the prison or the convict-ship.
 
 I 7 4 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 Of this stuff was the nature both of the widow and her 
 son. Had the honey of Plato flowed from the tongue of 
 Mrs. Hazeldean; it could not have turned into sweetness the 
 bitter spirit upon which it descended. But Mrs. Hazeldean, 
 though an excellent woman, was rather a bluff, plain-spoken 
 one and, after all, she had some little feeling for the son 
 of a gentleman, and a decayed, fallen gentleman, who, even 
 by Lenny's account, had been assailed without any intelli- 
 gible provocation ; nor could she, with her strong common 
 sense, attach all the importance which Mrs. Fairfield did to 
 the unmannerly impertinence of a few young cubs, which 
 she said truly, "would soon die away if no notice was taken 
 of it." The widow's mind was made up, and Mrs. Hazel- 
 dean departed with much chagrin and some displeasure. 
 
 Mrs. Fairfield, however, tactily understood that the re- 
 quest she had made was granted, and early one morning her 
 door was found locked the key left at a neighbor's to be 
 given to the Steward : and, on further inquiry, it was ascer- 
 tained that her furniture and effects had been removed by 
 the errand-cart, in the dead of the night. Lenny had suc- 
 ceeded in finding a cottage on the roadside, not far from the 
 Casino ; and there, with a joyous face, he waited to welcome 
 his mother to breakfast, and show how he had spent the 
 night in arranging her furniture. 
 
 " Parson ! " cried the Squire when all this news came 
 upon him, as he was walking arm-in-arm with Mr. Dale, to 
 inspect some proposed improvement in the Alms-house, 
 " this is all your fault. Why did not you go and talk to that 
 brute of a boy, and that dolt of a woman ? You've got ' soft 
 sawder enough,' as Frank calls it in his new-fashioned slang." 
 
 " As if I had not talked myself hoarse to both ! " said 
 the Parson, in a tone of reproachful surprise at the accusa- 
 tion. " But it was in vain ! O Squire, if you had taken my 
 advice about the stocks quieta -non mover e ! " 
 
 " Bother ! " said the Squire. " I suppose I am to be held 
 up as a-tyrant, a Nero, a Richard the Third, or a Grand In- 
 quisitor, merely for having things smart and tidy ! Stocks 
 indeed ! your friend Rickeybockey said he was never more 
 comfortable in his life quite enjoyed sitting there. And 
 what did not hurt Rickeybockey's dignity (a very gentle- 
 man-like man he is, when he pleases) ought to be no such 
 great matter to Master Leonard Fairfield. But 'tis no use 
 talking! What's to be done now? The woman must not 
 starve ; and I'm sure she can't live out of Rickeybockey's
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 175 
 
 wages to Lenny (by the way, I hope he don't board the 
 boy upon his and Jackeymo's leavings : I hear they dine 
 upon newts and sticklebacks faugh !) I'll tell you what, 
 Parson, now I think of it at the back of the cottage which 
 she has taken there are some fields of capital land just va- 
 cant. Rickeybockey wants to have 'em, and sounded me 
 as to the rent when he was at the Hall. I only half-prom- 
 ised him the refusal. And he must give up four or five acres 
 of the best land round the cottage to the widow just enough 
 for her to manage and she can keep a dairy. If she wants 
 capital, I'll lend her some in your name only don't tell 
 Stirn ; and as for the rent we'll talk of that when we see 
 how she gets on, thankless, obstinate jade that she is ! You 
 see," added the Squire, as if he felt there was some apology 
 due for this generosity to an object whom he professed to 
 consider so ungrateful, "her husband was a faithful servant, 
 and so I wish you would not stand there staring me out 
 of countenance, but go down to the woman at once, or Stirn 
 will have let the land to Rickeybockey, as sure as a gun. 
 And harkye, Dale, perhaps you can contrive, if the woman 
 is so cursedly stiff-backed, not to say the land is mine, or 
 that it is any favor I want to do her or, in short, manage 
 it as you can for the best." Still even this charitabie mes- 
 sage failed. The widow knew that the land was the Squire's, 
 and worth a good ^3 an acre. " She thanked him humbly 
 for that and all favors ; but she could not afford to buy 
 cows, and she did not wish to be beholden to any one for 
 her living. And Lenny was well off at Mr. Rickeybockey's, 
 and coming on wonderfully in the garden way and she did 
 not doubt she could get some washing ; at all events, her 
 haystack would bring in a good bit of money, and she 
 should do nicely, thank their honors." 
 
 Nothing farther could be done in the direct way, but 
 the remark about the washing suggested some mode of 
 indirectly benefiting the widow. And a little time after- 
 ward, the sole laundress in that immediate neighborhood 
 happening to die, a hint from the Squire obtained from 
 the landlady of the inn opposite the Casino such custom as 
 she had to bestow, which at times was not inconsiderable. 
 And what with Lenny's wages (whatever that mysterious 
 item might be), the mother and son contrived to live with- 
 out exhibiting any of those physical signs of fast and abstin- 
 ence which Riccabocca and his valet gratuitously afforded 
 to the student in animal anatomy.
 
 MY NOVEL; OK, 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 OF all the wares and commodities in exchange and bar- 
 ter, wherein so mainly consists the civilization of our mod- 
 ern world, there is not one which is so carefully weighed 
 so accurately measured so plumbed and gauged so doled 
 and scraped so poured out in minima and balanced with 
 scruples as that necessity of social commerce called " an 
 apology ! " If the chemists were half so careful in vending 
 their poisons, there would be a notable diminution in the 
 yearly average of victims to arsenic and oxalic acid. But, 
 alas, in the matter of apology, it is not from the excess of 
 the dose, but the timid, niggardly, miserly manner in which it 
 is dispensed, that poor Humanity is hurried off to the Styx ! 
 How many times does a life depend on the exact propor- 
 tions of an apology ! It is a hair-breadth too short to cover 
 the scratch for which you want it ? Make your will you 
 are a dead man ! A life, do I say ? a hecatomb of lives ! 
 How many wars would have been prevented, how many 
 thrones would be standing, dynasties nourishing common- 
 wealths brawling round a bema, or fitting out galleys for 
 corn and cotton if an inch or two more of apology had 
 been added to the proffered ell ! But then that plaguy, 
 jealous, suspicious, old vinegar- faced Honor, and her part- 
 ner Pride as penny-wise and pound-foolish a she-skinflint 
 as herself have the monopoly of the article. And what 
 with the time they lose in adjusting their spectacles, hunt- 
 ing in the precise shelf for the precise quality demanded, 
 then (quality found) the haggling as to quantum con- 
 sidering whether it should be Apothecary's weight or Avoir- 
 dupois, or English measure or Flemish and, finally, the 
 hullabuloo they make if the customer is not perfectly satis- 
 fied with the monstrous little he gets for his money I don't 
 wonder, for my part, how one loses temper and patience, 
 and sends Pride, Honor, and Apology, all to the devil. 
 Aristophanes, in his comedy of "Peace" insinuates a 
 beautiful allegory by only suffering that goddess, though in 
 fact she is his heroine, to appear as a mute. She takes care 
 never to open her lips. The shrewd Greek knew very well 
 that she would cease to be Peace, if she once began to chat-
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 177 
 
 ter. Wherefore, O reader, if ever you find your pump 
 under the iron heel of another man's boot, heaven grant 
 that you may hold your tongue, and not make things past 
 all endurance and forgiveness by bawling out for an apology ! 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 BUT the Squire and his son, Frank, were large hearted, 
 generous creatures in the article of apology, as in all things 
 less skimpingly dealt out. And seeing that Leonard Fair- 
 field would offer no plaster to Randal Leslie, they made 
 amends for his stinginess by their own prodigality. The 
 Squire accompanied his son to Rood Hall, and none of the 
 family choosing to be at home, the Squire in his own hand, 
 and from his own head, indited and composed an epistle 
 which might have satisfied all the wounds which the dig- 
 nity of the Leslies had ever received. 
 
 This letter of apology ended with a hearty request that 
 Randal would come and spend a few days with his son. 
 Frank's epistle was to the same purport, only more Etonian 
 and less legible. 
 
 It was some days before Randal's replies to these 
 epistles were received. The replies bore the address of a vil- 
 lage near London, and stated that the writer was now read- 
 ing with a tutor preparatory to entrance at Oxford, and 
 could not, therefore, accept the invitation extended to him. 
 
 For the rest, Randal expressed himself with good sense, 
 though not with much generosity. He excused his partici- 
 pation in the vulgarity of such a conflict by a bitter but 
 short allusion to the obstinacy and ignorance of the village 
 boor ; and did not do what you, my kind reader, certainly 
 would have done under similar circumstances viz., inter- 
 cede in .behalf of a brave and unfortunate antagonist. 
 Most of us like a foe better after we have fought him that 
 is, if we are the conquering party ; this was not the case 
 with Randal Leslie. There, so far as the Etonian was con- 
 cerned, the matter rested. And the Squire, irritated that he 
 could not repair whatever wrong that young gentleman had 
 sustained, no longer felt a pang of regret as he passed by 
 Mrs. Fairfield's deserted cottage. 
 8*
 
 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 LENNY F AIRFIELD continued to give great satisfaction to 
 his new employers, and to profit in many respects by the 
 familiar kindness with which he was treated. Riccabocca, 
 who valued himself on penetrating into character, had, from 
 the first, seen that much stuff of no common quality and 
 texture was to be found in the disposition and mind of the 
 English village boy. On farther acquaintance, he perceived 
 that, under a child's innocent simplicity, there were the 
 workings of an acuteness that required but development 
 and direction. He ascertained that the pattern boy's pro- 
 gress at the village school proceeded from something more 
 than mechanical docility and readiness of comprehension. 
 Lenny had a keen thirst for knowledge, and through all 
 the disadvantages of birth and circumstances, there were 
 the indications of that natural genius which converts disad- 
 vantages themselves into stimulants. Still, with the germs 
 of good qualities lay the embryos of those which, difficult 
 to separate, and hard to destroy, often mar the produce of 
 the soil. With a remarkable and generous pride in self- 
 repute, there was some stubbornness ; with great sensibility 
 to kindness, there was also strong reluctance to forgive af- 
 front. 
 
 This mixed nature in" an uncultivated peasant's breast 
 interested Riccabocca, who, though long secluded from the 
 commerce of mankind, still looked upon man as the most 
 various and entertaining volume which philosophical re- 
 search can explore. He soon accustomed the boy to the 
 tone of a conversation generally subtle and suggestive ; and 
 Lenny's language and ideas became insensibly less rustic 
 and more refined. Then Riccabocca selected from his li- 
 brary, small as it was, books that, though elementary, were 
 of a higher class than Lenny could have found within his 
 reach at Hazeldean. Riccabocca knew the English lan- 
 guage well better in grammar, construction, and genius 
 than many a not ill-educated Englishman ; for he had 
 studied it with the minuteness with which a scholar studies 
 a dead language, and amidst his collection he had many of 
 the books which had formerly served him for that purpose.
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 179 
 
 These were the first works he lent to Lenny. Meanwhile 
 Jackeymo imparted to the boy many secrets in practical 
 gardening and minute husbandry, for at that day farming in 
 England (some favored counties and estates excepted) was 
 far below the nicety to which the art has been immemorially 
 carried in the north of Italy where, indeed, you may travel 
 for miles and miles as through a series of market-gardens 
 so that, all these things considered, Leonard Fairfield might 
 be said to have made a change for the better. Yet, in truth, 
 and looking below the surface, that might be fair matter of 
 doubt. For the same reason which had induced the boy to 
 fly his native village, he no longer repaired to the church of 
 Hazeldean. The old, intimate intercourse between him and 
 the Parson became necessarily suspended, or bounded to an 
 occasional kindly visit from the latter visits which grew 
 more rare, and less familiar, as he found his former pupil in 
 no want of his services, and wholly deaf to his mild en- 
 treaties to forget and forgive the past, and come at least to 
 his old seat in the parish church. Lenny still went to 
 church a church a long way off in another parish but the 
 sermons did not do him the same good as Parson Dale's had 
 done ; and the clergyman, who had his own flock to attend 
 to, did not condescend, as Parson Dale would have done, to 
 explain what seemed obscure, and enforce what was profit- 
 able, in private talk, with that stray lamb from another's 
 fold. 
 
 Now I question much if all Dr. Riccabocca's maxims, 
 though they were often very moral, and generally very wise, 
 served to expand the peasant boy's native good qualities, 
 and correct his bad, half so well as the few simple words, 
 not at all indebted to Machiavelli, which Leonard had once 
 reverently listened to when he stood by Mark's elbow-chair, 
 yielded up for the moment to the good Parson, worthy to 
 sit in it ; for Mr. Dale had a heart in which all the fatherless 
 of the parish found their place. Nor was this loss of ten- 
 der, intimate, spiritual lore so counterbalanced by the 
 greater facilities for purely intellectual instruction, as mod- 
 ern enlightenment might presume. For, without disputing 
 the advantage of knowledge in a general way, knowledge, 
 in itself, is not friendly to content. Its tendency, of course, 
 is to increase the desires, to dissatisfy us with what is, in 
 order to urge progress to what may be ; and, in that pro- 
 gress, what unnoticed martyrs among the many must fall, 
 baffled and crushed by the way ! To how large a number
 
 i8o MY NOVEL; OX, 
 
 will be given desires they will never realize, dissatisfaction 
 of the lot from which they will never rise ! Allans ! one is 
 viewing the dark side of the question. It is all the fault of 
 that confounded Riccabocca, who had already caused Lenny 
 Fairfield to lean gloomily on his spade, and, after looking 
 round and seeing no one near him, groan out querously 
 " And am I born to dig a potato-ground ? " 
 Pardieu, my friend Lenny, if you live to be seventy, and 
 ride in your carriage, and by the help of a dinner-pill digest 
 a spoonful of curry, you may sigh to think what a relish 
 there was in potatoes roasted in ashes after you had digged 
 them out of that ground with your own stout young hands. 
 Dig on, Lenny Fairfield, dig on ! Dr. Riccabocca will tell 
 you that there was once an illustrious personage * who made 
 experience of two very different occupations one was ruling 
 men, the other was planting cabbages ; he thought planting 
 cabbages much the pleasanter of the two ! 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 DR. RICCABOCCA had secured Lenny Fairfield, and might 
 therefore be considered to have ridden his hobby in the 
 great whirligig with adroitness and success. But Miss Jem- 
 ima was still driving round in her car, handling the reins, 
 and flourishing the whip, without apparently having got an 
 inch nearer to the flying form of Dr. Riccabocca. 
 
 Indeed, that excellent and only too susceptible spinster, 
 with all her experience of the villany of man, had never con- 
 ceived the wretch to be so thoroughly beyond the reach of 
 redemption as when Dr. Riccabocca took his leave, and once 
 more interred himself amidst the solitudes of the Casino, 
 without having made any formal renunciation of his crim- 
 inal celibacy. For some days she shut herself up in her 
 own chamber, and brooded with more than her usual gloomy 
 satisfaction on the certainty of the approaching crash. In- 
 deed, many signs of that universal calamity, which, while 
 the visit of Riccabocca lasted, she had permitted herself to 
 consider ambiguous, now became luminously apparent. 
 Even the newspaper, which during that credulous and happy 
 period had given half a column to Births and Marriages, now 
 
 * The Emperor Diocletian.
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. iSi 
 
 bore an ominously long catalogue of Deaths ; so that it 
 seemed as if the whole population had lost heart, and had no 
 chance of repairing its daily losses. The leading articles 
 spoke, with the obscurity of a Pythian, of an impending 
 CRISIS. Monstrous turnips sprouted out from the paragraphs 
 devoted to General News. Cows bore calves with two heads, 
 whales were stranded in the Humber, showers of frogs de- 
 scended in the High Street of Cheltenham. ;;' 
 
 All these symptoms of the world's decrepitude and con- 
 summation, which by the side of the fascinating Riccabocca 
 might admit of some doubt as to their origin and cause, now 
 conjoined with the worst of all, viz., the frightfully progres- 
 sive wickedness of man left to Miss Jemima no ray of hope 
 save that afforded by the reflection that she could contem- 
 plate the wreck of matter without a single sentiment of 
 regret. 
 
 Mrs. Dale, however, by no means shared the despondency 
 of her fair friend, and, having gained access to Miss Jemi- 
 ma's chamber, succeeded, though not without difficulty, in 
 her kindly attempts to cheer the drooping spirits of that 
 female misanthropist. Nor, in her benevolent desire to 
 speed the car of Miss Jemima to its hymeneal goal, was Mrs. 
 Dale so cruel toward her male friend, Dr. Riccabocca, as 
 she seemed to her husband. For Mrs. Dale was a woman 
 of shrewdness and penetration, as most quick-tempered 
 women are ; and she knew that Miss Jemima was one of 
 those excellent young ladies who are likely to value a hus- 
 band in proportion to the difficulty of obtaining him. In 
 fact, my readers of both sexes must often have met, in the 
 course of their experience, with that peculiar sort of fem- 
 inine disposition, which requires the warmth of the conjugal 
 hearth to develop all its native good qualities ; nor is it to 
 be blamed overmuch if, innocently aware of this tendency 
 in its nature, it turns toward what is best fitted for its 
 growth and improvement, by laws akin to those which make 
 the sun-flower turn to the sun, or the willow to the stream. 
 Ladies of this disposition, permanently thwarted in their 
 affectionate bias, gradually languish away into intellectual 
 inanition, or sprout out into those abnormal eccentricities 
 which are classed under the general name of " oddity " or 
 "character." But, once admitted to their proper soil, it is 
 astonishing what healthful improvement takes place how 
 the poor heart, before starved and stinted of nourishment, 
 throws out its suckers, and bursts into bloom and fruit.
 
 i82 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 And thus many a belle from whom the beaux have stood 
 aloof, only because the puppies think she could be had for 
 the asking, they see afterward settled down into true wife 
 and fond mother, with amaze at their former disparagement, 
 and a sigh at their blind hardness of heart. 
 
 In all probability, Mrs. Dale took this view of the subject ; 
 and certainly, in addition to all the hitherto dormant virtues 
 which would be awakened in Miss Jemima when fairly Mrs. 
 Riccabocca, she counted somewhat upon the mere worldly 
 advantage which such a match would bestow upon the exile. 
 So respectable a connection with one of the oldest, wealthiest, 
 and most popular families in the shire^ would in itself give 
 him a position not to be despised by a poor stranger in the 
 land ; and though the interest in Miss Jemima's dowry might 
 not be much, regarded in the light of English pounds (not 
 Milanese lire), still it would suffice to prevent that gradual 
 process of dematerialization which the lengthened diet upon 
 minnows and sticklebacks had already made apparent in the 
 fine and slow-evanishing form of the philosopher. 
 
 Like all persons convinced of the expediency of a thing, 
 Mrs. Dale saw nothing wanting but opportunities to insure 
 its success. And that these might be forthcoming, she not 
 only renewed with greater frequency, and more urgent in- 
 stance than ever, her friendly invitations to Riccabocca to 
 drink tea and spend the evening, but she so artfully chafed 
 the Squire on his sore point of hospitality, that the Doctor 
 received weekly a pressing solicitation to dine and sleep at 
 the Hall. 
 
 At first the Italian pished and grunted, and said Cospetto, 
 and Per Bacco, and Diavolo, and tried to creep out of so much 
 proffered courtesy. But, like all single gentlemen, he was 
 a little under the tyrannical influence of his faithful servant ; 
 and Jackeymo, though he could bear starving as well as his 
 master, when necessary, still, when he had the option, pre- 
 ferred roast-beef and plum-pudding. Moreover, that vain 
 and incautious confidence of Riccabocca, touching the vast 
 sum at his command, and with no heavier drawback than 
 that of so amiable a lady as Miss Jemima who had already 
 shown him (Jackeymo) many little delicate attentions had 
 greatly whetted the cupidity which was in the servant's 
 Italian nature ; a cupidity the more keen because, long de- 
 barred its legitimate exercise on his own mercenary interests, 
 he carried it all to the account of his master's ! 
 
 Thus tempted by his enemy, and betrayed by his ser-
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 183 
 
 vant, the unfortunate Riccabocca fell, though with eyes not 
 blinded, into the hospitable snares extended for the de- 
 struction of his celibacy ! He went often to the Parson- 
 age, often to the Hall, and by degrees the sweets of the social 
 domestic life, long denied him, began to exercise their en- 
 ervating charm upon the stoicism of our poor exile. Frank 
 had now returned to Eton. An unexpected invitation had 
 carried off Captain Higginbotham to pass a few weeks at 
 Bath with a distant relation, who had lately returned from 
 India, and who, as rich as Croesus, felt so estranged and sol- 
 itary in his native isle, that, when the Captain " claimed 
 kindred there," to his own amaze, "he had his claims al- 
 lowed ;" while a very protracted sitting of Parliament still 
 delayed in London the Squire's habitual visitors during the 
 later summer ; so that a chasm thus made in his society 
 Mr. Hazeldean welcomed with no hollow cordiality the di- 
 version or distraction he found in the foreigner's compan- 
 ionship. Thus, with pleasure to all parties, and strong 
 hopes to the two female conspirators, the intimacy between 
 the Casino and Hall rapidly thickened ; but still not a word 
 resembling a distinct proposal did Dr. Riccabocca breathe. 
 And still, if such an idea obtruded itself on his mind, it was 
 chased therefrom with so determined a Diavolo, that per- 
 haps, if not the end of the world, at least the end of Miss 
 Jemima's tenure in it, might have approached, and seen her 
 still Miss Jemima, but for a certain letter with a foreign 
 post-mark that reached the Doctor one Tuesday morning. 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 THE servant saw that something had gone wrong, and, 
 under pretence of syringing the orange-trees, he lingered 
 near his master, andNpeered through the sunny leaves upon 
 Riccabocca's melancholy brows. 
 
 The Doctor sighed heavily. Nor did he, as was his 
 wont, after some such sigh, mechanically take up that dear 
 comforter the pipe. But though the tobacco-pouch lay by 
 his side on the balustrade, and the pipe stood against the 
 wall between his knees, childlike lifting up its lips to the 
 customary caress he heeded neither the one nor the other,
 
 184 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 but laid the letter silently on his lap, and fixed his eyes 
 upon the ground. 
 
 " It must be bad news, indeed ! " thought Jackeymo, 
 and desisted from his work. Approaching his master, he 
 took up the pipe and the tobacco-pouch, and filled the bowl 
 slowly, glancing all the while toward that dark musing 
 face, on which, when abandoned by the expression of intel- 
 lectual vivacity or the exquisite smile of Italian courtesy, 
 the deep downward lines revealed the characters of sorrow. 
 Jackeymo did not venture to speak ; but the continued 
 silenc^ of his master disturbed him much. He laid that 
 peculiar tinder which your smokers use upon the steel, and 
 struck the spark still not a word, nor did Riccabocca 
 stretch forth his hand. 
 
 " I never knew him in this taking before," thought 
 Jackeymo ; and delicately he insinuated the neck of the 
 pipe into the nerveless fingers of the hand that lay supine 
 on those quiet knees. The pipe fell to the ground. 
 
 Jackeymo crossed himself, and began praying to his 
 sainted namesake with great fervor. 
 
 The Doctor rose slowly, and as if with an effort ; he 
 walked once or twice to and fro the terrace ; and then he 
 halted abruptly, and said 
 
 " Friend ! " 
 
 " Blessed Monsignore San Giacomo, I knew thou wouldst 
 hear me ! " cried the servant ; and he raised his master's 
 hand to his lips, then abruptly turned away and wiped his 
 eyes. 
 
 "Friend," repeated Riccabocca, and this time with a 
 tremulous emphasis, and in the softest tone of a voice never 
 wholly without the music of the sweet South, " I would 
 talk to thee of my child." 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 " THE letter, then, relates to the Signorina. She is 
 
 well ? " 
 
 " Yes, she is well now. She is in our native Italy." 
 Jackeymo raised his eyes involuntarily toward the 
 
 orange-trees, and the morning breeze swept by and bore to 
 
 him the odor of their blossoms.
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 185 
 
 " Those are sweet even here, with care," said he, point- 
 ing to the trees. " I think I have said that before to the 
 Padrone." 
 
 But Riccabocca was now looking again at the letter, 
 and did not notice either the gesture or the remark of his 
 servant. 
 
 " My aunt is no more ! " said he, after a pause. 
 
 "We will pray for her soul !" answered Jackeymo sol- 
 emnly. " But she was very old, and had been a long time 
 ailing. Let it not grieve the Padrone too keenly ; at that 
 age, and with those infirmities, death comes as a friend." 
 
 " Peace be to her dust ! " returned the Italian. " If she 
 had her faults, be they now forgotten for ever ; and in the 
 hour of my danger and distress she sheltered my infant ! 
 That shelter is destroyed. This letter is from the priest, 
 her confessor. And the home of which my child is be- 
 reaved falls to the inheritance of my enemy." 
 
 "Traitor!" muttered Jackeymo; and his right hand 
 seemed to feel for the weapon which the Italians of the 
 lower rank often openly wear in their girdles. 
 
 " The priest," resumed Riccabocca, calmly, " has rightly 
 judged in removing my child as a guest from the house in 
 which that traitor enters as lord." 
 
 "And where is the Signorina?" 
 
 "With the poor priest. See, Giacomo here, here 
 this is her handwriting at the end of the letter the first 
 lines she ever yet traced to me." 
 
 Jackeymo took off his hat, and looked reverently on the 
 large characters of a child's writing. But large as they 
 were, they seemed indistinct, for the paper was blistered 
 with the child's tears ; and on the place where they had not 
 fallen, there was a round, fresh, moist stain of the tear that 
 had dropped from the lids of the father. Riccabocca 
 renewed, " The priest recommends a convent." 
 
 " To the devil with the priest ! " cried the servant ; then 
 crossing himself rapidly, he added, " I did not mean that, 
 Monsignore San Giacomo forgive me ! But your Excel- 
 lency * does not think of making a nun of his only child ! " 
 
 "And yet why not?" said Riccabocca, mournfully; 
 "what can I give her in the world? Is the land of the 
 stranger a better refuge than the home of peace in her 
 native clime ?" 
 
 * The title of Excellency does not, in Italian, nccesssarily express any exalted rank ; but 
 is often given by servants to their masters.
 
 i36 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 " In the land of the stranger beats her father's heart ! " 
 
 " And if that beat were stilled, what then ? Ill fares the 
 life that a single death can bereave of all. In a convent at 
 least (and the priest's influence can obtain her that asylum 
 amongst her equals and amidst her sex) she is safe from 
 trial and from penury to her grave." 
 
 " Penury ! Just see how rich we shall be when we take 
 those fields at Michaelmas." 
 
 "Pazzie!" (follies) said Riccabocca, listlessly. "Are 
 these suns more serene than ours, or the soil more fertile ? 
 Yet in our own Italy, saith the proverb, ' he who sows land 
 reaps more care than corn.' It were different," continued 
 the father, after a pause, and in a more resolute tone, " if I 
 had some independence, however small, to count on nay, 
 if among all my tribe of dainty relatives there were but one 
 female who would accompany Violante to the exile's hearth 
 Ishmael had his Hagar. But how can we two rough- 
 bearded men provide for all the nameless wants and cares 
 of a frail female child ? And she has been so delicately 
 reared the woman child needs the fostering hand and ten- 
 der eye of a woman." 
 
 "And with a word," said Jackeymo, resolutely, "the 
 Padrone might secure to his child all that he needs to save 
 her from the sepulchre of a convent ; and ere the autumn 
 leaves fall, she might be sitting on his knee. Padrone, do 
 not think that you can conceal from me the truth, that you 
 love your child better than all things in the world now 
 the Patria is as dead to you as the dust of your fathers 
 and your heart-strings would crack with the effort to tear 
 her from them, and consign her to a convent. Padrone, 
 never again to hear her voice never again to see her face ! 
 Those little arms that twined round your neck that dark 
 night, when we fled fast for life and freedom, and you said, 
 as you felt their clasp, ' Friend, all is not yet lost.' " 
 
 " Giacomo ! " exclaimed the father reproachfully, and 
 his voice seemed to choke him. Riccabocca turned away, 
 and walked restlessly to and fro the terrace ; then, lifting 
 his arms with a wild gesture, as he still continued his long 
 irregular strides, he muttered, "Yes, heaven is my witness 
 that I could have borne reverse and banishment without a 
 murmur, had I permitted myself that young partner in 
 exile and privation. Heaven is my witness that, if I hesi- 
 tate now, it is because I would not listen to my own selfish 
 heart. Yet never, never to see her again my child ! And
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 187 
 
 it was but as the infant that I beheld her ! O friend, 
 friend " (and stopping short with a burst of uncontrollable 
 emotion, he bowed his head upon his servant's shoulder) 
 " thou knowest what I have endured and suffered at my 
 hearth, as in my country ; the wrong, the perfidy, the the " 
 His voice again failed him ; he clung to his servant's breast, 
 and his whole frame shook. 
 
 " But your child, the innocent one think now only of 
 her ! " faltered Giacomo, struggling with his own sobs. 
 
 " True, only of her," replied the exile, raising his face, 
 " only of her. Put aside thy thoughts for thyself, friend 
 counsel me. If I were to send for Violante, and if, trans- 
 planted to these keen airs, she drooped and died look, 
 look the priest says that she needs such tender care ; or if 
 I myself were summoned from the world, to leave her in it 
 alone, friendless, homeless, breadless perhaps, at the age of 
 woman's sharpest trial against temptation, would she not 
 live to mourn the cruel egotism that closed on her infant 
 innocence the gates of the House of God ? " 
 
 Jackeymo was appalled by this appeal ; and indeed, 
 Riccabocca had never before thus reverently spoken of the 
 cloister. In his hours of philosophy, he was wont to sneer 
 at monks and nuns, priesthood and superstition. 
 
 But now, in that hour of emotion, the Old Religion 
 reclaimed her empire ; and the sceptical world-wise man, 
 thinking only of his child, spoke and felt with a child's 
 simple faith. 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 " BUT again I say," murmured Jackeymo, scarce audibly, 
 and after a long silence, " if the Padrone would make up 
 his mind to marry ! " 
 
 He expected that his master would start up in his cus- 
 tomary indignation at such a suggestion nay, he might 
 not have been sorry so to have changed the current of feel- 
 ing ; but the poor Italian only winced slightly, and mildly 
 withdrawing himself from his servant's supporting arm, 
 again paced the terrace, but this time quietly and in silence. 
 A quarter of an hour thus passed. "Give me the pipe," 
 said Dr. Riccabocca, passing into the belvidere. 
 
 Jackeymo again struck the spark, and, wonderfully re-
 
 i88 MY NOVEL; Off, 
 
 lieved at the Padrone's return to the habitual adviser, men- 
 tally besought his sainted namesake to bestow a double 
 portion of soothing wisdom on the benignant influences of 
 the weed. 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 , DR. RICCABOCCA had been some time in the solitude of 
 the belvidere, when Lenny Fairfield, not knowing that his 
 employer was therein, entered to lay down a book which 
 the Doctor had lent him, with injunctions to leave it on a 
 certain table when done with. Riccabocca looked up at 
 the sound of the young peasant's step. 
 
 " I beg your honor's pardon I did not know " 
 
 " Never mind ; lay the book there. I wish to speak 
 with you. You look well, my child ; this air agrees with 
 you as well as that of Hazeldean ? " 
 
 " Oh, yes, sir ! " 
 
 "Yet it is higher ground more exposed?" 
 
 " That can hardly be, sir," said Lenny ; there are many 
 plants grow here which don't flourish at the Squire's. The 
 hill yonder keeps off the east wind, and the place lays to 
 the south." 
 
 " Lies, not lays, Lenny. What are the principal com- 
 plaints in these parts ? " 
 ' Eh, sir ? " 
 
 ' I mean what maladies, what diseases ! " 
 
 ' I never heard tell of any, sir, except the rheumatism." 
 
 ' No low fevers ? no consumption ? " 
 
 ' Never heard of them, sir." 
 
 Riccabocca drew a long breath, as if relieved. 
 ' That seems a very kindly family at the Hall." 
 
 ' I have nothing to say against it," answered Lenny, 
 bluntly. " I have not been treated justly. But as that 
 book says, sir, ' It is not every one who comes into the 
 world with a silver spoon in his mouth.' " 
 
 Little thought the Doctor that those wise maxims may 
 leave sore thoughts behind them. He was too occupied 
 with the subject most at his own heart to think then of 
 what was in Lenny Fairfield's. 
 
 " Yes ; a kind, English domestic family. Did you see 
 much of Miss Hazeldean ? "
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 189 
 
 " Not so much as of the Lady." 
 
 " Is she liked in the village, think you ? " 
 
 " Miss Jemima ? Yes. She never did harm. Her little 
 dog bit me once she did not ask me to beg its pardon, she 
 asked mine ! She's a very nice young lady ; the girls say 
 she is very affable ; and," added Lenny with a smile, "there 
 are always more weddings going on when she is down at 
 the Hall." 
 
 " Oh ! " said Riccabocca. Then, after a long whiff, 
 " Did you ever see her play with the little children? Is 
 she fond of children, do you think ?" 
 
 " Lord, sir, you guess everything ! She's never so 
 pleased as when she's playing with the babies." 
 
 " Humph ! "grunted Riccabocca. " Babies well, that's 
 woman-like. I don't mean exactly babies, but when they're 
 older little girls ? " 
 
 "Indeed, sir, I dare say; but," said Lenny, primly, "I 
 never as yet kept company with the little girls." 
 
 " Quite right, Lenny ; be equally discreet all your life. 
 Mrs. Dale is very intimate with Miss Hazeldean more 
 than with the Squire's lady. Why is that, think you ?" 
 
 " Well, sir," said Leonard, shrewdly, " Mrs. Dale has 
 her little tempers, though she's a very good lady ; and 
 Madam Hazeldean is rather high, and has a spirit. But 
 Miss Jemima is so soft ; any one could live with Miss Jemi- 
 ma, as Joe and the servants say at the Hall !" 
 
 " Indeed ! Get my hat out of the parlor, and just 
 bring a clothes-brush, Lenny. A fine sunny day for a 
 walk." 
 
 After this most mean and dishonorable inquisition into 
 the character and popular repute of Miss Hazeldean, Sig- 
 nor Riccabocca seemed as much cheered up and elated as 
 if he had committed some very noble action ; and he walked 
 forth in the direction of the Hall with a far lighter and live- 
 lier step than that with which he had paced the terrace. 
 
 " Monsignore San Giacomo, by thy help and the pipe's, the 
 Padrone shall have his child ! " muttered the servant, look- 
 ing up from the garden.
 
 igo MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 YET Dr. Riccabocca was not rash. The man who wants 
 his wedding garment to fit him must allow plenty of time 
 for the measure. But, from that day, the Italian notably 
 changed his manner toward Miss Hazeldean. He ceased 
 that profusion of compliment in which he had hitherto car- 
 ried off in safety all serious meaning. For indeed the Doc- 
 tor considered that compliments to a single gentleman were 
 what the inky liquid it dispenses is to the cuttle-fish, that 
 by obscuring the water sails away from its enemy. Neither 
 did he, as before, avoid prolonged conversations with the 
 young lady, and contrive to escape from all solitary rambles 
 by her side. On the contrary, he now sought every occa- 
 sion to be in her society ; and, entirely dropping the 
 language of gallantry, he assumed something of the earnest 
 tone of friendship. He bent down his intellect to examine 
 and plumb her own. To use a very homely simile, he blew 
 away that froth which there is on the surface of mere ac- 
 quaintanceships, especially with the opposite sex ; and 
 which, while it lasts, scarce allows you to distinguish be- 
 tween small beer and double X. Apparently Dr. Ricca- 
 bocca was satisfied with his scrutiny at all events, under 
 that froth there was no taste of bitter. The Italian might 
 not find any great strength of intellect in Miss Jemima, but 
 he found that, disentangled from many little whims and 
 foibles which he had himself the sense to perceive were 
 harmless enough if they lasted, and not so absolutely con- 
 stitutional but what they might be removed by a tender 
 hand Miss Hazeldean had quite enough sense to compre- 
 hend the plain duties of married life ; and if the sense 
 could fail, it found a substitute in good old homely English 
 principles, and the instincts of amiable, kindly feelings. 
 
 I know not how it is, but your very clever man never 
 seems to care as much as your less gifted mortals for 
 cleverness in his helpmate. Your scholars, and poets, and 
 ministers of state, are more often than not found assorted 
 with exceedingly humdrum, good sort of women, and ap- 
 parently like them all the better for their deficiencies. 
 Just see how happily Racine lived with his wife, and what
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. igi 
 
 an angel he thought her, and yet she had never read his 
 plays. Certainly Goethe never troubled the lady who 
 called him- "Mr. Privy Councillor" with whims about 
 " monads," and speculations on color, nor those stiff meta- 
 physical problems on which one breaks one's shins in the 
 Second Part of the Faust. Probably it may be that such 
 great geniuses knowing that, as compared with them- 
 selves, there is little difference between your clever wo- 
 man and your humdrum woman merge at once all 
 minor distinctions, relinquish all attempts at sympathy in 
 hard intellectual pursuits, and are quite satisfied to establish 
 that tie which, after all, best resists wear and tear viz., 
 the tough household bond between one human heart and 
 another. 
 
 At all events this, I suspect, was the reasoning of Dr. 
 Riccabocca, when one morning, after a long walk with Miss 
 Hazeldean, he muttered to himself 
 
 " Duro con duro 
 Non fece mai buon muro. 1 ' 
 
 Which may bear the paraphrase, " Bricks without mortar 
 would make a very bad wall." There was quite enough in 
 Miss Jemima's disposition to make excellent mortar; the 
 Doctor took the bricks to himself. 
 
 When his examination was concluded, our philosopher 
 symbolically evinced the result he had arrived at by a very 
 simple proceeding on his part, which would have puzzled 
 you greatly if you had not paused, and meditated thereon, 
 till you saw all that it implied. Dr. Riccabocca took off his 
 spectacles! He wiped them carefully, put them into their 
 shagreen case, and locked them in his bureau ; that is to 
 say, he left off wearing his spectacles. 
 
 You will observe that there was a wonderful depth of 
 meaning in that critical symptom, whether it be regarded 
 as a sign outward, positive, and explicit ; or a sign meta- 
 physical, mystical, and esoteric. For, as to the last, it de- 
 noted that the task of the spectacles was over ; that, when 
 a philosopher has made up his mind to marry, it is better 
 henceforth to be short-sighted nay, even somewhat pur- 
 blind than to be always scrutinizing the domestic felicity, 
 to which he is about to resign himself, through a pair of 
 cold, unillusory barnacles. And for the things beyond the 
 hearth, if he cannot see without spectacles, is he not about
 
 192 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 to ally to his own defective vision a good, sharp pair of 
 eyes, never at fault where his interests are concerned ? On 
 the other hand, regarded positively, categorically, and 
 explicitly, Dr. Riccabocca, by laying aside those spectacles, 
 signified that he was about to commence that happy imita- 
 tion of courtship when every man, be he ever so much a 
 philosopher, wishes to look as young and as handsome as 
 time and nature will allow. Vain task to speed the soft 
 language of the eyes through the medium of those glassy 
 interpreters ! I remember, for my own part, that once, on 
 a visit to the town of Adelaide, I Pisistratus Caxton was 
 in great danger of falling in love with a young lady, too, 
 who would have brought me a very good fortune, when she 
 suddenly produced from her reticule a very neat pair of No. 
 4, set in tortoise-shell, and fixing upon me their Gorgon 
 gaze, froze the astonished Cupid into stone ! And I hold it 
 a great proof of the wisdom of Riccabocca, and of his vast 
 experience in mankind, that he was not above the consider- 
 ation of what your pseudo sages would have regarded as 
 foppish and ridiculous trifles. It argued all the better for 
 that happiness which is our being's end and aim, that in 
 condescending to play the lover, he put those unbecoming 
 pctrifiers under lock and key. 
 
 And certainly, now the spectacles were abandoned, it 
 was impossible to deny that the Italian had remarkably 
 handsome eyes. Even through the spectacles, or lifted a 
 little above them, they were always bright and expressive; 
 but without those adjuncts, the blaze was softer and more 
 tempered ; they had that look which the French call ve- 
 loute, or velvety ; and he appeared altogether ten years 
 younger. If our Ulysses, thus rejuvenated by his Minerva, 
 lias not fully made up his mind to make a Penelope of Miss 
 Jemima, all I can say is, that he is worse than Polyphemus, 
 who was only an Anthropophagos ; 
 
 He preys upon the weaker sex, and is a Gynopha;>;itc ! 
 
 CHAPTER XXIIL 
 
 "AND you commission me, then, to speak to our dear 
 Jemima?" said Mrs. Dale, joyfully, and without any bitter- 
 ness whatever in that "dear."
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 
 
 193 
 
 DR. RICCABOCCA. Nay, before speaking to Miss Hazel- 
 dean, it would surely be proper to know how far my ad- 
 dresses would be acceptable to the family. 
 
 MRS. DALE. Ah ! 
 
 DR. RICCABOCCA. The Squire is, of course, the head of 
 the family. 
 
 MRS. DALE (absent and distraite). The Squire yes, 
 very true quite proper (then looking up, and with naivete) 
 can you believe me, I never thought of the Squire ! And 
 he is such an odd man, and has so many English prejudices, 
 that really dear me, how vexatious that it should never 
 once have occurred to me that Mr. Hazeldean had a voice in 
 the matter ! Indeed the relationship is so distant ; it is not 
 like being her father ; and Jemima is of age, and can do as 
 she pleases ; and but, as you say, it is quite proper that he 
 should be consulted, as the head of the family. 
 
 DR. RICCABOCCA. And you think that the Squire of 
 Hazeldean might reject my alliance ? Pshaw ! that's a 
 grand word, indeed ; I mean, that he might object very 
 reasonably to his cousin's marriage with a foreigner, of 
 whom he can know nothing, except that which in all 
 countries is disreputable, and is said in this to be criminal 
 poverty ? 
 
 MRS. DALE (kindly).- You misjudge us poor English 
 people, and you wrong the Squire, Heaven bless him ! for 
 we were poor enough when he singled out my husband 
 from a hundred for the minister of his parish, for his 
 neighbor and his friend. I will speak to him fearlessly 
 
 DR. RICCABOCCA. And frankly. And now I have used 
 that word, let me go on with the confession which your 
 kindly readiness, my fair friend, somewhat interrupted. I 
 said that if I might presume to think my addresses would 
 be acceptable to Miss Hazeldean and her family, I was too 
 sensible of her amiable qualities not to not to 
 
 MRS. DALE (with demure archness). Not to be the hap- 
 piest of men ; that's the customary English phrase, Doctor. 
 
 RICCABOCCA (gallantly). There cannot be a better. 
 But, continued he, seriously, I wish it first to be under- 
 stood that I have been married before. 
 
 MRS. DALE (astonished). Married before! 
 
 RICCABOCCA. And that I have an only child, dear to 
 me inexpressibly dear. That child, a daughter, has hither- 
 to lived abroad; circumstances now render it desirable 
 that she should make her home with me. And I own
 
 194 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 fairly that nothing has so attached me to Miss Hazeldean, 
 nor so induced my desire for our matrimonial connection, 
 as my belief that she has the heart and the temper to be- 
 come a kind mother to my little one. 
 
 MRS. DALE (with feeling and warmth). You judge her 
 rightly there. 
 
 RICCABOCCA. Now in pecuniary matters, as you may 
 conjecture from my mode of life, I have nothing to offer 
 to Miss Hazeldean corresponding with her own fortune, 
 whatever that may be ! 
 
 MRS. DALE. That difficulty is obviated by settling Miss 
 Hazeldean's fortune on herself, which is customary in such 
 cases. 
 
 Dr. Riccabocca's face lengthened. " And my child, 
 then ? " said he, feelingly. There was something in that 
 appeal so alien from all sordid and merely personal mer- 
 cenary motives, that Mrs. Dale could not have had the 
 heart to make the very rational suggestion, " But that 
 child is not Jemima's, and you may have children by 
 her." 
 
 She was touched, and replied, hesitatingly, " But, 
 from what you and Jemima may jointly" possess, you can 
 save something annually, you can insure your life for 
 your child. We did so when our poor child whom we lost 
 was born (the tears rushed into Mrs Dale's eyes), and I fear 
 that Charles still insures his life for my sake, though 
 Heaven knows that that " 
 
 The tears burst out. That little heart, quick and 
 petulant though it was, had not a fibre of the elastic 
 muscular tissues which are mercifully bestowed on the 
 hearts of predestined widows. Dr. Riccabocca could not 
 pursue the subject of life insurances further. But the 
 idea which had never occurred to the foreigner before, 
 though so familiar to us English people when only 
 possessed of a life income pleased him greatly. I will 
 do him the justice to say that he preferred it to the thought 
 of actually appropriating to himself and to his child a 
 portion of Miss Hazeldean's'dower. 
 
 Shortly afterward he took his leave, and Mrs. Dale 
 hastened to seek her husband in his study, inform him 
 of the success of her matrimonial scheme, and consult him 
 as to the chance of the Squire's acquiescence therein. 
 " You see," she said, hesitatingly, " though the Squire might 
 be glad to see Jemima married to some Englishman, yet if
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 195 
 
 he asks who and what is this Dr. Riccabocca, how am I 
 to answer him ?" 
 
 " You should have thought of that before," said Mr. 
 Dale, with unwonted asperity ; " and, indeed, if I had ever 
 believed anything serious could come out of what seemed 
 to me so absurd, I should long since have requested you 
 not to interfere in such matters. Good heavens !" con- 
 tinued the Parson, changing color, "if we should have as- 
 sisted, underhand, as it were, to introduce into the family 
 of a man to whom we owe so much, a connection that he 
 would dislike ! how base we should be ! how ungrateful ! " 
 
 Poor Mrs. Dale was frightened by this speech, and still 
 more by her husband's consternation and displeasure. To 
 do Mrs. Dale justice, whenever her mild partner was really 
 either grieved or offended, her little temper vanished she 
 became as meek as a lamb. As soon as she recovered the 
 first shock she experienced, she hastened to dissipate the 
 Parson's apprehensions. She assured him that she was 
 convinced that, if the Squire disapproved of Riccabocca's 
 pretensions, the Italian would withdraw them at once, and 
 Miss Hazeldean would never know of his proposals. 
 Therefore, in that case, no harm would be done. 
 
 This assurance, coinciding with Mr. Dale's convictions 
 as to Riccabocca's scruples on the point of honor, tended 
 much to compose the good man ; and if he did not, as my 
 reader of the gentler sex would expect from him, feel 
 alarm lest Miss Jemima's affections should have been 
 irretrievably engaged, and her happiness thus put in 
 jeopardy by the Squire's refusal, it was not that the Parson 
 wanted tenderness of heart, but experience in womankind ; 
 and he believed, very erroneously, that Miss Jemima 
 Hazeldean was not one upon whom a disappointment of 
 that kind would produce a lasting impression. Therefore 
 Mr. Dale, after a pause of consideration, said kindly 
 
 " Well, don't vex yourself and I was to blame quite 
 as much as you. But, indeed, I should have thought it 
 easier for the Squire to have transplanted one of his tall 
 cedars into his kitchen-garden, than for you to inveigle 
 Dr. Riccabocca into matrimonial intentions. But a man 
 who could voluntarily put himself into the parish stocks 
 for the sake of experiment, must be capable of anything ! 
 However, I think it better that I, rather than yourself, 
 should speak to the Squire, and I will go at once."
 
 196 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 THE Parson put on the shovel-hat which conjoined 
 with other details in his dress peculiarly clerical, and al- 
 ready, even then, beginning to be out of fashion with 
 churchmen had served to fix upon him, emphatically, the 
 dignified but antiquated style and cognomen of " Parson," 
 and took his way toward the Home Farm, at which he ex- 
 pected to find the Squire. But he had scarcely entered 
 upon the village-green when he beheld Mr. Hazeldean, lean- 
 ing both hands on his stick, and gazing intently upon the 
 parish stocks. Now, sorry am I to say that, ever since the 
 Hegira of Lenny and his mother, the Anti-Stockian and 
 Revolutionary spirit in Hazeldean, which the memorable 
 homily of our Parson had awhile averted or suspended, had 
 broken forth afresh. For though, while Lenny was present 
 to be mowed and jeered at, there had been no pity for him, 
 yet no sooner was he removed from the scene of trial, than 
 a universal compassion for the barbarous usage he had re- 
 ceived produced what is called " the reaction of public 
 opinion." Not that those who had mowed and jeered re- 
 pented them of their mockery, or considered themselves in 
 the slightest degree the cause of his expatriation. No ; 
 they, with the rest of the villagers, laid all the blame upon 
 the stocks. It was not to be expected that a lad of such ex- 
 emplary character could be thrust into that place of igno- 
 miny, and not be sensible of the affront. And who, in the 
 whole village, was safe, if such goings-on and puttings-in 
 were to be tolerated in silence, and at the expense of the 
 very best and quietest lad the village had ever known ? 
 Thus, a few days after the widow's departure, the stocks was 
 again the object of midnight desecration ; it was bedaubed 
 and bescratched it was hacked and hewed it was scrawled 
 over with pithy lamentations for Lenny, and laconic execra- 
 tions on tyrants. Night after night new inscriptions ap- 
 peared, testifying the sarcastic wit and the vindictive senti- 
 ment of the parish. And perhaps the stocks was only spared 
 from axe and bonfire by the convenience it afforded to the 
 malice of the disaffected ; it became the Pasquin of Hazel- 
 dean.
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 197 
 
 As disaffection naturally produces a correspondent vigor 
 in authority, so affairs had been lately administered with 
 greater severity than had been hitherto wont in the easy 
 rule of the Squire and his predecessors. Suspected persons 
 were naturally marked out by Mr. Stirn, and reported to his 
 employer, who, too proud or too pained to charge them 
 openly with ingratitude, at first only passed them by in his 
 walks with a silent and stiff inclination of his head ; and af- 
 terward, gradually yielding to the baleful influence of Stirn, 
 the Squire grumbled forth "that he did not see why he 
 should be always putting himself out of his way to show 
 kindness to those who made such a return. There ought to 
 be a difference between the good and the bad." Encouraged 
 by this admission, Stirn had conducted himself toward the 
 suspected parties, and their whole kith and kin, with the 
 iron-handed justice that belonged to his character. For 
 some, habitual donations of milk from the dairy, and vege- 
 tables from the gardens, were surlily suspended ; others 
 were informed that their pigs were always trespassing on the 
 woods in search of acorns ; or that they were violating the 
 Game Laws in keeping lurchers. A beer-house, popular in 
 the neighborhood, but of late resorted to overmuch by the 
 grievance-mongers (and no wonder, since they had become 
 the popular party), was threatened with an application to 
 the magistrates for the withdrawal of its license. Sundry 
 old women, whose grandsons were notoriously ill-disposed 
 toward the stocks, were interdicted from gathering dead 
 sticks under the avenues, on pretence that they broke down 
 the live boughs ; and, what was more obnoxious to the 
 younger members of the parish than most other retaliatory 
 measures, three chestnut trees, one walnut, and two cherry 
 trees, standing at the bottom of the Park, and which had, 
 from time immemorial, been given up to the youth of 
 Hazeldean, were now solemnly placed under the general 
 defence of "private property." And the crier had an- 
 nounced that, henceforth, all depredators on the fruit trees 
 of Copse Hollow would be punished with the utmost rigor 
 of the law. 
 
 Stirn, indeed, recommended much more stringent pro- 
 ceedings than all these indications of a change of policy, 
 which, he averred, would soon bring the parish to its 
 senses such as discontinuing many little jobs of unprofit- 
 able work that employed the surplus labor of the village. 
 But there the Squire, falling into the department, and
 
 I 9 8 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 under the benigner influence of his Harry, was as yet not 
 properly hardened. When it came to a question that 
 affected the absolute quantity of loaves to be consumed by 
 the graceless mouths that fed upon him, the milk of human 
 kindness with which Providence has so bountifully sup- 
 plied that class of the mammalia called the "Bucolic," and 
 of which our Squire had an extra "yield" burst forth, 
 and washed away all the indignation of the harsher Adam. 
 
 Still your policy of half measures, which irritates with- 
 out crushing its victims, which flaps an exasperated wasp- 
 nest with a silk pocket-handkerchief, instead of blowing it 
 up with a match and train, is rarely successful ; and, after 
 three or four other and much guiltier victims than Lenny 
 had been incarcerated in the stocks, the parish of Hazel- 
 dean was ripe for any enormity. Pestilent Jacobinical tracts, 
 conceived and composed in the sinks of manufacturing 
 towns found their way into the popular beer-house 
 heaven knows how, though the Tinker was suspected of 
 being the disseminator by all but Stirn, who still, in a 
 whisper, accused the Papishers. And, finally, there ap- 
 peared amongst the other graphic embellishments which the 
 poor stocks had received, the rude gravure of a gentleman 
 in a broad-brimmed hat and top-boots, suspended from a 
 gibbet, with the inscription beneath "A warnin to hall 
 tirans mind your hi ! sighnde Captin sTraw." 
 
 It was upon this significant and emblematic portraiture 
 that the Squire was gazing when the Parson joined him. 
 
 "Well, Parson," said Mr. Hazeldean, with a smile which 
 he meant to be pleasant and easy, but which was exceed- 
 ingly bitter and grim, " I wish you joy of your flock you 
 see they have just hanged me in effigy ! " 
 
 The Parson stared, and though greatly shocked, smo- 
 thered his emotions ; and attempted, with the wisdom of 
 the serpent and the mildness of the dove, to find another 
 original for the effigy. 
 
 " It is very bad, but not so bad as all that, Squire ; that's 
 not the shape of your hat. It is evidently meant for Mr. 
 Stirn." 
 
 "Do you think so? "said, the Squire, softened. "Yet 
 the top-boots Stirn never wears top-boots." 
 
 " No more do you, except in the hunting-field. If you 
 look again, those are not tops they are leggings Stirn 
 wears leggings. Besides, that flourish, which is meant for 
 a nose, is a kind of a hook, like Stirn's ; whereas your nose
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 199 
 
 though by no means a snub rather turns up than not, as 
 the Apollo's does, according to the plaster cast in Ricca- 
 bocca's parlor." 
 
 " Poor Stirn ! " said the Squire, in a tone that evinced 
 complacency, not unmingled with compassion, " that's what 
 a man gets in this world by being a faithful servant, and 
 doing his duty with zeal for his employer. But you see 
 that things have come to a strange pass, and the question 
 now is, what course to pursue. The miscreants hitherto 
 have defied all vigilance, and Stirn recommends the employ- 
 ment of a regular night-watch, with a lanthorn and 
 bludgeon." 
 
 " That may protect the stocks, certainly ; but will it 
 keep those detestable tracts out of the beer-house ? " 
 
 "We shall shut the beer-house up the next sessions." 
 
 " The tracts will break out elsewhere the humor's in 
 the blood ! " 
 
 " I've half a mind to run off to Brighton or Leamington 
 good hunting at Leamington for a year, just to let the 
 rogues see how they can get on without me ! " 
 
 The Squire's lip trembled. 
 
 "My dear Mr. Hazeldean," said the Parson, taking his 
 friend's hand, " I don't want to parade my superior wisdom ; 
 but, if you had taken my advice, quieta -non movere ! Was 
 there ever a parish so peaceable as this, or a country- 
 gentleman so beloved as you were, before you undertook 
 the task which has dethroned kings and ruined states that 
 of wantonly meddling with antiquity, whether for the pur- 
 pose of uncalled-for repairs, or the revival of obsolete uses ? " 
 
 At this rebuke, the Squire did not manifest his constitu- 
 tional tendencies to choler ; but he replied almost meekly, 
 "If it were -to do again, faith, I would leave the parish to 
 the enjoyment of the shabbiest pair of stocks that ever dis- 
 graced a village. Certainly I meant it for the best an 
 ornament to the green ; however, now the stocks is rebuilt, 
 the stocks must be supported. Will Hazeldean is not the 
 man to give way to a set of thankless rapscallions." 
 
 " I think," said the Parson, " that you will allow that the 
 House of Tudor, whatever its faults, was a determined, 
 resolute dynasty enough high-hearted and strong-headed. 
 A Tudor would never have fallen into the same calamities 
 as the poor Stuart did ! " 
 
 " What the plague has the House of Tudor got to do 
 with my stocks ? "
 
 200 VF NOVEL; OR, 
 
 " A great deal. Henry VIII. found a subsidy so unpop- 
 ular that he gave it up ; and the people, in return, allowed 
 him to cut off as many heads as he pleased, besides those in 
 his own family. Good Queen Bess, who, I know, is your 
 idol in history " 
 
 " To be sure ! she knighted my ancestor at Tilbury 
 Fort." 
 
 " Good Queen Bess struggled hard to maintain a certain 
 monopoly ; she saw it would not do, and she surrendered it 
 with that frank heartiness which becomes a sovereign, and 
 makes surrender a grace." 
 
 " Ha ! and you would have me give up the stocks ? " 
 
 " I would much rather the stocks had remained as it was, 
 before you touched it ; but, as it is, if you could find a 
 good plausible pretext and there is an excellent one at 
 hand : the sternest kings open prisons, and grant favors, 
 upon joyful occasions now a marriage in the royal family 
 is of course a joyful occasion ! and so it should be in that 
 of the King of Hazeldean." Admire that artful turn in 
 the Parson's eloquence ! it was worthy of Riccabocca 
 himself. Indeed, Mr. Dale had profited much by his 
 companionship with that Machiavellian intellect. 
 
 "A marriage yes; but Frank has only just got into 
 coat-tails ! " 
 
 " I did not allude to Frank, but to your cousin Je- 
 mima I" 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 THE Squire staggered as if the breath had been knocked 
 out of him, and, for want of a better seat, sat down on the 
 stocks. 
 
 All the female heads in the neighboring cottages peered, 
 themselves unseen, through the casements. What could 
 the Squire be about ? what new mischief did he meditate ? 
 Did he mean to fortify the stocks ? Old Gaffer Solomons, 
 who had an indefinite idea of the lawful power of squires, 
 and who had been for the last ten minutes at watch on his 
 threshold, shook his head and said "Them as a cut out 
 the mon a-hanging, as a put it in the Squire's head ! " 
 
 " Put what ? " asked his grand-daughter. 
 
 "The gallus !" answered Solomons "he be a-going to
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 201 
 
 have it hung from the great elm-tree. And the Parson, 
 good mon, is a-quoting Scripture agin it you see he's a- 
 taking off his gloves, and a-putting his two han's together, 
 as he do when he pray for the sick, Jeany." 
 
 That description of the Parson's mien and manner, 
 which, with his usual niceness of observation, Gaffer Solo- 
 mons thus sketched off, will convey to you some idea of the 
 earnestness with which the Parson pleaded the cause he had 
 undertaken to advocate. He dwelt much upon the sense of 
 propriety which the foreigner had evinced in requesting 
 that the Squire might be consulted before any formal com- 
 munication to his cousin ; and he repeated Mrs. Dale's 
 assurance, that such were Riccabocca's high standard of 
 honor and belief in the sacred rights of hospitality, that, if 
 the Squire withheld his consent to his proposals, the Parson 
 was convinced that the Italian would instantly retract them. 
 Now, considering that Miss Hazeldean was, to say the least, 
 come to years of discretion, and the Squire had long since 
 placed her property entirely at her own disposal, Mr. Hazel- 
 dean was forced to acquiesce in the Parson's corollary 
 remark, " That this was a delicacy which could not be 
 expected from every English pretender to the lady's hand." 
 Seeing that he had so far cleared ground, the Parson went 
 on to intimate, though with great tact, that since Miss 
 Jemima would probably marry sooner or later (and, indeed, 
 that the Squire could not wish to prevent her), it might be 
 better for all parties concerned that it should be with some 
 one who, though a foreigner, was settled in the neighbor- 
 hood, and of whose character what was known was certainly 
 favorable, rather than run the hazard of her being married 
 for her money by some adventurer, or Irish fortune-hunter, 
 at the watering-places she yearly visited. Then he touched 
 lightly on Riccabocca's agreeable and companionable quali- 
 ties ; and concluded with a skilful peroration upon the 
 excellent occasion the wedding would afford to reconcile 
 Hall and Parish, by making a voluntary holocaust of the 
 stocks. 
 
 As he concluded, the Squire's brow, before thoughtful, 
 though not sullen, cleared up benignly. To say truth, the 
 Squire was dying to get rid of the stocks, if he could but 
 do so handsomely and with dignity ; and had all the stars 
 in the astrological horoscope conjoined together to give 
 Miss Jemima "assurance of a husband," they could not so 
 have served her with the Squire, as that conjunction be-
 
 202 MY NOVEL; OK, 
 
 tween the altar and the stocks which the Parson had 
 effected ! 
 
 Accordingly, when Mr. Dale had come to an end, the 
 Squire replied, with great placidity and good sense, " That 
 Mr. Rickeybockey had behaved very much like a gentle- 
 man, and that he was very much obliged to him ; that he 
 (the Squire) had no right to interfere in the matter, farther 
 than with his advice ; that Jemima was old enough to 
 choose for herself, and that, as the Parson had implied, 
 after all, she might go farther and fare worse indeed, the 
 farther she went (that is, the longer she waited), the worse 
 she was likely to fare. I own, for my part," continued the 
 Squire, " that though I like Rickeybockey very much, I 
 never suspected that Jemima was caught with his long 
 face ; but there's no accounting for tastes. My Harry, 
 indeed, was more shrewd, and gave me many a hint, for 
 which I only laughed at her. Still I ought to have thought 
 it looked queer when Mounseer took to disguising himself 
 by leaving off his glasses, ha ha ! I wonder what Harry 
 will say ; let's go and talk to her." 
 
 The Parson, rejoiced at this easy way of taking the mat- 
 ter, hooked his arm into the Squire's, and they walked 
 amicably toward the Hall. But on coming first into the 
 gardens they found Mrs. Hazeldean herself, clipping dead 
 leaves or fading flowers from her rose-trees. The Squire 
 stole slyly behind her, and startled her in her turn by put- 
 ting his arm round her waist, and saluting her smooth 
 cheek with one of his hearty kisses ; which, by the way, 
 from some association of ideas, was a conjugal freedom that 
 he usually indulged whenever a wedding was going on in 
 the village. 
 
 " Fie, William ! " said Mrs. Hazeldean, coyly, and blush- 
 ing as she saw the Parson. " Well, who's going to be mar- 
 ried now ? " 
 
 " Lord, was there ever such a woman ? she's guessed 
 it!" cried the Squire, in great admiration. "Tell her all 
 about it, Parson." 
 
 The Parson obeyed. 
 
 Mrs. Hazeldean, as the reader may suppose, showed 
 much less surprise than her husband had done ; but she took 
 the news graciously, and made much the same answer as 
 that which had occurred to the Squire, only with somewhat 
 more qualification and reserve. "Signer Riccabocca had 
 behaved very handsomely ; and though a daughter of the
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 203 
 
 Hazeldeans of Hazeldean might expect a much better mar- 
 riage in a worldly point of view, yet as the lady in question 
 had deferred finding one so long, it would be equally idle 
 and impertinent now to quarrel with her choice if indeed 
 she should decide on accepting Signer Riccabocca. As for 
 fortune, that was a consideration for the two contracting 
 parties. Still, it ought to be pointed out to Miss Jemima 
 that the interest of her fortune would afford but a very 
 small income. That Dr. Riccabocca was a widower was 
 another matter for deliberation ; and it seemed rather sus- 
 picious that he should have been hitherto so close upon all 
 matters connected with his former life. Certainly his man- 
 ners were in his favor, and as long as he was merely an 
 acquaintance, and at most a tenant, no one had a right to 
 institute inquiries of a strictly private nature ; but that, 
 when he was about to marry a Hazeldean of Hazeldean, it 
 became the Squire at least to know a little more about him 
 who and what he was. Why did he leave his own country ? 
 English people went abroad to save ; no foreigner would 
 choose England as a country in which to save money ! She 
 supposed that a foreign doctor was no very great things ; 
 probably he had been a professor in some Italian univer- 
 sity. At all events, if the Squire interfered at all, it was 
 on such points that he should request information." 
 
 ' My dear madam," said the Parson, "what you say is 
 extremely just. As to the causes which have induced our 
 friend to expatriate himself, I think we need not look far 
 for them. He is evidently one of the many Italian refugees 
 whom political disturbances have driven to a land of which 
 it is the boast to receive all exiles of whatever party. For 
 his respectability of birth and family, he certainly ought to 
 obtain some vouchers. And if that be the only objection, 
 I trust we may soon congratulate Miss Hazeldean on a 
 marriage with a man who, though certainly very poor, has 
 borne privations without a murmur ; has preferred all hard- 
 ship to debt ; has scorned to attempt betraying the young 
 lady into any clandestine connection ; who, in short, has 
 shown himself so upright and honest, that I hope my dear 
 Mr. Hazeldean will forgive him if he is only a doctor 
 probably of Laws and not, as most foreigners pretend to 
 be, a marquis or a baron at least." 
 
 "As to that," cried the Squire, "'tis the best thing I 
 know about Rickeybockey, that he don't attempt to hum- 
 bug us by any such foreign trumpery. Thank heaven, the
 
 204 My NOVEL; OK, 
 
 Hazeldeans of Hazeldean were never tuft-hunters and title- 
 mongers ; and if I never ran after an English lord, I should 
 certainly be devilish ashamed of a brother-in-law whom I 
 was forced to call markee or count ! I should feel sure he 
 was a courier, or runaway valley de-sham. Turn up your 
 nose at a doctor, indeed, Harry ; pshaw, good English 
 style that ! Doctor ! my aunt married a Doctor of Divinity 
 excellent man wore a wig, and was made a dean ! So 
 long as Rickeybockey is not a doctor of physic, I don't 
 care a button. If he's that, indeed, it would be suspicious ; 
 because, you see, those foreign doctors of physic are 
 quacks, and tell fortunes, and go about on a stage with a 
 Merry -Andrew. " 
 
 " Lord, Hazeldean ! where on earth did you pick up 
 that idea ? " said Harry, laughing. 
 
 " Pick it up ! why, I saw a fellow myself at the cattle- 
 fair last year when I was buying short-horns with a red 
 waistcoat and a cocked-hat, a little like the Parson's shovel. 
 He called himself Doctor Phoscophornio and sold pills ! 
 The Merry-Andrew was the funniest creature in salmon 
 colored tights turned head over heels, and said he came 
 from Timbuctoo. No, no ; if Rickeybockey's a physic 
 doctor, we shall have Jemima in a pink tinsel dress, tramp- 
 ing about the country in a caravan ! " 
 
 At this notion both the Squire and his wife laughed so 
 heartily, that the Parson felt the thing was settled, and 
 slipped away, with the intention of making his report to 
 Riccabocca. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI 
 
 IT was with a slight disturbance of his ordinary suave 
 and well-bred equanimity that the Italian received the in- 
 formation, that he need apprehend no obstacle to his suit 
 from the insular prejudices or the worldly views of the 
 lady's family. Not that he was mean and cowardly enough 
 to recoil from the near and unclouded prospect of that fe- 
 licity which he had left off his glasses to behold with un- 
 blinking naked eyes ; no, there his mind was made up ; 
 but he had met in life with much that inclines a man 
 toward misanthropy, and he was touched not only by the
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 205 
 
 interest in his welfare testified by an heretical priest, but by 
 the generosity with which he was admitted into a well-born 
 and wealthy family, 'despite his notorious poverty and his 
 foreign descent. He conceded the propriety of the only 
 stipulation, which was conveyed to him by the Parson with 
 all the delicacy that became one long professionally habitu- 
 ated to deal with the subtler susceptibilities of mankind 
 viz., that amongst Riccabocca's friends or kindred, some 
 person should be found whose report would confirm the 
 persuasion of his respectability entertained by his neigh- 
 bors ; he assented, I say, to the propriety of this condition ; 
 but it was not with alacrity and eagerness. His brow be- 
 came clouded. The Parson hastened to assure him that 
 the Squire was not a man qui stupet in titiilis (who was be- 
 sotted with titles), that he neither expected nor desired to 
 find an origin and rank for his brother-in-law above that 
 decent mediocrity of condition to which it was evident, 
 from Riccabocca's breeding and accomplishments, he could 
 easily establish his claim. "And though," said he, smiling, 
 " the Squire is a warm politician in his own country, and 
 would never see his sister again, I fear, if she married some 
 convicted enemy of our happy constitution, yet, for foreign 
 politics he does not care a straw ; so that if, as I suspect, 
 your exile arises from some quarrel with your Government 
 which, being foreign, he takes for granted must be insup- 
 portable he would but consider you as he would a Saxon 
 who fled from the iron hand of William the Conqueror, or 
 a Lancastrian expelled by the Yorkists in our Wars of the 
 Roses." 
 
 The Italian smiled. " Mr. Hazeldean shall be satisfied," 
 said he simply. " I see, by the Squire's newspaper, that an 
 English gentleman who knew me in my own country has 
 just arrived in London. I will write to him for a testimo- 
 nial, at least to my probity and character. Probably he may 
 be known to you by name nay, he must be, for he was a 
 distinguished officer in the late war. I allude to Lord 
 L'Estrange." 
 
 The Parson started. 
 
 " You know Lord L'Estrange ? a profligate, bad man, 
 I fear." 
 
 " Profligate ! bad ! " exclaimed Riccabocca. " Well, 
 calumnious as the world is, I should never have thought 
 that such expressions would be applied to one who, though 
 I knew him but little knew him chiefly by the service he
 
 206 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 once rendered to me first taught me to love and revere the 
 English name ! " 
 
 " He may be changed since " The Parson paused. 
 
 " Since when ? " asked Riccabocca, with evident curi- 
 osity. 
 
 Mr. Dale seemed embarrassed. " Excuse me," said he, 
 " it is many years ago ; and, in short, the opinion I then 
 formed of the nobleman you named was based upon circum- 
 stances which I cannot communicate." 
 
 The punctilious Italian bowed in silence, but he still 
 looked as if he should have liked to prosecute inquiry. 
 
 After a pause, he said, " Whatever your impression re- 
 pecting Lord L'Estrange, there is nothing, I suppose, which 
 would lead you to doubt his honor, or reject his testimonial 
 in my favor ? " 
 
 " According to fashionable morality," said Mr. Dale, 
 rather precisely, " I know of nothing that could induce 
 me to suppose that Lord L'Estrange would not, in this 
 instance, speak the truth. And he has unquestionably a 
 high reputation as a soldier, and a considerable position 
 in the world." Therewith the Parson took his leave. A 
 few days afterward, Dr. Riccabocca enclosed to the 
 Squire, in a blank envelope, a letter he had received from 
 Harley L'Estrange. It was evidently intended for the 
 Squire's eye, and to serve as a voucher for the Italian's 
 respectability ; but this object was fulfilled, not in the 
 coarse form of a direct testimonial, but with a tact and 
 delicacy which seemed to show more than the fine breed- 
 ing to be expected from one in Lord L'Estrange's station. 
 It evinced that most exquisite of all politeness which 
 comes from the heart ; a certain tone of affectionate 
 respect (which even the homely sense of the Squire felt, 
 intuitively, proved far more in favor of Riccabocca than 
 the most elaborate certificate of his qualities and antece- 
 dents) pervaded the whole, and would have sufficed in 
 itself to remove all scruples from a mind much more 
 suspicious and exacting than that of the Squire of Hazel- 
 dean. But lo, and behold ! an obstacle now occurred to 
 the Parson, of which he ought to have thought long before 
 viz., the Papistical religion of the Italian. Dr. Ricca- 
 bocca was professedly a Roman Catholic. He so little ob- 
 truded that fact and, indeed, had assented so readily to 
 any animadversions upon the superstition and priestcraft 
 which, according to Protestants, are the essential charac-
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE, 207 
 
 teristics of Papistical communities that it was not till the 
 hymeneal torch, which brings all faults to light, was fairly 
 illumined for the altar, that the remembrance of a faith so 
 cast into a shade burst upon the conscience of the Parson. 
 The first idea that then occurred to him was the proper and 
 professional one viz., the conversion of Dr. Riccabocca. 
 He hastened to his study, took down from his shelves long- 
 neglected volumes of controversial divinity, armed himself 
 with an arsenal of authorities, arguments, and texts ; then, 
 seizing the shovel-hat, posted off to the Casino. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 THE Parson burst upon the philosopher like an ava- 
 lanche ! He was so full of his subject that he could not 
 let it out in prudent driblets. No, he went souse upon the 
 astounded Riccabocca 
 
 ' Tremendo 
 Jupiter ipse ruens tumultu." 
 
 The sage shrinking deeper into his arm-chair, and 
 drawing his dressing-robe more closely round him suffered 
 the Parson to talk for three-quarters of an hour, till, indeed, 
 he had thoroughly proved his case ; and, like Brutus, 
 " paused for a reply." 
 
 Then said Riccabocca, mildly, " In much of what you 
 have urged so ably, and so suddenly, I am inclined to 
 agree. But base is the man who formally forswears the 
 creed he has inherited from his fathers, and professed since 
 the cradle up to years of maturity, when the change pre- 
 sents itself in the guise of a bribe ; when, for such is human 
 nature, he can hardly distinguish or disentangle the appeal 
 to his reason from the lure to his interest here a text, and 
 there a dowry ! here Protestantism, there Jemima ! Own, 
 my friend, that the soberest casuist would see double under 
 the inebriating effects produced by so mixing his polemical 
 liquors. Appeal, my good Mr. Dale, from Philip drunken 
 to Philip sober ! from Riccabocca intoxicated with the 
 assurance of your excellent lady, that he is about to be ' the 
 happiest of men,' to Riccabocca accustomed to his happi-
 
 ao8 MY NOVEL; Off, 
 
 ness, and carrying it off with the seasoned equability of 
 one grown familiar with stimulants in a word, appeal 
 from Riccabocca the wooer to Riccabocca the spouse. I 
 may be convertible, but conversion is a slow process ; court- 
 ship should be a quick one ask Miss Jemima. Finaltnente, 
 marry me first, and convert me afterward ! " 
 
 "You take this too jestingly,' 1 began the Parson ; "and 
 I don't see why with your excellent understanding, truths 
 so plain and obvious should not strike you at once." 
 
 "Truths," interrupted Riccabocca, profoundly, "are the 
 slowest-growing things in the world ! It took fifteen hun- 
 dred years from the date of the Christian era to produce 
 your own Luther, and then he flung his Bible at Satan (I 
 have seen the mark made by the book on the wall of his 
 prison in Germany), besides running off with a nun, which 
 no Protestant clergyman would think it proper and right 
 to do now-a-days." Then he added, with seriousness, 
 " Look you, my dear sir, I should lose my own esteem if 
 I were even to listen to you now with becoming attention, 
 now, I say, when you hint that the creed I have professed 
 may be in the way of my advantage. If so, I must keep 
 the creed and resign the advantage. But if, as I trust not 
 only as a Christian, but a man of honor you will defer 
 this discussion, I will promise to listen to you hereafter ; 
 and though, to say the truth, I believe that you will not 
 convert me, I will promise you faithfully never to interfere 
 with my wife's religion." 
 
 "And any children you m'ay have?" 
 
 " Children ! " said Dr. Riccabocca, recoiling " you are 
 not contented with firing your pocket-pistol right in my 
 face ; you must also pepper me all over with small-shot. 
 Children ! well, if they are girls, let them follow the faith 
 of their mother ; and if boys, while in childhood, let them 
 be contented with learning to be Christians ; and when 
 they grow into men, let them choose for themselves which 
 is the best form for the practice of the great principles 
 which all sects have in common." 
 
 " But," began Mr. Dale again, pulling a large book from 
 his pocket. 
 
 Dr. Riccabocca flung open the window, and jumped out 
 of it. 
 
 It was the rapidest and most dastardly flight you could 
 possibly conceive ; but it was a great compliment to the 
 argumentative powers of the Parson, and he felt it as such.
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 209 
 
 Nevertheless, Mr. Dale thought it right to have a long con- 
 versation, both with the Squire and Miss Jemina herself, 
 upon the subject which his intended convert had so igno- 
 rainiously escaped. 
 
 The Squire, though a great foe to Popery, politically 
 considered, had also quite as great a hatred to renegades 
 and apostates. And in his heart he would have despised 
 Riccabocca if he could have thrown off his religion as 
 easily as he had done his spectacles. Therefore he said 
 simply " Well, it is certainly a great pity that Rickey - 
 bockey is not of the Church of England, though, I take 
 it, that would be unreasonable to expect in a man born and 
 bred under the nose of the Inquisition " (the Squire firmly 
 believed that the Inquisition was in full force in all the Ital- 
 ian states, with whips, racks, and thumb-screws ; and, in- 
 deed, his chief information of Italy was gathered from a 
 perusal he had given in early youth to The One-Handcd 
 Monk] ; " but I think he speaks very fairly, on the whole, 
 as to his wife and children. And the thing's gone too far 
 now to retract. It's all your fault for not thinking of it be- 
 fore ; and I've now just made up my mind as to the course 
 to pursue respecting the d d stocks ! " 
 
 As for Miss Jemima, the Parson left her with a pious 
 thanksgiving that Riccabocca at least was a Christian, and 
 not a Pagan, Mahometan, or Jew ! 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 THERE is that in a wedding which appeals to a univer- 
 sal sympathy. No other event in the lives of their supe- 
 riors in rank creates an equal sensation amongst the hum- 
 bler classes. 
 
 From the moment the news that Miss Jemima was to 
 be married had spread throughout the village, all the old 
 affection for the Squire and his House burst forth the 
 stronger for its temporary suspension. Who could think 
 of the stocks in such a season ? The stocks was swept out 
 of fashion hunted from remembrance as completely as the 
 question of Repeal or the thought of Rebellion from the 
 warm Irish heart, when the fair young face of the Royal 
 Wife beamed on the sister isle.
 
 210 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 Again cordial curtseys were dropped at the thresholds 
 by which the Squire passed to his own farm ; again the 
 sun-burnt brows uncovered no more with sullen ceremony 
 were smoothed into cheerful gladness at his nod. Nay, 
 the little ones began again to assemble at their ancient 
 rendezvous by the stocks, as if either familiarized with the 
 phenomenon, or convinced that, in the general sentiment 
 of good-will, its powers of evil were annulled. 
 
 The Squire tasted once more the sweets of the only 
 popularity which is much worth having, and the loss of 
 which a wise man would reasonably deplore viz., the pop- 
 ularity which arises from a persuasion of our goodness, and 
 a reluctance to recall our faults. Like all blessings, the 
 more sensibly felt from previous interruption, the Squire 
 enjoyed this restored popularity with an exhilarated sense 
 of existence ; his stout heart beat more vigorously ; his 
 stalwart step trod more lightly ; his comely English face 
 looked comelier and more English than ever ; you would 
 have been a merrier man for a week, to have come within 
 hearing of his jovial laugh. 
 
 He felt grateful to Jemima and to Riccabocca as the 
 special agents of Providence in this general integratio 
 amor is. To have looked at him, you would suppose that 
 it was the Squire who was going to be married a second 
 time to his Harry ! 
 
 One may well conceive that such would have been an 
 inauspicious moment for Parson Dale's theological scruples. 
 To have stopped that marriage chilled all the sunshine it 
 diffused over the village seen himself surrounded again by 
 long sulky visages, I verily believe, though a better friend 
 of Church and State never stood on a hustings, that, rather 
 than court such a revulsion, the Squire would have found 
 Jesuitical excuses for the marriage if Riccabocca had been 
 discovered to be the Pope in disguise ! As for the stocks, 
 its fate was now irrevocably sealed. In short, the marriage 
 was concluded first privately, according to the bride- 
 groom's creed, by a Roman Catholic clergyman, who lived 
 in a town some miles off, and next publicly in the village 
 church of Hazeldean. 
 
 It was the heartiest rural wedding ! Village girls 
 strewed flowers on the way ; a booth was placed amidst 
 the prettiest scenery of the Park on the margin of the lake 
 for there was to be a dance later in the day ; an ox was 
 roasted whole. Even Mr. Stirn no, Mr. Stirn was not
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 211 
 
 present, so much happiness would have been the death of 
 him ! And the Papisher too, who had conjured Lenny out 
 of the stocks ; nay, who had himself sat in the stocks for the 
 very purpose of bringing them into contempt the Papisher ! 
 he had as lief Miss Jemima had married the devil ! Indeed 
 he was persuaded that, in point of fact, it was all one and 
 the same. Therefore Mr. Stirn had asked leave to go and 
 attend his uncle the pawnbroker, about to undergo a tor- 
 turing operation for the stone ! Frank was there, sum- 
 moned from Eton for the occasion having grown two 
 inches taller since he left for the one inch of which nature 
 was to be thanked, for the other a new pair of resplend- 
 ent Wellingtons. But the boy's joy was less apparent 
 than that of others. For Jemima was a special favorite 
 with him, as she would have been with all boys for she 
 was always kind and gentle, and made him many pretty 
 presents whenever she came from the watering-places. And 
 Frank knew that he should miss her sadly, and thought she 
 had made a very queer choice. 
 
 Captain Higginbotham had been invited ; but, to the as- 
 tonishment of Jemima, he had replied to the invitation by a 
 letter to herself, marked "private and confidential" " She 
 must have long known," said the letter, " of his devoted at- 
 tachment to her ! motives of delicacy, arising from the nar- 
 rowness of his income, and the magnanimity of his senti- 
 ments, had alone prevented his formal proposals ; but now 
 that he was informed (he could scarcely believe his senses 
 or command his passions) that her relations wished to force 
 her into a BARBAROUS marriage with a foreigner of MOST FOR- 
 BIDDING APPEARANCE, and most abject circumstances, he lost not 
 a moment in laying at her feet his own hand and fortune. 
 And he did this the more confidently, inasmuch as he could 
 not but be aware of Miss Jemima's SECRET feelings toward 
 him, while he was //w^/ and happy to say, that his dear and 
 distinguished cousin, Mr. Sharpe Currie, had honored him 
 with a warmth of regard, which justified the most brilliant 
 EXPECTATIONS likely to be soon realized as his eminent rela- 
 tive had contracted a very bad liver complaint in the service 
 of his country, and could not last long ! " 
 
 In all the years they had known each other, Miss Jemima, 
 strange as it may appear, had never once suspected the 
 Captain of any other feelings to her than those of a brother. 
 To say that she was not gratified by learning her mistake, 
 would be to say that she was more than woman. Indeed, it
 
 212 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 must have been a source of no ignoble triumph to think that 
 she could prove her disinterested affection to her dear Ricca- 
 bocca, by a prompt rejection of this more brilliant offer. 
 She couched the rejection it is true, in the most soothing 
 terms. But the Captain evidently considered himself ill 
 used ; he did not reply to the letter, and did not come to 
 the wedding. 
 
 To let the reader into a secret, never known to Miss 
 Jemima, Captain Higginbotham was much less influenced 
 by Cupid than by Plutus in the offer he had made. The 
 Captain was one of that class of gentlemen who read their 
 accounts by those corpse-lights, or will-o'-the-wisps, called 
 expectations. Ever since the Squire's grandfather had left 
 him then in short clothes a legacy of ^500, the Captain 
 had peopled the future with expectations ! He talked of 
 his expectations as a man talks of shares in a Tontine ; 
 they might fluctuate a little be now up and now down 
 but it was morally impossible, if he lived on, but that 
 he should be a millionaire one of these days. Now, 
 though Miss Jemima was a good fifteen years younger than 
 himself, yet she always stood for a good round sum in the 
 ghostly books of the Captain. She was an expectation to 
 the full amount of her ^4,000, seeing that Frank was an only 
 child, and it would be carrying coals to Newcastle to 
 leave him anything. 
 
 Rather than see so considerable a cipher suddenly 
 spunged out of his visionary ledger rather than so much 
 money should vanish clean .out of the family, Captain Hig- 
 ginbotham had taken what he conceived, if a desperate, at 
 least a certain, step for the preservation of his property. If 
 the golden horn could not be had without the heifer, why, he 
 must take the heifer into the bargain. He had never formed 
 to himself an idea that a heifer so gentle would toss and 
 fling him over. The blow was stunning. But no one com- 
 passionates the misfortunes of the covetous, though few 
 perhaps are in greater need of compassion. And leaving 
 poor Captain Higginbotham to retrieve his illusory fortunes 
 as he best may among " the expectations " which gathered 
 round the form of Mr. Sharpe Currie, who was the Grossest 
 old tyrant imaginable, and never allowed at his table any 
 dishes not compounded with rice, which played Old Nick 
 with the Captain's constitutional functions, I return to the 
 wedding at Hazeldean, just in time to see the bridegroom 
 who looked singularly well on the occasion hand the bride
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 213 
 
 (who, between sunshiny tears and affectionate smiles, was 
 really a very interesting and even a pretty bride, as brides 
 go) into a carriage which the Squire had presented to them, 
 and depart on the orthodox nuptial excursion amidst the 
 blessings of the assembled crowd. 
 
 It may be thought strange by the unreflective that these 
 rural spectators should so have approved and blessed the 
 marriage of a Hazeldean of Hazeldean with a poor, outland- 
 ish, long-haired foreigner ; but, besides that Riccabocca, after 
 all, had become one of the neighborhood, and was prover- 
 bially " a civil-spoken gentleman," it is generally noticeable 
 that on wedding occasions the bride so monopolizes interest, 
 curiosity, and admiration, that the bridegroom himself goes 
 for little or nothing. He is merely the passive agent in the 
 affair the unregarded cause of the general satisfaction. 
 It was not Riccabocca himself that they approved and 
 blessed it was the gentleman in the white waistcoat who 
 had made Miss Jemima Madam Rickeybockey ! 
 
 Leaning on his wife's arm (for it was a habit of the Squire 
 to lean on his wife's arm rather than she on his, when he was 
 specially pleased ; and there was something touching in 
 the sight of that strong, sturdy frame thus insensibly, in 
 hours of happiness, seeking dependence on the frail arm of 
 woman) leaning, I say, on his wife's arm, the Squire, about 
 the hour of sunset, walked down to the booth by the lake. 
 
 All the parish young and old, woman, and child were 
 assembled there, and their faces seemed to bear one family 
 likeness, in the common emotion which animated all, as 
 they turned to his frank, fatherly smile. Squire Hazeldean 
 stood at the head of the long table ; he filled a horn with 
 ale from the brimming tankard beside him. Then he looked 
 round, and lifted his hand to request silence ; and ascending 
 the chair, rose in full view of all. Every one felt that the 
 Squire was about to make a speech, and the earnestness of 
 the attention was proportioned to the rarity of the event ; 
 for (though he was not unpractised in the oratory of the 
 hustings) only thrice before had the Squire made what could 
 fairly be called " a speech " to the villagers of Hazeldean 
 once on a kindred festive occasion, when he had presented 
 to them his bride once in a contested election for the shire, 
 in which he took more than ordinary interest, and was not 
 quite so sober as he ought to have been once in a time of 
 great agricultural distress, when, in spite of reduction of 
 rents, the farmers had been compelled to discard a large
 
 214 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 number of their customary laborers ; and when the Squire 
 had said " I have given up keeping the hounds, because I 
 want to make a fine piece of water" that was the origin of 
 the lake, " and to drain all the low lands round the Park. 
 Let every man who wants work come to me ! " and that sad 
 year the parish rates of Hazeldean were not a penny the 
 heavier. 
 
 Now, for the fourth time, the Squire rose, and thus he 
 spoke. At his right hand, Harry ; at his left, Frank. At 
 the bottom of the table, as vice-president, Parson Dale, his 
 little wife behind him, only obscurely seen. She cried read- 
 ily, and her handkerchief was already before her eyes. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 TJTE SQUIRE'S SPEECH. 
 
 " FRIENDS and neighbors, I thank you kindly for com- 
 ing round me this day, and for showing so much interest in 
 me and mine. My cousin was not born amongst you as I 
 was, but you have known her from a child. It is a famil- 
 iar face, and one that never frowned, which you will miss at 
 your cottage doors, as I and mine will miss it long in the 
 old Hall " 
 
 Here there was a sob from some of the women, and 
 nothing was seen of Mrs. Dale but the white handkerchief. 
 The Squire himself paused, and brushed away a tear with 
 the back of his hand. Then he resumed, with a sudden 
 change of voice that was electrical, 
 
 " For we none of us prize a blessing till we have lost 
 it ! Now, friends and neighbors ; a little time ago, it 
 seemed as if some ill-will had crept in the village ill-will 
 between you and me, neighbors ! why, that is not like 
 Hazeldean ! " 
 
 The audience hung their heads ! You never saw peo- 
 ple look so thoroughly ashamed of themselves. The Squire 
 proceeded, 
 
 "I don't say it was all your fault; perhaps it was 
 mine." 
 
 " Noa noa noa," burst forth in a general chorus. 
 
 "Nay, friends," continued the Squire, humbly, and in
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 215 
 
 one of those illustrative aphorisms which, if less subtle 
 than Riccabocca's, were more within reach of the popular 
 comprehension, " nay, we are all human, and every man 
 has his hobby ; sometimes he breaks in the hobby, and 
 sometimes the hobby, if it is very hard in the mouth, 
 breaks in him. One man's hobby has an ill habit of al- 
 ways stopping at the public-house ! (Laughter.) Another 
 man's hobby refuses to stir a peg beyond the door where 
 some buxom lass patted its neck the week before a hobby 
 I rode pretty often when I went courting my good wife 
 here ! (Much laughter and applause.) Others have a 
 lazy hobby, that there's no getting on ; others, a runaway 
 hobby, that there's no stopping ; but, to cut the matter 
 short, my favorite hobby, as you well know, is always 
 trotted out to any place on my property which seems to 
 want the eye and hand of the master. I hate," cried the 
 Squire, warming, " to see things neglected and decayed, 
 and going to the dogs ! This land we live in is a good 
 mother to us, and we can't do too much for her. It is 
 very true, neighbors, that I owe her a good many acres, 
 and ought to speak well of her ; but what then ? I live 
 amongst you, and what I take from the rent with one hand, I 
 divide amongst you with the other. (Low but assenting 
 murmurs.) Now, the more I improve my property, the 
 more mouths it feeds. My great-grandfather kept a Field- 
 Book, in which were entered, not only the names of all the 
 farmers, and the quantity of land they held, but'the average 
 number of the laborers each employed. My grandfather 
 and father followed his example ; I have done the same. I 
 find, neighbors, that our rents have doubled since my great- 
 grandfather began to make the book. Ay, but there are 
 more than four times the number of laborers employed on 
 the estate, and at much better wages, too ! Well, my men, 
 that says a great deal in favor of improving property, and 
 not letting it go to the dogs. (Applause.) And therefore, 
 neighbors, you will kindly excuse my hobby ; it carries grist 
 to your mill. (Reiterated applause.) Well, but you will 
 say, ' What's the Squire driving at ?' Why this, my friends : 
 There was only one worn-out, dilapidated, tumble-down 
 thing in the parish of Hazeldean, and it became an eyesore 
 to me ; so I saddled my hobby, and rode at it. O ho ! you 
 know what I mean now ! Yes, but neighbors, you need 
 not have taken it so to heart. That was a scurvy trick of 
 some of you to hang me in effigy, as they call it."
 
 21 6 MY NOVEL; OK, 
 
 "It war'nt you," cried a voice in the crowd; "it war 
 Nick Stirn." 
 
 The Squire recognized the voice of the Tinker ; but 
 though he now guessed at the ringleader, on that day of 
 general amnesty he had the prudence and magnanimity not 
 to say, "Stand forth, Sprott ; thou art the man." Yet his 
 gallant English spirit would not suffer him to come off at 
 the expense of his servant. 
 
 " If it was Nick Stirn you meant," said he, gravely, 
 " more shame for you. It showed some pluck to hang the 
 master ; but to hang the poor servant, who only thought 
 to do his duty, careless of what ill-will it brought upon him, 
 was a shabby trick, so little like the lads of Hazeldean, 
 that I suspect the man who taught it to them was never 
 born in the parish. But let bygones be bygones. One 
 thing is clear, you don't take kindly to my new pair of 
 stocks ! The stocks has been a stumbling-block and a 
 grievance, and there's no denying that we went on very 
 pleasantly without it. I may also say that, in spite of it, 
 we have been coming together again lately. And I can't 
 tell you what good it did me to see your children playing 
 again on the green, and your honest faces, in spite of the 
 stocks, and those diabolical tracts you've been reading 
 lately, lighted up at the thought that something pleasant 
 was going on at the Hall. Do you know, neighbors, you 
 put me in mind of an old story which, besides applying to 
 the parish, "all who are married, and all who intend to 
 marry, will do well to recollect. A worthy couple, named 
 John and Joan, had lived happily together many a long 
 year, till one unlucky day they bought a new bolster. Joan 
 said the bolster was too hard, and John said that it was too 
 soft ; so, of course, they quarrelled. After sulking all day, 
 they agreed to put the bolster between them at night." 
 (Roars of laughter amongst the men ; the women did not 
 know which way to look, except, indeed, Mrs. Hazeldean, 
 who, though she was more than usually rosy, maintained 
 her innocent, genial smile, as much as to say, " There is no 
 harm in the Squire's jest.") The orator resumed : "After 
 they had thus lain apart for a little time, very silent and 
 sullen, John sneezed. ' God bless you ! ' says Joan, over 
 the bolster. ' Did you say God bless me ? ' cries John ; 
 ' then here goes the bolster ! ' ' (Prolonged laughter and 
 tumultuous applause.) 
 
 " Friends and neighbors," said the Squire, when silence
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 217 
 
 was restored, and lifting the horn of ale, " I have the pleas- 
 ure to inform you that I have ordered the stocks to be taken 
 down, and made into a bench for the chimney-nook of our 
 old friend Gaffer Solomons yonder. But mincl me, lads, if 
 ever you make the parish regret the loss of the stocks, and 
 the overseers come to me with long faces, and say, ' the 
 
 stocks must be rebuilded/ why " Here from all the 
 
 youth of the village rose so deprecating a clamor, that 
 the Squire would have been the most bungling orator in 
 the world, if he had said a word further on the subject. 
 He elevated the horn over his head, " Why, that's my 
 old Hazeldean again ! Health and long life to you all ! " 
 
 The Tinker had sneaked out of the assembly, and did 
 not show his face in the village for the next six months. 
 And as to those poisonous tracts, in spite of their salubrious 
 labels, " The Poor Man's Friend," or " The Rights of Labor," 
 you could no more have found one of them lurking in the 
 drawers of the kitchen-dressers in Hazeldean, than you 
 would have found the deadly nightshade on the flower- 
 stands in the drawing-room of the Hall. As for the revolu- 
 tionary beer-house, there was no need to apply to the 
 magistrates to shut it up it shut itself up before the week 
 was out. 
 
 O young head of the great House of Hapsburg, what a 
 Hazeldean you might have made of Hungary ! What a 
 " Moriamur pro rege nostro" would have rung in your infant 
 reign, if you had made such a speech as the Squire's !
 
 2i8 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 BOOK FOURTH. 
 
 INITIAL CHAPTER. 
 
 COMPRISING MR. CAXTON's OPINIONS ON THE MATRIMONIAL 
 STATE, SUPPORTED BY LEARNED AUTHORITIES. 
 
 " IT was no bad idea of yours, Pisistratus," said my 
 father, graciously, " to depict the heightened affections and 
 the serious intention of Signor Riccabocca by a single 
 stroke He left off his spectacles ! Good." 
 
 " Yet," quoth my uncle, " I think Shakspeare represents 
 a lover as falling into slovenly habits, neglecting his person, 
 and suffering his hose to be ungartered, rather than paying 
 that attention to his outer man. which induces Signor Ricca- 
 bocca to leave off his spectacles, and look as handsome as 
 nature will permit him." 
 
 " There are different degrees and many phases of this 
 passion," replied my father. " Shakspeare is speaking of 
 an ill-treated, pining, woe-begone lover, much aggrieved by 
 the cruelty of his mistress a lover who has found it of no 
 avail to smarten himself up, and has fallen despondently 
 into the opposite extreme. Whereas Signor Riccabocca 
 has nothing to complain of in the barbarity of Miss Jemima." 
 
 "Indeed he has not!" cried Blanche, tossing her head 
 " forward creature ! " 
 
 " Yes, my dear," said my mother, trying her best to look 
 stately, " I am decidedly of opinion that, in that respect, 
 Pisistratus has lowered the dignity of the sex. Not in- 
 tentionally," added my mother, mildly, and afraid she had 
 said something too bitter ; "but it is very hard fora man to 
 describe us women." 
 
 The Captain nodded approvingly ; Mr. Squills smiled ; 
 my father quietly resumed the thread of his discourse. 
 
 " To continue," quoth he. " Riccabocca has no reason
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 219 
 
 to despair of success in his suit, nor any object in moving 
 his mistress to compassion. He may, therefore, very prop- 
 erly tie up his garters and leave off his spectacles. What 
 do you say, Mr. Squills ? for, after all, since love-making 
 cannot fail to be a great constitutional derangement, the ex- 
 perience of a medical man must be the best to consult." 
 
 "Mr. Caxton," replied Squills, obviously flattered, "you 
 are quite right ; when a man makes love, the organs of self- 
 esteem and desire of applause are greatly stimulated, and 
 therefore, of course, he sets himself off to the best advan- 
 tage. It is only, as you observe, when, like Shakspeare's 
 lover, he has given up making love as a bad job, and has 
 received that severe hit on the ganglions which the cruelty 
 of a mistress inflicts, that he neglects his personal appear- 
 ance ; he neglects it, not because he is in love, but because 
 his nervous system is depressed. That was the cause, if you 
 remember, with poor Major Prim. He wore his wig all awry 
 when Susan Smart jilted him ; but I set it right for him." 
 
 " By shaming Miss Smart into repentance, or getting him 
 a new sweetheart ? " asked my uncle. 
 
 "Pooh!" answered Squills, "by quinine and cold 
 bathing." 
 
 "We may therefore grant," renewed my father, "that, 
 as a general rule, the process of courtship tends to the 
 spruceness, and even foppery, of the individual engaged in 
 the experiment, as Voltaire has very prettily proved some- 
 where. Nay, the Mexicans, indeed, were of opinion, that 
 the lady at least ought to continue those cares of her person 
 even after marriage. There is extant, in Sahagun's History 
 of New Spain, the advice of an Aztec or Mexican mother to 
 her daughter, in which she says ' That your husband may 
 not take you in dislike, adorn yourself, wash yourself, and 
 let your garments be clean.' It is true that the good lady 
 adds ' Do it in moderation ; since, if every day you are 
 washing yourself and your clothes, the world will say that 
 you are over-delicate ; and particular people will call you 
 TAPETZON TINEMAXOCH ! ' What those words precisely mean," 
 added my father, modestly, " I cannot say, since I never 
 had the opportunity to acquire the ancient Aztec language 
 but something very opprobrious and horrible, no doubt." 
 
 " I dare say a philosopher like Signor Riccabocca," said 
 my uncle, "was not himself very Tapctzon tine what d'ye 
 call it ? and a good healthy English wife, that poor affec- 
 tionate Jemima, was thrown away upon him."
 
 220 MY XOVEL: OR, 
 
 "Roland," said my father, "you don't like foreigners ; a 
 respectable prejudice, and quite natural in a man who has 
 been trying his best to hew them in pieces and blow them 
 up into splinters. But you don't like philosophers either 
 and for that dislike you have no equally good reason." 
 
 " I only implied that they are not much addicted to 
 soap and water," said my uncle. 
 
 "A notable mistake. Many great philosophers have 
 been very great beaux. Aristotle was a notorious fop. 
 Buffon put on his best laced ruffles when he sat down to 
 write, which implies that he washed his hands first. Pytha- 
 goras insists greatly on the holiness of frequent ablutions ; 
 and Horace who, in his own way, was as good a philoso- 
 pher as any the Romans produced takes care to let us 
 know what a neat, well-dressed, dapper little gentleman he 
 was. But I don't think you ever read the ' Apology of 
 Apuleius ? ' ' 
 
 " Not I what is it about ? " asked the Captain. 
 
 " About a great many things. It is that sage's vindi- 
 cation from several malignant charges amongst others, 
 and principally, indeed, that of being much too refined and 
 effeminate for a philosopher. Nothing can exceed the 
 rhetorical skill with which he excuses himself for using 
 tooth-powder. ' Ought a philosopher,' he exclaims, ' to 
 allow anything unclean about him, especially in the mouth 
 the mouth, which is the vestibule of the soul, the gate of 
 discourse, the portico of thought ! Ah, but ^Emilianus 
 [the accuser of Apuleius] never opens his mouth but for 
 slander and calumny tooth-powder would indeed be un- 
 becoming to him ! Or, if he use any. it will not be my good 
 Arabian tooth-powder, but charcoal and cinders. Ay, his 
 teeth should be as foul as his language ! And yet even 
 the crocodile likes to have his teeth cleaned ; insects get 
 into them, and horrible reptile though he be, he opens his 
 jaws inoffensively to a faithful dentistical bird, who volun- 
 teers his beak for a tooth-pick.' " 
 
 My father was now warm in the subject he had started, 
 and soared miles away from Riccabocca and " My Novel." 
 '''And observe," he exclaimed "observe with what gravity 
 this eminent Platonist pleads guilty to the charge of having 
 a mirror. 'Why, what,' he exclaims, 'more worthy of the 
 regards of a human creature than his own image?' (nihil 
 respectabilius liowini,qnam for main suam ' ) Is not that one of 
 our children the, rnps,t, dear to us who is called 'the picture
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 221 
 
 of his father ?' But take what pains you will with a pic- 
 ture, it can never be so like you as the face in your mir- 
 ror ! Think it discreditable to look with proper attention 
 on one's-self in the glass ! Did not Socrates recommend 
 such attention to his disciples did he not make a great 
 moral agent of the speculum ? The handsome, in admiring 
 their beauty therein, were admonished that handsome is 
 who handsome does ; and the more the ugly stared at them- 
 selves, the more they became naturally anxious to hide the 
 disgrace of their features in the loveliness of their merits. 
 Was not Demosthenes always at his speculum ? Did he not 
 rehearse his causes before it as before a master in the art ? 
 He learned his eloquence from Plato, his dialectics from 
 Eubulides ; but as for his delivery there, he came to the 
 mirror ! 
 
 " Therefore," concluded Mr. Caxton, returning unex- 
 pectedly to the subject "therefore, it is no reason to sup- 
 pose that Riccabocca is averse to cleanliness and decent 
 care of the person because he is a philosopher ; and, all 
 things considered, he never showed himself more a philosop- 
 her than when he left off his spectacles and looked his best." 
 
 " Well," said my mother, kindly, " I only hope it may 
 turn out happily. But I should have been better pleased 
 if Pisistratus had not made Dr. Riccabocca so reluctant 
 a wooer." 
 
 "Very true," said the Captain ; "the Italian does not 
 shine as a lover. Throw a little more fire into him, Pisis- 
 tratus something gallant and chivalrous." 
 
 " Fire gallantry chivalry ! " cried my father, who had 
 taken Riccabocca under his special protection "why, don't 
 you see that the man is described as a philosopher ? and I 
 should like to know when a philosopher ever plunged into 
 matrimony without considerable misgiving and cold shivers. 
 Indeed, it seems that perhaps before he was a philosopher 
 Riccabocca had tried the experiment, and knew what it 
 was. Why, even that plain-speaking, sensible, practical 
 man, Metellus Numidicus, who was not even a philosopher, 
 but only a Roman Censor, thus expressed himself in an ex- 
 hortation to the people to perpetrate matrimony ' If, O 
 Quirites, we could do without wives, we should all dispense 
 with that subject of care (ed molestia careremus) ; but since 
 nature has so managed it that we cannot live with women 
 comfortably, nor without them at all, let us rather provide 
 for the human race than our own temporary felicity."
 
 222 MY NOVEL; OK, 
 
 Here the ladies set up a cry of such indignation, that 
 both Roland and myself endeavored to appease their 
 wrath by hasty assurances that we utterly repudiated the 
 damnable doctrine of Metellus Numidicus. 
 
 My father, wholly unmoved, as soon as a sullen silence 
 was established, recommenced " Do not think, ladies," 
 said he, " that you were without advocates at that day ; 
 there were many Romans gallant enough to blame the 
 Censor for a mode of expressing himself which they held 
 to be equally impolite and injudicious. ' Surely,' said 
 they, with some plausibility, 'if Numidicus wished men to 
 marry, he need not have referred so peremptorily to the 
 disquietudes of the connection, and thus have made them 
 more inclined to turn away from matrimony than given 
 them a relish for it.' But against these critics one honest 
 man (whose name of Titus Castricius should not be for- 
 gotten by posterity) maintained that Metellus Numidicus 
 could not have spoken more properly: 'For remark,' said 
 he, ' that Metellus was a censor, not a rhetorician. It be- 
 comes rhetoricians to adorn and disguise, and make the 
 best of things ; but Metellus, san'ctus vir a holy and blame- 
 less man, grave and sincere to wit, and addressing the 
 Roman people in the solemn capacity of Censor was 
 bound to speak the plain truth, especially as he was treat- 
 ing of a subject on which the observation of every day and 
 the experience of every life, could not leave the least doubt 
 upon the mind of his audience.' Still, Riccabocca, having 
 decided to marry, has no doubt prepared himself to bear 
 all the concomitant evils as becomes a professed sage ; 
 and I own I admire the art with which Pisistratus has drawn 
 the kind of woman most likely to suit a philosopher - " 
 
 Pisistratus bows and looks round complacently ; but re- 
 coils from two very peevish and discontented faces feminine. 
 
 MR. CAXTON (completing his sentence). Not only as 
 regards mildness of temper and other household qualifica- 
 tions, but as regards the very person of the object of his 
 choice. For you evidently remember, Pisistratus, the 
 reply of Bias, when asked his opinion on marriage : '"Ilroi 
 
 efets 17 aur^pav' KCU. et Ka\r]V, es KOtvrjV el Srj al(r^pa.v 
 
 Pisistratus tries to look as if he had the opinion of Bias 
 by heart, and nods acquiescingly. 
 
 MR. CAXTON. That is, my dears, " the woman you would 
 marry is either handsome or ugly ; if handsome, she is
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 223 
 
 koine, viz., you don't have her to yourself ; if ugly, she is 
 poine that is, a' fury." But, as it is observed in Aulus 
 Gellius (whence I borrow this citation), there is a wide 
 interval between handsome and ugly. And thus Ennius, 
 in his tragedy of Menalippus, uses an admirable expression 
 to designate women of the proper degree of matrimonial 
 comeliness, such as a philosopher would select. He calls 
 this degree stata forma a rational, mediocre sort of beauty, 
 which is not liable to be either koine or poine. And 
 Favorinus, who was a remarkably sensible man, and came 
 from Provence the male inhabitants of which district have 
 always valued themselves on their knowledge of love and 
 ladies calls this said stata forma the beauty of wives the 
 uxorial beauty. Ennius says, that women of a stata forma 
 are always safe and modest. Now, Jemima, you observe, is 
 described as possessing this stata forma ; and it is the nicety 
 of your observation in this respect, which I like the most 
 in the whole of your description of a philosopher's matri- 
 monial courtship, Pisistratus (excepting only the stroke of 
 the spectacles), for it shows that you had properly con- 
 sidered the opinion of Bias, and mastered all the counter- 
 logic suggested in Book V., chapter xi., of Aulus Gellius." 
 
 "For all that," said Blanche, half archly, half demurely, 
 with a smile in the eye and a pout of the lip, "I don't re- 
 member that Pisistratus, in the days Avhen he wished to be 
 most complimentary, ever assured me that I had a stata 
 forma a. rational, mediocre sort of beauty." 
 
 "And I think," observed my uncle, "that when he 
 comes to his real heroine, whoever she may be, he will not 
 trouble his head much about either Bias or Aulus Gellius." 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 MATRIMONY is certainly a great change in life. One is 
 astonished not to find a notable alteration in one's friend, 
 even if he or she have been only wedded a week. In the 
 instance of Dr. and Mrs. Riccabocca the change was pecu- 
 liarly visible. To speak first of the lady, as in chivalry 
 bound, Mrs. Riccabocca had entirely renounced that mel- 
 ancholy which had characterized Miss Jemima ; she became 
 even sprightly and gay, and looked all the better and pret-
 
 224 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 tier for the alteration. She did not scruple to confess hon- 
 estly to Mrs. Dale, that she was now of opinion that the 
 world was very far from approaching its end. But, in the 
 meanwhile, she did not neglect the duty which the belief 
 she had abandoned serves to inculcate " She set her house 
 in order." The cold and penurious elegance that had 
 characterized the Casino disappeared like enchantment 
 that is, the elegance remained, but the cold and penury fled 
 before the smile of woman. Like Puss-in-Boots, after the 
 nuptials of his master, Jackeymo only now caught minnows 
 and sticklebacks for his own amusement. Jackeymo looked 
 much plumper, and so did Riccabocca. In a word, the fair 
 Jemima became an excellent wife. Riccabocca secretly 
 thought her extravagant, but like a wise man, declined to 
 look at the house-bills, and ate his joint in unreproachful 
 silence. 
 
 Indeed, there was so much unaffected kindness in the 
 nature of Mrs Riccabocca beneath the quiet of her 
 manner, there beat so genially the heart of the Hazeldeans 
 that she fairly justified the favorable anticipations of 
 Mrs. Dale. And though the Doctor did not noisily boast 
 of his felicity, nor, as some new-married folks do, thrust it 
 insultingly under the nimis unctis naribus the turned-up 
 noses of your surly old married folks nor force it gaudily 
 and glaringly on the envious eyes of the single, you might 
 still see that he was a more cheerful and light-hearted man 
 than before. His smile was less ironical, his politeness 
 less distinct. He did not study Machiavelli so intensely 
 and he did not return to the spectacles ; which last was an 
 excellent sign. Moreover, the humanizing influence of the 
 tidy English wife might be seen in the improvement of his 
 outward or artificial man. His clothes seemed to fit him 
 better ; indeed the clothes were new. Mrs. Dale no longer 
 remarked that the buttons were off the wristbands, which 
 was a great satisfaction to her. But the sage still remained 
 faithful to the pipe, the cloak, and the red silk umbrella. 
 Mrs. Riccabocca had (to her credit be it spoken) used all 
 becoming and wife-like arts against these three remnants 
 of the old bachelor Adam, but in vain. " Anima mia " (soul 
 of mine), said the Doctor, tenderly ; " I hold the cloak, the 
 umbrella, and the pipe, as the sole relics that remain to me 
 of my native country. Respect and spare them." 
 
 Mrs. Riccabocca was touched, and had the good sense 
 to perceive that man, let him be ever so much married,
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 225 
 
 retains certain signs of his ancient independence certain 
 tokens of his old identity, which a wife, the most despotic, 
 will do well to concede. She conceded the cloak, she sub- 
 mitted to the umbrella, she overcame her abhorrence of 
 the pipe. After all, considering the natural villany of our 
 sex, she confessed to herself that she might have been 
 worse off. But, through all the calm and cheerfulness of 
 Riccabocca, a nervous perturbation was sufficiently per- 
 ceptible ; it commenced after the second week of marriage 
 it went on increasing, till one bright sunny afternoon, as 
 he was standing on his terrace, gazing down upon the road, 
 at which Jackeymo was placed lo, a stage-coach stopped ! 
 The Doctor made a bound, and put both hands to his heart 
 as if he had been shot ; he then leaped over the balustrade, 
 and his wife from her window beheld him flying down the 
 hill, with his long hair streaming in the wind, till the trees 
 hid him from her sight. 
 
 "Ah," thought she, with a natural pang of conjugal 
 jealousy, " henceforth I am only second in his home. He 
 has gone to welcome his child ! " And at that reflection 
 Mrs. Riccabocca shed tears. 
 
 But so naturally amiable was she, that she hastened to 
 curb her emotion, and efface as well as she could the trace 
 of a step-mother's grief. When this was done, and a silent, 
 self-rebuking prayer murmured over, the good woman de- 
 scended the stairs with alacrity, and summoning up her 
 best smiles, emerged on the terrace. 
 
 She was repaid ; for scarcely had she come into the 
 open air, when two little arms were thrown around her, 
 and the sweetest voice that ever came from a child's lips, 
 sighed out in broken English, "Good mamma, love me a 
 little." 
 
 " Love you ? with my whole heart ! " cried the step- 
 mother, with all a mother's honest passion. And she 
 clasped the child to her breast. 
 
 " God bless you, my wife ! " said Riccabocca, in a husky 
 tone. 
 
 " Please take this too," added Jackeymo, in Italian, as 
 well as his sobs would let him and he broke off a great 
 bough full of blossoms from his favorite-orange-tree, and 
 thrust it into his mistress's hand. She had not the slight- 
 est notion what he meant by it !
 
 226 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 CHAPTER ill. 
 
 VIOLANTE was indeed a bewitching child a child to 
 whom I defy Mrs. Caudle herself (immortal Mrs. Caudle !) 
 to have been a harsh step-mother. 
 
 Look at her now, as, released from those kindly arms, 
 she stands, still clinging with one hand to her new mamma, 
 and holding out the other to Riccabocca, with those large 
 dark eyes swimming in happy tears. What a lovely smile ! 
 ^-what an ingenuous, candid brow ! She looks delicate 
 she evidently requires care she wants the mother. And 
 rare is the woman who would not love her the better for 
 that ! Still, what an innocent, infantine bloom in those 
 clear, smooth cheeks ! and in that slight frame, what 
 exquisite natural grace ! 
 
 " And this, I suppose, is your nurse, darling ? " said 
 Mrs. Riccabocca, observing a dark, foreign-looking woman, 
 dressed very strangely, without cap or bonnet, but a great 
 silver arrow stuck in her hair, and a filagree chain or neck- 
 lace resting upon her kerchief. 
 
 " Ah, good Anetta," said Violante in Italian. " Papa, 
 she says she is to go back ; but she is not to go back is 
 she ? " 
 
 Riccabocca, who had scarcely before noticed the woman, 
 started at that question exchanged a rapid glance with 
 Jackeymo and then, muttering some inaudible excuse, 
 approached the nurse, and, beckoning her to follow him, 
 went away into the grounds. He did not return for more 
 than an hour, nor did the woman then accompany him 
 home. He said briefly to his wife that the nurse was 
 obliged to return at once to Italy, and that she would stay 
 in the village to catch the mail ; that indeed she would 
 be of no use in their establishment, as she could not speak 
 a word of English ; but that he was sadly afraid Violante 
 would pine for her. And Violante did pine at first. But 
 still, to a child it is so great a thing to find a parent to be 
 at home that, tender and grateful as Violante was, she 
 could not be inconsolable while her father was there to 
 comfort. 
 
 For the first few days, Riccabocca scarcely permitted any
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 227 
 
 one to be with his daughter but himself. He would not 
 even leave her alone with his Jemima. They walked out 
 together sat together for hours in the belvidere. Then by 
 degrees he began to resign her more and more to Jemima's 
 care and tuition, especially in English, of which language at 
 present she spoke only a few sentences (previously, perhaps, 
 learned by heart), so as to be clearly intelligible. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THERE was one person in the establishment of Dr. Ric- 
 cabocca, who was satisfied neither with the marriage of his 
 master nor the arrival of Violante and that was our friend 
 Lenny Fairfield. Previous to the all-absorbing duties of 
 courtship, the young peasant had secured a very large share 
 of Riccabocca's attention. The sage had felt an interest in 
 the growth of this rude intelligence struggling up to light. 
 But what with the wooing, and what with the wedding, 
 Lenny Fairfield had sunk very much out of his artificial 
 position as pupil, into his natural station of under-gardener. 
 And on the arrival of Violante, he saw, with natural bitter- 
 ness, that he was clean forgotten, not only by Riccabocca, 
 but almost by Jackeymo. It was true that the master still 
 lent him books, and the servant still gave him lectures on 
 horticulture. But Riccabocca had no time nor inclination 
 now to amuse himself with enlightening that tumult of con- 
 jecture which the books created. And if Jackeymo had 
 been covetous of those mines of gold buried beneath the 
 acres now fairly taken from the Squire (and good-naturedly 
 added rent-free, as an aid to Jemima's dower), before the ad- 
 vent of the young lady whose future dowry the produce was 
 to swell now that she was actually under the eyes of the 
 faithful servant, such a stimulus was given to his industry 
 that he could think of nothing else but the land, and the 
 revolution he designed to effect in its natural English crops. 
 The garden, save only the orange-trees, was abandoned en- 
 tirely to Lenny, and additional laborers were called in for 
 the field-work. Jackeymo had discovered that one part of 
 the soil was suited to lavender, that another would grow 
 camomile. He had in his heart apportioned a beautiful field 
 of rich loam to flax ; but against the growth of ilax the
 
 228 MY NOVEL; OK, 
 
 Squire set his face obstinately. That most lucrative, per- 
 haps, of all crops, when soil and skill suit, was formerly 
 attempted in England much more commonly than it is now, 
 since you will find few old leases which do not contain a 
 clause prohibitory of flax, as an impoverishment of the land. 
 And though Jackeymo learnedly endeavored to prove to the 
 Squire that the flax itself contained particles which, if re- 
 turned to the soil, repaid all that the crop took away, Mr. 
 Hazeldean had his old-fashioned prejudices on the matter, 
 which were insuperable. "My forefathers," quoth he, "did 
 not put that clause in their leases without good cause ; and 
 as the Casino lands are entailed on Frank, I have no right 
 to gratify your foreign whims at his expense." 
 
 To make up for the loss of the flax, Jackeymo resolved 
 to convert a very nice bit of pasture into orchard ground, 
 which he calculated would bring in ^10 net per acre by the 
 time Miss Violante was marriageable. At this the Squire 
 pished a little ; but as it was quite clear that the land would 
 be all the more valuable hereafter for the fruit-trees, he con- 
 sented to permit the "grass-land" to be thus partially 
 broken up. 
 
 All these changes left poor Lenny Fairfield very much 
 to himself at a time when the new and strange devices 
 which the initiation into book knowledge creates made it 
 most desirable that he should have the constant guidance of 
 a superior mind. 
 
 One evening after his work, as Lenny was returning to 
 his mother's cottage, very sullen and very moody, he sud- 
 denly came in contact with Sprott the Tinker. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE Tinker was seated under a hedge, hammering away 
 at an old kettle with a little fire burning in front of him 
 and the donkey hard by, indulging in a placid doze. Mr. 
 Sprott looked up as Lenny passed nodded kindly, and 
 said 
 
 " Good evenin', Lenny ; glad to hear you be so 'spect- 
 ably sitivated with Mounseer." 
 
 "Ay," answered Lenny, with a leaven of rancor in his 
 recollections, "you're not ashamed to speak to me now that
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 229 
 
 I am not in disgrace. But it was in disgrace, when it wasn't 
 my fault, that the real gentleman was most kind to me." 
 
 "Ar r, Lenny," said the Tinker, with a prolonged 
 
 rattle in that said Ar r, which was riot without great sig- 
 nificance. " But you sees the real gentleman, who han't got 
 his bread to get, can hafford to 'spise his cracter in the 
 world. A poor Tinker must be timbersome and nice in his 
 'sociations. But sit down here a bit, Lenny ; I've summut 
 to say to ye ! " 
 
 " To me " 
 
 " To ye. Give the neddy a shove out i' the vay, and sit 
 down, I say." 
 
 Lenny rather reluctantly, and somewhat superciliously, 
 accepted this invitation. 
 
 " I hears," said the tinker in a voice made rather indis- 
 tinct by a couple of nails which he had inserted between 
 his teeth " I hears as how you be unkimmon fond of 
 reading. I ha' sum nice cheap books in my bag yonder 
 sum as low as a penny." 
 
 " I should like to see them," said Lenny, his eyes 
 sparkling. 
 
 The Tinker rose, opened one of the panniers on the 
 ass's back, took out a bag, which he placed before Lenny, 
 and told him to suit himself. The young peasant desired 
 no better. He spread all the contents of the bag on the 
 sward, and a motley collection of food for the mind was 
 there food and poison serpentes avibus good and evil. 
 Here Milton's Paradise Lost, there The Age of Reason 
 here Methodist Tracts, there True Principles of Socialism 
 Treatises on Useful Knowledge by sound learning actua- 
 ted by pure benevolence Appeals to Operatives by the 
 shallowest reasoners, instigated by the same ambition that 
 had moved Eratosthenes to the conflagration of a temple ; 
 works of fiction admirable as Robinson Crusoe, or innocent 
 as the Old English Baron ; besides coarse translations of 
 such garbage as had rotted away the youth of France 
 under Louis Quinze. This miscellany was an epitome, in 
 short, of the mixed World of Books, of that vast City of 
 the Press, with its palaces and hovels, its aqueducts and 
 sewers which opens all alike to the naked eye and the 
 curious mind of him to whom you say, in the Tinker's care- 
 less phrase, " Suit yourself." 
 
 But it is not the first im pulse of a nature, healthful and 
 still pure, to settle in the hovel and lose itself amidst the
 
 230 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 sewers ; and Lenny Fairfield turned innocently over the 
 bad books, and selecting two or three of the best, brought 
 them to the Tinker, and asked the price. 
 
 "Why," said Mr. Sprott, putting on his spectacles, 
 " you have taken the werry dearest ; them 'ere be much 
 cheaper, and more hinterestin'." 
 
 "But I don't fancy them," answered Lenny; "I don't 
 understand what they are about, and this seems to tell one 
 how the steam-engine is made, and has nice plates ; and 
 this is Robinson Crusoe, which Parson Dale once said he 
 would give me I'd rather buy it out of my own money." 
 
 "Well, please yourself," quoth the Tinker; "you shall 
 have the books for four bob, and you can pay me next 
 month." 
 
 " Four bobs four shillings ? it is a great sum," said 
 Lenny ; " but I will lay by, as you are kind enough to 
 trust me ; good evening, Mr. Sprott." 
 
 "Stay a bit," said the Tinker; "I'll just throw you 
 these two little tracts into the bargain ; they be only a 
 shilling a dozen, so 'tis but tuppence and when you has 
 read those, vy, you'll be a reglar customer." 
 
 The Tinker tossed to Lenny Nos. i and 2 of Appeals 
 to Operatives, and the peasant took them up gratefully. 
 
 The young knowledge-seeker went his way across the 
 green fields, and under the still autumn foliage of the 
 hedge-rows. He looked first at one book, then at another ; 
 he did not know on which to settle. 
 
 The Tinker rose and made a fire with leaves, and furze, 
 and sticks, some dry and some green. 
 
 Lenny has now opened No. i of the tracts ; they are 
 the shortest to read, and don't require so much effort of 
 the mind as the explanation of the steam-engine. 
 
 The Tinker has set on his grimy glue-pot, and the glue 
 simmers. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 As Violante became more familiar with her new home, 
 and those around her became more familiar with Violante, 
 she was remarked for a certain stateliness of manner and 
 bearing, which, had it been less evidently natural and 
 inborn, would have seemed misplaced in the daughter of
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 231 
 
 a forlorn exile, and would have been rare at so early an 
 age among children of the loftiest pretensions. It was 
 with the air of a little princess that she presented her 
 tiny hand to a friendly pressure, or submitted her calm 
 clear cheek to a presuming kiss. Yet withal she was so 
 graceful, and her very stateliness was so pretty and capti- 
 vating, that she was not the less loved for all her grand 
 airs. And, indeed, she deserved to be loved ; for though 
 she was certainly prouder than Mr. Dale could approve 
 of, her pride was devoid of egotism ; and that is a pride 
 by no means common. She had an intuitive forethought 
 for others ; you could see that she was capable of that 
 grand woman-heroism, abnegation of self ; and though 
 she was an original child, and often grave and musing, 
 with a tinge of melancholy, sweet, but deep in her charac- 
 ter, still she was not above the happy, genial merriment of 
 childhood only her silver laugh was more attuned, and 
 her gestures more composed, than those of children habitu- 
 ated to many playfellows usually are. Mrs. Hazeldean 
 liked her best when she was grave, and said " she would 
 become a very sensible woman." Mrs. Dale liked her best 
 when she was gay, and said " she was born to make many 
 a heart ache ;" for which Mrs. Dale was properly reproved 
 by the Parson. Mrs. Hazeldean gave her a set of garden 
 tools ; Mrs. Dale a picture-book and a beautiful doll. For 
 a long time the book and the doll had the preference. But 
 Mrs. Hazeldean having observed to Riccabocca that the 
 poor child looked pale, and ought to be a good deal in the 
 open air, the wise father ingeniously pretended to Violante 
 that Mrs. Riccabocca had taken a great fancy to the 
 picture-book, and that he should be very glad to have 
 the doll, upon which Violante hastened to give them both 
 away, and was never so happy as when mamma (as she 
 called Mrs. Riccabocca) was admiring the picture-book, and 
 Riccabocca with austere gravity dandled the doll. Then 
 Riccabocca assured her that she could be of great use to 
 him in the garden ; and Violante instantly put into move- 
 ment her spade, hoe, and wheel-barrow. 
 
 This last occupation brought her into immediate con- 
 tact with Mr. Leonard Fairneld ; and that personage one 
 morning, to his great horror, found Miss Violante had 
 nearly exterminated a whole celery-bed, which she had 
 ignorantly conceived to be a crop of weeds. 
 
 Lenny was extremely angry. He snatched away the hoe,
 
 232 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 and said angrily, "You must not do that, miss ; I'll tell your 
 papa if you " 
 
 Violante drew herself up, and never having been so 
 spoken to before, at least since her arrival in England, there 
 was something comic in the surprise of her large eyes, as 
 well as something tragic in the dignity of her offended 
 mien. " It is very naughty of you, miss," continued Leon- 
 ard in a milder tone, for he was both softened by the eyes 
 and awed by the mien, " and I trust you will not do it 
 again." 
 
 " Non capiseo " (I don't understand), murmured Violante, 
 and the dark eyes filled with tears. At that moment, up 
 came Jackeymo ; and Violante, pointing to Leonard, said, 
 with an effort not to betray her emotion, ^ II fanciullo <? 
 molto grossolano " (he is a very rude boy). 
 
 Jackeymo turned to Leonard with the look of an en- 
 raged tiger. " How you dare, scum of de earth that you 
 are," cried he,* "how you dare make cry the signorina ? " 
 And his English not supplying familiar vituperatives suf- 
 ficiently, he poured out upon Lenny such a profusion of 
 Italian abuse, that the boy turned red and white, in a breath, 
 with rage and perplexity. 
 
 Violante took instant compassion upon the victim she 
 had made, and, with true feminine caprice, now began to 
 scold Jackeymo for his anger, and, finally approaching 
 Leonard, laid her hand on his arm, and said with a kindness 
 at once child-like and queenly, and in the prettiest imagin- 
 able mixture of imperfect English and soft Italian, to which 
 I cannot pretend to do justice, and shall therefore translate : 
 " Don't mind him. I dare say it was all my fault, only I did 
 not understand you ; are not these things weeds ? " 
 
 "No, my darling signorina," said Jackeymo in Italian, 
 looking ruefully at the celery-bed, " they are not weeds, and 
 they sell very well at this time of the year. But still if it 
 amuses you to pluck them up, I should like to see who's to 
 prevent it." 
 
 Lenny walked away. He had been called " the scum of 
 the earth," by a foreigner too ! He had again been ill-treated 
 for doing what he conceived his duty. He was again feel- 
 ing the distinction between rich and poor, and he now 
 fancied that that distinction involved deadly warfare, for he 
 
 * It need scarcely be observed that Jackeymo, in his conversations with his master or Vio- 
 lante, or his conferences with himself, employs his native language, which is therefore trans- 
 lated without the blunders that he is driven to commit when compelled to trust himself to the 
 tongue of the country in which he is a sojourner.
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 233 
 
 had read from beginning to end those two damnable tracts 
 which the Tinker had presented to him. But in the midst 
 of all the angry disturbance of his mind, he felt the soft 
 touch of the infant's hand, the soothing influence of her 
 conciliating words, and he was half ashamed that he had 
 spoken so roughly to a child. 
 
 Still, not trusting himself to speak, he walked away, and 
 sat down at a distance. "I don't see," thought he, "why 
 there should be rich and poor, master and servant." Lenny, 
 be it remembered, had not heard the Parson's Political 
 Sermon. 
 
 An hour after, having composed himself, Lenny returned 
 to his work. Jackeymo was no longer in the garden ; he 
 had gone to the fields ; but Riccabocca was standing by the 
 celery-bed, and holding the red silk umbrella over Violante 
 as she sat on the ground, looking up at her father with those 
 eyes already so full of intelligence, and love, and soul. 
 
 "Lenny," said Riccabocca, "my young lady has been 
 telling me that she has been very naughty, and Giacomo 
 very unjust to you. Forgive them both." 
 
 Lenny's sullenness melted in an instant ; the reminis- 
 cences of tracts Nos. i and 2, 
 
 " Like the baseless fabric of a vision, 
 Left not a wreck behind." 
 
 He raised his eyes, swimming with all his native goodness 
 toward the wise man, and dropped them gratefully on the 
 infant peace-maker. Then he turned away his head and 
 fairly wept. The ' Parson was right : " O ye poor, have 
 charity for the rich ; O ye rich, respect the poor." 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Now from that day the humble Lenny and regal Vio- 
 lante became great friends. With what pride he taught her 
 to distinguish between celery and weeds and how proud 
 too was she when she learned that she was useful ' ! There is 
 not a greater pleasure you can give children, especially 
 female children, tha'n to make them feel they are already of 
 value in the world, and serviceable as well as protected.
 
 234 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 Weeks and months rolled away, and Lenny still read, not 
 only the books lent him by the Doctor, but those he bought 
 of Mr. Sprott. As for the bombs and shells against religion 
 which the Tinker carried in his bag, Lenny was not induced 
 to blow himself up with them. He had been reared from 
 his cradle in simple love and reverence for the Divine 
 Father, and the tender Savior, whose life beyond all epics of 
 mortal heroism, no being whose infancy has been taught to 
 supplicate the Merciful and adore the Holy, yea, even 
 t'hough his later life may be entangled amidst the thorns of 
 some desolate pyrrhonism, can ever hear reviled and scoffed 
 without a shock to the conscience and a revolt to the heart. 
 As the deer recoils by instinct from the tiger, as the very 
 look of the scorpion deters you from handling it, though 
 you never saw a scorpion before, so the very first line in 
 some ribald profanity on which the Tinker put his black 
 finger, made Lenny's blood run cold. Safe, too, was the 
 peasant boy from any temptation in works of a gross and 
 licentious nature, not only because of the happy ignorance 
 of his rural life, but because of a more enduring safeguard 
 genius ! Genius, that, manly, robust, healthful as it be, is 
 long before it lose its instinctive Dorian modesty ; shame- 
 faced, because so susceptible to glory genius, that loves in- 
 deed to dream, but on the violet bank, not the dunghill. 
 Wherefore, even in the error of the senses, it seeks to escape 
 from the sensual into worlds of fancy, subtle and refined. 
 But apart from the passions, true genius is the most practical 
 of all human gifts. Like the Apollo whom the Greek 
 worshipped as its type, even Arcady is its exile, not its 
 home. Soon weary of the dalliance of Tempc, it ascends to 
 its mission the Archer of the silver bow, the guide of the 
 car of light. Speaking more plainly, genius is the enthusi- 
 asm for self-improvement ; it ceases or sleeps the moment 
 it desist from seeking some object which it believes of value, 
 and by that object it insensibly connects its self-improve- 
 ment with the positive advance of the world. At present 
 Lenny's genius had no bias that was not to the Positive and 
 Useful. It took the direction natural to its sphere, and the 
 wants therein viz., to the arts which we call mechanical. 
 He wanted to know about steam-engines and Artesian wells ; 
 and to know about them it was necessary to know some- 
 thing of mechanics and hydrostatics ; so he bought popular 
 elementary works on those mystic sciences, and set all the 
 powers of his mind at work on experiments.
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 235 
 
 Noble and generous spirits are ye, who, with small care 
 for fame, and little reward from pelf, have opened to the in- 
 tellects of the poor the portals of wisdom ! I honor and 
 revere ye ; only do not think ye have done all that is need- 
 ful. Consider, I pray ye, whether so good a thoice from 
 the Tinker's bag would have been made by a boy whom re- 
 ligion had not scared from the pestilent, and genius had 
 not led to the self-improving. And Lenny did not wholly 
 escape from the mephitic portions of the motley elements 
 from which his awakening mind drew its nurture. Think 
 not it was all pure oxygen that the panting lip drew in. 
 No ; there were still those inflammatory tracts. Political I 
 do not like to call them, for politics means the art of gov- 
 ernment, and the tracts I speak of assailed all government 
 which mankind has hitherto recognized. Sad rubbish, per- 
 haps, were such tracts to you, O sound thinker, in your 
 easy-chair ! Or to you practised statesman, at your post on 
 the Treasury Bench to you, calm dignitary of a learned 
 Church or to you, my lord judge, who may often have 
 sent from your bar to the dire Orcus of Norfolk's Isle the 
 ghosts of men whom that rubbish, falling simultaneously on 
 the bumps of acquisitiveness and combativeness, hath un- 
 timely slain ! Sad rubbish to you ! But seems it such rub- 
 bish to the poor man, to whom it promises a paradise on the 
 easy terms of upsetting a world ? For ye see, those "Ap- 
 peals to Operatives" represent that same world-upsetting as 
 the simplest thing imaginable a sort of two-and-two-make 
 four proposition. The poor have only got to set their 
 strong hands to the axle, and heave a-hoy ! and hurrah for 
 the topsy-turvy ! Then, just to put a little wholesome rage 
 into the heave-a-hoy ! it is so facile to accompany the elo- 
 quence of " Appeals " with a kind of stir-the-bile-up statis- 
 tics " Abuses of the Aristocracy " " Jobs of the Priest- 
 hood " " Expenses of the Army kept up for Peers' 
 younger sons" "Wars contracted for the villanous pur- 
 pose of raising the rents of the land-owners " all arithme- 
 tically dished up, and seasoned with tales of every gentle- 
 man who has committed a misdeed, every clergyman who 
 has dishonored his cloth ; as if such instances were fair 
 specimens of average gentlemen and ministers of religion ! 
 All this passionately advanced (and observe, never answered, 
 for that literature admits no controversialists, and the writer 
 has it all his own way) may be rubbish ; but it is out of
 
 236 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 such rubbish that operatives build barricades for attack, and 
 legislators prisons for defence. 
 
 Our poor friend Lenny drew plenty of this stuff from the 
 Tinker's bag. He thought it very clever and very eloquent ; 
 and he supposed the statistics were as true as mathematical 
 demonstrations. 
 
 A famous knowledge-diffuser is looking over my shoul- 
 der, and tells me, " Increase education, and cheapen good 
 books, and all this rubbish will disappear ! " Sir, I don't 
 believe a word of it. If you printed Ricardo and Adam 
 Smith at a farthing a volume, I still believe that they would 
 be as little read by the operatives as they are now-a-days by a 
 very large proportion of highly cultivated men. I still believe 
 that, while the press works, attacks on the rich, and propo- 
 sitions for heave-a-hoys, will always form a popular portion 
 of the Literature of Labor. There's Lenny Fairfield read- 
 ing a treatise on hydraulics, and constructing a model for a 
 fountain into the bargain ; but that does not prevent his ac- 
 quiescence in any proposition for getting rid of a National 
 Debt, which he certainly never agreed to pay, and which he 
 is told makes sugar and tea so shamefully dear. No, I tell 
 you what does a little counteract these eloquent incentives 
 to break his own head against the strong walls of the Social 
 System it is, that he has two eyes in that head, which 
 are not always employed in reading. And, having been 
 told in print that masters are tyrants, parsons hypocrites or 
 drones in the hive, and land-owners vampires and blood- 
 suckers, he looks out into the little world around him, and, 
 first, he is compelled to acknowledge that his master is not 
 a tyrant (perhaps because he is a foreigner and a philoso- 
 pher, and, for what I and Lenny know, a republican). But 
 then Parson Dale, though High Church to the marrow, is 
 neither hypocrite nor drone. He has a very good living, it 
 is true much better than he ought to have, according to 
 the " political " opinions of those tracts ! but Lenny is 
 obliged to confess that, if Parson Dale were a penny the 
 poorer, he would do a pennyworth's less good ; and, com- 
 paring one parish with another, such as Rood Hall and Ha- 
 zeldean, he is dimly aware that there is no greater CIVILIZER 
 than a person tolerably well off. Then, too, Squire Hazel- 
 dean, though as arrant a Tory as ever stood upon shoe- 
 leather, is certainly not a vampire nor blood-sucker. He 
 does not feed on the public ; a great many of the public 
 feed on him ; and, therefore, his practical experience a little
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 237 
 
 staggers and perplexes Lenny Fairfield as to the gospel ac- 
 curacy of his theoretical dogmas. Masters, parsons, and 
 land-owners ! having, at the risk of all popularity, just giv- 
 en a coup de patte to certain sages extremely the fashion at 
 present, I am not going to let you off without an admoni- 
 tory flea in the ear. Don't suppose that any mere scribbling 
 and typework will suffice to answer the scribbling and 
 typework set at work to demolish you write down that 
 rubbish you can't live it down you may. If you are rich, 
 like Squire Hazeldean, do good with your money ; if you are 
 poor, like Signer Riccabocca, do good with your kindness. 
 
 See ! there is Lenny now receiving his week's wages ; 
 and though Lenny knows that he can get higher wages in 
 the very next parish, his blue eyes are sparkling with grati- 
 tud?, not at the chink of the money, but at the poor exile's 
 friendly talk on things apart from all service ; while 
 Violante is descending the steps from the terrace, charged 
 by her mother-in-law with a little basket of sago, and such 
 like delicacies, for Mrs. Fairfield, who has been ailing the 
 last few days. 
 
 Lenny will see the Tinker as he goes home, and he will 
 buy a most Demosthenean "Appeal" a tract of tracts, 
 upon the Propriety of Strikes, and the Avarice of Masters. 
 But, somehow or other, I think a few words from Signer 
 Riccabocca, that did not cost the Signor a farthing, and the 
 sight of his mother's smile at the contents of the basket, 
 which cost very little, will serve to neutralize the effects of 
 that " Appeal," much more efficaciously than the best article 
 a Brougham or a Mill could write on the subject. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 SPRING had come again ; and one beautiful May day, 
 Leonard Fairfield sat beside the little fountain which he had 
 now actually constructed in the garden. The butterflies 
 were hovering over the belt of flowers which he had placed 
 around his fountain, and the birds were singing overhead. 
 Leonard Fairfield was resting from his day's work, to enjoy 
 his abstemious dinner, beside the cool play of the sparkling 
 waters, and, with the yet keener appetite of knowledge, he 
 devoured his book as he munched his crusts.
 
 238 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 A penny tract is the shoeing-horn of literature ! it 
 draws on a great many books, and some too tight to be very 
 useful in walking. The penny tract quotes a celebrated 
 writer you long to read him ; it props a startling assertion 
 by a grave authority you long to refer to it. During the 
 nights of the past winter, Leonard's intelligence had made 
 vast progress ! he had taught himself more than the 
 elements of mechanics, and put to practice the principles 
 he had acquired, not only in the hydraulical achievement of 
 the fountain, and in the still more notable application of 
 science, commenced on the stream in which Jackeymo had 
 fished for minnows, and which Lenny had diverted to the 
 purpose of irrigating two fields, but in various ingenious 
 contrivances for the facilitation or abridgment of labor, 
 which had excited great wonder and praise in the neighbor- 
 hood. On the other hand, those rabid little tracts, which 
 dealt so summarily with the destinies of the human race, 
 even when his growing reason, and the perusal of works 
 more classical or more logical, had led him to perceive that 
 they were illiterate, and to suspect that they jumped from 
 premises to conclusions with a celerity very different from 
 the careful ratiocination of mechanical science, had still, in 
 the citations and references wherewith they abounded, lured 
 him on to philosophers more specious and more perilous. 
 Out of the Tinker's bag he had drawn a translation of Con- 
 dorcet's Progress of Man, and another of Rousseau's Social 
 Contract. Works so eloquent had induced him to select 
 from the tracts in the Tinker's miscellany those which 
 abounded most in professions of philanthropy, and predic- 
 tions of some coming Golden Age, to which old Saturn's 
 was a joke tracts so mild and mother-like in their language, 
 that it required a much more practical experience than 
 Lenny's to perceive that you would have to pass a river of 
 blood before you had the slightest chance of setting foot on 
 the flowery banks on which they invited you to repose 
 tracts which rouged poor Christianity on the cheeks, 
 clapped a crown of innocent daffodillies on her head, and 
 set her to dancing a pas de zephyr in the pastoral ballet in 
 which St. Simon pipes to the flock he shears ; or having 
 first laid it down as a preliminary axiom that 
 
 " The cloud-capt towers, the gorgeous palaces, 
 The solemn temples, the great globe itself 
 Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,"
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 239 
 
 substituted in place thereof Monsieur Fourier's symmetrical 
 phalanstere, or Mr. Owen's architectural parallelogram. It 
 was with some such tract that Lenny was seasoning his 
 crusts and his radishes, when Riccabocca, bending his long 
 dark face over the student's shoulder, said abruptly 
 
 " JDiavolo, my friend ! what on earth have you got there ! 
 Just let me look at it, will you ? " 
 
 Leonard rose respectfully, and colored deeply as he sur-. 
 rendered the tract to Riccabocca. 
 
 The wise man read the first page attentively, the second 
 more cursorily, and only ran his eye over the rest. He had 
 gone through too vast a range of problems political, not to 
 have passed over that venerable Pans Asinorum of Socialism, 
 on which Fouriers and St. Simons sit straddling, and cry 
 aloud that they have arrived at the last boundary of know- 
 ledge ! 
 
 " All this is as old as the hills," quoth Riccabocca, ir- 
 reverently ; " but the hills stand still, and this there it 
 goes ! " and the sage pointed to a cloud emitted from his 
 pipe. " Did you ever read Sir David Brewster on Optical 
 Delusions ? No ! Well, I'll lend it to you. You will find 
 therein a story of a lady who always saw a black cat on her 
 hearth-rug. The black cat existed only in her fancy, but 
 the hallucination was natural and reasonable eh what do 
 you think ? " 
 
 "Why, sir," said Leonard, not catching the Italian's 
 meaning, " I don't exactly see that it was natural and 
 reasonable." 
 
 " Foolish boy, yes ! because black cats are things pos- 
 sible and known. But who ever saw upon earth a com- 
 munity of men such as sit on the hearth-rugs of Messrs. 
 Owen and Fourier ? If the lady's hallucination was not 
 reasonable, what is his who believes in such visions as 
 these ? " 
 
 Leonard bit his lip. 
 
 " My dear boy," cried Riccabocca, kindly, " the only 
 thing sure and tangible to which these writers would lead 
 you, lies at the first step, and that is what is commonly 
 called a Revolution. Now, I know what that is. I have 
 gone, not indeed through a revolution, but an attempt at 
 one." 
 
 Leonard raised his eyes toward his master with a look 
 of profound respect, and great curiosity. 
 
 "Yes," added Riccabocca, and the face on which the
 
 240 My NOVEL; Off, 
 
 boy gazed exchanged its usual grotesque and sardonic 
 expression for one animated, noble, and heroic. " Yes, not 
 a revolution for chimeras, but for that cause which the 
 coldest allow to be good, and which, when successful, 
 all time approves as divine the redemption of our native 
 soil from the rule of the foreigner ! I have shared in such 
 an attempt. And," continued the Italian, mournfully, " re- 
 calling now all the evil passions it arouses, all the ties it 
 dissolves, all the blood that it commands to flow, all the 
 healthful industry it arrests, all the madmen that it arms, all 
 the victims that it dupes, I question whether one man really 
 honest, pure, and humane, who has once gone through such 
 an ordeal, would ever hazard it again, unless he was as- 
 sured that the victory was certain ay, and the object for 
 which he fights not to be wrested from his hands amidst the 
 uproar of the elements that the battle had released." 
 
 The Italian paused, shaded his brow with his hand, and 
 remained long silent. Then gradually assuming his ordi- 
 nary tone, he continued 
 
 " Revolutions that have no definite objects made clear 
 by the positive experience of history ; revolutions, in a 
 word, that aim less at substituting one law or one dynasty 
 for another, than at changing the whole scheme of society, 
 have been little attempted by real statesmen. Even Ly- 
 curgus is proved to be a myth who never existed. Such 
 organic changes are but in the day-dreams of philosophers 
 who lived apart from the actual world, and whose opinions 
 (though generally they were very benevolent, good sort of 
 men, and wrote in an elegant poetical style) one would no 
 more take on a plain matter of life, than one would look 
 upon Virgil's Eclogues as a faithful picture of the ordinary 
 pains and pleasures of the peasants who tend our sheep. 
 Read them as you would read poets, and they are de- 
 lightful. But attempt to shape the world according to the 
 poetry, and fit yourself for a mad-house. The farther off 
 the age is from the realization of such projects, the more 
 these poor philosophers have indulged them. Thus, it was 
 amidst the saddest corruption of court manners that it be- 
 came the fashion in Paris to sit for one's picture, with a 
 crook in one's hand, as Alexis or Daphne. Just as liberty 
 was fast dying out of Greece, and the successors of Alex- 
 ander were founding their monarchies, and Rome was 
 growing up to crush in its iron grasp all states save its 
 own, Plato withdraws his eyes from the world to open them
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 241 
 
 in his dreamy Atlantis. Just in the grimmest period of 
 English history, with the axe hanging over his head, Sir 
 Thomas More gives you his Utopia. Just when the world 
 is to be the theatre of a new Sesostris, the sages of France 
 tell you that the age is too enlightened for war, that man is 
 henceforth to be governed by pure reason, and live in a 
 paradise. Very pretty reading all this to a man like me, 
 Lenny, who can admire and smile at it. But to you, to the 
 man who has to work for his living, to the man who thinks 
 it would be so much more pleasant to live at his ease in a 
 phalanstere than to work eight or ten hours a-day ; to 
 the man of talent, and action, and industry, whose future is 
 invested in that tranquillity and order of a state in which 
 talent, and action, and industry, are a certain capital ; 
 why, Messrs. Coutts, the great bankers, had better en- 
 courage a theory to upset the system of banking ! What- 
 ever disturbs society, yea, even by a causeless panic, much 
 more by an actual struggle, falls first upon the market of 
 labor, and thence affects prejudicially every department of 
 intelligence. In such times the arts are arrested ; literature 
 is neglected ; people are too busy to read anything save ap- 
 peals to their passions. And capital, shaken in its sense of 
 security, no longer ventures boldly through the land, call- 
 ing forth all the energies of toil and enterprise, and extend- 
 ing to every workman his reward. Now, Lenny, take this 
 piece of advice. You are young, clever, and aspiring ; men 
 rarely succeed in changing the world ; but a man seldom 
 fails of success, if he lets the world alone, and resolves to 
 make the best of it. You are in the midst of the great crisis 
 of your life ; it is the struggle between the new desires 
 knowledge excites, and that sense of poverty, which those 
 desires convert either into hope and emulation, or into envy 
 and despair. I grant that it is an up-hill work that lies be- 
 fore you ; but don't you think it is always easier to climb a 
 mountain than it is to level it ? These books call on you to 
 level the mountain ; and that mountain is the property of 
 other people, subdivided amongst a great many proprietors, 
 and protected by law. At the first stroke of the pickaxe, it 
 is ten to one but what you are taken up for a trespass. But 
 the path up the mountain is a right of way uncontested. 
 You may be safe at the summit, before (even if the owners 
 are fools enough to let you) you could have levelled a yard. 
 Cospetto ! " quoth the doctor, " it is more than two thousand
 
 242 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 years ago since poor Plato began to level it, and the 
 mountain is as high as ever ! " 
 
 Thus saying, Riccabocca came to the end of his pipe, 
 and stalking thoughtfully away, he left Leonard Fairfield 
 trying to extract light from the smoke. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 SHORTLY after this discourse of Riccabocca's, an incident 
 occurred to Leonard that served to carry his mind into new 
 directions. One evening, when his mother was out, he was 
 at work on a new mechanical contrivance, and had the mis- 
 fortune to break one of the instruments which he employed. 
 Now, it will he remembered that his father had been the 
 Squire's head carpenter ;~tbe widow had carefully hoarded 
 the tools of his craft, \vhich had belonged to her poor Mark ; 
 and though she occasionally lent them to Leonard, she would 
 not give them up to his service. Amongst these, Leonard 
 knew that he should find the one that he wanted ; and being 
 much interested in his contrivance, he could not wait till 
 his mother's return. The tools, with other little relics of the 
 lost, were kept in a large trunk in Mrs. Fairfield's sleeping- 
 room ; the trunk w r as not locked, and Leonard went to it 
 without ceremony or scruple. In rummaging for the instru- 
 ment, his eye fell upon a bundle of MSS. ; and he suddenly 
 recollected that when he was a mere child, and before he 
 much knew the difference between verse and prose, his 
 mother had pointed to these MSS., and said, "One day or 
 other, when you can read nicely, I'll let you look at these, 
 Lenny. My poor Mark wrote such verses ah, he was a 
 schollard \" Leonard, reasonably enough, thought that 
 tho time had now arrived when he was worthy the privilege of 
 reading the paternal effusions, and he took forth the MSS. 
 with a keen but melancholy interest. He recognized his 
 father's hand-writing, which he had often seen before in 
 account-books and memoranda, and read eagerly some tri- 
 fling poems, which did not show much genius, nor much 
 mastery of language and rhythm such poems, in short, as 
 a self-educated man, with poetic taste and feeling, rather 
 than poetic inspiration or artistic culture, might compose 
 with credit, but not for fame. But suddenly, as he turned
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 243 
 
 over these " Occasional Pieces," Leonard came to others in 
 a different handwriting a woman's handwriting, small, 
 and fine, and exquisitely formed. He had scarcely read six 
 lines of these last, before his attention was irresistibly chained. 
 They were of a different order of merit from poor Mark's ; 
 they bore the unmistakable stamp of genius. Like the poetry 
 of women in general, they were devoted to personal feeling ; 
 they were not the mirror of a world, but reflections of a 
 solitary heart. Yet this is the kind of poetry most pleasing 
 to the young. And the verses in question had another 
 attraction for Leonard ; they seemed to express some struggle 
 akin to his own, some complaint against the actual condi- 
 tion of the writer's life, some sweet, melodious murmurs 
 at fortune. For the rest, they were characterized by a vein 
 of sentiment so elevated, that if written by a man it would 
 have run into exaggeration ; written by a woman, the ro- 
 mance was carried off by so many genuine revelations of 
 sincere, deep, pathetic feeling, that it was always natural, 
 though true to a nature for which you would not augur 
 happiness. 
 
 Leonard was still absorbed in the perusal of these poems, 
 when Mrs. Fairfield entered' the room. 
 
 " What have you been about, Lenny searching in my 
 box ? " 
 
 " I came to look for my father's bag of tools, mother, 
 and I found these papers, which you said I might read some 
 day." 
 
 " I doesn't wonder you did not hear me when I came in," 
 said the widow, sighing. " I used to sit still for the hour 
 together, when my poor Mark read his poems to me. There 
 was such a pretty one about the ' Peasant's Fireside,' Lenny ; 
 have you got hold of that ? " 
 
 "Yes, dear mother ; and I remarked the allusion to you ; 
 it brought tears to my eyes. But these verses are not my 
 father's, whose are they ? They seem in a woman's hand- 
 writing." 
 
 Mrs. Fairfield looked, changed color, grew faint, and 
 seated herself. 
 
 " Poor, poor Nora ! " said she, falteringly. " I did not 
 know as they were there ; Mark kep 'em ; they got among 
 his " 
 
 LEONARD. Who was Nora? 
 
 MRS. FAIRFIELD. Who ? child who ? Nora was was 
 my own sister.
 
 244 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 LEONARD (in great amaze, contrasting his ideal of the 
 writer of these musical lines, in that graceful hand, with his 
 homely, uneducated mother, who could neither read nor 
 write). Your sister ! is it possible ? My aunt, then. How 
 comes it you never spoke of her before ? Oh ! you should 
 be so proud of her, mother. 
 
 MRS. FAIRFIELD (clasping her hands). We were proud 
 of her, all of us father, mother all ! She was so beauti- 
 ful and so good, and not proud she ! though she looked like 
 the first lady in the land. Oh ! Nora, Nora ! 
 
 LEONARD (after a pause). But she must have been highly 
 educated ? 
 
 MRS. FAIRFIELD. 'Deed she was ! 
 
 LEONARD. How was that ? 
 
 MRS. FAIRFIELD (rocking herself to and fro in her chair). 
 Oh ! my Lady was her godmother Lady Lansmere I 
 mean, and took a fancy to her when she was that high ! 
 and had her to stay at the Park, and wait on her Ladyship ; 
 and then she put her to school, and Nora was so clever, that 
 nothing would do but she must go to London as a governess. 
 But don't talk of it, boy ! don't talk of it ! 
 
 LEONARD. Why not, mother ? What has become of 
 her ? where is she ? 
 
 MRS. FAIRFIELD (bursting into a paroxysm of tears). In 
 her grave in her cold grave ! Dead, dead ! 
 
 Leonard was inexpressibly grieved and shocked. It is 
 the attribute of the poet to seem always living, always a 
 friend. Leonard felt as if some one very dear had been 
 suddenly torn from his heart. He tried to console his 
 mother ; but her emotion was contagious, and he wept with 
 her. 
 
 " And how long has she been dead ? " he asked, at last, 
 in mournful accents. 
 
 " Many's the long year many ; but," added Mrs. Fair- 
 field, rising, and putting her tremulous hand on Leonard's 
 shoulder, " you'll just never talk to me about her I 
 can't bear it it breaks my heart ; I can bear better to talk 
 of Mark. Come down stairs come." 
 
 "May I not keep these verses, mother ? Do let me." 
 
 " Well, well, those bits o' paper be all she left behind her. 
 Yes, keep them, but put back Mark's. Are they all here ? 
 sure ? " And the widow, though she could not read her hus- 
 band's verses, looked jealously at the MSS. written in his 
 irregular large scrawl, and, smoothing them carefully, re-
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 245 
 
 placed them in the trunk, and resettled over them some 
 sprigs of lavender, which Leonard had unwittingly dis- 
 turbed. 
 
 " But," said Leonard, as his eye again rested on the 
 beautiful handwriting of his lost aunt " but you call her 
 Nora I see she signs herself L." 
 
 " Leonora was her name. I said she was my lady's god- 
 child. We called her Nora for short 
 
 " Leonora and I am Leonard is that how I came by 
 the name ? " 
 
 "Yes, yes do hold your tongue, boy," sobbed poor Mrs. 
 Fairfield ; and she could not be soothed nor coaxed into 
 continuing or renewing a subject which was evidently asso- 
 ciated with insupportable pain. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 IT is difficult to exaggerate the effect that this discovery 
 produced on Leonard's train of thought. Some one belong- 
 ing to his own humble race had, then, preceded him in his 
 struggling flight toward the loftier regions of Intelligence 
 and Desire. It was like the mariner amidst unknown seas, 
 who finds carved upon some desert isle a familiar household 
 name. And this creature of genius and of sorrow whose 
 existence he had only learned by her song, and whose death 
 created in the simple heart of her sister, so passionate a 
 grief, after the lapse of so many years supplied to the 
 romance awaking in his young heart the ideal which it un- 
 consciously sought. He was pleased to hear that she had 
 been beautiful and good. He paused from his books to 
 muse on her, and picture her image to his fancy. That 
 there was some mystery in her fate was evident to him ; and 
 while that conviction deepened his interest, the mystery it- 
 self, by degrees, took a charm which he was not anxious to dis- 
 pel. He resigned himself to Mrs. Fairfield's obstinate silence. 
 He was contented to rank the dead amongst those holy and 
 ineffable images which we do not seek to unveil. Youth 
 and Fancy have many secret hoards of idea which they do 
 not desire to impart, even to those most in their confidence. 
 I doubt the depth of feeling in any man who has not certain 
 recesses in his soul into which none may enter.
 
 246 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 Hitherto, as I have said, the talents of Leonard Fairfield 
 had been more turned to tilings positive than*to the ideal ; 
 to science and investigation of fact than to poetry, and 
 that airier truth in which poetry has its element. He had 
 read our greater poets, indeed, but without thought of im- 
 itating ; and rather from the general curiosity to inspect all 
 celebrated monuments of the human mind, than from that 
 especial predilection for verse which is too common in child- 
 hood and youth to be any sure sign of a poet. But now 
 these melodies, unknown to all the world beside, rang in his 
 ear, mingled with his thoug hts set, as it were, his whole 
 life to music. He read poetry with a different sentiment 
 it seemed to him that he had discovered its secret. And so 
 reading, the passion seized him, and " the numbers came." 
 
 To many minds, at the commencement of our grave and 
 earnest pilgrimage, I am Vandal enough to think that the 
 indulgence of poetic taste and reverie does great and 
 lasting harm ; that it serves to enervate the character, give 
 false ideas of life, impart the semblance of drudgery to the 
 noble toils and duties of the active man. All poetry would 
 not do this not, for instance, the Classical, in its diviner 
 masters not the poetry of Homer, of Virgil, of Sophocles 
 not, perhaps, even that of the indolent Horace. But the 
 poetry which youth usually loves and appreciates the best 
 the poetry of mere, sentiment does so in minds already 
 over-predisposed to the sentiment, and which require brac- 
 ing to grow into healthful manhood. 
 
 On the other hand, even this latter kind of poetry, which 
 is peculiarly modern, does suit many minds of another 
 mould minds which our modern life, with its hard positive 
 forms; 1 tends to produce. And as in certain climates plants 
 and herbs, particularly adapted as antidotes to those diseases 
 most prevalent in the atmosphere, are profusely sown, as it 
 were, by the benignant providence of nature so it may be 
 that the softer and more romantic species of poetry, which 
 comes forth in harsh, money-making, unromantic times, is 
 intended as curatives and counter-poisons. The world is so 
 much with us, now-a-days, that we need have something 
 that prates to us, albeit even in too fine an euphuism, of the 
 moon and stars. 
 
 Certes, to Leonard Fairfield, at that period of his intel- 
 lectual life, the softness of out Helicon descended as healing 
 dews. In his turbulent and unsettled ambition, in his vague 
 grapple with the giant forms of political truths, in his bias
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 247 
 
 toward the application of science to immediate practical 
 purposes, this lovely vision of the Muse came in the white 
 robe of the Peacemaker ; and with upraised hand, pointing 
 to serene skies, she opened to him fair glimpses of the Beau- 
 tiful, which is given to Peasant as to Prince showed to him 
 that on the surface of the earth there is something nobler 
 than fortune that he who can view the world as a poet is 
 always at soul a king ; while to practical purpose itself, that 
 larger and more profound invention, which poetry stimu- 
 lates, supplied the grand design and the subtle view lead- 
 ing him beyond the mere ingenuity of the mechanic, and 
 habituating him to regard the inert force of the matter at his 
 command with the ambition of the Discoverer. But above 
 all, the discontent that was within him finding a vent, not 
 in deliberate war upon this actual world, but through the 
 purifying channels of song in the vent itself it evaporated, 
 it was lost. By accustoming ourselves to survey all things 
 with the spirit that retains and reproduces them only in 
 their lovelier or grander aspects, avast philosophy of tolera- 
 tion for what we before gazed on with scorn or hate insen- 
 sibly grows upon us. Leonard looked into his heart after 
 the Enchantress had breathed upon it ; and through the 
 mists of the fleeting and tender melancholy which betrayed 
 where she had been, he beheld a new sum of delight and 
 joy dawning over the landscape of human life. 
 
 Thus, though she was dead and gone from his actual 
 knowledge, this mysterious kinswoman "a voice, and 
 nothing more " had spoken to him, soothed, elevated, 
 cheered, attuned each discord into harmony; and, if now 
 permitted from some serener sphere to behold the life that 
 her soul thus strangely influenced, verily with yet holier 
 joy, the saving and lovely spirit might have glided onward 
 in the Eternal Progress. 
 
 We call the large majority of human lives obscure. Pre- 
 sumptuous that we are ! How know we what lives a single 
 thought retained from the dust of nameless graves may 
 have lighted to renown ?
 
 248 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 IT was about a year after Leonard's discovery of the 
 family MSS. that Parson Dale borrowed the quietest pad 
 mare in the Squire's stables, and set out on an equestrian 
 excursion. He said that he was bound on business con- 
 nected with his old parishioners of Lansmere ; for, as it has 
 been incidentally implied in a previous chapter, he had 
 been connected with that borough town (and, I may here 
 add, in the capacity of curate) before he had been inducted 
 into the living of Hazeldean. 
 
 It was so rarely that the Parson stirred from home, 
 that this journey to a town more than twenty miles off was 
 regarded as a most daring adventure, both at the Hall and 
 at the Parsonage. Mrs. Dale could not sleep the whole 
 previous night with thinking of it ; and though she had 
 naturally one of her worst nervous headaches on the event- 
 ful morn, she yet suffered no hands less thoughtful than 
 her own to pack up the saddle-bags which the Parson had 
 borrowed along with the pad. Nay, so distrustful was she 
 of the possibility of the good man's exerting the slightest 
 common sense in her absence, that she kept him close at 
 her side while she was engaged in that same operation of 
 packing up showing him the exact spot in which the 
 clean shirt was put, and how nicely the old slippers were 
 packed up in one of his own sermons. She implored him 
 not to mistake the sandwiches for his shaving-soap, and 
 made him observe how carefully she had provided against 
 such confusion, by placing them as far apart from each 
 other as the nature of saddle-bags will admit. The poor 
 Parson who was really by no means an absent man, but 
 as little likely to shave himself with sandwiches and lunch 
 upon soap as the most common-place mortal may be lis- 
 tened with conjugal patience, and thought that man never 
 had such a wife before ; nor was it without tears in his own 
 eyes that he tore himself from the farewell embrace of his 
 weeping Carry. 
 
 I confess, however, that it was with some apprehension 
 that he set his foot in the stirrup, and trusted his person 
 to the mercies of an unfamiliar animal. For, whatever
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 249 
 
 might be Mr. Dale's minor accomplishments as man and 
 parson, horsemanship was not \i\$ forte ; indeed, I doubt if 
 he had taken the reins in his hand more than twice since he 
 had been married. 
 
 The Squire's surly old groom, Mat, was in attendance 
 with the pad ; and to the Parson's gentle inquiry whether 
 Mat was quite sure that the pad was quite safe, replied la- 
 conically, " Oi, oi, give her her head ! " 
 
 " Give her her head ! " repeated Mr. Dale, rather amazed, 
 for he had not the slightest intention of taking away that 
 part of the beast's frame so essential to its vital economy 
 " Give her her head ! " 
 
 " Oi, oi ; and don't jerk her up like that, or she'll fall a 
 doincing on her hind-legs." 
 
 The Parson instantly slackened the reins ; and Mrs. 
 Dale who had tarried behind to control her tears now 
 running to the door for " more last words," he waved his 
 hand with courageous amenity, and ambled forth into the 
 lane. 
 
 Our equestrian was absorbed at first in studying the 
 idiosyncrasies of the pad-mare, and trying thereby to arrive 
 at some notion of her general character : guessing, for in- 
 stance, why she raised one ear and laid down the other ; 
 why she kept bearing so close to the left that she brushed 
 his leg against the hedge ; and why, when she arrived at a 
 little side-gate in the fields, which led toward the home- 
 farm, she came to a full stop, and fell to rubbing her nose 
 against the rail an occupation from which the Parson, 
 finding all civil remonstrances in vain, at length diverted 
 her by a timorous application of the whip. 
 
 This crisis on the road fairly passed, the pad seemed to 
 comprehend that she had a journey before her, and giving 
 a petulant whisk of her tail, quickened her amble into a 
 short trot, which soon brought the Parson into the high- 
 road, and nearly opposite the Casino. 
 
 Here, sitting on the gate which led to his abode, and 
 shaded by his umbrella, he beheld Dr. Riccabocca. 
 
 The Italian lifted his eyes from the book he was reading, 
 and stared hard at the Parson ; and he not venturing to 
 withdraw his w T hole attention from the pad (who, indeed, 
 set up both her ears at the apparition of Riccabocca, and 
 evinced symptoms of that surprise and superstitious repug- 
 nance at unknown objects, which goes by the name of 
 "shying") looked askance at Riccabocca.
 
 250 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 "Don't stir, please," said the Parson, "or I fear you'll 
 alarm this creature ; it seems a nervous, timid thing ; soho 
 gently gently." 
 
 And he fell to patting the mare with great unction. 
 
 The pad, thus encouraged, overcame her first natural 
 astonishment at the sight of Riccabocca and the red um- 
 brella ; and having before been at the Casino on sundry 
 occasions, and sagaciously preferring places within the 
 range of her experience to bournes neither cognate nor 
 conjecturable, she moved gravely up toward the gate on 
 which the Italian sat ; and after eyeing him a moment as 
 much as to say, " I wish you would get off," came to a 
 dead lock. 
 
 " Well," said Riccabocca, " since your horse seems 
 more disposed to be polite to me than yourself, Mr. Dale, 
 I take the opportunity of your present involuntary pause 
 to congratulate you on your elevation in life, and to breathe 
 a friendly prayer that pride may not have a fall ! " 
 
 " Tut," said the Parson, affecting an easy air, though 
 still contemplating the pad, who appeared to have fallen 
 into a quiet doze, " it is true that I have not ridden much 
 of late years, and the Squire's horses are very high-fed and 
 spirited ; but there is no more harm in them than their 
 master when one once knows their ways." 
 
 " Chi va' piano, va sano, 
 E chi va sano va lontano," 
 
 said Riccabocca, pointing to the saddle-bags. " You go 
 slowly, therefore safely; and he who goes safely may go 
 far. You seem prepared for a journey ?" 
 
 "I am," said the Parson; "and on a matter that con- 
 cerns you a little." 
 
 " Me ! " exclaimed Riccabocca " concerns me ! " 
 
 " Yes, so far as the chance of depriving you of a servant 
 whom you like and esteem affects you." 
 
 " Oh," said Riccabocca, " I understand ; you have hinted 
 to me very often that I, or knowledge, or both together, 
 have unfitted Leonard Fairfield for service." 
 
 " I did not say that exactly ; I said that you had fitted 
 him for something higher than service. But do not repeat 
 this to him. And I cannot yet say more to you, for I am 
 very doubtful as to the success of my mission ; and it will 
 not do to unsettle poor Leonard until we are sure that we 
 can improve his condition."
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 251 
 
 " Of that you can never be sure." quoth the wise man, 
 shaking his head ; " and I can't say that I am unselfish 
 enough not to bear you a grudge for seeking to decoy 
 away from me an invaluable servant faithful, steady, in- 
 telligent, and " added Riccabocca, warming as he ap- 
 proached the climacteric adjective " exceedingly cheap ! 
 Nevertheless go, and Heaven speed you. I am not an 
 Alexander, to stand between man and the sun." 
 
 " You are a noble, great-hearted creature, Signor Ricca- 
 bocca, in spite of your cold-blooded proverbs and villan- 
 ous books." The Parson, as he said this, brought down 
 the whip-hand with so indiscreet an enthusiasm on the pad's 
 shoulder, that the poor beast, startled out of her inno- 
 cent doze, made a bolt forward, which nearly precipitated 
 Riccabocca from his seat on the stile, and then turning 
 round as the Parson tugged desperately at the rein 
 caught the bit between her teeth, and set off at a canter. 
 The Parson lost both his stirrups ; and when he regained 
 them (as the pad slackened her pace), and had time to 
 breathe and look about him, Riccabocca and the Casino 
 were both out of sight. 
 
 " Certainly," quoth Parson Dale, as he settled himself 
 with great complacency, and a conscious triumph that he 
 was still on the pad's back "certainly it is true 'that the 
 noblest conquest ever made by man was that of the horse ;' 
 a fine creature it is a very fine creature and uncommonly 
 difficult to sit on, especially without stirrups." Firmly in 
 his stirrups the Parson planted his feet ; and the heart with- 1 - 
 in him was very proud. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 THE borough town of Lansmere was situated in the 
 county adjoining that which contained the village of Hazel- 
 dean. Late at noon the Parson crossed the little stream 
 which divided the two shires, and came to an inn which 
 was placed at an angle where the great main road branched 
 off into two directions the one leading toward Lansmere, 
 the other going more direct to London. At this inn the 
 pad stopped, and put down both ears with the air of a pad 
 who has made up her mind to bait. And the Parson him-
 
 252 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 self, feeling very warm and somewhat sore, said to the 
 pad benignly, " It is just thou shalt have corn and wa- 
 ter ! " 
 
 Dismounting, therefore, and finding himself very stiff, 
 as soon as he reached terra fir ma, the Parson consigned the 
 pad to the ostler, and walked into the sanded parlor of the 
 inn, to repose himself on a very hard Windsor chair. 
 
 He had been alone rather more than half an hour, 
 reading a county newspaper which smelt much of tobacco, 
 and trying to keep off the flies that gathered round him 
 in swarms, as if they had never before seen a parson, and 
 were anxious to ascertain how the flesh of one tasted, 
 when a stage-coach stopped at the inn. A traveller got out 
 with his carpet-bag in his hand, and was shown into the 
 sanded parlor. 
 
 The Parson rose politely, and made a bow. 
 
 The traveller touched his hat, without taking it off 
 looked at Mr. Dale from top to toe then walked to the 
 window, and whistled a lively impatient tune, then strode 
 toward the fire-place and rang the bell ; then stared again 
 at the Parson ; and that gentleman having courteously 
 laid down the newspaper, the traveller seized it, threw 
 himself into a chair, flung one of his legs over the table, 
 tossed the other up on the mantelpiece, and began read- 
 ing the paper, while he tilted the chair on its hind-legs 
 with so daring a disregard to the ordinary position of 
 chairs and their occupants, that the shuddering Parson ex- 
 pected every moment to see him come down on the back of 
 his skull. 
 
 Moved, therefore, to compassion, Mr. Dale said mildly 
 
 " Those chairs are very treacherous, sir. I'm afraid 
 you'll be down." 
 
 " Eh ! " said the traveller, looking up much astonished 
 " Eh ! down ? oh, you're satirical, sir." 
 
 " Satirical, sir ? upon my word, no ! " exclaimed the 
 Parson, earnestly. 
 
 " I think every free-born man has a right to sit as he 
 pleases in his own house," resumed the traveller, with 
 warmth ; " and an inn is his own house, I guess, so long 
 as he pays his score. Betty, rny dear." 
 
 For the chambermaid had now replied to the bell. 
 
 " I han't Betty, sir ; do you want she ? " 
 
 "No, Sally cold brandy-and-water and a biscuit." 
 
 " I han't Sally, either," muttered the chambermaid ; but
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 253 
 
 the traveller, turning round, showed so smart a neck-cloth 
 and so comely a face, that she smiled, colored, and went 
 her way. 
 
 The traveller now rose, and flung down the paper. He 
 took out a penknife, and began paring his nails. Sud- 
 denly desisting from this elegant occupation, his eye caught 
 sight of the Parson's shovel-hat, which lay on a chair in 
 the corner. 
 
 "You're a clergyman, I reckon, sir," said the traveller, 
 with a slight sneer. 
 
 Again Mr. Dale bowed bowed in part deprecatingly 
 in part with dignity. It was a bow that said, " No offence, 
 sir, but I am a clergyman, and I'm not ashamed of it." 
 
 " Going far ? " asked the traveller. 
 
 PARSON Not very. 
 
 TRAVELLER. In a chase or fly ? If so, and we are going 
 the same way halves. 
 
 PARSON. Halves ? 
 
 TRAVELLER. Yes, I'll pay half the damage pikes in- 
 clusive. 
 
 PARSON. You are very good, sir. But [spoken with 
 pride] I am on horseback. 
 
 TRAVELLER. On horseback ! Well, I should not have 
 guessed that ! You don't look like it. Where did you say 
 you were going ? 
 
 " I did not say where I was going, sir," said the Parson 
 dryly, for he was much offended at that vague and ungram- 
 matical remark applicable to his horsemanship, that " he 
 did not look like it." 
 
 " Close ! " said the traveller, laughing ; " an old traveller, 
 I reckon." 
 
 The Parson made no reply, but he took up his shovel- 
 hat, and, with a bow more majestic than the previous one, 
 \valked out to see if his pad had finished her corn. 
 
 The animal had indeed finished all the corn afforded to 
 her, which was not much, and in a few minutes more Mr. 
 Dale resumed his journey. He had performed about three 
 miles, when the sound of wheels behind him made him 
 turn his head, and he perceived a chase driven very fast, 
 while out of the windows thereof dangled strangely a pair 
 of human legs. The pad began to curvet as the post- 
 horses rattled behind, and the Parson had only an indis- 
 tinct vision of a human face supplanting those human legs. 
 The traveller peered out at him as he whirled by saw Mr.
 
 254 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 Dale tossed up and down on the saddle, and cried out, 
 "How's the leather?" 
 
 " Leather! " soliloquized the Parson, as the pad recom- 
 posed herself. " What does he mean by that ? Leather ! a 
 very vulgar man. But I got rid of him cleverly." 
 
 . Mr. Dale arrived without farther adventure at Lans- 
 mere. He put up at the principal inn refreshed himself 
 by a general ablution and sat down with good appetite 
 to his beef-steak and pint of port. 
 
 The Parson was a better judge of the physiognomy of 
 man than that of the horse ; and after a satisfactory glance 
 at the civil smirking landlord, who removed the cover and 
 set on the wine, he ventured on an attempt at conversation. 
 "Is my lord at the Park ? " 
 
 LANDLORD (still more civilly than before). No, sir ; his 
 lordship and my lady have gone to town to meet Lord 
 L'Estrange." 
 
 " Lord L'Estrange ? He is in England, then?" 
 
 "Why, so I heard," replied the landlord; "but we 
 never see him here now. I remember him a very pretty 
 young man. Every one was fond of him and proud of him. 
 But what pranks he did play when he was a lad ! We 
 hoped he would come in for our boro' some of these days, 
 but he has taken to foreign parts more's the pity. I am a 
 reg'lar Blue, sir, as I ought to be. The Blue candidate al- 
 ways does me the honor to come to the Lansmere Arms. 
 'Tis only the low party puts up with the Boar," added the 
 landlord, with a look of ineffable disgust. " I hope you like 
 the wine, sir ? " 
 
 "Very good, and seems old." 
 
 " Bottled these eighteen years, sir. I had in the cask 
 for the great election of Dashmore and Egerton. I have 
 little left of it, and I never give it but to old friends like 
 for, I think, sir, though you be grown stout, and look more 
 grand, I may say that I've had the pleasure of seeing you 
 before." 
 
 " That's true, I dare say, though I fear I was never a 
 very good customer." 
 
 " Ah, it is Mr. Dale, then ! I thought so when you came 
 into the hall. I hope your lady is quite well, and the 
 Squire, too ; fine pleasant-spoken gentleman ; no fault of 
 his, if Mr. Egerton went wrong. Well, we have never seen 
 him I mean Mr. Egerton since that time. I don't wonder 
 he stays away ; but my lord's son, who was brought up
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 255 
 
 here, it an't nat'ral like that he should turn his back on 
 us! " 
 
 Mr. Dale made no reply, and the landlord was about to 
 retire, when the Parson, pouring out another glass of port, 
 said " There must be great changes in the parish. Is Mr. 
 Morgan, the medical man, still here ? " 
 
 " No, indeed ; he took out his ploma after you left, and 
 became a real doctor ; and a pretty practice he had too, 
 when he took, all of a sudden, to some new-fangled way of 
 physicking ; I think they call it homy something." 
 
 " Homoeopathy ? " 
 
 " That's it something against all reason ; and so he 
 lost his practice here and went up to Lunnun. I've not 
 heard of him since." 
 
 "Do the Avenels still reside in their old house ?" 
 
 " Oh, yes ; and are pretty well off, I hear say. John 
 is always poorly ; though he still goes now and then to the 
 Odd Fellows, and takes his glass ; but his wife comes and 
 fetches him away before he can do himself any harm." 
 
 " Mrs. Avenel is the same as ever ? " 
 
 " She holds her head higher, I think," said the land- 
 lord, smiling. " She was always not exactly proud like, 
 but what I calls gumptious." 
 
 " I never heard that word before," said the Parson, 
 laying down his knife and fork. " Bumptious, indeed, 
 though I believe it is not in the dictionary, has crept into 
 familiar parlance, especially amongst young folks at school 
 and college." 
 
 " Bumptious is bumptious, and gumptious is gump- 
 tious," said the landlord, delighted to puzzle a parson. 
 " Now, the town beadle is bumptious, and Mrs. Avenel 
 is gumptious." 
 
 " She is a very respectable woman," said Mr. Dale, 
 somewhat rebukingly. 
 
 " In course, sir ; all gumptious folks are ; they value 
 themselves on their respectability, and looks down on 
 their neighbors." 
 
 PARSON (still philologically occupied). Gumptious 
 gumptious. I think I remember the substantive at school 
 not that my master taught it to me. "Gumption,"- 
 it means cleverness. 
 
 LANDLORD (doggedly). There's gumption and gump- 
 tious ! Gumption is knowing ; but when I say that sum 
 un is gumptious, I mean though that's more vulgar like
 
 256 MY NOVEL; OK, 
 
 sum un who does not think small beer of hisself. You 
 take me, sir ? " 
 
 "I think I do," said the Parson, half-smiling. "I be- 
 lieve the Avenels have only two of their children alive 
 still their daughter, who married Mark Fairfield, and a 
 son who went to America ? " 
 
 "Ah, but he made his fortune there, and has come back." 
 
 " Indeed ! I'am very glad to hear it. He has settled 
 at Lansmere ? " 
 
 " No, sir. I hear as he's bought a property a long way 
 off. But he comes to see his parents pretty often so 
 John tells me but I can't say that I ever see him. I fancy 
 Dick doesn't like to be seen by folks who remember him 
 playing in the kennel." 
 
 " Not unnatural," said the Parson, indulgently ; " but 
 he visits his parents ; he is a good son at all events, then ? " 
 
 " I've nothing to say against him. Dick was a wild 
 chap before he took himself off. I never thought he 
 would make his fortune ; but the Avenels are a clever set. 
 Do you remember poor Nora the Rose of Lansmere, 
 as they called her ? Ah, no, I think she went up to Lun- 
 nun afore your time, sir." 
 
 "Humph !" said the Parson, dryly. "Well, I think you 
 may take away now. It will be dark soon, and I'll just 
 stroll out and look about me." 
 
 " There's a nice tart coming, sir." 
 
 "Thank you, I've dined." 
 
 The Parson put on his hat and sallied forth into the 
 streets. He eyed the houses on either hand with that 
 melancholy and wistful interest with which, in middle life, 
 men revisit scenes familiar to them in youth surprised 
 to find either so little change or so much, and recalling, 
 by fits and snatches, old associations and past emotions. 
 The long High Street which he threaded now began to 
 change its bustling character, and slide, as it were gradu- 
 ally, into the high-road of a suburb. On the left, the 
 houses gave way to the moss-grown pales of Lansmere 
 Park ; to the right, though houses still remained, they 
 were separated from each other by gardens, and took the 
 pleasing appearance of villas such villas as retired trades- 
 men or their widows, old maids, and half-pay officers, 
 select for the evening of their days. 
 
 Mr. Dale looked at these villas with the deliberate 
 attention of a man awakening his power of memory, and
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 257 
 
 at last stopped before one, almost the last on the road, 
 and which faced the broad patch of sward that lay before 
 the lodge of Lansmere Park. An old pollard oak stood 
 near it, and from the oak there came a low discordant 
 sound ; it >was the hungry cry of young ravens, awaiting 
 the belated return of the parent bird. Mr. Dale put his 
 hand to his brow, paused a moment, and then, with a 
 hurried step, passed through the little garden, and knocked 
 at the door. A light was burning in the parlor, and Mr. 
 Dale's eye .caught through the window a vague outline 
 of three forms. There was an evident bustle within at 
 the sound of the knock. One of the forms rose and dis- 
 appeared. A very prim, neat, middle-aged maid-servant 
 now appeared at the threshold, and austerely inquired the 
 visitor's business. 
 
 " I want to see Mr. or Mrs. Avenel. Say that I have 
 come many miles to see them ; and take in this card." 
 
 The maid-servant took the card, and half closed the 
 door. At least three minutes elapsed before she reap- 
 peared. 
 
 " Missis says it's late, but walk in." 
 
 The Parson accepted the not very gracious invitation, 
 stepped across the little hall, and entered the little parlor. 
 
 Old John Avenel, a mild-looking man, who seemed 
 slightly paralytic, rose slowly from his arm-chair. Mrs. 
 Avenel, in an awfully stiff, clean, Calvinistical cap, and a 
 gray dress, every fold of which bespoke respectability and 
 staid repute stood erect on the floor, and fixing on the 
 Parson a cold and cautious eye, said 
 
 " You do the like of us great honor, Mr. Dale take a 
 chair! You call upon business?" 
 
 "Of which I apprised Mr. Avenel, by letter." 
 
 " My husband is very poorly." 
 
 " A poor creature !" said John, feebly, and as if in com- 
 passion of himself. " I can't get about as I used to do. 
 But it ben't near election time, be it, sir ?" 
 
 " No, John," said Mrs. Avenel, placing her husband's 
 arm within her own. ''You must lie down a bit, while I 
 talk to the gentleman." 
 
 "I'm a real good Blue," said poor John ; "but I ain't 
 quite the man I was ; " and leaning heavily on his wife he 
 left the room, turning round at the threshold, and saying 
 with great urbanity " Anything to oblige, sir! " 
 
 Mr. Dale was much touched. He had remembered
 
 25 3 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 John Avenel the comeliest, the most active, and the most 
 cheerful man in Lansmere ; great at glee-club and cricket 
 (though then somewhat stricken in years), greater in ves- 
 tries ; reputed greatest in elections. 
 
 "Last scene of all," murmured the Parson ; "and oh 
 well, turning from the poet, may we cry with the disbeliev- 
 ing philosopher, ' Poor, poor humanity ! ' " * 
 
 In a few minutes Mrs. Avenel returned. She took a 
 chair at some distance from the Parson's, and, resting one 
 hand on the elbow of the chair, while with the other she 
 stiffly smoothed the stiff gown, she said 
 
 " Now, sir." 
 
 That " Now, sir," had in its sound something sinister and 
 warlike. This the shrewd Parson recognized with his usual 
 tact. He edged his chair nearer to Mrs. Avenel, and plac- 
 ing his hand on hers 
 
 ^ Yes, now then, as friend to friend." 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 MR. DALE had been more than a quarter of an hour con- 
 versing with Mrs. Avenel, and had seemingly made little 
 progress iu the object of his diplomatic mission, for now, 
 slowly drawing on his gloves, he said 
 
 " I grieve to think, Mrs. Avenel, that you should have 
 so hardened your heart yes you must pardon me it is 
 my vocation to speak stern truths. You cannot say that I 
 have not kept faith witli you, but I must now invite you to 
 remember that I specially reserved to myself the right of 
 exercising a discretion to act as I judged best, for the child's 
 interests, on any future occasion ; and it was upon this 
 understanding that you gave me the promise, which you 
 would now evade, of providing for him when he came into 
 manhood." 
 
 " I say I will provide for him. I say that you may 
 'prentice him in any distant town, and by-and-by we will 
 stock a shop for him. What would you have more, sir, 
 from folks like us, who have kept shop ourselves ? It ain't 
 reasonable what you ask, sir." 
 
 * Mr. Dale probably here alludes t-i Lord Bolingbroke's ejaculation as he stood by the 
 dying Pope ; but his memory does not serve him with the exact words.
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 259 
 
 "My dear friend," said the Parson, "what I ask of you 
 at present is but to see him to receive him kindly to 
 listen to his conversation to judge for yourselves. We can 
 have but a common object that your grandson should suc- 
 ceed in life, and do you credit. Now, I doubt very much 
 whether we can effect this by making him a small shop- 
 keeper." 
 
 " And has Jane Fairfield, who married a common car- 
 penter, brought him up to despise small shopkeepers ? " 
 exclaimed Mrs. Avenel, angrily. 
 
 " Heaven forbid ! Some of the first men in England 
 have been the sons of small shopkeepers. " But is it a crime 
 in them, or in their parents, if their talents have lifted them 
 into such rank or renown as the haughtiest duke might 
 envy ? England were not England if a man must rest 
 where his father began." 
 
 " Good ! " said, or rather grunted, an approving voice, 
 but neither Mrs. Avenel nor the Parson heard it. 
 
 "All very fine," said Mrs. Avenel, bluntly. "But to 
 send a boy like that to the university where's the money 
 to come from ? " 
 
 "My dear Mrs. Avenel," said the Parson, coaxingly, "the 
 cost need not be great at a small college at Cambridge ; and 
 if you will pay half the expense, I will pay the other half. 
 I have no children of my own, and can afford it." 
 
 u That's very handsome in you, sir," said Mrs. Avenel, 
 somewhat touched, yet still not graciously. " But the money 
 is not the only point." 
 
 "Once at Cambridge," continued Mr. Dale, speaking 
 rapidly, "at Cambridge, where the studies are mathemati- 
 cal that is, of a nature for which he has shown so great an 
 aptitude and I have no doubt he will distinguish himself; 
 if he does, he will obtain, on leaving, what is called a fellow- 
 ship that is, a collegiate dignity accompanied by an income 
 on which he could maintain himself until he made his way 
 in life. Come, Mrs. Avenel, you are well off ; you have no 
 relations nearer to you in want of your aid. Your son, I 
 hear, has been very fortunate." 
 
 "Sir," said Mrs. Avenel, interrupting the Parson, "it is 
 not because my son Richard is an honor to us, and is a 
 good son, and has made his fortin, that we are to rob him of 
 what we have to leave, and give it to a boy whom we know 
 nothing about, and who, in spite of what you say, can't 
 bring upon us any credit at all."
 
 260 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 " Why ? I don't see that." 
 
 " Why ! " exclaimed Mrs. Avenel, fiercely " why ! you 
 know why. No, I don't want him to rise in life ; I don't 
 want folks to be speiring and asking about him. I think it 
 is a very wicked thing to have put fine notions in his head, 
 and I am sure my daughter Fairfield could not have done it 
 herself. And now, to ask me to rob Richard, and bring out 
 a great boy who's been a gardener or ploughman, or such 
 like to disgrace a gentleman who keeps his carriage, as 
 my son Richard does I would have you to know, sir. No ! 
 I won't do it, and there's an end of the matter." 
 
 During the last two or three minutes, and just before 
 that approving "good " had responded to the Parson's pop- 
 ular sentiment, a door communicating with an inner room 
 had been gently opened, and stood ajar ; but this incident 
 neither party had even noticed. But now the door was 
 thrown boldly open, and the traveller whom the Parson 
 had met at the inn walked up to Mr. Dale, and said, " No ! 
 that's not the end of the matter. You say the boy's a 
 'cute, clever lad ?" 
 
 " Richard, have you been listening ? " exclaimed Mrs. 
 Avenel. 
 
 "Well, I guess, yes the last few minutes." 
 
 " And what have you heard ?" 
 
 "Why, that this reverend gentleman thinks so highly of 
 my sister Fairfield's boy, that he offers to pay half of his 
 keep at college. Sir, I'm very much obliged to you, and 
 there's my hand, if you'll take it." 
 
 The Parson jumped up overjoyed, and with a triumphant 
 glance toward Mrs. Avenel, shook hands heartily with Mr. 
 Richard. 
 
 " Now," said the latter, " just put on your hat, sir, and 
 take a stroll with me, and we'll discuss the thing business- 
 like. Women don't understand business ; never talk to 
 women on business." 
 
 With these words, Mr. Richard drew out a cigar-case, 
 selected a cigar, which he applied to the candle, and walked 
 into the hall. 
 
 Mrs. Avenel caught hold of the Parson. " Sir, you'll be 
 on your guard with Richard. Remember your promise." 
 
 " He does not know all, then ? " 
 
 " He ? No ! And you see he did not overhear more 
 than what he says. I'm sure you're a gentleman, and won't 
 go against your word."
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 261 
 
 " My word was conditional ; but I will promise you never 
 to break the silence without more reason than I think there 
 is here for it. Indeed, Mr. Richard Avenel seems to save 
 all necessity for that." 
 
 " Are you coming, sir ? " cried Richard, as he opened the 
 street-door. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 THE Parson joined Mr. Richard Avenel on the road. It 
 was a fine night, and the moon clear and shining. 
 
 " So then," said Mr. Richard, thoughtfully, " poor Jane, 
 who was always the drudge of the family, has contrived to 
 bring up her son well ; and the boy is really what you say, 
 eh ? could make a figure at college ?" 
 
 "I am sure of it," said the Parson, hooking himself on to 
 the arm which Mr. Avenel proffered. 
 
 " I should like to see him," said Richard. " Has he any 
 manner? Is he genteel ? or a mere country lout?" 
 
 " Indeed, he speaks with so much propriety, and has so 
 much modest dignity about him, that there's many a rich 
 gentleman who would be proud of such a son." 
 
 " It is odd," observed Richard, "what difference there is 
 in families. There's Jane, now who can't read nor write, 
 and was just fit to be a workman's wife had not a thought 
 above her station ; and when I think of my poor sister Nora 
 you would not believe it, sir, but she was the most elegant 
 creature in the world yes, even as a child (she was but a 
 child when I went off to America). And often, as I was 
 getting on in life, often I used to say to myself, ' My little 
 Nora shall be a lady after all.' Poor thing but she died 
 young." 
 
 Richard's voice grew husky. 
 
 The Parson kindly pressed the arm on which he leaned, 
 and said, after a pause 
 
 "Nothing refines us like education, sir. I believe your 
 sister Nora had received much instruction, and had the 
 talents to profit by it ; it is the same with your nephew." 
 
 " I'll see him," said Richard, stamping his foot firmly on 
 the ground, " and if I like him, I'll be as good as a father to 
 him. Look you, Mr. what's your name, sir?"
 
 262 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 " Dale." 
 
 "Mr. Dale, look you, I'm a single man. Perhaps I may 
 marry some day ; perhaps I shan't. I'm not going to throw 
 myself away. If I can get a lady of quality, why but that's 
 neither here nor there ; meanwhile I should be glad of a 
 nephew whom I need not be ashamed of. You see, sir, I am 
 a new man, the builder of my own fortunes ; and though I 
 have picked up a little education I don't well know how 
 as I scrambled on, still, now I come back to the old country, 
 I'm well aware that I am not exactly a match for those d d 
 aristocrats ; don't show so well in a drawing-room as I could 
 wish. I could be a Parliament man if I liked, but I might 
 make a goose of myself ; so, all things considered, if I can 
 get a sort of junior partner to do the polite work, and show 
 off the goods, I think the house of Avenel and Co. might 
 become a pretty considerable honor to the Britishers. You 
 understand me, sir ? " 
 
 " Oh, very well," answered Mr. Dale, smiling, though 
 rather gravely. 
 
 "Now," continued the New Man, "I'm not ashamed to 
 have risen in life by my own merits ; and I don't disguise 
 what I've been. And when I'm in my own grand house, I'm 
 fond of saying, ' I landed in New York with 10 in my 
 purse, and here I am!' But it would not do to have the 
 old folks with me. People take you with all your faults if 
 you're rich ; but they won't swallow your family into the 
 bargain. So if I don't have at my house my own father 
 and mother, whom I love dearly, and should like to see 
 sitting at table, with my servants behind their chairs, I could 
 still less have sister Jane. I recollect her very well, and she 
 can't have got genteeler as she's grown older. Therefore I 
 beg you'll not set her on coming after me ; it would not do 
 by any manner of means. Don't say a word about me to 
 her. But send the boy down here to his grandfather, and 
 I'll see him quietly, you understand." 
 
 " Yes, but it will be hard to separate her from her boy." 
 
 "Stuff! all boys are separated from their parents when 
 they go into the world. So that's settled. Now, just tell 
 me. I know the old folks always snubbed Jane that is, 
 mother did. My poor dear father never snubbed any of us. 
 Perhaps mother has not behaved well to Jane. But we 
 must not blame her for that ; you see this is how it happened. 
 There were a good many of us, while father and mother kept 
 shop in the High Street, so we were all to be provided for
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 263 
 
 anyhow ; and Jane, being very useful and handy at work, 
 got a place when she was a little girl, and had no time for 
 learning. Afterward my father made a lucky hit, in getting 
 my Lord Lansmere's custom after an election, in which he 
 did a great deal for the Blues (for which he was a famous 
 electioneer, my poor father). My Lady stood godmother to 
 Nora ; and then all my brothers, and two of my sisters, died 
 off, and father retired from business ; and when he took 
 Jane from service, she was so common-like that mother could 
 not help contrasting her with Nora. You see Jane was their 
 child when they were poor little shop-people, with their 
 heads scarce above water ; and Nora was their child when 
 they were well off, and had retired from trade, and lived 
 genteel ; so that, makes a great difference. And mother did 
 not quite look on her as on her own child. But it was Jane's 
 own fault ; for mother would have made it up with her if 
 she had married the son of our neighbor the great linen- 
 draper, as she might have done ; but she would take Mark 
 Fairfield, a common carpenter. Parents like best those of 
 their children who succeed best in life. Natural. Why, 
 they did not care for me till I came back the man I am. 
 But to return to Jane. I'm afraid they've neglected her. 
 How is she off ? " 
 
 " She earns her livelihood, and is poor, but contented." 
 
 "Ah, just be good enough to give her this" (and Rich- 
 ard took a bank note of ^50 from his pocket-book). "You 
 can say the old folks sent it to her ; or that it is a present 
 from Dick, without telling her he has come back from 
 America." 
 
 "My dear sir," said the Parson, "I am more and more 
 thankful to have made your acquaintance. This is a very 
 liberal gift of yours ; but your best plan will be to send it 
 through your mother. For, though I don't want to betray 
 any confidence you place in me, I should not know what to 
 answer if Mrs. Fairfield began to question me about, her 
 brother. I never had but one secret to keep, and I hope I 
 shall never have another. A secret is very like a lie ! " 
 
 " You had a secret then ! " said Richard, as he took back 
 the bank-note. He had learned, perhaps in America, to be 
 a very inquisitive man. He added point-blank, " Pray, what 
 was it ? " 
 
 "Why, what it would not be if I told you," said the Par- 
 son, with a forced laugh " a secret ! " 
 
 "Well, I guess we're in aland of liberty. Do as you
 
 264 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 like. Now, I dare say you think me a very odd fellow to 
 come out of my shell to you in this off-hand way. But I 
 liked the look of you, even when we were at the inn together. 
 And just now I was uncommonly pleased to find that, though 
 you are a parson, you don't want to keep a man's nose down 
 to a shop-board, if he has anything in him. You're not one 
 of the aristocrats " 
 
 "Indeed," said the Parson, with imprudent warmth, "it 
 is not the character of the aristocracy of this country to 
 keep people down. They make way amongst themselves 
 for any man, whatever his birth, who has the talent and 
 energy to aspire to their level. That's the especial boast of 
 the British constitution, sir ! " 
 
 " Oh, you think so, do you ! " said Mr. Richard, looking 
 sourly at the Parson. " I dare say those are the opinions in 
 which you have brought up the lad. Just keep him your- 
 self, and let the aristocracy provide for him ! " 
 
 The Parson's generous and patriotic warmth evaporated 
 at once, at this sudden inlet of cold air into the conversa- 
 tion. He perceived that he had made a terrible blunder ; 
 and, as it was not his business at that moment to vindicate 
 the British constitution, but to serve Leonard Fairfield, he 
 abandoned the cause of the aristocracy with the most pol- 
 troon and scandalous abruptness. Catching at the arm 
 which Mr. Avenel had withdrawn from him, he exclaimed 
 
 " Indeed, sir, you are mistaken ; I have never attempted 
 to influence your nephew's political opinions. On the con- 
 trary, if, at his age, he can be said to have formed any 
 opinions, I am greatly afraid that is, I think his opinions 
 are by no means sound that is, constitutional. I mean, I 
 mean " And the poor Parson, anxious to select a word 
 that would not offend his listener, stopped short in lament- 
 able confusion of idea. 
 
 Mr. Avenel enjoyed his distress for a moment, with a 
 saturnine smile, and then said 
 
 "Well, I calculate he's a Radical. Natural enough, if he 
 has not got a sixpence to lose all come right by and by. I'm 
 not a Radical at least not a Destructive much too clever a 
 man for that, I hope. But I wish to see things very differ- 
 ent from w T hat they are. Don't fancy that I want the 
 common people, who've got nothing, to pretend to dictate 
 to their betters, because I hate to see a parcel of fellows, 
 who are called lords and squires, trying to rule the roast. I 
 think, sir, that it is men like me who ought to be at the top
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 265 
 
 of the tree ! and that's the long and the short of it. What 
 do you say?" 
 
 " I've not the least objection," said the crestfallen Par- 
 son, basely. But, to do him justice, I must add, that he did 
 not the least know what he was saying ! 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 UNCONSCIOUS of the ch.ange in his fate which the diplo- 
 macy of the Parson sought to effect, Leonard Fairfield was 
 enjoying the first virgin sweetness of fame ; for the princi- 
 pal town in his neighborhood had followed the then growing 
 fashion of the age, and set up a Mechanics' Institute ; and 
 some worthy persons interested in the formation of that pro- 
 vincial Athenaeum had offered a prize for the best Essay on 
 the Diffusion of Knowledge, a very trite subject, on which 
 persons seem to think they can never say too much, and on 
 which there is, nevertheless, a great deal yet to be said. 
 This prize Leonard Fairfield had recently won. His Essay 
 had been publicly complimented by a full meeting of the 
 Institute ; it had been printed at the expense of the Society, 
 and had been rewarded by a silver medal delineative of 
 Apollo crowning Merit (poor Merit had not a rag to his 
 back ; but Merit, left only to the care of Apollo, never is too 
 good a customer to the tailor !). And the " County Gazette " 
 had declared that Britain had produced another prodigy in 
 the person of Dr. Riccabocca's self-educated gardener. 
 
 Attention was now directed to Leonard's mechanical con- 
 trivances. The Squire, ever eagerly bent on improvements, 
 had brought an engineer to inspect the lad's system of irri- 
 gation, and the engineer had been greatly struck by the 
 simple means by which a very considerable technical diffi- 
 culty had been overcome. The neighboring farmers now 
 called Leonard " Mr. Fairfield," and invited him, on equal 
 terms, to their houses. Mr. Stirn had met him on the high 
 road, touched his hat, and hoped that " he bore no malice." 
 All this, I say, was the first sweetness of fame ; and if Leon- 
 ard Fairfield comes to be a great man, he will never find 
 such sweets in the after-fruit. It was this success which had 
 determined the Parson on the step which he had just taken, 
 and which he had long before anxiously meditated. For,
 
 2 o6 MY XOVEL; OR, 
 
 during the last year or so, he had renewed his old intimacy 
 with the widow and the boy ; and he had noticed, with great 
 hope and great fear, the rapid growth of an intellect, which 
 now stood out from the lowly circumstances that surrounded 
 it in bold and unharmonizing relief. 
 
 It was the evening after his return home that the Parson 
 strolled up to the Casino. He put Leonard Fairfield's Prize 
 Essay in his pocket. For he felt that he could not let the 
 young man go forth into the world without a preparatory 
 lecture, and he intended to scourge poor Merit with the very 
 laurel wreath which it had received from Apollo. But in 
 this he wanted Riccabocca's assistance ; or rather he feared 
 that, if he did not get the Philosopher on his side, the Phil- 
 osopher might undo all the work of the Parson. 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 A SWEET sound came through the orange boughs, and 
 floated to the ears of the Parson, as he wound slowly up 
 the gentle ascent so sweet, so silvery, he paused in delight 
 unaware, wretched man ! that he was thereby conniving 
 at Papistical errors. Soft it came and sweet ; softer and 
 sweeter " Avz Maria!" Violante was chanting the evening 
 hymn to the Virgin Mother. The Parson at last distin- 
 guished the sense of the words, and shook his head with 
 the pious shake of an orthodox Protestant. He broke from 
 the spell resolutely, and walked on with a sturdy step. 
 Gaining the terrace, he found the little family seated under 
 an awning. Mrs. Riccabocca knitting ; the Signer with his 
 arms folded on his breast ; the book he had been reading a 
 few moments before had fallen on the ground, and his dark 
 eyes were soft and dreamy. Violante had finished her hymn, 
 and seated herself on the ground between the two, pillow- 
 ing her head on her step-mother's lap, but with her hand 
 resting on her father's knee, and her gaze fixed fondly on 
 his face. 
 
 "Good evening," said Mr. Dale. Violante stole up to 
 him, and, pulling him so as to bring his ear nearer to her 
 lip, whispered, "Talk to papa, do and cheerfully ; he is 
 sad." 
 
 She escaped from him as she said this, and appeared to
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 267 
 
 busy herself with watering the flowers arranged on stands 
 round the awning. But she kept her swimming, lustrous 
 eyes wistfully on her father. 
 
 "How fares it with you, my dear friend ?" said the Par- 
 son, kindly, as he rested his hand on the Italian's shoulder. 
 "You must not let him get out of spirits, Mrs. Riccabocca." 
 
 " I am very ungrateful to her if I ever am so," said the 
 poor Italian, with all his natural gallantry. Many a good 
 wife, who thinks it is a reproach to her if her husband is 
 ever " out of spirits," might have turned peevishly from 
 that speech, more elegant than sincere, and so have made 
 bad worse. But Mrs. Riccabocca took her husband's prof- 
 fered hand affectionately, and said with great naivete 
 
 "You see I am so stupid, Mr. Dale ; I never knew I was 
 so stupid till I married. But I am very glad you are come. 
 You can get on some learned subject together, and then he 
 will not miss so much his " 
 
 "His what ?" asked Riccabocca, inquisitively. 
 
 " His country. Do you think that I cannot semetimes 
 read your thoughts ? " 
 
 " Very often. But you did not read them just then. 
 The tongue touches where the tooth aches, but the best 
 dentist cannot guess at the tooth unless one open one's 
 mouth. Basta ! Can we offer you some wine of our own 
 making, Mr. Dale ? it is pure." 
 
 "I'd rather have some tea," quoth the parson, hastily. 
 
 Mrs. Riccabocca, too pleased to be in her natural ele- 
 ment of domestic use, hurried into the house to prepare our 
 natural beverage. And the Parson, sliding into her chair, 
 said 
 
 " But you are dejected, then ? Fie ! If there's a virtue 
 in the world at which we should always aim, it is cheer- 
 fulness." 
 
 " I don't dispute it," said Riccabocca, with a heavy sigh. 
 " But though it is said by some Greek, who, I think, is 
 quoted by your favorite Seneca, that a wise man carries his 
 country with him at the soles of his feet, he can't carry also 
 the sunshine over his head." 
 
 "I tell you what it is," said the Parson, bluntly, "you 
 would have a much keener sense of happiness if you had 
 much less esteem for philosophy." 
 
 " Cospetto ! " said the Doctor, rousing himself. "Just ex- 
 plain, will you ?" 
 
 " Does not the search after wisdom induce desires not
 
 2 68 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 satisfied in this small circle to which your life is confined ? 
 It is not so much your country for which you yearn, as it 
 is for space to your intellect, employment for your thoughts, 
 career for your aspirations." 
 
 " You have guessed at the tooth which aches. ' said Ric- 
 cabocca with admiration. 
 
 " Easy to do that," answered the Parson. " Our wisdom- 
 teeth come last, and give us the most pain. And if you 
 would just starve the mind a littie, and nourish the heart 
 more, you would be less of a philosopher and more of a 
 The Parson had the word "Christian " at the tip of his 
 tongue ; he suppressed a word that, so spoken, would have 
 been exceedingly irritating, and substituted, with inelegant 
 antithesis, " and more of a happy man ! " 
 
 " I do all I can with my heart," quoth the Doctor. 
 
 " Not you ! For a man w r ith such a heart as yours should 
 never feel the want of the sunshine. My friend, we live in 
 an age of over-mental cultivation. We neglect too much 
 the simple, healthful outer life, in which there is so much 
 positive joy. In turning to the world within us, we grow 
 blind to this beautiful world without; in studying ourselves 
 as men, we almost forget to look up to heaven, and warm to 
 the smile of God." 
 
 The philosopher mechanically shrugged his shoulders, 
 as he always did when another man moralized especially 
 if the moralizer were a priest ; but there was no irony in 
 his smile, as he answered, thoughtfully 
 
 " There is some truth in what you say. I own that we 
 live too much as if we were all brain. Knowledge has its 
 penalties and pains, as well as its prizes." 
 
 "That is just what I want you to say to Leonard." 
 
 " How have you settled the object of your journey ? " 
 
 '' I will tell you as we walk down to him after tea. At 
 present, I am rather too much occupied with you." 
 
 " Me ? The tree is formed try only to bend the young 
 twig ! " 
 
 " Trees are trees, and twigs twigs," said the Parson, dog- 
 matically ; " but man is always growing till he falls into the 
 grave. I think I have heard you say that you once had a 
 narrow escape of a prison ? " 
 
 " Very narrow." 
 
 " Just suppose that you were now in that prison, and that 
 a fairy conjured up the prospect of this quiet home in a safe 
 land ; that you saw the orange-trees in flower, felt the eve-
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 269 
 
 ning breeze on your cheek ; beheld your child gay or sad, 
 as you smiled or knit your brow ; that within this phantom 
 home was a woman, not, indeed, all your young romance 
 might have dreamed of, but faithful and true, every beat of 
 her heart all your own would you not cry from the depth of 
 the dungeon, ' O fairy ! such a change were a paradise.' 
 Ungrateful man ! you want interchange for your mind, and 
 your heart should suffice for all ! " 
 
 Riccabocca was touched and silent. 
 
 " Come hither, my child," said Mr. Dale, turning round 
 to Violante, who still stood among the flowers, out of hear- 
 ing, but with watchful eyes. "Come hither," he said, open- 
 ing his arms. 
 
 Violante bounded forward, and nestled to the good man's 
 heart. 
 
 " Tell me, Violante, when you are alone in the fields or 
 the garden, and have left your father looking pleased and 
 serene, so that you have no care for him at your heart, 
 tell me, Violante, though you are alone, with the flowers 
 below, and the birds singing over-head, do you feel that life 
 itself is happiness or sorrow?" 
 
 " Happiness ! " answered Violante, half shutting her 
 eyes, and in a measured voice. 
 
 ." Can you explain what kind of happiness it is ? " 
 
 " Oh no, impossible ! and it is never the same. Some- 
 times it is so still so still, and sometimes so joyous, that I 
 long for wings to fly up to God, and thank him ! " 
 
 "O friend," said the Parson, "this is the true sympathy 
 between life and nature, and thus we should feel ever, did 
 we take more care to preserve the health and innocence of 
 a child. We are told that we must become as children to 
 enter into the kingdom of heaven ; methinks we should 
 also become as children to know what delight there is in our 
 heritage of earth ! " 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 THE maid-servant (for Jackeymo was in the fields) 
 brought the table under the awning, and with the English 
 luxury of tea, there were other drinks as cheap and as 
 grateful on summer evenings drinks which Jackeymo had
 
 270 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 retained and taught from the customs of the south un- 
 ebriate liquors, pressed from cooling fruits, sweetened with 
 honey, and deliciously iced ; ice should cost nothing in a 
 country in which one is frozen up half the year ! And 
 Jackeymo, too, had added to our good, solid, heavy English 
 bread, preparations of wheat much lighter, and more pro- 
 pitious to digestion with those crisp grissini, which seemed 
 to enjoy being eaten, they make so pleasant a noise between 
 one's teeth. 
 
 The Parson esteemed it a little treat to drink tea with 
 the Riccaboccas. There was something of elegance and 
 grace, in that homely meal at the poor exile's table, which 
 pleased the eye as well as taste. And the very utensils, 
 plain Wedgewood though they Avere, had a classical sim- 
 plicity which made Mrs. Hazeldean's old India delf, and 
 Mrs. Dale's best Worcester china, look tawdry and bar- 
 barous in comparison. For it was Flaxman who gave de- 
 signs to Wedgewood, and the most truly refined of all our 
 manufactures in porcelain (if we do not look to the mere 
 material) is in the reach of the most thrifty. 
 
 The little banquet was at first rather a silent one ; but 
 Riccabocca threw off his gloom, and became gay and ani- 
 mated. Then poor Mrs. Riccabocca smiled, and pressed 
 the grissins ; and Violante, forgetting all her stateliness, 
 laughed and played tricks on the Parson, stealing away his 
 cup of warm tea when his head was turned, and substituting 
 iced cherry juice. Then the Parson got up and ran after 
 Violante, making angry faces, and Violante dodged beauti- 
 fully, till the Parson, fairly tired out, was too glad to cry 
 " Peace," and come back to the cherry juice. Thus time 
 rolled on, till they heard afar the stroke of the distant 
 church clock, and Mr. Dale started up and cried "But we 
 shall be too late for Leonard. Come, naughty little girl, 
 get your father his hat." 
 
 "And umbrella!" said Riccabocca, looking up at the 
 cloudless moonlit sky. 
 
 " Umbrella against the stars ?" asked the Parson, laugh- 
 ing. 
 
 "The stars are no friends of mine," said Riccabocca, 
 " and one never knows what may happen! " 
 
 The Philosopher and the Parson walked on amicably. 
 
 "You have done me good," said Riccabocca, "but I 
 hope I am not always so unreasonably melancholic as you 
 seem to suspect. The evenings will sometimes appear long,
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 271 
 
 and dull too, to a man whose thoughts on the past are al- 
 most his sole companions." 
 
 " Sole companions ? your child ? " 
 
 " She is so young." 
 
 " Your wife ? " 
 
 " She is so ," the bland Italian appeared to check 
 
 some disparaging adjective, and mildly added, " so good, I 
 allow ; but you must own that she and I cannot have much 
 in common." 
 
 " I own nothing of the sort. You have your house and 
 your interests, your happiness and your lives, in common. 
 We men are so exacting, we expect to find ideal nymphs 
 and goddesses when we condescend to marry a mortal ; and 
 if we did, our chickens would be boiled to rags, and our 
 mutton come up as cold as a stone." 
 
 "Per Bacco, you are an oracle," said Riccabocca, laugh- 
 ing. " But I am not so sceptical as you are. I honor the 
 fair sex too much. There are a great many women who 
 realize the ideal of men to be found in the poets ! " 
 
 "There's my dear Mrs. Dale," resumed the Parson, not 
 heeding this sarcastic compliment to the sex, but sinking 
 his voice into a whisper, and looking round cautiously 
 "There's my dear Mrs. Dale, the best woman in the world 
 an angel, I would say, if the word was not profane ; 
 BUT 
 
 " What's the BUT ? " asked the Doctor, demurely. 
 
 "BuT I too might say that 'she and I have not much in 
 common,' if I were only to compare mind to mind, and 
 when my poor Carry says something less profound than 
 Madame de Stael might have said, smile on her in con- 
 tempt from the elevation of logic and Latin. Yet when I 
 remember all the little sorrows and joys that we have 
 shared together, and feel how solitary I should have been 
 without her oh, then, I am instantly aware that there is 
 between us in common something infinitely closer and 
 better than if the same course of study had given us the 
 equality of ideas ; and I was forced to brace myself for a 
 combat of intellect, as I am when I fall in with a tiresome 
 sage like yourself. I don't pretend to say that Mrs. Ricca- 
 bocca is a Mrs. Dale," added the Parson,- with lofty candor 
 " there is but one Mrs. Dale in the world ; but still, you 
 have drawn a prize in the wheel matrimonial ! Think of 
 Socrates, and yet he was content even with his Xantippe ! " 
 
 Dr. Riccabocca called to mind Mrs. Dale's "little tem-
 
 272 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 pers," and inly rejoiced that no second Mrs. Dale had ex- 
 isted to fall to his own lot. His placid Jemima gained by 
 the contrast. Nevertheless, he had the ill grace to reply, 
 " Socrates was a man beyond all imitation ! Yet I believe 
 that even he spent very few of his evenings at home. But 
 revenons d nos moutons, we are nearly at Mrs. Fairfield's 
 cottage, and you have not yet told me what you have 
 settled as to Leonard." 
 
 The Parson halted, took Riccabocca by the button, and 
 informed him, in very few words, that Leonard was to go to 
 Lansmere to see some relations there, who ha.d the fortune, 
 if they had the will, to give full career to his abilities. 
 
 "The great thing, in the meanwhile," said the Parson, 
 " would be to enlighten him a little as to what he calls 
 enlightenment." 
 
 "Ah!" said Riccabocca, diverted, and rubbing his 
 hands, "I shall listen with interest to what you say on that 
 subject." 
 
 " And must aid me : for the first step in this modern 
 march of enlightenment is to leave the poor Parson behind ; 
 and if one calls out ' Hold ! and look at the sign-post,' the 
 traveller hurries on the faster, saying to himself, ' Pooh, 
 pooh! that is only the cry of the Parson!' But my 
 gentleman, when he doubts me, will listen to you you're a 
 philosopher !" 
 
 "We philosophers are of some use now and then, even 
 to Parsons !" 
 
 "If you were not so conceited a set of deluded poor 
 creatures already, I would say ' Yes,' " replied the Parson 
 generously ; and, taking hold of Riccabocca's umbrella, he 
 applied the brass handle thereof, by way of a knocker, to 
 the cottage-door. 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 CERTAINLY it is a glorious fever that desire To Know ! 
 And there are few sights in the moral world more sublime 
 than that which many a garret might afford, if Asmodeus 
 would bare the roofs to our survey viz., a brave, patient, 
 earnest human being toiling his own arduous way, athwart 
 the iron walls of penury, into the magnificent Infinite, 
 which is luminous with starry souls.
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 273 
 
 So there sits Leonard the Self-taught in the little cottage 
 alone : for, though scarcely past the hour in which great 
 folks dine, it is the hour in which small folks go to bed, 
 and Mrs. Fairfield has retired to rest, while Leonard has 
 settled to his books. 
 
 He had placed his table under the lattice, and from 
 time to time he looked up and enjoyed the stillness of the 
 moon. Well for him that, in reparation for those hours 
 stolen from night, the hardy physical labor commenced 
 with dawn. Students would not be the sad dyspeptics they 
 are, if they worked as many hours in the open air as my 
 scholar-peasant. But even in him you could see that the 
 mind had begun a little to affect the frame. They who 
 task the intellect must pay the penalty with the body. Ill, 
 believe me, would this work-day world get on if all within 
 it were hard-reading, studious animals, playing the deuce 
 with the ganglionic apparatus. 
 
 Leonard started as he heard the knock at the door ; the 
 Parson's well-known voice reassured him. In some surprise 
 he admitted his visitors. 
 
 " We are come to talk to you, Leonard," said Mr. Dale, 
 "but I fear we shall disturb Mrs. Fairfield." 
 
 " Oh no, sir ! the door to the staircase is shut, and she 
 sleeps soundly." 
 
 "Why, this is a French book do you read French, 
 Leonard ? " asked Riccabocca. 
 
 " I have not found French difficult, sir. Once over the 
 grammar, and the language is so clear ; it seems the very 
 language for reasoning." 
 
 u True, Voltaire said justly, ' Whatever is obscure is not 
 French,' " observed Riccabocca. 
 
 " I wish I could say the same of English," muttered the 
 Parson. 
 
 " But what is this ? Latin too ? Virgil ? " 
 
 " Yes, sir. But I find I make little way there without a 
 master. I fear I must give it up " (and Leonard sighed). 
 
 The two gentlemen exchanged looks and seated them- 
 selves. The young peasant remained standing modestly, 
 and in his air and mien there was something that touched 
 the heart while it pleased the eye. He was no longer the 
 timid boy who had shrunk from the frown of Mr. Stirn, nor 
 that rude personation of simple physical strength, roused to 
 undisciplined bravery, which had received its downfall on 
 the village-green of Hazeldean. The power of thought was
 
 274 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 on his brow somewhat inquiet still, but mild and earnest. 
 The features had attained that refinement which is often at- 
 tributed to race, but comes, in truth, from elegance of idea, 
 whether caught from our parents or learned from books. 
 In his rich brown hair, thrown carelessly from his temples, 
 and curling almost to the shoulders in his large blue eye, 
 which was deepened to the hue of the violet by the long 
 dark lash in that firmness of lip, which comes from the 
 grapple with difficulties, there was considerable beauty, but 
 no longer the beauty of the mere peasant. And yet there 
 was still about the whole countenance that expression of 
 goodness and purity which a painter would give to his ideal 
 of the peasant lover such as Tasso would have placed in 
 the Aminta, or Fletcher have admitted to the side of the 
 Faithful Shepherdess. 
 
 " You must draw a chair here, and sit down between us, 
 Leonard," said the Parson. 
 
 " If any one," said Riccabocca, " has a right to sit, it is 
 the one who is to hear the sermon ; and if any one ought to 
 stand, it is the one who is about to preach it." 
 
 " Don't be frightened, Leonard," said the Parson, gra- 
 ciously ; " it is only a criticism, not a sermon ; " and he pulled 
 out Leonard's Prize Essay. 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 PARSON. You take for your motto this aphorism* 
 "Knowledge is Power." BACON. ' 
 
 RICCABOCCA. Bacon make such an aphorism! The 
 last man in the world to have said anything so pert and so 
 shallow. 
 
 LEONARD (astonished). Do you mean to say, sir, that 
 that aphorism is not in Lord Bacon ? Why, I have seen it 
 quoted as his in almost every newspaper, and in almost every 
 speech in favor of popular education. 
 
 * This aphorism has been probably assigned to Lord Bacon upon the mere authority of the 
 index to his works. It is the aphorism of the index maker, certainly not of the great master 
 of inductive philosophy. Bacon has, it is true, repeatedly dwelt on the power of knowledge, 
 but with so many explanations and distinctions, that nothing could be more unjust to his 
 general meaning than the attempt to cramp into a sentence what it costs him a volume to 
 define. Thus, if in one page he appears to confound knowledge with power, in another he 
 sets them in the strongest antithesis 10 each other ; as follows " Adeo, signanter Deus opera 
 p. 'tentiae et sapientiae discriminavit." But it would be as unfair to Bacon to convert into an 
 aphorism the sentence that discriminates between knowledge and power, as it is to convert 
 into an aphorism any sentence that confounds them.
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 275 
 
 RICCABOCCA. Then that should be a warning to you 
 never again to fall into the error of the would-be scholar 
 viz., quote second-hand. Lord Bacon wrote a great book to 
 show in what knowledge is power, how that power should 
 be denned, in what it might be mistaken. And, pray, do 
 you think so sensible a man ever would have taken the 
 trouble to write a great book upon the subject, if he could 
 have packed up all he had to say into the portable dogma, 
 " Knowledge is power ? " Pooh ! no cuch aphorism is to be 
 found in Bacon from the first page of his writings to the 
 last. 
 
 PARSON (candidly). Well, / supposed it was Lord 
 Bacon's, and I am very glad to hear that the aphorism has 
 not the sanction of his authority. 
 
 LEONARD (recovering his surprise). But why so ? 
 
 PARSON. Because it either says a great deal too much, 
 or just nothing at all. 
 
 LEONARD. At least, sir, it seems to me undeniable. 
 
 PARSON. Well, grant that it is undeniable. Does it 
 prove much in favor of knowledge ? Pray, is not ignorance 
 power too ? 
 
 RICCABOCCA. And a power that has had much the best 
 end of the quarter-staff. 
 
 PARSON. All evil is power, and does its power make it 
 anything the better ? 
 
 RICCABOCCA. Fanaticism is power and a power that 
 has often swept away knowledge like a whirlwind. The 
 Mussulman burns the library of a world and forces the 
 Koran and the sword from the schools of Byzantium to the 
 colleges of Hindostan. 
 
 PARSON (bearing on with a new column of illustration). 
 Hunger is power. The barbarians, starved out of their 
 forests by their own swarming population, swept into Italy 
 and annihilated letters. The Romans, however degraded, 
 had more knowledge, at least, than the Gaul and the 
 Visigoth. 
 
 RICCABOCCA (bringing up the reserve). And even in 
 Greece, when Greek met Greek, the Athenians our 
 masters in all knowledge- were beat by the Spartans, who 
 held learning in contempt. 
 
 PARSON. Wherefore you see, Leonard, that though 
 knowledge be power, it is only one of the powers of the 
 world ; that there are others as strong, and often much 
 stronger ; and the assertion either means but a barren
 
 276 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 truism, not worth so frequent a repetition, or it means 
 something that you would find it very difficult to prove. 
 
 LEONARD. One nation may be beaten by another that 
 has more physical strength and more military discipline ; 
 which last, permit me to say, sir, is a species of know- 
 ledge. 
 
 RICCABOCCA. Yes ; but your knowledge-mongers at 
 present call upon us to discard military discipline, and the 
 qualities that produce it, from the list of the useful arts. 
 And in your own Essay, you insist upon knowledge as the 
 great disbander of armies, and the foe of all military 
 discipline ! 
 
 PARSON. Let the young man proceed. Nations, you 
 say, may be beaten by other nations less learned and 
 civilized ? 
 
 LEONARD. But. knowledge elevates a class. I invite the 
 members of my own humble order to knowledge, because 
 knowledge will lift them into power. 
 
 RICCABOCCA. What do you say to that, Mr. Dale ? 
 
 PARSON. In the first place, is it true that the class which 
 has the most knowledge gets the most power? I suppose 
 philosophers, like my friend Dr. Riccabocca, think they 
 have the most knowledge. And pray, in what age have 
 philosophers governed the world ? Are they not always 
 grumbling that nobody attends to them ? 
 
 RICCABOCCA. Per Bacco, if people had attended to us, it 
 would have been a droll sort of world by this time! 
 
 PARSON. Very likely. But, as a general rule, those 
 have the knowledge who give themselves up to it the most. 
 Let us put out of the question philosophers (who are often 
 but ingenious lunatics), and speak only of erudite scholars, 
 men of letters and practical science, professors, tutors, and 
 fellows of colleges. I fancy any member of Parliament 
 would tell us that there is no class of men which has less 
 actual influence on public affairs. These scholars have 
 more knowledge than manufacturers and ship-owners, 
 squires and farmers ; but, do you find that they have more 
 power over the Government and the votes of the House of 
 Commons ? 
 
 " They ought to have," said Leonard. 
 
 "Ought they ?" said the Parson; "we'll consider that 
 later. Meanwhile, you must not escape from your own 
 proposition, which is, that knowledge is power not that it 
 ought to be. Now, even granting your corollary, that the
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 277 
 
 power of a class is therefore proportioned to its knowledge 
 pray, do you suppose that while your order, the opera- 
 tives, are instructing themselves, all the rest of the commu- 
 nity are to be at a stand-still ? Diffuse knowledge as you 
 may, you will never produce equality of knowledge. Those 
 who have most leisure, application, and aptitude for learn- 
 ing, will still know the most. Nay, by a very natural law, 
 the more general the appetite for knowledge, the more the 
 increased competition will favor those most adapted to 
 excel by circumstance and nature. At this day, there is a 
 vast increase of knowledge spread over all society, com- 
 pared with that in the Middle Ages ; but is there not a still 
 greater distinction between the highly educated gentleman 
 and the intelligent mechanic, than there was then between 
 the baron who could not sign his name and the churl at the 
 plough ? between the accomplished statesman, versed in all 
 historical lore, and the voter whose politics are formed by 
 his newspaper, than there was between the legislator who 
 passed laws against witches, and the burgher who defended 
 his guild from some feudal aggression ? between the en- 
 lightened scholar and the dunce of to-day, than there was 
 between the monkish alchemist and the blockhead of yester- 
 day ? Peasant, voter, and dunce of this century are no 
 doubt wiser than the churl, burgher, and blockhead of the 
 twelfth. But the gentleman, statesman, and scholar of 
 the present age are at least quite as favorable a contrast 
 to the alchemist, witch-burner, and baron of old. As the 
 progress of enlightenment has done hitherto, so will it 
 ever do. Knowledge is like capital : the more there is in 
 a country, the greater the disparities in wealth between one 
 man and another. Therefore, if the working class increase 
 in knowledge, so do the other classes ; and if the working 
 class rise peacefully and legitimately into power, it is not 
 in proportion to their own knowledge alone, but rather 
 according as it seems to the knowledge of the other orders 
 of the community, that such augmentation of proportional 
 power is just, and safe, and wise." 
 
 Placed between the Parson and the Philosopher, Leon- 
 nard felt that his position was not favorable to the display 
 of his forces. Insensibly he edged his chair somewhat 
 away, and said mournfully 
 
 "Then, according to you, the reign of knowledge would 
 be no great advance in the aggregate freedom and welfare 
 of man ? "
 
 278 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 PARSON. Let us define. By knowledge, do you mean 
 intellectual cultivation ? by the reign of knowledge, the 
 ascendency of the most cultivated minds? 
 
 LEONARD (after a pause). Yes. 
 
 RICCABOCCA. Oh, indiscreet young man ! that is an un- 
 fortunate concession of yours ; for the ascendency of the 
 most cultivated minds would be a terrible oligarchy ! 
 
 PARSON. Perfectly true ; and we now reply to your 
 assertion, that men who, by profession, have most learning, 
 ought to have more influence than squires and merchants, 
 farmers and merchanics. Observe, all the knowledge that 
 we mortals can acquire is not knowledge positive and 
 perfect, but knowledge comparative, and subject to the 
 errors and passions of humanity. And suppose that you 
 could establish, as the sole regulators of affairs, those who 
 had the most mental cultivation, do you think they would 
 not like that power well enough to take all means which 
 their superior intelligence could devise to keep it to them- 
 selves ? The experiment was tried of old by the priests 
 of Egypt ; and in the empire of China, at this day, the 
 aristocracy are elected from those who have most distin- 
 guished themselves in learned colleges. If I may call my- 
 self a member of that body, "the people," I would rather 
 be an Englishman, however much displeased with dull 
 Ministers and blundering Parliaments, than I would be a 
 Chinese under the rule of the picked sages of the Celestial 
 Empire. Happily, therefore, my dear Leonard, nations 
 are governed by many things besides what is commonly 
 called knowledge ; and the greatest practical ministers, 
 who, like Themistocles, have made small states great and 
 the most dominant races, who, like the Romans, have 
 stretched their rule from a village half over the universe 
 have been distinguished by various qualities which a 
 philosopher would sneer at, and a knowledge-monger would 
 call " sad prejudices," and "lamentable errors of reason." 
 
 LEONARD (bitterly). Sir, you make use of knowledge 
 itself to argue against knowledge. 
 
 PARSON. I make use of the little 1 know to prove the 
 foolishness of idolatry. I do not argue against knowledge ; 
 I argue against knowledge-worship. For here, I see in 
 your Essay, that you are not contented with raising human 
 knowledge into something like divine omnipotence, you 
 must also confound her with virtue. According to you, it 
 is but to diffuse the intelligence of the few among the many,
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 279 
 
 and all at which we preachers aim is accomplished. Nay, 
 more ; for, whereas, we humble preachers have never pre- 
 sumed to say, with the heathen Stoic, that even virtue is 
 sure of happiness below (though it be the best road to it) 
 you tell us plainly that this knowledge of yours gives not 
 only the virtue of a saint, but bestows the bliss of a god. 
 Before the steps of your idol, the evils of life disappear. 
 To hear you, one has but " to know," in order to be exempt 
 from the sins and sorrows of the ignorant. Has it ever been 
 so ? Grant that you diffuse amongst the many all the 
 knowledge ever attained by the few. Have the wise few 
 been so unerring and so happy ? You supposed that your 
 motto was accurately cited from Bacon. What was Bacon 
 himself ? The poet tells you 
 
 " The wisest, brightest, meanest of mankind !" 
 
 Can you hope to bestow upon the vast mass of your order 
 the luminous intelligence of this " Lord Chancellor of 
 Nature ? " Grant that you do so and what guarantee 
 have you for the virtue and the happiness. which you assume 
 as the concomitants of the gift ? See Bacon himself : what 
 black ingratitude ! what miserable self seeking ! what truck- 
 ling servility ! what abject and pitiful spirit ! So far from 
 intellectual knowledge, in its highest form and type, insur- 
 ing virtue and bliss, it is by no means uncommon to find 
 great mental cultivation combined with great moral cor- 
 ruption. [Aside to Riccabocca " Push on, will you ? "] 
 
 RICCABOCCA. A combination remarkable in eras as in 
 individuals. Petronius shows us a state of morals at which 
 a common-place devil would blush, in the midst of a society 
 more intellectually cultivated than certainly was that which 
 produced Regulus or the Horatii. And the most learned 
 eras in modern Italy were precisely those which brought 
 the vices into the most ghastly refinement. 
 
 LEONARD (rising in great agitation, and clasping his 
 hands). I cannot contend with you, who produce against 
 information so slender and crude as mine the stores which 
 have been locked from my reach. But I feel that there 
 must be another side to this shield a shield that you will 
 not even allow to be silver. And, oh, if you thus speak of 
 knowledge, why have you encouraged me to know ?
 
 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 " AH, my son ! " said the Parson, " if I wished to prove 
 the value of Religion, would you think I served it much, if 
 I took as my motto, ' Religion is power?' Would not that 
 be a base and sordid view of its advantages ? And would 
 you not say, he who regards religion as a power intends to 
 abuse it as a priestcraft ? " 
 
 " Well put ! " said Riccabocca. 
 
 " Wait a moment let me think ! Ah I see, sir ! " said 
 Leonard. 
 
 PARSON. If the cause be holy, do not weigh it in the 
 scales of the market ; if its objects be peaceful, do not seek 
 to arm it with the weapons of strife ; if it is to be the 
 cement of society, do not vaunt it as the triumph of class 
 against class. 
 
 LEONARD (ingenuously). You correct me nobly, sir. 
 Knowledge is power, but not in the sense in which I have 
 interpreted the saying. 
 
 PARSON. Knowledge is one of the powers in the moral 
 world, but one that, in its immediate result, is not always of 
 the most worldly advantage to the possessor. It is one of 
 the slowest, because one of the most durable, of agencies. 
 It may take a thousand years for a thought to come into 
 power ; and the thinker who originated it might have died 
 in rags or in chains. 
 
 RICCABOCCA. Our Italian proverb saith that " the teacher 
 is like the candle, which lights others in consuming itself." 
 
 PARSON. Therefore he who has the true ambition of 
 knowledge should entertain it for the power of his idea, 
 not for the power it may bestow on himself ; it should be 
 lodged in the conscience, and, like the conscience, look for 
 no certain reward this side of the grave. And since knowl- 
 edge is compatible with good and with evil, would not it 
 be better to say, " Knowledge is a trust ? " 
 
 " You are right, sir," said Leonard, cheerfully ; " pray 
 proceed." 
 
 PARSON. You ask me why we encourage you to KNOW. 
 First, because (as you say yourself in your Essay) knowl- 
 edge, irrespective of gain, is in itself a delight, and ought
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 281 
 
 to be something far more. Like liberty, like religion, it 
 may be abused ; but I have no more right to say that the 
 poor shall be ignorant, than I have to say that the rich only 
 shall be free, and that the clergy alone shall learn the 
 truths of redemption. You truly observe in your treatise 
 that knowledge opens to us other excitements than those of 
 the senses, and another life than that of the moment. The 
 difference between us is this, that you forget that the same 
 refinement which brings us new pleasures, exposes us to 
 new pains the horny hand of the peasant feels not the 
 nettles-which sting the fine skin of the scholar. You for- 
 get also, that whatever widens the sphere of the desires, 
 opens to them also new temptations. Vanity, the desire of 
 applause, pride, the sense of superiority gnawing dis- 
 content where that superiority is not recognized morbid 
 susceptibility, which comes with all new feelings the 
 underrating of simple pleasures apart from the intellectual 
 the chase of the imagination, often unduly stimulated, 
 for things unattainable below all these are surely amongst 
 the first temptations that beset the entrance into knowledge. 
 
 Leonard shaded his face with his hand. 
 
 "Hence," continued the Parson, benignantly "hence, 
 so far from considering that we do all that is needful to ac- 
 complish ourselves as men, when we cultivate only the 
 intellect, we should remember that we thereby continually 
 increase the range of our desires, and therefore of our 
 temptations ; and we should endeavor, simultaneously, to 
 cultivate both those affections of the heart which prove the 
 ignorant to be God's children no less than the wise, and 
 those moral qualities which have made men great and good 
 when reading and writing were scarcely known ; to wit., 
 patience and fortitude under poverty and distress ; hu- 
 mility and beneficence amidst grandeur and wealth ; and, 
 in counteraction to that egotism which all superiority, 
 mental or worldly, is apt to inspire, Justice, the father of 
 all the more solid virtues, softened by Charity, which is 
 their loving mother. Thus accompanied, Knowledge indeed 
 becomes the magnificent crown of humanity, not the im- 
 perious despot, but the checked and tempered sovereign of 
 the soul." 
 
 The Parson paused, and Leonard, coming near him, 
 timidly took his hand, with a child's affectionate and grate- 
 ful impulse. 
 
 RICCABOCCA. And if, Leonard, you are not satisfied
 
 2 82 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 with our Parson's excellent definitions, you have only to 
 read what Lord Bacon himself has said upon the true ends 
 of knowledge, to comprehend at once how angry the poor 
 great man whom Dr. Dale treats so harshly, would have 
 been with those who have stinted his elaborate distinctions 
 and provident cautions into that coxcombical little aphor- 
 ism, and then misconstrued all he designed to prove in favor 
 of the commandment, and authority of learning. For 
 [added the sage, looking up as a man does when he is tax- 
 ing his memory] I think it is thus that, after saying the 
 greatest error of all is the mistaking or misplacing the end 
 of knowledge, and denouncing the various objects for which 
 it is vulgarly sought I think it is thus that Lord Bacon 
 
 proceeds " Knowledge is not a shop for profit 
 
 or sale, but a rich storehouse for the glory of the Creator, 
 and the relief of men's estate." * 
 
 PARSON (remorsefully). Are those Lord Bacon's words ? 
 I am very sorry I spoke so uncharitably of his life. I must 
 examine it again. I may find excuses for it now that I 
 could not when I first formed my judgment. I was then a 
 raw lad at Oxford. But I see, Leonard, there is still some- 
 thing on your mind. 
 
 LEONARD. It is true, sir ; I would but ask whether it is 
 not by knowledge that we arrive at the qualities and virtues 
 you so well describe, but which you seem to consider as 
 coming to us through channels apart from knowledge ? 
 
 PARSON. If you mean by the word knowledge some- 
 thing very different from what you express in your Essay, 
 and which those contending for mental instruction, irrespec- 
 tive of religion and ethics, appear also to convey by the word, 
 you are right ; but remember, we have already agreed that 
 by the word knowledge we mean culture purely intellectual. 
 
 LEONARD. That is true, we so understood it. 
 
 PARSON. Thus, when this great Lord Bacon erred, you 
 may say that he erred from want of knowledge the knowl- 
 
 * " But the greatest error of all the rest is the mistaking or misplacing of the last or far- 
 thest end of knowledge ; for men have entered into a desire of learning and knowledge, 
 sometimes upon a natural curiosity and inquisitive appetite ; sometimes to entertain their 
 minds with variety and delight ; sometimes for ornament and reputation ; and sometimes to 
 enable them to victory of wit and contradiction ; and most times for lucre and profession " 
 [that is. lor most of those objects which are meant by the ordinary citers of the saying, 
 " Knowledge is power"] " and seldom sincerely to give a true account of these gifts of rea- 
 son to the benefit and use of men ; as if there were sought in knowledge a couch whereupon 
 to rest a searching and restless spirit ; or a terrace for a wandering and variable mind to walk 
 up and down, with a fair prospect ; or a tower of stafe for a proud mind to raise itself upon, 
 or a fort or commanding ground for strife and contention ; or a shop for profit or sale and 
 not a rich storehouse for the glory of the Creator, and the relief of men's estate." ADVANCE- 
 MKNT OK LKAKNING, Book I.
 
 VARIETIES IA T ENGLISH LIFE. 283 
 
 edge which moralists and preachers would convey. But Lord 
 Bacon had read all that moralists and preachers could say 
 on such matters ; and he certainly did not err from want of 
 intellectual cultivation. Let me here, my child, invite you 
 to observe, that He who knew most of our human hearts 
 and our immortal destinies, did not insht on this intellec- 
 tual culture as essential to the virtues that form our well- 
 being here, and conduce to our salvation hereafter. Had it 
 been essential, the Allwise One would not have selected 
 humble fishermen for the teachers of His doctrine, instead 
 of culling His disciples from Roman portico or Athenian 
 academe. And this, which distinguishes so remarkably the 
 Gospel from the ethics of heathen philosophy, wherein 
 knowledge is declared to be necessary to virtue, is a proof 
 how slight was the heathen sage's insight into the nature of 
 mankind, when compared with the Savior's ; for hard, in- 
 deed, would it be to men, whether high or low, rich or poor, 
 if science and learning, or contemplative philosophy, 
 were the sole avenues to peace and redemption ; since, in 
 this state of ordeal requiring active duties, very few in any 
 age, whether they be high or low, rich or poor, ever are or 
 can be devoted to pursuits merely mental. Christ does not 
 represent heaven as a college for the learned ; therefore the 
 rules of the Celestial Legislator are rendered clear to the 
 simplest understanding as to the deepest. 
 
 RICCABOCCA. And that which Plato and Zeno, Pytha- 
 goras and Socrates, could not do, was done by men whose 
 ignorance would have been a by-word in the schools of the 
 Greek. The gods of the vulgar were dethroned ; the face 
 of the world was changed ! This thought may make us al- 
 low, indeed, that there are agencies more powerful than 
 mere knowledge, and ask, after all, what is the mission 
 which knowledge should achieve ? 
 
 PARSON. The Sacred Book tells us even that ; for after 
 establishing the truth that, for the multitude, knowledge is 
 not essential to happiness and good, it accords still to know- 
 ledge its sublime part in the revelation prepared and an- 
 nounced. When an instrument of more than ordinary intel- 
 ligence was required for a purpose divine, when the Gospel 
 recorded by the simple, was to be explained by the acute, 
 enforced by the energetic, carried home to the doubts of 
 the Gentile, the Supreme Will joined to the zeal of the 
 earlier apostles the learning and genius of St. Paul not 
 holier'than the others, calling himself the least, yet labor-
 
 284 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 ing more abundantly than them all, making himself all 
 things unto all men, so that some might be saved. The ig- 
 norant may be saved no less surely than the wise ; but here 
 comes the wise man who helps to save ! And how the fulness 
 and animation of this grand Presence, of this indomitable 
 Energy, seem to vivify the toil, and to speed the work ! " In 
 journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in 
 perils of mine own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in 
 perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the 
 sea, in perils among false brethren." Behold, my son ! 
 does not Heaven here seem to reveal the true type of Know- 
 ledge, a sleepless activity, a pervading agency, a dauntless 
 heroism, an all-supporting faith ? a power a power in- 
 deed, a power apart from the aggrandizement of self, a 
 power that brings to him who owns and transmits it but 
 " weariness and painfulness ; in watchings often, in hunger 
 and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness," but a 
 power distinct from the mere circumstance of *the man, 
 rushing from him as rays from the sun ; borne through the 
 air, and clothing it with light, piercing under earth, and 
 calling forth the harvest ! Worship not knowledge, wor- 
 ship not the sun, O my child ! Let the sun but proclaim 
 the Creator ; let the knowledge but illumine the worship ! 
 
 The good man, overcome by his own earnestness, 
 paused ; his head drooped on the young student's breast, 
 and all three were long silent. 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 WHATEVER ridicule may be thrown upon Mr. Dale's 
 dissertations by the wit of the enlightened, they had a 
 considerable, and I think a beneficial, effect upon Leonard 
 Fairfield an effect which may perhaps create less sur- 
 prise when the reader remembers that Leonard was unac- 
 customed to argument, and still retained many of the 
 prejudices natural to his rustic breeding. Nay, he actually 
 thought it possible that, as both Riccabocca and Mr. Dale 
 were more than double his age, and had had opportunities 
 not only of reading twice as many books, but of gathering 
 up experience in wider ranges of life he actually, I say, 
 thought it possible that they might be better acquainted
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 285 
 
 with the properties and distinctions of knowledge than 
 himself. At all events, the Parson's words were so far well- 
 timed, that they produced in Leonard very much of that 
 state of mind which Mr. Dale desired to effect before com- 
 municating to him the startling intelligence that he was to 
 visit relations whom he had never seen, of whom he had 
 heard but little, and that it was at least possible that 
 the result of that visit might be to open to him greater 
 facilities for instruction, and a higher degree in life. 
 
 Without some such preparation, I fear that Leonard 
 would have gone forth into the world with an exaggerated 
 notion of his own acquirements, and with a notion yet 
 more exaggerated as to the kind of power that such knowl- 
 edge as he possessed would obtain for itself. As it was, 
 Avhen Mr. Dale broke to him the news of the experimental 
 journey before him, cautioning him against being over- 
 sanguine, Leonard received the intelligence with a serious 
 meekness, and thoughts that were nobly solemn. 
 
 When the door closed on his visitors, he remained for 
 some moments motionless, and in deep meditation ; then 
 he unclosed the door and stole forth. The night was 
 already far advanced, the heavens were luminous with all 
 the host of stars. "I think," said the student, referring, 
 in later life, to that crisis in his destiny " I think it was 
 then, as I stood alone, yet surrounded by worlds so 
 numberless, that I first felt the distinction between mind 
 and soul." 
 
 "Tell me," said Riccabocca, as he parted company 
 with Mr. Dale, "whether you have given to Frank Hazel- 
 dean, on entering life, the same lecture on the limits and 
 ends of knowledge which you have bestowed on Leonard 
 Fairfield ? " 
 
 " My friend," quoth the Parson, with a touch of human 
 conceit, "I have ridden on horseback, and I know that 
 some horses should be guided by the bridle, and some 
 should be urged by the spur." 
 
 " Cospetto ! '" said Riccabocca, "you contrive to put 
 every experience of yours to some use even your journey 
 on Mr. Hazeldean's pad. And I now see why, in this little 
 world of a village, you have picked up so general an 
 acquaintance with life." 
 
 " Did you ever read White's Natural History of Sel- 
 borne ? " 
 
 "No."
 
 2 36 MY XOIT.L; OR, 
 
 " Do so, and you will find that you need not go far to 
 learn the habits of birds, and know the difference between 
 a swallow and a swift. Learn the difference in a village, 
 and you know the difference wherever swallows and 
 swifts skim the air." 
 
 " Swallows and swifts ! true ; but men " 
 
 "Are with us all the year round which is more than 
 we can say- of swallows and swifts." 
 
 " Mr. Dale," said Riccabocca, taking off his hat with 
 great formality, " if ever again I find myself in a dilemma, 
 I will come to you instead of to Machiavelli." 
 
 "Ah!" cried the Parson, "if I could but have a calm 
 hour's talk with you on the errors of the Papal relig 
 
 Riccabocca was off like a shot. 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 THE next day, Mr. Dale had a long conversation with 
 Mrs. Fairfield. At first, he found some difficulty in getting 
 over her pride, and inducing her to accept overtures from 
 parents who had so long slighted both Leonard and her- 
 self. And it would have been in vain to have put before 
 the good woman the worldly advantages which such over- 
 tures implied. But when Mr. Dale said, almost sternly, 
 "Your parents are old, your father infirm ; their least wish 
 should be as binding to " you as their command," the 
 widow bowed her head, and said 
 
 "God bless them, sir, I was very sinful ' Honor your 
 father and mother.' I'm no scollard, but I know the Com- 
 mandments. Let Lenny go. But he'll soon forget me, and 
 mayhap he'll learn to be ashamed of me." 
 
 "There I will trust him," said the Parson; and he con- 
 trived easily to reassure and soothe her. 
 
 It was not till all this was settled that Mr. Dale drew 
 forth an unsealed letter which Mr. Richard Avenel, taking 
 his hint, had given to him as from Leonard's grandparents, 
 and said " This is for you, and it contains an enclosure of 
 some value." 
 
 "Will you read it, sir? As I said before, I'm no scol- 
 lard." 
 
 " But Leonard is, and he w r ill read to you."
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 287 
 
 When Leonard returned home that evening, Mrs. Fair- 
 field showed him the letter. It ran thus 
 
 " DEAR JANE, Mr. Dale will tell you that we wish Leon- 
 ard to come to us. We are glad to hear that you are well. 
 We forward, by Mr. Dale, a bank-note for ^50, which comes 
 from Richard, your brother. So no more at present from 
 your affectionate parents, 
 
 " JOHN AND MARGARET AVENEL." 
 
 The letter was in a stiff female scrawl, and Leonard ob- 
 served that two or three mistakes in spelling had been cor- 
 rected, either in another pen or in a different hand. 
 
 " Dear brother Dick, how good in him ! " cried the 
 widow. "When I saw there was. money, I thought it must 
 be him. How I should like to see Dick again ! But I 
 s'pose he's in Amerikay. Well, well, this will buy clothes 
 for you." 
 
 " No ; you must keep it all, mother, and put it in the 
 Savings' Bank." 
 
 "I'm not quite so silly as that," cried Mrs. Fairfielcl, 
 with contempt ; and she put the fifty pounds into a cracked 
 teapot. 
 
 " It must not stay there when I'm gone. You may be 
 robbed, mother." 
 
 " Dear me, dear me, that's true. What shall I do with 
 it ? what do I want with it, too ? Dear me, I wish they 
 hadn't sent it. I shan't sleep in peace. You must e'en put 
 it in your pouch, and button it up tight, boy." 
 
 Lenny smiled, and took the note ; but he gave it to Mr. 
 Dale, and begged him to put it into the Savings' Bank for 
 his mother. 
 
 The day following he went to take leave of his master, 
 of Jackeymo, of the fountain, the garden. But after he 
 had gone through the first of these adieus, with Jackeymo 
 who, poor man, indulged in all the lively gesticulations 
 of grief which make half the eloquence of his countrymen, 
 and then, absolutely blubbering, hurried away Leonard 
 himself was so affected that he could not proceed at once 
 to the house, but stood beside the fountain, trying hard to 
 keep back his tears. 
 
 "You, Leonard and you are going!" said a soft voice ; 
 and the tears fell faster than ever, for he recognized the 
 voice of Violante.
 
 288 MY NOVEL; OK, 
 
 " Do not cry," continued the child, with a kind of tender 
 gravity. "You are going, but papa says it would be selfish 
 in us to grieve, for it is for your good ; and we should be 
 glad. But I am selfish, Leonard, and I do grieve. I shall 
 miss you sadly." 
 
 " You, young lady you miss me ?" 
 
 " Yes. But I do not cry, Leonard, for I envy you, and 
 I wish I were a boy ; I wish I could do as you." 
 
 The girl clasped her hands, and reared her slight form, 
 with a kind of passionate dignity. 
 
 " Do as me, and part from all those you love ! " 
 
 " But to serve those you love. One day you will come 
 back to your mother's cottage, and say, ' I have conquered 
 fortune.' O that I could go forth and return, as you will ! 
 But my father has no country, and his only child is a use- 
 less girl." 
 
 As Violante spoke, Leonard had dried his tears ; her 
 emotion had distracted him from his own. 
 
 "Oh," continued Violante, again raising her head loftily, 
 "what it is to be a man ! A woman sighs 'I wish,' but a 
 man should say 'I will.'" 
 
 Occasionally before Leonard had noted fitful flashes of 
 a nature grand and heroic in the Italian child, especially of 
 late flashes the more remarkable from their contrast to a 
 form most exquisitely feminine, and to a sweetness of tem- 
 per which made even her pride gentle. But now it seemed 
 as if the child spoke with the command of a queen almost 
 with the inspiration of a Muse. A strange and new sense 
 of courage entered within him. 
 
 " May I remember these words ! " he murmured, half 
 audibly. 
 
 The girl turned and surveyed him with eyes brighter for 
 their moisture. She then extended her hand to him, with a 
 quick movement, and as he bent over it, with a grace taught 
 to him by genuine emotion, she said "And if you do, then, 
 girl and child as I am, I shall think I have aided a brave 
 heart in the great strife for honor ! " 
 
 She lingered a moment, smiled as if to herself, and then, 
 gliding away, was lost among the trees. 
 
 After a long pause, in which Leonard recovered slowly 
 from the surprise and agitation into which Violante had 
 thrown his spirits previously excited as they were he 
 went, murmuring to himself, toward the house. But Ric- 
 cabocca was from home. Leonard turned mechanically to
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 289 
 
 the terrace, and busied himself with the flowers. But the 
 dark eyes of Violante shone on his thoughts, and her voice 
 rang in his ear. 
 
 At length Riccabocca appeared on the road, attended by 
 a laborer, who carried something indistinct under his arm. 
 
 The Italian beckoned to Leonard to follow him into the 
 parlor, and after conversing with him kindly, and at some 
 length, and packing up, as it were, a considerable provision 
 of wisdom in the portable shape of aphorisms and proverbs, 
 the sage left him alone for a few moments. Riccabocca then 
 returned with his wife, and bearing a small knapsack : 
 
 " It is not much we can do for you, Leonard, and money 
 is the worst gift in the world for a keepsake ; but my wife 
 and I have put our heads together to furnish you with a lit- 
 tle outfit. Giacomo, who was in our secret, assures us that 
 the clothes will fit ; and stole, I fancy, a coat of yours, to 
 have the right measure. Put them on when you go to your 
 relations ; it is astonishing what a difference it makes in the 
 ideas people form of us, according as our coats are cut one 
 way or another. I should not be presentable in London 
 thus ; and nothing is more true than that a tailor is often 
 the making of a man." 
 
 " The shirts, too, are very good holland," said Mrs. Ric- 
 cabocca, about to open the knapsack. 
 
 " Never mind details, my dear," cried the wise man ; 
 " shirts are comprehended in the general principle of 
 clothes.^ And, Leonard, as a remembrance somewhat more 
 personal, accept this, which I have worn many a year when 
 time was a thing of importance to me, and nobler fates than 
 mine hung on a moment. We missed the moment, or abused 
 it ; and here I am, a waif on a foreign shore. Methinks I 
 have done with Time." 
 
 The exile, as he thus spoke, placed in Leonard's reluc- 
 tant hands a watch that would have delighted an antiquary, 
 and shocked a dandy. It was exceedingly thick, having an 
 outer case of enamel, and a inner one of gold. The hands 
 and the figures of the hours had originally been formed of 
 brilliants ; but the brilliants had long since vanished. Still, 
 even thus bereft, the watch was much more in character 
 with the giver than the receiver, and was as little suited to 
 Leonard as would have been the red silk umbrella. 
 
 " It is old-fashioned," said Mrs. Riccabocca ; " but it 
 goes better than any clock in ^ij, county. I really think it 
 will last to the end of the world," 
 
 13
 
 290 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 " Carissima mia ! " cried the Doctor, " I thought I had 
 convinced you that the world is by no means come to its 
 last legs." 
 
 " Oh, I did not mean anything, Alphonso," said Mrs. 
 Riccabocca, coloring. 
 
 " And that is all we do mean when we talk about that 
 of which we can know nothing," said the Doctor, less gal- 
 lantly than usual, for he resented that epithet of " old-fash- 
 ioned," as applied to the watch. 
 
 Leonard, we see, had been silent all this time ; he could 
 not speak literally and truly, he could not speak. How 
 he got out of his embarrassment, and how he got out of the 
 room, he never explained to my satisfaction ; but, a few 
 minutes afterward, he was seen hurrying down the road 
 very briskly. 
 
 Riccabocca and his wife stood at the window gazing 
 after him. 
 
 " There is a depth in that boy's heart," said the sage, 
 "which might float an Argosy." 
 
 " Poor dear boy ! I think we have put everything into 
 the knapsack that he can possibly want," said good Mrs. 
 Riccabocca, musingly. 
 
 The DOCTOR (continuing his soliloquy). They are 
 strong, but they are not immediately apparent. 
 
 MRS. RICCABOCCA (resuming hers). They are at the 
 bottom of the knapsack. 
 
 The DOCTOR. They will stand long wear and tear. 
 
 MRS. RICCABOCCA. A year, at least, with proper care at 
 the wash. 
 
 The DOCTOR (startled). Care at the wash ! What on 
 earth are you talking of, ma'am ? 
 
 MRS. RICCABOCCA (mildly). The shirts, to be sure, my 
 love ! And you ? 
 
 The DOCTOR (with a heavy sigh). The feelings, ma'am ! 
 [Then, after a pause, taking his wife's hand affectionately] 
 But you did quite right to think of the shirts ; Mr. Dale 
 said very truly 
 
 MRS. RICCABOCCA. What ? 
 
 The DOCTOR. That there was a great deal in common 
 between us even when I think of feelings, and you but of 
 shirts !
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 291 
 
 ,i : CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 MR. and Mrs. Avenel sat within the parlor Mr. Richard 
 stood on the hearth-rug, whistling Yankee Doodle. " The 
 Parson writes word that the lad will come to-day," said 
 Richard, suddenly " let me see the letter ay, to-day. If 
 
 he took the coach as far as , he might walk the rest of 
 
 the way in two or three hours. He should be pretty nearly 
 here. I have a great mind to go and meet him ; it will save 
 his asking questions, and hearing about me. I can clear 
 the town by the back way, and get out at the high-road." 
 
 "You'll not know him from any one else," said Mrs. 
 Avenel. 
 
 "Well, that is a good one! Not know an Avenel! 
 We've all the same cut of the jib have not we, father ?" 
 
 Poor John laughed heartily, till the tears rolled down 
 his cheeks. 
 
 " We were always a well-favored fam'ly," said John, 
 recomposing himself. " There was Luke, but he's gone ; 
 and Harry, but he's dead too ; and Dick, but he's in 
 Amerikay no, he's here ; and my darling Nora, but " 
 
 " Hush ! " interrupted Mrs. Avenel ; " hush, John ! " 
 
 The old man stared at her, and then put his tremulous 
 hand to his brow. "And Nora's gone too!" said he, in a 
 voice of profound woe. Both hands then fell on his knees, 
 and his head drooped on his breast. 
 
 Mrs. Avenel rose, kissed her husband on the forehead, 
 and walked away to the window. Richard took up his hat, 
 and brushed the nap carefully with his handkerchief ; but 
 his lips quivered. 
 
 "I'm going," said he, abruptly. "Now mind, mother, 
 not a word about Uncle Richard yet ; we must first see how 
 we like each other, and," in a low whisper, " you'll try and 
 get that into my poor father's head ? " 
 
 " Ay, Richard," said Mrs. Avenel, quietly. Richard put 
 on his hat and went out by the back way. He stole along 
 the fields that skirted the town, and had only once to cross 
 the street before he got into the high-road. 
 
 He walked on till lie came to the first milestone. There 
 he seated himself, lighted his cigar, and awaited his nephew.
 
 292 MY NOVEL; OK, 
 
 It was now nearly the hour of sunset, and the road before 
 him lay westward. Richard, from time to time, looked 
 along the road, shading his eyes with his hand ; and at 
 length, just as the disc of the sun had halt sunk down the 
 horizon, a solitary figure came up the way. It emerged 
 suddenly from the turn in the road ; the reddening beams 
 colored all the atmosphere around it. Solitary and silent, 
 it came as from a Land of Light. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 " You have been walking far, young man ? " said Rich- 
 ard Avenel. 
 
 " No, sir, not very. That is Lansmere before me, is it 
 not ? " 
 
 " Yes, it is Lansmere ; you stop there, I guess ?" 
 
 Leonard made a sign in the affirmative, and walked on 
 a few paces ; then, seeing the stranger who had accosted him 
 still by his side, he said 
 
 " If you know the town, sir, perhaps you will have the 
 goodness to tell me whereabouts Mr. Avenel lives ?" 
 
 " I can put you into a straight cut across the fields, that 
 will bring you just behind the house." 
 
 " You are very kind, but it will take you out of your 
 way." 
 
 "No, it is in my way. So you are going to Mr. Ave- 
 nel's ? a good old gentleman." 
 
 "I've always heard so; and Mrs. Avenel " 
 
 *'A particular superior woman," said Richard. "Any 
 one else to ask after? I know the family well." 
 
 "No, thank you, sir." 
 
 " They have a son, I believe ; but he's in America, is 
 not he ? " 
 
 "I believe he is, sir." 
 
 " I see the Parson has kept faith with me," muttered 
 Richard. 
 
 " If you can tell me anything about him" said Leonard, 
 " I should be very glad." 
 
 "Why so, young man? perhaps he is hanged by this 
 time." 
 
 " Hanged ! "
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 293 
 
 "He was a sad dog, I am told." 
 
 " Then you have been told very falsely," said Leonard, 
 coloring. 
 
 " A sad wild dog his parents were so glad when he 
 cut and run went off to the States. They say he made 
 money ;-but, if so, he neglected his relations shamefully." 
 
 "Sir," said Leonard, " you are wholly misinformed. He 
 has been most generous to a relation who has little claim 
 on him ; and I never heard his name mentioned but with 
 love and praise." 
 
 Richard instantly fell to whistling Yankee Doodle, and 
 walked on several paces without saying a word. He then 
 made a slight apology for his impertinence hoped no of- 
 fence and, with his usual bold but astute style of talk, 
 contrived to bring out something of his companion's mind. 
 He was evidently struck with the clearness and propriety 
 with which Leonard expressed himself, raised his eyebrows 
 in surprise more than once, and looked him full in the face 
 with an attentive and pleased survey. Leonard had put on 
 the new clothes with which Riccabocca and wife had pro- 
 vided him. They were those appropriate to a young coun- 
 try tradesman in good circumstances ; but as Leonard did 
 not think about the clothes, so he had unconsciously some- 
 thing of the ease of the gentleman. 
 
 They now came into the fields. Leonard paused before 
 a slip of ground sown with rye. 
 
 " I should have thought grass land would have answered 
 better, so near a town," said he. 
 
 " No doubt it would," answered Richard ; " but they are 
 sadly behindhand in these parts. You see the great park 
 yonder, on the- other side of the road? That would answer 
 better for rye than grass ; but then, what would become of 
 my Lord's deer? The aristocracy eat us up, young man." 
 
 " But the aristocracy did not sow this piece with rye, I 
 suppose? " said Leonard, smiling. 
 
 " And what do you conclude from that?" 
 
 " Let every man look to his own ground," said Leonard, 
 with a cleverness of repartee caught from Dr. Riccabocca. 
 
 " 'Cute lad you are," said Richard ; " and we'll talk more 
 of these matters another time." 
 
 They now came within sight of Mr. Avenel's house. 
 
 "You can get through the gap in the hedge, by the old 
 pollard oak," said Richard, " and come round by the front 
 of the house. Why, you're not afraid are you ? "
 
 294 MY NOVEL; OK, 
 
 " I am a stranger." 
 
 " Shall I introduce you ? I told you that I knew the old 
 couple." 
 
 "Oh no, sir! I would rather meet them alone." 
 
 " Go ; and wait a bit harkye, young man, Mrs. Ave- 
 nel is a cold-mannered woman ; but don't be abashed by 
 that." 
 
 Leonard thanked the good-natured stranger, crossed the 
 field, passed the gap, and paused a moment under the stinted 
 shade of the old hollow-hearted oak. The ravens were re- 
 turning to their nests. At the sight of a human form under 
 the tree, they wheeled round, and watched him afar. From 
 the thick of the boughs, the young ravens sent their hoarse 
 low cry.* 
 
 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 THE young man entered the neat, prim, formal parlor. 
 
 " You are welcome !" said Mrs. Avenel, in a firm voice. 
 
 " The gentleman is heartily welcome," cried poor John. 
 
 " It is your grandson, Leonard Fairfield," said Mrs. 
 Avenel. 
 
 But John, who had risen with knocking knees, gazed 
 hard at Leonard, and then fell on his breast, sobbing aloud 
 " Nora's eyes ! he has a blink in his eye like Nora's." 
 
 Mrs. Avenel approached with a steady step, and drew 
 away the old man tenderly. 
 
 " He is a poor creature," she whispered to Leonard 
 " you excite him. Come away, I Avill show you your 
 room." 
 
 Leonard followed her up the stairs, and came into a 
 room neatly, and even prettily, furnished. The carpet and 
 curtains were faded by the sun, and of old-fashioned pattern ; 
 there was a look about the room as if it had been long 
 disused. 
 
 Mrs. Avenel sank down on the first chair on entering. 
 
 Leonard drew his arm round her waist affectionately. 
 " I fear that I have put you out sadly my dear grand- 
 mother." 
 
 * It so rarely happens that ravens are found to build near a dwelling-house, that it is per- 
 haps necessary to observe that the instance here referred to is founded on a fact stated to the 
 author on good authority.
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 295 
 
 
 
 Mrs. Avenel glided hastily from his arm, and her coun- 
 tenance worked much every nerve in it twitching, as it were ; 
 then, placing her hand on his locks, she said with passion, 
 " God bless you, my grandson," and left the room. 
 
 Leonard dropped his knapsack on the floor, and looked 
 around him wistfully. The room seemed as if it had once 
 been occupied by a lemale. There was a work-box on the 
 chest of drawers, and over it hanging shelves for books, 
 suspended by ribbons that had once been blue, with silk and 
 fringe appended to each shelf, and knots and tassels here 
 and there the taste of a woman, or rather of a girl, who 
 seeks to give a grace to the commonest things around her. 
 With the mechanical habits of a student, Leonard took down 
 one or two of the volumes still left on the shelves. He 
 found SPENSER'S Fairy Queen, RACINE in French, TASSO in 
 Italian ; and on the fly-leaf of each volume, in the exquisite 
 handwriting familiar to his memory, the name " Leonora." 
 He kissed the books, and replaced them with a feeling akin 
 both to tenderness and awe. 
 
 He had not been alone in the room more than a quarter 
 of an hour, before the maid-servant knocked at his door and 
 summoned him to tea. 
 
 Poor John had recovered his spirits, and his wife sat by 
 his side holding his hand in hers. Poor John was even gay. 
 He asked many questions about his daughter Jane, and did 
 not wait for the answers. Then he spoke about the Squire, 
 whom he confounded with Audley Egerton, and talked of 
 elections and the Blue party, and hoped Leonard would al- 
 ways be a good Blue ; and then he fell to his tea and toast, 
 and said no more. 
 
 Mrs. Avenel spoke little, but she eyed Leonard askant, 
 as it were, from time to time ; and, after each glance, the 
 nerves of the poor severe face twitched again. 
 
 A little after nine o'clock, Mrs. Avenel lighted a candle, 
 and placing it in Leonard's hand, said, " You must be tired 
 you know your own room now. Good night." 
 
 Leonard took the light, and, as was his wont with his 
 mother, kissed Mrs. Avenel on the cheek. Then he took 
 John's hand and kissed him too. The old man was half 
 asleep, and murmured dreamily, " That's Nora." 
 
 Leonard had retired to his room about half an hour, 
 when Richard Avenel entered the house softly, and joined 
 his parents. 
 
 "Well, mother ? " said he.
 
 296 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 "Well, Richard you have seen him?" 
 
 " And like him. Do you know, he has a great look of 
 poor Nora ? more like her than Jane." 
 
 " Yes ; he is handsomer than Jane ever was, but more like 
 your father than any one. John was so comely. You take 
 to the boy, then ? " 
 
 " Ay, that I do. Just tell him in the morning that he is 
 to go with a gentleman who will be his friend, and don't say 
 more. The chaise shall be at the door after breakfast. Let 
 lii m get into it ; I shall wait for him out of the town. What's 
 the room you gave him ? " 
 
 " The room you would not take." 
 
 " The room in which Nora slept ? Oh no ! I could not 
 have slept a wink there. What a charm there was in that 
 girl how we all loved her ! But she was too beautiful and 
 good for us too good to live ! " 
 
 " None of us are too good," said Mrs. Avenel, with great 
 austerity, " and I beg you will not talk in that way. Good 
 night I must get your poor father to bed." 
 
 When Leonard opened his eyes the next morning, they 
 rested on the face of Mrs. Avenel, which was bending over 
 his pillow. But it was long before he could recognize that 
 countenance, so changed was its expression so tender, so 
 mother-like. Nay, the face of his own mother had never 
 seemed to him so soft with a mother's passion. 
 
 " Ah ! " he murmured, half rising and flinging his young 
 arms around her neck. Mrs. Avenel, this time taken by sur- 
 prise, warmly returned the embrace ; she clasped him to her 
 breast, she kissed him again and again. At length, with a 
 quick start, she escaped, and walked up and down the room, 
 pressing her hands tightly together. When she halted, her 
 face had recovered its usual severity and cold precision. 
 
 " It is time for you to rise, Leonard," said she. "You 
 will leave us to-day. A gentleman has promised to take 
 charge of you, and do for you more than we can. A chaise 
 will be at the door soon make haste." 
 
 John was absent from the breakfast-table. His wife said 
 that he never rose. till late, and must not be disturbed. 
 
 The meal was scarcely over before a chaise and pair 
 came to the door. 
 
 " You must not keep the chaise waiting the gentleman 
 is Very punctual." 
 
 " But he is not come."
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 297 
 
 " No ; he has walked on before, and will get in after 
 you are out of the town." 
 
 " What is his name, and why should he care for me, 
 grandmother ? " 
 
 " He will tell you himself. Be quick." 
 
 " But you will bless me again, grandmother. I love 
 you already." 
 
 " I do bless you," said Mrs. Avenel, firmly. " Be honest 
 and good, and beware of the first false step." She pressed 
 his hand with a convulsive grasp, and led him to the outer 
 door. 
 
 The postboy clanked his whip, the chaise rattled off. 
 Leonard put his head out of the window to catch a last 
 glimpse of the old woman ; but the boughs of the pollard 
 oak, and its gnarled decaying trunk, hid her from his eye; 
 and look as he would, till the road turned, he saw but the 
 melancholy tree. 
 
 '3*
 
 298 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 BOOK FIFTH. 
 
 INITIAL CHAPTER. 
 
 CONTAINING MR. CAXTON's UNAVAILING CAUTION NOT TO BE 
 
 DULL. 
 
 " I HOPE, Pisistratus," said my father, "that you do not 
 intend to be dull ?" 
 
 " Heaven forbid, sir ! What could make you ask such 
 a question ? Intend / No ! if I am dull, it is from 
 innocence." 
 
 "A very long discourse upon knowledge!" said my 
 father ; " very long. I should cut it out ! " 
 
 I looked upon my father as a Byzantian sage might have 
 looked on a Vandal. " Cut it out !" 
 
 " Stops the action, sir ! " said my father, dogmatically. 
 
 "Action ! But a novel is not a drama." 
 
 " No, it is a great deal longer twenty times as long, I 
 dare say," replied Mr. Caxton, with a sigh. 
 
 "Well, sir well! I think my Discourse upon Knowl- 
 edge has much to do with the subject is vitally essential 
 to the subject ; does not stop the action only explains and 
 elucidates the action. And I am astonished, sir, that you, 
 a scholar, and a cultivator of knowledge 
 
 " There there ! " cried my father, deprecatingly. I 
 yield I yield. What better could I expect when I set up 
 for a critic ! What author ever lived that did not fly into a 
 passion, even with his own father, if his father presumed to 
 say ' Cut out ! ' " 
 
 MRS. CAXTON. My dear Austin, I am sure Pisistratus 
 did not mean to offend you, and I have no doubt he will 
 take your 
 
 PISISTRATUS (hastily). Advice for the future, certainly. 
 I will quicken the action, and
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 299 
 
 " Go on with the Novel," whispered Roland, looking up 
 from his eternal account-book. "We have lost 200 by 
 our barley ! " 
 
 Therewith I plunged my pen into the ink, and my 
 thoughts into the " Fair Shadow-land." 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 " HALT !" cried a voice ; and not a little surprised was 
 Leonard when the stranger who had accosted him the pre- 
 ceding evening got into the chaise. 
 
 " Well," said Richard, " I am not the sort of man you 
 expected, eh ? Take time to recover yourself." And with 
 these words Richard drew forth a book from his pocket, 
 threw himself back, and began to read. Leonard stole 
 many a glance at the acute, hardy, handsome face of his 
 companion, and gradually recognized a family likeness to 
 poor John, in whom, despite age and infirmity, the traces 
 of no common share of physical beauty were still evident. 
 And, with that quick link in ideas which mathematical ap- 
 titude bestows, the young student at once conjectured that 
 he saw before him his uncle Richard. He had the discre- 
 tion, however, to leave that gentleman free to choose his 
 own time for introducing himself, and silently revolved the 
 new thoughts produced by the novelty of his situation. Mr. 
 Richard read with notable quickness sometimes cutting 
 the leaves of the book with his penknife, sometimes 
 tearing them open with his four fingers, sometimes 
 skipping whole pages altogether. "Thus he galloped to the 
 end of the volume flung it aside lighted his cigar, and 
 began to talk. 
 
 He put many questions to Leonard relative to his rear- 
 ing, and especially to the mode by which he had acquired 
 his education ; and Leonard, confirmed in the idea that he 
 was replying to a kinsman, answered frankly. 
 
 Richard did not think it strange that Leonard should 
 have acquired so much instruction with so little direct tui- 4 
 tion. Richard Avenel himself had been tutor to himself. 
 He had lived too long with our go-ahead brethren, who 
 stride the world on the other side of the Atlantic with the 
 seven-leagued boots of the Giant-killer, not to have caught
 
 300 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 their glorious fever for reading. But it was for a reading 
 wholly different from that which was familiar to Leonard. 
 The books he read must be new ; to read old books would 
 have seemed to him going back in the world. He fancied 
 that new books necessarily contained new ideas a com- 
 mon mistake and our lucky adventurer was the man of 
 his day. 
 
 Tired with talking, he at length chucked the book he 
 had run through to Leonard, and, taking out a pocket- 
 book and pencil, amused himself with calculations on some 
 detail of his business, after which he fell into an absorbed 
 train of thought part pecuniary, part ambitious. 
 
 Leonard found the book interesting ; it was one of the 
 numerous works, half statistic, half-declamatory, relating to 
 the condition of the working-classes, wi.ich peculiarly 
 distinguish our century, and ought to bind together rich 
 and poor, by proving the grave attention which modern 
 society bestows upon all that can affect the welfare of the 
 last. 
 
 " Dull stuff theory claptrap," said Richard, rousing 
 himself from his reverie at last ; " it can't interest you." 
 
 " All books interest me, I think," said Leonard, "and 
 this especially ; for it relates to the working-class, and I 
 am one of them." 
 
 " You were yesterday, but you mayn't be to-morrow," 
 answered Richard good-humoredly, and patting him on the 
 shoulder. "You see, my lad, that it is the middle-class 
 which ought to govern the country. What the book says 
 about the ignorance of country magistrates is very good ; 
 but the man writes pretty considerable trash when he wants 
 to regulate the number of hours a free-born boy should 
 work at a factory only ten hours a day pooh ! and so lose 
 two hours to the nation ! Labor is wealth ;' and if we could 
 get men to work twenty-four hours a day, we should be just 
 twice as rich. If the march of civilization is to proceed," 
 continued Richard, loftily, " men, and boys too, must not 
 lie a-bed doing nothing all night, sir." Then, with a com- 
 placent tone "We shall get to the twenty-four hours at last ; 
 and, by gad, we must, or we shan't flog the Europeans as we 
 do now." 
 
 On arriving at the inn at which Richard had first made 
 acquaintance with Mr. Dale, the coach by which he had 
 intended to perform the rest of the journey was found to be 
 full. Richard continued to perform the journey in post-
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 301 
 
 chaises, not without some grumbling at the expense, and 
 incessant orders to the post-boys to make the best of their 
 way. " Slow country this, in spite of all its brag," said he 
 " very slow. Time is money they know that in the States ; 
 for why, they are all men of business there. Always slow in 
 a country where a parcel of lazy, idle lords, and dukes, and 
 baronets, seem to think 'time is pleasure.'" 
 
 Toward evening the chaise approached the confines of 
 a very large town, and Richard began to grow fidgety. His 
 easy, cavalier air was abandoned. He withdrew his legs 
 from the window, out of which they had been luxuriously 
 dangling; pulled down his waistcoat ; buckled more tightly 
 his stock ; it was clear that he was resuming the decorous 
 dignity that belongs to state. He was like a monarch, who, 
 after travelling happy and incognito, returns to his capital. 
 Leonard divined at once that they were nearing their jour- 
 ney's end. 
 
 Humble foot-passengers now looked at the chaise, and 
 touched their hats. Richard returned the salutation with a 
 nod a nod less gracious than condescending. The chaise 
 turned rapidly to the left, and stopped before a small lodge, 
 very new, very white, adorned with two Doric columns in 
 stucco, and flanked by a large pair of gates. " Hollo ! " 
 cried th'e post-boy, and cracked his whip. 
 
 Two children were playing before the lodge, and some 
 clothes were hanging out to dry on the shrubs and pales 
 round the neat little building. 
 
 " Hang those brats ! they are actually playing," growled 
 Dick. "As I live, the jade has been washing again ! Stop, 
 boy." During this soliloquy, a good-looking young woman 
 had rushed from the door slapped the children as, catching 
 sight of the chaise, they ran toward the house opened the 
 gates, and, dropping a curtsey to the ground, seemed to 
 wish that she could drop into it altogether, so frightened 
 and so trembling seemed she to shrink from the wrathful 
 face which the master now put out of the window. 
 
 " Did I tell you, or did I not," said Dick, " that I would 
 not have those horrid, disreputable cubs of yours playing 
 just before my lodge-gates ? " 
 
 " Please, sir 
 
 " Don't answer me. And did I tell you, or did I not, that 
 the next time I saw you making a drying-ground of my 
 lilacs, you should go out, neck and crop " 
 
 "Oh, please, sir "
 
 302 My NOVEL; OR, 
 
 " You leave my lodge next Saturday ! drive on, boy. 
 The ingratitude and insolence of those common people are 
 disgraceful to human nature," muttered Richard, with an 
 accent of the bitterest misanthropy. 
 
 The chaise wheeled along the smoothest and freshest of 
 gravel roads, and through fields of the finest land, in the 
 highest state of cultivation. Rapid as was Leonard's survey, 
 his rural eye detected the signs of a master in the art agro- 
 nomial. Hitherto he had considered the Squire's model 
 farm as the nearest approach to good husbandry he had 
 seen ; for Jackeymo's finer skill was developed rather on 
 the minute scale of market-gardening than what can fairly 
 be called husbandry. But the Squire's farm was degraded 
 by many old-fashioned notions, and concessions to the whim 
 of the eye, which would not be found in model farms now- 
 a-days large tangled hedgerows, which, though they con- 
 stitute one of the beauties most picturesque in old England, 
 make sad deductions from produce ; great trees, overshadow- 
 ing the corn, and harboring the birds ; little patches of 
 rough sward left to waste ; and angles of woodland running 
 into fields, exposing them to rabbits, and blocking out the 
 sun, these and such-like blots on a gentleman-farmer's 
 agriculture, common-sense and Giacomo had made clear to 
 the acute comprehension of Leonard. No such faults were 
 perceptible in Richard Avenel's domain. The fields lay in 
 broad divisions, the hedges were clipped and narrowed into 
 their proper destination of mere boundaries. Not a blade 
 of wheat withered under the cold shade of a tree ; not a 
 yard of land lay waste ; not a weed was to be seen, not a 
 thistle to waft its baleful seed through the air ; some young 
 plantations were placed, not where the artist would put 
 them, but just where the farmer wanted a fence from the 
 wind. Was there no beauty in this ? Yes, there was beauty 
 of its kind beauty at once recognizable to the initiated 
 beauty of use and profit beauty that could bear a monstrous 
 high rent. And Leonard uttered a cry of admiration which 
 thrilled through the heart of Richard Avenel. 
 
 " This is farming ! " said the villager. 
 
 "Well, I guess it is," answered Richard, all his ill-humor 
 vanishing. " You should have seen the land when I bought 
 it. But we new men, as they call us (damn their impertin- 
 ence) are the new blood of this country." 
 
 Richard Averiel never said anything more true. Long 
 may the new blood circulate through the veins of the mighty
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 303 
 
 giantess ; but let the grand heart be the same as it has beat 
 for proud ages. 
 
 The chaise now passed through a pretty shrubbery, and 
 the house came into gradual view- -a house with a portico 
 all the offices carefully thrust out of sight. 
 
 The post-boy dismounted, and rang the bell. 
 
 " I almost think they are going to keep me waiting," 
 said Mr. Richard, well-nigh in the very words of Louis 
 XIV. 
 
 But that fear was not realized the door opened ; a well- 
 fed servant out of livery presented himself. There was no 
 hearty welcoming smile on his face, but he opened the 
 chaise-door with demure and taciturn respect. 
 
 " Where's George ? why does not he come to the door?" 
 asked Richard, descending from the chaise slowly, and lean- 
 ing on the servant's outstretched arm with as much precau- 
 tion as if he had had the gout. 
 
 Fortunately George here came into sight, settling him- 
 self hastily into his livery-coat. 
 
 "See to the things, both of you," said Richard, as he 
 paid the post-boy. 
 
 Leonard stood on the gravel sweep, gazing at the square 
 white house. 
 
 "Handsome elevation classical, I take it eh?" said 
 Richard, joining him. " But you should see the offices." 
 
 He then, with familar kindness, took Leonard by the 
 arm, and drew him within. He showed him the hall, with 
 a carved mahogany stand for hats ; he showed him the draw- 
 ing-room, and pointed out all its beauties though it was 
 summer, the drawing-room looked cold, as will look rooms 
 newly furnished, with walls newly papered, in houses newly 
 built. The furniture was handsome, and suited to the rank 
 of a rich trader. There was no pretence about it, and there- 
 fore no vulgarity, which is more than can be said for the 
 houses of many an honorable Mrs. Somebody in Mayfair, 
 with rooms twelve feet square, chokef ul of buhl, that would 
 have had its proper place in the Tuileries. Then Richard 
 showed him the library, with mahogany book-cases and plate- 
 glass, and the fashionable authors handsomely bound. 
 Your new men are much better friends to living authors 
 than your old families who live in the country, and at most 
 subscribe to a book-club. Then Richard took him up-stairs, 
 and led him through the bed-rooms all very clean and 
 comfortable, and with every modern convenience ; and,
 
 304 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 pausing in a very pretty single-gentleman's chamber, said, 
 "This is your den. And now, can you guess who I am ?" 
 
 "No one but my uncle Richard could be so kind," an- 
 swered Leonard. 
 
 But the compliment did not flatter Richard. He was 
 extremely disconcerted and disappointed. He had hoped 
 that he should be taken for a lord at least, forgetful of all 
 that he had said in disparagement of lords. 
 
 ''Pish!" said he at last, biting his lip "so you don't 
 think that I look like a gentleman ? Come, now, speak 
 honestly." 
 
 Leonard, wonderingly, saw he had given pain, and, with 
 the good-breeding which comes instinctively from good- 
 nature, replied " I judge you by your heart, sir, and your 
 likeness to my grandfather otherwise I should never have 
 presumed to fancy we could be relations." 
 
 " Hum ! " answered Richard. " You can just wash your 
 hands, and then come down to dinner ; you will hear the 
 gong in ten minutes. There's the bell ring for what you 
 want/' 
 
 With that he turned on his heel ; and, descending the 
 stairs, gave a look into the dining-room, and admired the 
 plated silver on the sideboard, and the king's-pattern spoons 
 and forks on the table. Then he walked to the looking- 
 glass over the mantle-piece ; and, wishing to survey the 
 whole effect of his form, mounted a chair. He was just get- 
 ting into an attitude which he thought. imposing, when the 
 butler entered, and, being London-bred, had the discretion 
 to try to escape unseen ; but Richard caught sight of him 
 in the looking-glass, and colored up to the temples. 
 
 "Jarvis," said he, mildly "Jarvis, put me in mind to 
 have these inexpressibles altered." 
 
 inom- i f(-.iriy/ ,7li'i.r:^Iuy on rno't 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 APROPOS of the inexpressibles, Mr. Richard did not for- 
 get to provide his nephew with a much larger wardrobe than 
 could have been thrust into Dr. Riccabocca's knapsack. 
 There was a very good tailor in the town, and the clothes 
 were very well made. And, but for an air more ingenuous, 
 and a cheek that, despite study and night vigils, retained
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 305 
 
 much of the sunburnt bloom of the rustic, Leonard Fairfield 
 might now have almost passed, without disparaging com- 
 ment, by the bow-window at White's. Richard burst into 
 an immoderate fit of laughter when he first saw the watch 
 which the poor Italian had bestowed upon Leonard ; but to 
 atone for the laughter, he made him a present of a very 
 pretty substitute, and bade him "lock up his turnip." 
 Leonard was more hurt by the jeer at his old patron's gift 
 than pleased by his uncle's. But Richard Avenel had no 
 conception of sentiment. It was not for many days that 
 Leonard could reconcile himself to his uncle's manner. Not 
 that the peasant could pretend to judge of its mere conven- 
 tional defects ; but there is an ill-breeding to which, what- 
 ever our rank and nurture, we are almost equally sensitive 
 the ill-breeding that comes from want of consideration for 
 others. Now, the Squire was as homely in his way as Rich- 
 ard Avenel, but the Squire's bluntness rarely hurt the feel- 
 ings ; and when it did so, the Squire perceived and hastened 
 to repair his blunder. But Mr. Richard, whether kind or 
 cross, was always wounding you in some little delicate fibre 
 not from malice, but from the absence of any little delicate 
 fibres of his own. He was really, in many respects, a most 
 excellent man, and certainly a very valuable citizen. But 
 his merits wanted the fine tints and fluent curves that con- 
 stitute beauty of character. He was honest, but sharp in his 
 practice, and with a keen eye to his interests. He was just, 
 but as a matter of business. He made no allowances, and 
 did not leave to his justice the large margin of tenderness 
 and mercy. He was generous, but rather from an idea of 
 what was due to himself than with much thought of the 
 pleasure he gave to others ; and he even regarded generosity 
 as a capital put out to interest. He expected a great deal 
 of gratitude in return, and, when he obliged a man, consid- 
 ered that he had bought a slave. Every needy voter knew 
 where to come, if he wanted relief or a loan ; but woe to him 
 if he had ventured to express hesitation when Mr. Avenel 
 told him how he must vote. 
 
 In this town Richard had settled after his return from 
 America, in which country he had enriched himself first, 
 by spirit and industry lastly, by bold speculation and good 
 luck. He invested his fortune in business became a part- 
 ner in a large brewery soon bought out his associates 
 and then took a principal share in a flourishing corn-mill. 
 He prospered rapidly bought a property of some two or
 
 306 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 three hundred acres, built a house, and resolved to enjoy 
 himself, and make a figure. He had now become the lead- 
 ing man of the town, and the boast to Audley Egerton that 
 he could return one of the members, perhaps both, was by 
 no means an exaggerated estimate of his power. Nor was 
 his proposition, according to his own views, so unprincipled 
 as it appeared to the statesman. He had taken a great dis- 
 like to both the sitting members a dislike natural to a 
 sensible man of moderate politics, who had something to 
 lose. For Mr. Slappe, the active member w r ho was head- 
 over-ears in debt was one of the furious democrats rare 
 before the Reform Bill and whose opinions were held 
 dangerous even by the mass of a Liberal constituency ; 
 while Mr. Sleekie, the gentleman member, who laid by 
 ^"5000 every year from his dividends in the Funds, was 
 one of those men whom Richard justly pronounced to be 
 " humbugs " men who curry favor with the extreme party 
 by voting for measures sure not to be carried ; while, if 
 there was the least probability of coming to a decision that 
 would lower the money-market, Mr. Sleekie was seized with 
 a well-timed influenza. Those politicians are common 
 enough now. Propose to march to the Millenium, and they 
 are your men. Ask them to march a quarter of a mile, and 
 they fall to feeling their pockets, and trembling for fear of 
 the footpads. They are never so joyful as when there is no 
 chance of a victory Did they beat the minister, they would 
 be carried out of the House in a fit. 
 
 Richard Avenel despising both these gentlemen, and 
 not taking kindly to the Whigs since the great Whig leaders 
 were lords had looked with a friendly eye to the Govern- 
 ment as it then existed, and especially to Audley Egerton, 
 the enlightened representative of commerce. But in giving 
 Audley and his colleagues the benefit of his influence, 
 through conscience, he thought it all fair and right to have 
 a quid pro quo, and, as he had so frankly confessed, it was his 
 whim to rise up " Sir Richard." For this worthy citizen 
 abused the aristocracy much on the same principle as the 
 fair Olivia depreciated Squire Thornhill he had a sneaking 
 affection for what he abused. The society of Screwstown 
 was, like most provincial capitals, composed of two classes 
 the commercial and the exclusive. These last dwelt chiefly 
 apart, around the ruins of an old abbey ; they affected its 
 antiquity in their pedigrees, and had much of its ruin in 
 their finances. Widows of rural thanes in the neighborhood
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 307 
 
 genteel spinsters officers retired on half-pay younger 
 sons of rich squires, who had now become old bachelors 
 in short, a very respectable, proud, aristocratic set who 
 thought more of themselves than do all the Gowers and 
 Howards, Courtenays and Seymours put together. It had 
 early been the ambition of Richard Avenel to be admitted 
 into this sublime coterie ; and, strange to say, he had 
 partially succeeded. He was never more happy than when 
 he was asked to their card-parties, and never more unhappy 
 than when he was actually there. Various circumstances 
 combined to raise Mr. Avenel into this elevated society. 
 First, he was unmarried, still very handsome, and in that 
 society there was a large proportion of unwedded females. 
 Secondly, he was the only rich trader in Screwstown who 
 kept a good cook, and professed to give dinners, and the 
 half-pay captains and colonels swallowed the host for the 
 sake of the venison. Thirdly, and principally, all these 
 exclusives abhorred the two sitting members, and "idem 
 nelle idem velle de republicd, ea firma amicitia est /" that is, 
 congeniality in politics pieces porcelain and crockery 
 together better than the best diamond cement. The sturdy 
 Richard Avenel who valued himself on American inde- 
 pendence held these ladies and gentlemen in an awe that 
 was truly Brahminical. Whether it was that, in England, 
 all notions, even of liberty, are mixed up historically, tradi- 
 tionally, socially, with that fine and subtle element of aristoc- 
 racy which, like the press, is the air we breathe ; or whether 
 Richard imagined that he really became magnetically im- 
 bued with the virtues of these silver pennies and gold seven- 
 shilling pieces, distinct from the vulgar coinage in popular 
 use, it is hard to say. But the truth must be told Richard 
 Avenel was a notable tuft-hunter. He had a great longing 
 to marry out of this society, but he had not yet seen any 
 one sufficiently high-born and high-bred to satisfy his aspira- 
 tions. In the meanwhile, he had convinced himself that his 
 way would be smooth could he offer to make his ultimate 
 choice "My Lady ;" and he felt that it would be a proud 
 hour in his life when he could walk before stiff Colonel 
 Pompley to the sound of " Sir Richard." Still, however 
 disappointed at the ill success of his bluff diplomacy with 
 Mr. Egerton, and however yet cherishing the most vindictive 
 resentment against that individual he did not, as many 
 would have done, throw up his political convictions out of 
 personal spite. He reserved his private grudge for some
 
 308 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 special occasion, and continued still to support the Adminis- 
 tration, and to hate one of the Ministers. 
 
 But, duly to appreciate the value of Richard Avenel, 
 and in just counterpoise to all his foibles, one ought to 
 have seen what he had effected for the town. Well might 
 he boast of " new blood ; " he had done as much for the 
 town as he had for his fields. His energy, his quick com- 
 prehension of public utility, backed by his wealth, and bold, 
 bullying, imperious character, had sped the work of civiliza- 
 tion as if with the celerity and force of a steam-engine. 
 
 If the town were so well paved and so well lighted if 
 half a dozen squalid lanes had been transformed into a 
 stately street if half the town no longer depended on tanks 
 for their water if the poor-rates were reduced one-third, 
 praise to the brisk new blood which Richard Avenel had 
 infused into vestry and corporation. And his example 
 itself was so contagious ! " There was not a plate-glass 
 window in the town when I came into it," said Richard 
 Avenel ; " and now look down the High Street ! " He 
 took the credit to himself, and justly ; for, though his own 
 business did not require windows of plate-glass, he had 
 awakened the spirit of enterprise which adorns a whole 
 city. 
 
 Mr. Avenel did not present Leonard to his friends for 
 more than a fortnight. He allowed him to wear off his rust. 
 He then gave a grand dinner, at which his nephew was 
 formally introduced, and, to his great wrath and disappoint- 
 ment, never opened his lips. How could he, poor youth, 
 when Miss Clarina Mowbray only talked upon high life ; 
 till proud Colonel Pompley went in state through the 
 history of the Siege of Seringapatam ? 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 WHILE Leonard accustoms himself gradually to the 
 splendors that surround him, and often turns with a sigh to 
 the remembrance of his mother's cottage and the sparkling 
 fount in the Italian's flowery garden, we will make with thee, 
 O reader, a rapid flight to the metropolis, and drop ourselves 
 amidst the gay groups that loiter along the dusty ground, or 
 loll over the roadside palings of Hyde Park. The season is
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 309 
 
 still at its height ; but the short day of fashionable London 
 life, which commences two hours after noon, is in its decline. 
 The crowd in Rotten Row begins to thin. Near the statue 
 of Achilles, and apart from all other loungers, a gentleman, 
 with one hand thrust into his waistcoat, and the other rest- 
 ing on his cane, gazed listlessly on the horsemen and car- 
 riages in the brilliant ring. He was still in the prime of 
 life, at the age when man is usually the most social when 
 the acquaintances of youth have ripened into friendships, 
 and a personage of some rank and fortune has become a 
 well-known feature in the mobile face of society. But 
 though, when his contemporaries were boys scarce at 
 college, this gentleman had blazed foremost amongst the 
 princes of fashion, and though he had all the qualities of 
 nature and circumstance which either retain fashion to the 
 last, or exchange its false celebrity for a graver repute, he 
 stood as a stranger in that throng of his countrymen. 
 Beauties whirled by to the toilet statesmen passed on to 
 the senate dandies took flight to the clubs ; and neither 
 nods, nor becks, nor wreathed smiles said to the solitary 
 spectator, " Follow us thou art one of our set." Now and 
 then, some middle-aged beau, nearing the post of the loi- 
 terer, turned round to look again ; but the second glance 
 seemed to dissipate the recognition of the first, and the 
 beau silently continued his way. 
 
 " By the tombs of my fathers ! " said the solitary to him- 
 self, " I know now what a dead man might feel if he came 
 to life again, and took a peep at the living." 
 
 Time passed on the evening shades descended fast. 
 Our stranger in London had well-nigh the Park' to himself. 
 He seemed to breathe more freely as he saw that the space 
 was so clear. 
 
 "There's oxygen in the atmosphere now," said he, half 
 aloud ; " and I can walk without breathing in the gaseous 
 fumes of the multitude. O those chemists what dolts they 
 are ! They tell us that crowds taint the air, but they never 
 guess why ! Pah, it is not the lungs that poison the ele- 
 ment it is the reek of bad hearts. When a periwig- 
 pated fellow breathes on me, I swallow a mouthful of care. 
 Allon* ! my friend Nero; now for a stroll." He touched 
 with his cane a large Newfoundland dog, who lay 
 stretched near his feet ; and dog and man went slow 
 through the growing twilight, and over the brown dry turf. 
 At length our solitary paused, and threw himself on a
 
 310 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 bench under a tree. "Half-past eight !" said he, looking at 
 his watch "one may smoke one's cigar without shocking 
 the world." 
 
 He took out his cigar-case, struck a light, and in another 
 moment, reclined at length on the bench seemed absorbed 
 in regarding the smoke, that scarce colored, ere it vanished 
 into the air. 
 
 " It is the most barefaced lie in the world, my Nero," 
 said he, addressing his dog, " this boasted liberty of man ! 
 Now, here am I, a free-born Englishman, a citizen of the 
 world, caring I often say to myself caring not a jot for 
 Kaisar or Mob ; and yet I no more dare smoke this cigar in 
 the Park at half-past six, when all the world is abroad, than 
 I dare pick my Lord Chancellor's pocket, or hit the Arch- 
 bishop of Canterbury a thump on the nose, yet no law in 
 England forbids me my cigar, Nero ! What is law at half- 
 past eight was not crime at six and a half ! Britannia says, 
 ' Man, thou art free,' and she lies like a commonplace 
 woman, O Nero, Nero ! you enviable dog ! you serve but 
 from liking. No thought of the world costs you one wag of 
 the tail. Your big heart and true instinct suffice you for 
 reason and law. You would want nothing to your felicity, 
 if in these moments of ennui you would but smoke a cigar. 
 Try it, Nero! try it!" And, rising from his incumbent 
 posture, he sought to force the end of the weed between 
 the teeth of the dog. 
 
 While thus gravely engaged, two figures had approached 
 the place. The one was a man who seemed weak and 
 sickly : his threadbare coat was buttoned to the chin, but 
 hung large on his shrunken breast. The other was a girl, 
 who might be from twelve to fourteen, on whose arm he 
 leant heavily : her cheek was wan, and there was a patient 
 sad look on her face, which seemed so settled that you 
 would think she could never have known the mirthfulness 
 of childhood. 
 
 "Pray rest here, papa," said the child softly ; and she 
 pointed to the bench, without taking heed of its prc-occu- 
 pant, who now, indeed, confined to one corner of the seat, 
 was almost hidden by the shadow of the tree. 
 
 The man sate down, with a feeble sigh ; and then, ob- 
 serving the stranger, raised his hat, and said, in that tone of 
 voice which betrays the usages of polished society, " Forgive 
 me, if I intrude on you, sir." 
 
 The stranger looked up from his dog, and seeing that
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 311 
 
 the girl was standing, rose at once, as if to make room for 
 her on the bench. 
 
 But still the girl did not heed him. She hung over her 
 father, and wiped his brow tenderly with a little kerchief 
 which she took from her own neck for the purpose. 
 
 Nero, delighted to escape the cigar, had taken to some 
 unwieldy curvets and gambols, to vent the excitement into 
 which he had been thrown ; and now returning, approached 
 the bench with a low growl of surprise, and sniffed at the 
 intruders on his master's privacy. 
 
 " Come here, sir," said the master. "You need not fear 
 him," he added, addressing himself to the girl. 
 
 But the girl, without turning round to him, cried in 
 a voice rather of anguish than alarm, " He has fainted ! 
 Father ! father ! " 
 
 The stranger kicked aside his dog, which was in the way, 
 and loosened the poor man's stiff military stock. While thus 
 charitably engaged, the moon broke out, and the light fell 
 full on the pale careworn face of the unconscious sufferer. 
 
 "This face seems not unfamiliar to me, though sadly 
 changed," said the stranger to himself ; and bending to- 
 ward the girl, who had sunk on her knees, and was chaf- 
 ing her father's hands, he asked, " My child, what is your 
 father's name ? " 
 
 The child continued her task, too absorbed to answer. 
 
 The stranger put his hand on her shoulder, and repeated 
 the question. 
 
 " Digby," answered the child, almost unconsciously ; 
 and as she spoke, the man's senses began to return. In a 
 few minutes more he had sufficiently recovered to falter 
 forth his thanks to the stranger. But the last took his 
 hand, and said, in a voice at once tremulous and soothing, 
 " Is it possible that I see once more an old brother in 
 arms? Algernon Digby, I do not forget you; but it 
 seems England has forgotten." 
 
 A hectic flush spread over the soldier's face, and he 
 looked away from the speaker as he answered 
 
 " My name is Digby, it is true, sir ; but I do not think 
 we have met before. Come, Helen, I am well now we will 
 go home." 
 
 "Try and play with that great dog, my child," said the 
 stranger, " I want to talk with your father." 
 
 The child bowed her submissive head, and moved away; 
 but she did not play with the dog.
 
 312 MY NOrKL; OR, 
 
 "I must reintroduce myself formally, I see," quoth the 
 stranger. "You were in the same regiment with myself, 
 and my name is L'Estrange." 
 
 " My lord," said the soldier, rising, " forgive me 
 that 
 
 " I don't think that it was the fashion to call me ' my 
 lord ' at the mess-table. Come, what has happened to you ? 
 on half-pay ? " 
 
 Mr. Digby shook his head mournfully. 
 
 " Digby, old fellow, can you lend me ^"100?" said 
 Lord L'Estrange, clapping his ci-devant brother officer on 
 the shoulder, and in a tone of voice that seemed like a boy's 
 so impudent was it, and devil-me-carish. " No ! Well, 
 that's lucky, for I can lend it to you." 
 
 Mr. Digby burst into tears. 
 
 Lord L'Estrange did not seem to observe the emotion, 
 but went on carelessly 
 
 "Perhaps you don't know that, besides being heir to a 
 father who is not only very rich but very liberal, I inherited, 
 on coming of age, from a maternal relation, a fortune so 
 large that it would bore me to death if I were obliged to 
 live up to it. But in the days of our old acquaintance, I 
 fear we were both sad extravagant fellows, and I dare say I 
 borrowed of you pretty freely." 
 
 " Me !, Oh, Lord L'Estrange ! " 
 
 ''You have married since then, and reformed, I suppose. 
 Tell me, old friend, all about it." 
 
 Mr. Digby, who by this time had succeeded in restoring 
 some calm to his shattered nerves, now rose, and said in 
 brief sentences, but clear firm tones, 
 
 " My lord, it is idle to talk of me useless to help me. 
 I am fast dying. But, my child there, my only child," he 
 paused for an instant, and went on rapidly " 1 have re- 
 lations in a distant county, if I could but get to them I 
 think they would, at least, provide for her. This has been 
 for weeks my hope, my dream, my prayer. I cannot afford 
 the journey except by your help. I have begged without 
 shame for myself ; shall I be ashamed, then, to beg for 
 her?" 
 
 "Digby," said L'Estrange, with some grave alteration 
 of manner, " talk neither of dying nor begging. You were 
 nearer death when the balls whistled round you at 
 Waterloo. If soldier meets soldier and says, ' Friend, 
 thy purse/ it is not begging, but brotherhood. Ashamed !
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 313 
 
 By the soul of Belisarius ! if I needed money, I would 
 stand at a crossing with my Waterloo medal over my 
 breast, and say to each sleek citizen I had helped to save 
 from the sword of the Frenchman, ' It is your shame if I 
 starve.' Now r lean upon me ; I see you should be at 
 home which way ? " 
 
 The poor soldier pointed his hand toward Oxford 
 Street, and reluctantly accepted the proffered arm. 
 
 "And when you return from your relations, you will 
 call on me. What ! hesitate ? Come, promise." 
 
 " I will." 
 
 " On your honor." 
 
 " If I live, on my honor." 
 
 " I am staying at present at Knightsbridge, with my 
 father ; but you will always hear of my address at No. 
 Grosvenor Square, Mr. Egerton's. So you have a long 
 journey before you ?" 
 
 " Very long." 
 
 " Do not fatigue yourself travel slowly. Ho, you fool- 
 ish child ! I see you are jealous of me. Your father has 
 another arm to spare you." 
 
 Thus talking, and getting but short answers, Lord 
 L'Estrange continued to exhibit those whimsical peculi- 
 arities of character, which had obtained for him the repute 
 of heartlessness in the world. Perhaps the reader may think 
 the world was not in the right. But if ever the world does 
 judge rightly of the character of a man who does not live 
 for the world, nor talk for the world, nor feel with the 
 world, it will be centuries after the soul of Harley 
 L'Estrange has done with this planet. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 LORD L'ESTRANGE parted company with Mr. Digby at 
 the entrance of Oxford Street. The father and child there 
 took a cabriolet. Mr. Digby directed the driver to go 
 down the Edgeware Road. He refused to tell L'Estrange 
 his address, and this with such evident pain, from the sores 
 of pride, that L'Estrange could not press the point. Re- 
 minding the soldier of his promise to call, Harley thrust a 
 
 H
 
 3 i4 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 pocket-book into his hand, and walked off hastily toward 
 Grosvenor Square. 
 
 He reached Audley Egerton's door just as that gentle- 
 man was getting out of his carriage ; and the two friends 
 entered the house together. 
 
 " Does the nation take a nap to-night ? " asked L'Estrange. 
 " Poor old lady ! She hears so much of her affairs, that 
 she may well boast of her constitution : it must be of iron." 
 
 " The House is still sitting," answered Audley, seriously, 
 and with small heed of his friend's witticism. " But it 
 is not a Government motion, and the division will be late, 
 so I came home ; and if I had not found you here, I should 
 have gone into the Park to look for you." 
 
 " Yes one always knows where to find me at this hour, 
 9 o'clock, P.M. cigar Hyde Park. There is not a man in 
 England so regular in his habits." 
 
 Here the friends reached a drawing-room in which the 
 Member of Parliament seldom sat, for his private apart- 
 ments were all on the ground-floor. 
 
 " But it is the strangest whim of yours, Harley," said 
 he. 
 
 "What?" 
 
 " To affect detestation of ground-floors." 
 
 " Affect ! O sophisticated man, of the earth, earthy ! 
 Affect ! nothing less natural to the human soul than a 
 ground-floor. We are quite far enough from heaven, 
 mount as many stairs as we will, without grovelling by 
 preference." 
 
 "According to that symbolical view of the case," said 
 Audley, " you should lodge in an attic." 
 
 "So I would, but that I abhor new slippers. As for 
 hair-brushes, I am different." 
 
 " What have slippers and hair-brushes to do with 
 attics ? " 
 
 " Try ! Make your bed in an attic, and the next morn> 
 ing you will have neither slippers nor hair-brushes ! " 
 
 '' What shall I have done with them ? " 
 
 " Shied them at the cats ! " 
 
 " What odd things you say, Harley ! " 
 
 "Odd! By Apollo and his nine spinsters ! there is no 
 human being who has so little imagination as a distin- 
 guished member of Parliament. Answer me this, thou 
 solemn Right Honorable, Hast thou climbed to the 
 heights of august contemplation ? Hast thou gazed on
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 315 
 
 the stars with the rapt eye of song ? Hast thou dreamed 
 of a love known to the angels, or sought to seize in the 
 Infinite the mystery of life ?" 
 
 " Not I, indeed, my poor Harley." 
 
 " Then no wonder, poor Audley, that you cannot con- 
 jecture why he who makes his bed in an attic, disturbed by 
 base catterwauls, shies his slippers at cats. Bring a chair 
 into the balcony. Nero spoiled my cigar to-night. I am 
 going to smoke now. You never smoke. You can look 
 on the shrubs in the squai'e." 
 
 Audley slightly shrugged his shoulders, but he followed 
 his friend's counsel and example, and brought his chair 
 into the balcony. Nero came too, but at sight and smell 
 of the cigar prudently retreated, and took refuge under the 
 table. 
 
 " Audley Egerton, I want something from Government." 
 
 " I am delighted to hear it." 
 
 "There was a cornet in my regiment, Avho would have 
 done better not to have come into it. We were, for the 
 most part of us, puppies and fops." 
 
 " You all fought well, however." 
 
 " Puppies and fops do fight well. Vanity and valor gen- 
 erally go together. Csesar, who scratched his head with 
 due care of his scanty curls, and, even, in dying, thought of 
 the folds in his toga ; Walter Raleigh, who could not walk 
 twenty yards, because of the gems in his shoes ; Alcibiades, 
 who lounged into the Agora with doves in his bosom, and an 
 apple in his hand ; Murat, bedizened in gold lace and furs ; 
 and Demetrius, the City-Taker, who made himself up like a 
 French Marquise were all pretty good fellows at fighting. 
 A slovenly hero like Cromwell is a paradox in nature, and a 
 marvel in history. But to return to my cornet. We were 
 rich ; he was poor. When the pot of clay swims down the 
 stream with the brass pots, it is sure of a smash. Men said 
 Digby was stingy ; I saw he was extravagant. But every 
 one, I fear, would be rather thought stingy than poor. 
 Bref. I left the army, and saw him no more till to-night. 
 There was never shabby poor gentleman on the stage more 
 awfully shabby, more pathetically gentleman. But, look ye, 
 this man has fought for England. It was no child's play at 
 Waterloo, let me tell you, Mr. Egerton ; and, but for such 
 men, you would be at best a sous-prefet> and your Parliament 
 a Provincial Assembly. You must do something for Digby. 
 What shall it be ? "
 
 316 MV NOVEL; OK, 
 
 " Why, really, my dear Harley, this man was no great 
 friend of yours eh ? " 
 
 "If he were, he would not want the Goverment to help 
 him he would not be ashamed of taking money from 
 me." 
 
 "That is all very fine, Harley ; but there are so many 
 poor officers, and so little to give. It is the most difficult 
 thing in the world that which you ask me. Indeed, I 
 know nothing can be done : he has his half-pay ? " 
 
 " I think not ; or, if he has it, no doubt it all goes on his 
 debts. That's nothing to us : the man and his child are 
 starving." 
 
 " But if it is his own fault, if he has been impru- 
 dent ? " 
 
 "Ah well, well. Where the devil is Nero ?" 
 
 "I am so sorry I can't oblige you. If it were anything 
 else" 
 
 " There is something else. My valet I can't turn him 
 adrift excellent fellow, but gets drunk now and then. 
 Will you find him a place in the Stamp-office ?" 
 
 "With pleasure." 
 
 " No, now I think of it the man knows my ways : I 
 must keep him. But my old wine-merchant civil man, 
 never dunned is a bankrupt. I am under obligations to 
 him, and he has a very pretty daughter. Do you think 
 you could thrust him into some small place in the colonies, 
 or make him a King's Messenger, or something of the 
 sort ?" 
 
 " If you very much wish it, no doubt I can." 
 
 "My dear Audley, I am but feeling my way : the fact is, 
 I want something for myself." 
 
 " Ah, that indeed gives me pleasure ! " cried Egerton, 
 with animation. 
 
 " The mission to Florence will soon be vacant I know 
 it privately. The place would quite suit me. Pleasant 
 city ; the best figs in Italy very -little to do. You could 
 sound Lord on the subject." 
 
 "I will answer beforehand. Lord would be en- 
 chanted to secure to the public service a man so accom- 
 plished as yourself, and the son of a peer like Lord Lans- 
 mere." 
 
 Harley L Estrange sprang to his feet, and flung his 
 cigar in the face of a stately policeman who was looking 
 up at the balcony.
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 317 
 
 "Infamous and bloodless official?" cried Harley 
 L'Estrange ; " so you could provide for a pimple-nosed 
 lackey, for a wine-merchant who has been poisoning the 
 king's subjects with white-lead or sloe-juice, for an idle 
 sybarite, who would complain of a crumpled rose-leaf ; 
 and nothing, in all the vast patronage of England, for a 
 broken-down soldier, whose dauntless breast was her ram- 
 part." 
 
 " Harley," said the Member of Parliament, with" his 
 calm, sensible smile, " this would be a very good clap-trap 
 at a small theatre ; but there is nothing in which Parlia- 
 ment demands such rigid economy as the military branch 
 of the public service ; and no man for whom it is so hard 
 to effect what we must plainly call a job as a subaltern 
 officer who has done nothing more than his duty and all 
 military men do that. Still, as you take it so earnestly, I 
 will use what interest I can at the War Office, and get him, 
 perhaps, the mastership of a barrack." 
 
 " You had better ; for, if you do not, I swear I will turn 
 Radical, and come down to your own city to oppose you, 
 with Hunt and Cobbett to canvass for me." 
 
 " I should be very glad to see you come into Parlia- 
 ment, even as a Radical, and at my expense," said Audley, 
 with great kindness. " But the air is growing cold, and 
 you are not accustomed to our climate. Nay, if you are 
 too poetic for catarrhs and rheums, I'm not come in." 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 . LORD L' ESTRANGE threw himself on a sofa, and leant 
 his cheek on his hand thoughtfully. Audley Egerton sate 
 near him, with his arms folded, and gazed on his friend's 
 face with a soft expression of aspect, which was very un- 
 usual to the firm outline of his handsome features. The 
 two men were as dissimilar in person as the reader will 
 have divined that they were in character. All about Eger- 
 ton was so rigid, all about L'Estrange so easy. In every 
 posture of Harley's there was the unconscious grace of a 
 child. Thevery fashion of his garments showed his ab- 
 horrence of restraint. His clothes were wide and loose ; 
 his neckcloth, tied carelessly, left his throat half bare.
 
 31 8 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 You could see that he had lived much in warm and south- 
 . ern lands, and contracted a contempt for conventionalities ; 
 there was as little in his dress as in his talk of the North. 
 He was three or four years younger than Audley, but he 
 looked at least twelve years younger. In fact, he was one 
 of those men to whom old age seems impossible voice, 
 look, figure, had all the charm of youth ; and perhaps it 
 was from this gracious youthfulness at all events it was 
 characteristic of the kind of love he inspired that neither 
 his parents, nor the few friends admitted into his intimacy, 
 ever called him, in their habitual intercourse, by the name 
 of his title. He was not L'Estrange with them, he was 
 Harley ; and by that familiar baptismal I will usually desig- 
 nate him. He was not one of those men whom author or 
 reader wish to view at a distance, and remember as "my 
 Lord," it was so rarely that he remembered it himself. 
 For the rest, it had been said of him by a shrewd wit, 
 " He is so natural, that every one calls him affected." 
 Harley L'Estrange was not so critically handsome as Aud- 
 ley Egerton ; to a commonplace observer he was only 
 rather good-looking than otherwise. But women said 
 that he had "a beautiful countenance " and they were not 
 wrong. He wore his hair, which was of a fair chestnut, 
 long, and in loose curls ; and instead of the Englishman's 
 whiskers, indulged in the foreigner's mustache. His com- 
 plexion was delicate, though not effeminate ; it was rather 
 the delicacy of a student than of a woman. But in his clear 
 gray eye there was wonderful vigor of life. A skilful phys- 
 iologist, looking only into that eye, would have recognized 
 rare stamina of constitution, a nature so rich, that, while 
 easily disturbed, it would require all the effects of time, or 
 all the fell combinations of passion and grief, to exhaust 
 it. Even now, though so thoughtful, and even so sad, the 
 rays of that eye were as concentrated and steadfast as the 
 light of the diamond. 
 
 "You were only, then, in jest," said Audley, after a long 
 silence, " when you spoke of this mission to Florence ? You 
 have still no idea of entering into public life?" 
 
 "None." 
 
 " I had hoped better things when I got your promise to 
 pass one season in London. But, indeed, you have kept 
 your promise to the ear to break it to the spirit. I could 
 not presuppose that you would shun all society, and be as 
 much of a hermit here as under the vines of Como."
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 319 
 
 " I have sate in the Strangers' Gallery, and heard your 
 great speakers ; I have been in the pit of the opera, and 
 seen your fine ladies ; I have walked your streets ; I have 
 lounged in your parks, and I say that I can't fall in love 
 with a faded dowager, because she fills up her wrinkles with 
 rouge." 
 
 " Of what dowager do you speak ?" asked the matter-of- 
 fact Audley. 
 
 " She has a great many titles. Some people call her 
 Fashion you busy men, Politics : it is all one tricked out 
 and artificial. I mean London Life. No, I can't fall in 
 love with her, fawning old harridan ! " 
 
 " I wish you could fall in love with something." 
 
 "I wish I could, with all my heart." 
 
 " But you are so blase" 
 
 " On the contrary, I am so fresh. Look out of the win- 
 dow what do you see ? " 
 
 " Nothing." 
 
 " Nothing!" 
 
 "Nothing but houses and dusty lilacs, my coachman 
 dozing on his box, and two women in pattens crossing the 
 kennel." 
 
 " I see not those where I lie on the sofa. I see but the 
 stars. And I feel for them as I did when I was a school- 
 boy at Eton. It is you who are blast, and not I. Enough 
 of this. You do not forget my commission with respect to 
 the exile who has married into your brother's family ? " 
 
 " No ; but here you set me a task more difficult than 
 that of saddling your cornet on the War Office." 
 
 " I know it is difficult, for the counter influence is vigi- 
 lant and strong ; but on the other hand, the enemy is so 
 damnable a traitor that one must have the Fates and the 
 household gods on one's side." 
 
 "Nevertheless," said the practical Audley, bending over 
 a book on the table ; " I think that the best plan would be 
 to attempt a compromise with the traitor." 
 
 "To judge of others by myself," answered Harley, with 
 spirit, " it were less bitter to put up with wrong than to 
 palter with it for compensation. And such wrong ! Com- 
 promise with the open foe that may be done with honor ; 
 but with the perjured friend that were to forgive the per- 
 jury ! " 
 
 " You are too vindictive," said Egerton ; " there may be 
 excuses for the friend, which palliate even "
 
 320 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 " Hush ! Audley, hush ! or I shall think the world has 
 indeed corrupted you. Excuse for the friend who deceives, 
 who betrays ! No, such is the true outlaw of Humanity ; and 
 the Furies surround him even while he sleeps in the temple." 
 
 The man of the world lifted his eyes slowly on the ani- 
 mated face of one still natural enough for the passions. He 
 then once more returned to his book, and said, after a pause, 
 "It is time you should marry, Harley." 
 
 " No," answered L'Estrange, with a smile at this sudden 
 turn in the conversation " not time yet ; for my chief ob- 
 jection to that change in life is, that the women nowadays 
 are too old for me, or I am too young for them. A few, 
 indeed, are so infantine that one is ashamed to be their toy ; 
 but most are so knowing that one is afraid to be their dupe. 
 The first, if they condescend to love you, love you as the 
 biggest doll they have yet dandled, and for a doll's good 
 qualities your pretty blue eyes and your exquisite milli- 
 nery. The last, if they prudently accept you, do so on 
 algebraical principles ; you are but the X or the Y that 
 represents a certain aggregate of goods matrimonial pedi- 
 gree, title, rent-roll, diamonds, pin-money, opera-box. They 
 cast you up with the help of mamma, and you wake some 
 morning to find that plus wife minus affection equals the 
 Devil!" 
 
 " Nonsense," said Audley with his quiet grave laugh. " I 
 grant that it is often the misfortune of a man in your 
 station to be married rather for what he has, than for what 
 he is ; but you are tolerably penetrating, and not likely to 
 be deceived in the character of the woman you court." 
 
 "Of the woman I court 1 } -No ! But of the woman I 
 marry, very likely indeed. Woman is a changeable thing, 
 as our Virgil informed us at school ; but her change par ex- 
 cellence is from the fairy you woo to the brownie you wed. 
 It is not that she has been a hypocrite, it is that she is a 
 transmigration. You marry a girl for her accomplish- 
 ments. She paints charmingly, -or plays like St. Cecilia. 
 Clap a ring on her finger, and she never draws again 
 except perhaps your caricature on the back of a letter, and 
 never opens a piano after the honey-moon. You marry her 
 for her sweet temper ; and next year, her nerves are so shat- 
 tered that you can't contradict her but you are whirled into 
 a storm of hysterics. You marry her because she declares 
 she hates balls and likes quiet ; and ten to one but what she 
 becomes a patroness at Almack's, or a lady-in-waiting."
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 321 
 
 "Yet most men marry, and most men survive the op- 
 eration." 
 
 " If it were only necessary to live, that would be a con- 
 solatory and encouraging reflection. But to live with 
 peace, to live with dignity, to live with freedom, to live 
 in harmony with your thoughts, your habits, your aspira- 
 tions and this in the perpetual companionship of a person 
 to whom you have given the power to wound your peace, 
 to assail your dignity, to cripple your freedom, to jar on 
 each thought and each habit, and bring you down to the 
 meanest details of earth, when you invite her, poor soul, to 
 soar to the spheres that makes the To Be or Not To Be, 
 which is the question." 
 
 " If I were you, Harley, I would do as I have heard the 
 author of Sanford and Merton did choose out a child and 
 educate her yourself, after your own heart." 
 
 'You have hit it," answered Harley, seriously. "That 
 has long been my ideaa very vague one, I confess. But 
 I fear I shall be an old man before I find even the child. 
 
 " Ah ! " he continued, yet more earnestly, while the 
 whole character of his varying countenance changed again 
 "Ah! if indeed I could discover what I seek one who, 
 with the heart of a child, has the mind of a woman ; one 
 who beholds in nature the variety, the charm, the never 
 feverish, ever healthful excitement that others vainly seek 
 in the bastard sentimentalities of a life false with artificial 
 forms, one who can comprehend, as by intuition, the rich 
 poetry with which creation is clothed poetry so clear to 
 the child when enraptured with the flower, or when won- 
 dering at the star ! If on me such exquisite companionship 
 were bestowed why, then " He paused, sighed deeply, 
 and, covering his face with his hand, resumed, in faltering 
 accents, 
 
 " But once but once only, did such vision of the Beau- 
 tiful made Human rise before me rise amidst 'golden ex- 
 halations of the dawn.' It beggared my life in vanishing. 
 You know only you only how how 
 
 He bowed his head, and the tears forced themselves 
 through his clenched fingers. 
 
 " So long ago ! " said Audley, sharing his friend's emo- 
 tion. " Years so long and so weary, yet still thus tenacious 
 of a mere boyish memory ! " 
 
 " Away with it, then ! " cried Harley, springing to his 
 feet, and with a laugh of strange merriment. " Your 
 
 14*
 
 322 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 carriage still waits : set me home before you go to the 
 House." 
 
 Then laying his hand lightly on his friend's shoulder, he 
 said, " Is it for you, Audley Egerton, to speak sneeringly 
 of boyish memories ? What else is it that binds us to- 
 gether ? What else warms my heart when I meet you ? 
 What else draws your thoughts from blue-books and beer- 
 bills, to waste them on a vagrant like me ? Shake hands. 
 Oh, friend of my boyhood ! recollect the oar that we plied 
 and the bats that we wielded in the old time, or the mur- 
 mured talk on the moss-grown bank, as we sate together, 
 building in the summer air castles mightier than Windsor. 
 Ah ! they are strong ties, those boyish memories, believe 
 me ! I remember, as if it were yesterday, my translation of 
 that lovely passage in Persius, beginning let me see 
 ah! 
 
 ' Quum primum pavido custos mihi purpura cernet,' 
 
 that passage on friendship which gushes out so livingly 
 
 from the stern heart of the satirist : And when old 
 
 complimented me on my verses, my eye sought yours. 
 Verily, I now say as then, 
 
 ' Nescio quod, certe est quod me tibi temperet astrum.' " * 
 
 Audley turned away his head as he returned the grasp 
 of his friend's hand ; and while Harley, with his light elas- 
 tic footstep descended the stairs, Egerton lingered behind, 
 and there was no trace of the worldly man upon his coun- 
 tenance when he took his place in the carriage by his com- 
 panion's side. 
 
 Two hours afterward, weary cries of " Question, ques- 
 tion ! " " Divide, divide ! " sank into reluctant silence as 
 Audley Egerton rose to conclude the debate the man of 
 men to speak late at night, and to impatient benches : a 
 man who would be heard ; whom a Bedlam broke loose 
 would not have roared down ; with a voice clear and sound 
 as a bell, and a form as firmly set on the ground as a church- 
 tower. And while, on the dullest of dull questions, Audley 
 Egerton thus, not too lively himself, enforced attention, 
 where was Harley L'Estrange ? Standing alone by the 
 river at Richmond, and murmuring low fantastic thoughts 
 as he gazed on the moonlit tide. 
 
 * " What was the star I know not, but certainly some star it was that attuned me unto 
 thee."
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 323 
 
 When Audley left him at home, he had joined his par- 
 ents, made them gay with his careless gayety, seen the 
 old-fashioned folks retire to rest, and then while they, 
 perhaps, deemed him once more the hero of ball-rooms 
 and the cynosure of clubs he drove slowly through the soft 
 summer night, amidst the perfumes of many a garden and 
 many a gleaming chestnut grove, with no other aim before 
 him than to reach the loveliest margin of England's loveli- 
 est river, at the hour when the moon was fullest and the 
 song of the nightingale most sweet. And so eccentric a 
 humorist was this man, that I believe, as he there loitered 
 no one near to cry " How affected ! " or " How romantic ! " 
 he enjoyed himself more than if he had been exchanging 
 the politest " how-d'ye-dos " in the hottest of London 
 drawing-rooms, or betting his hundreds on the odd trick 
 with Lord De R for his partner. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 LEONARD had been about six weeks with his uncle, and 
 those weeks were well spent. Mr. Richard had taken him 
 to his counting-house, and initiated him into business and 
 the mysteries of double-entry ;. and, in return for the young 
 man's readiness and zeal in matters which the acute trader 
 instinctively felt not exactly to his tastes, Richard engaged 
 the best master the town afforded to read with his nephew 
 in the evening. This gentleman was the head usher of a 
 large school who had his hours to himself after eight 
 o'clock and was pleased to vary the dull routine of enforced 
 lessons by instructions to a pupil who took delightedly 
 even to the Latin grammar. Leonard made rapid strides, 
 and learned more in those six weeks than many a cleverish 
 boy does in twice as many months. These hours which 
 Leonard devoted to study Richard usually spent from home 
 sometimes at the houses of his grand acquaintances in the 
 Abbey Gardens, sometimes in the Reading-room appropri- 
 ated to those aristocrats. If he stayed at home, it was in 
 company with his head clerk, and for the purpose of check- 
 ing his account-books, or looking over the names of doubt- 
 ful electors. 
 
 'Leonard had naturally wished to communicate his al-
 
 324 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 tered prospects to his old friends, that they, in turn, might 
 rejoice his mother with such good tidings. But he had not 
 been two days in the house before Richard had strictly for- 
 bidden all such correspondence. 
 
 "Look you," said he, " at present we are on an experi- 
 ment we must see if we like each other. Suppose we 
 don't, you will only have raised expectations in your mother 
 which must end in bitter disappointment; and suppose we 
 do, it will be time enough to write when something definite 
 is settled." 
 
 " But my mother will be so anxious " 
 
 " Make your mind easy on that score. I will write reg- 
 ularly to Mr. Dale, and he can tell her that you are well and 
 thriving. No more words, my man when I say a thing, I 
 say it." Then, observing that Leonard looked blank and 
 dissatisfied, Richard added, with a good-humored smile, " I 
 have my reasons for all this you shall know them later. 
 And I tell you what, if you do as I bid you, it is my inten- 
 tion to settle something handsome on your mother ; but if 
 you don't, devil a penny she'll get from me." 
 
 With that, Richard turned on his heel, and in a few 
 moments his voice was heard loud in objurgation with some 
 of his people. 
 
 About the fourth week of Leonard's residence at Mr. 
 Avenel's, his host began to evince a certain change of man- 
 ner. He was no longer quite so cordial with Leonard, nor 
 did he take the same interest in his progress. About the 
 same period he was frequently caught by the London butler 
 before the looking-glass. He had always been a smart man 
 in his dress, but he was now more particular. He would 
 spoil three white cravats when he went out of an evening, 
 before he could satisfy himself as to the tie. He also 
 bought a " Peerage," and it became his favorite study at 
 odd quarters of an hour. All these symptoms proceeded 
 from a cause, and that cause was woman. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE first people at Screwstown were indisputably the 
 Pompleys. Colonel Pompley was grand, but Mrs. Ppm- 
 pley was grander. The Colonel was stately in right of 'his
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 325 
 
 military rank and his service* in India ; Mrs. Pompley was 
 majestic in right of her connections. Indeed, Colonel 
 Pompley himself would have been crushed under the weight 
 of the dignities which his lady heaped upon him, if he had 
 not been enabled to prop his position with a " connection " 
 of his own. He would never have held his own, nor been 
 permitted to have an independent opinion on matters aris- 
 tocratic, but for the well-sounding name of his relations, 
 " the Digbies." Perhaps on the principle that obscurity in- 
 creases the natural size of objects, and is an element of the 
 Sublime, the Colonel did not too accurately define his rela- 
 tions "the Digbies :" he let it be casually understood that 
 they were the Digbies to be found in Debrett. But if some 
 indiscreet Vulgarian (a favorite word with both the Pom- 
 pleys) asked point-plank if he meant " my Lord Digby," 
 the Colonel, with a lofty air, answered" The elder branch, 
 sir." No one at Screwstown had ever seen these Digbies : 
 they lay amidst the Far the Recondite even to the wife 
 of Colonel Pompley's bosom. Now and then, when the 
 Colonel referred to the lapse of years, and the uncertainty 
 of human affections, he would say "When young Digby 
 and I were boys together," and then add with a sigh, "but 
 \ve shall never meet again in this world. His family inter- 
 ests secured him a valuable appointment in a distant part 
 of the British dominions." Mrs. Pompley was always rather 
 cowed by the Digbies. She could not be skeptical as to 
 this connection, for the Colonel's mother was certainly a 
 Digby, and the Colonel impaled the Digby arms. En re- 
 vanche, as the French say, for these martial connections, 
 Mrs. Pompley had her own favorite affinity, which she 
 specially selected from all others when she most desired to 
 produce effect ; nay, even upon ordinary occasions the name 
 rose spontaneously to her lips the name of the Honorable 
 Mrs. M'Catchley. Was the fashion of a gown or cap ad- 
 mired, her cousin, Mrs. M'Catchley, had just sent to her the 
 pattern from Paris. Was it a question whether the minis- 
 try would stand, Mrs. M'Catchley was in the secret, but 
 Mrs. Pompley had been requested not to say. Did it freeze, 
 " My cousin, Mrs. M'Catchley, had written word that the 
 icebergs at the Pole were supposed to be coming this way." 
 Did the sun glow with more than usual fervor, Mrs. 
 M'Catchley had informed her "that it was Sir Henry Hal- 
 ford's decided opinion that it was on account of the chol- 
 era." The good people knew all that was doing at London,
 
 326 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 at court, in this world nay, almost in the other through 
 the medium of the Honorable Mrs. M 'Catchley. Mrs. 
 M'Catchley was, moreover, the most elegant of women, the 
 wittiest creature, the dearest. King George the Fourth had 
 presumed to admire Mrs. M'Catchley; but Mrs/ M'Catch- 
 ley, though no prude, let him see that she was proof against 
 the corruptions of a throne. So long had the ears of Mrs. 
 Pompley's friends been filled with the renown of Mrs. 
 M'Catchley, that at last Mrs. M'Catchley was secretly sup- 
 posed to be a myth, a creature of the elements, a poetic 
 fiction of Mrs. Pompley's. Richard Avenel, however, 
 though by no means a credulous man, was an implicit be- 
 liever in Mrs. M'Catchley. He had learned that she was a 
 widow an honorable by birth, an honorable by marriage 
 living on her handsome jointure, and refusing offers every 
 day that she so lived. Somehow or other, whenever Rich- 
 ard Avenel thought of a wife, he thought of the Honorable 
 Mrs. M'Catchley. Perhaps that romantic attachment to the 
 fair invisible preserved him heart-whole amongst the temp- 
 tations of Screwstown. Suddenly, to the astonishment of 
 the Abbey Gardens, Mrs. M'Catchley proved her identity, 
 and arrived at Colonel Pompley's in a handsome travelling- 
 carriage, attended by her maid and footman. She had 
 come to stay some weeks a tea-party was given in her 
 honor. Mr. Avenel and his nephew were invited. Colonel 
 Pompley, who kept his head clear in the midst of the great- 
 est excitement, had a desire to get from the Corporation a 
 lease of a piece of ground adjoining his garden, and he no 
 sooner saw Richard Avenel enter, than he caught him by 
 the button, and drew him into a quiet corner, in order to 
 secure his interest. Leonard, meanwhile, was borne on by 
 the stream, till his progress was arrested by a sofa-table at 
 which sate Mrs. M'Catchley herself, with Mrs. Pompley by 
 her side. For, on this great occasion the hostess had aban- 
 doned her proper post at the entrance, and, whether to 
 show her respect to Mrs. M'Catchley, or to show Mrs. 
 M'Catchley her well-bred contempt for the people of 
 Screwstown, remained in state by her friend, honoring only 
 the elite of the town with introductions to the illustrious 
 visitor. 
 
 Mrs. M'Catchley was a very fine woman a woman who 
 justified Mrs. Pompley's pride in her. Her cheek-bones 
 were rather high, it is true, but that proved the purity of 
 her Caledonian descent ; for the rest, she had a brilliant
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 327 
 
 complexion, heightened by a soupfon of rouge good eyes 
 and teeth, a showy figure, and all the ladies of Screwstown 
 pronounced her dress to be perfect. She might have ar- 
 rived at that age at which one intends to stop for the next 
 ten years, but even a Frenchman would not have called her 
 passes that is, for a widow. For a spinster, it would have 
 been different. 
 
 Looking round her with a glass, which Mrs. Pompley 
 was in the habit of declaring that "Mrs. M'Catchley used 
 like an angel," this lady suddenly perceived Leonard Fair- 
 field ; and his quiet, simple, thoughtful air and look so con- 
 trasted with the stiff beaux to whom she had been presented, 
 that, experienced in fashion as so fine a personage must be 
 supposed to be, she was nevertheless deceived into whis- 
 pering to Mrs. Pompley 
 
 " That young man has really an air distinguJ who is 
 he?" 
 
 "Oh," said Mrs. Pompley, in unaffected surprise, "that 
 is the nephew of the rich Vulgarian I was telling you of 
 this morning." 
 
 " Ah ! and you say that he is Mr. Arundel's heir ? " 
 
 "Avenel not Arundel my sweet friend." 
 
 "Avenel is not a bad name," said Mrs. M'Catchley. 
 " But is the uncle really so rich ?" 
 
 "The Colonel was trying this very day to guess what he 
 is worth ; but he says it is impossible to guess it." 
 
 "And the young man is his heir ? " 
 
 "It is thought so ; and reading for College, I hear. 
 They say he is clever." 
 
 " Present him, my love ; I like clever people," said Mrs. 
 M'Catchley, falling back languidly. 
 
 About ten minutes afterward, Richard Avenel having 
 effected his escape from the Colonel, and his gaze being 
 attracted toward the sofa-table by the buzz of the admiring 
 crowd, beheld his nephew in animated conversation with 
 the long-cherished idol of his dreams. A fierce pang of 
 jealousy shot through his breast. His nephew had never 
 looked so handsome and so intelligent ; in fact, poor Leon- 
 ard had never before been drawn out by a woman of the 
 world, who had learned how to make the most of what little 
 she knew. And, as jealousy operates like a pair of bellows 
 on incipient flames, so, at first sight of the smile which the 
 fair widow bestowed upon Leonard, the heart of Mr. Avenel 
 felt in a blaze.
 
 328 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 He approached with a step less assured than usual, and 
 overhearing Leonard's talk, marvelled much at the boy's 
 audacity. Mrs. M'Catchley had been speaking of Scotland 
 and the Waverley Novels, about which Leonard knew noth- 
 ing. But he knew Burns, and on Burns he grew artlessly 
 eloquent. Burns the poet and peasant ; Leonard might well 
 be eloquent on him. Mrs. M'Catchley was amused and 
 pleased with his freshness and nafvetf, so unlike anything 
 she had ever heard or seen, and she drew him on and on, 
 till Leonard fell to quoting : And Richard heard, with less 
 respect for the sentiment than might be supposed, that 
 
 " Rank is but the guinea stamp, 
 
 The man's the gowd for a' that." 
 
 " Well ! " exclaimed Mr. Avenel. " Pretty piece of polite- 
 ness to tell that to a lady like the Honorable Mrs. M'Catch- 
 ley. You'll excuse him, ma'am." 
 
 " Sir ! " said Mrs. M'Catchley, startled, and lifting her 
 glass. Leonard, rather confused, rose and offered his chair 
 to Richard, who dropped into it. The lady, without wait- 
 ing for formal introduction, guessed that she saw the rich 
 uncle. 
 
 " Such a sweet poet Burns ! M said she, dropping her 
 glass. "And it is so refreshing to find so much youthful 
 enthusiasm," she added, pointing her fan toward Leonard, 
 who was receding fast among the crowd. 
 
 " Well, he is youthful, my nephew rather green ! '* 
 
 " Don't say green ! " said Mrs. M'Catchley. Richard 
 blushed scarlet. He was afraid he had committed himself 
 to some expression low and shocking. The lady resumed, 
 " Say unsophisticated ! " 
 
 "A tarnation long word," thought Richard ; but he pru- 
 dently bowed, and held his tongue. 
 
 "Young men nowadays," continued Mrs. M'Catchley, 
 resettling herself on the sofa, "affect to be so old. They 
 don't dance, and they don't read, and they don't talk much ; 
 and a great many of them wear toupets before they are two- 
 and-twenty ! " 
 
 Richard mechanically passed his hand through his thick 
 curls. But he was still mute ; he was still ruefully chewing 
 the cud of the epithet green. What occult, horrid meaning 
 did the word convey to ears polite ? Why should he not 
 say "green ?"
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 329 
 
 "A very fine young man, your nephew, sir," resumed 
 Mrs. M 'Catchley. 
 
 Richard grunted. 
 
 " And seems full of talent. Not yet at the University ? 
 Will he go to Oxford or Cambridge ?" 
 
 " I have not made up my mind, yet, if I shall send him 
 to the University at all." 
 
 "A young man of his expectations!" exclaimed Mrs. 
 M 'Catchley, artfully. 
 
 " Expectations ! " repeated Richard, firing up. " Has 
 he been talking to you of his expectations ? " 
 
 "No, indeed, sir. But the nephew of the rich Mr. 
 Avenel ! Ah, one hears a great deal, you know, of rich 
 people ; it is the penalty of wealth, Mr. Avenel ! " 
 
 Richard was very much flattered. His crest rose. 
 
 "And they say," continued Mrs. M 'Catchley, dropping 
 out her words very slowly, as she adjusted her blonde scarf, 
 "that Mr. Avenel has resolved not to marry." 
 
 " The devil they do, ma'am ! " bolted out Richard, 
 gruffly ; and then, ashamed of his lapsus Itnguce, screwed up 
 his lips firmly, and glared on the company with an eye of 
 indignant fire. 
 
 Mrs. M 'Catchley observed him over her fan. Richard 
 turned abruptly, and she withdrew her eyes modestly, and 
 raised the fan. 
 
 " She's a real beauty," said Richard, between his teeth. 
 
 The fan fluttered. 
 
 Five minutes afterward, the widow and the bachelor 
 seemed so much at their ease that Mrs. Pompley who had 
 been forced to leave her friend, in order to receive the 
 Dean's lady could scarcely believe her eyes when she re- 
 turned to the sofa. 
 
 Now, it was from that evening that Mr. Richard Avenel 
 exhibited the change of mood which I have described. 
 And from that evening he abstained from taking Leonard 
 with him to any of the parties in the Abbey Gardens.
 
 330 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 SOME days after this memorable soirde, Colonel Pom- 
 pley sat alone in his study (which opened pleasantly on an 
 old-fashioned garden) absorbed in the house bills. For 
 Colonel Pompley did not leave that domestic care to his 
 lady perhaps she was too grand for it. Colonel Pompley 
 with his own sonorous voice ordered the joints, and with his 
 own heroic hands dispensed the stores. In justice to the 
 Colonel, I must add at whatever risk of offence to the 
 fair sex that there was not a house at Screwstown so well 
 managed as the Pompley's : none which so successfully 
 achieved the difficult art of uniting economy with show. I 
 should despair of conveying to you an idea of the extent to 
 which Colonel Pompley made his income go. It was but 
 seven hundred a year ; and many a family contrive to do 
 less upon three thousand. To be sure, the Pompleys had 
 no children to sponge upon them. What they had they 
 spent all on themselves. Neither, if the Pompleys never 
 exceeded their income, did they pretend to live much with- 
 in it. The two ends of the year met at Christmas just met, 
 and no more. 
 
 Colonel Pompley sate at his desk. He was in his well- 
 brushed blue coat buttoned across his breast his gray 
 trousers fitted tight to his limbs, and fastened under his 
 boots with a link chain. He saved a great deal of money 
 in straps. No one ever saw Colonel Pompley in dressing- 
 gown and slippers. He and his house were alike in order 
 always fit to be seen 
 
 " From morn till noon, from noon to dewy eve." 
 
 The Colonel was a short compact man, inclined to be 
 stout with a very- red face, that seemed not only shaved, 
 but rasped. He wore his hair cropped close, except just in 
 front, where it formed what the hair-dresser called a feather ; 
 but it seemed a feather of iron, so stiff and so strong was it. 
 Firmness and precision were emphatically marked on the 
 Colonel's countenance. There was a resolute strain on his 
 features, as if he was always employed in making the two 
 ends meet !
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 
 
 33* 
 
 So he sate before his house-book, with his steel-pen in 
 his hand, and making crosses here and notes of interroga- 
 tion there. "Mrs. M'Catchley's maid," said the Colonel to 
 himself, "must be put upon rations. The tea that she 
 drinks ! Good Heavens ! tea again ! " 
 
 There was a modest ring at the outer door. "Too early 
 for a visitor ! " thought the Colonel. " Perhaps it is the 
 Water-rates." 
 
 The neat man-servant never seen beyond the offices, 
 save in grande tenue, plushed and powdered entered and 
 bowed. 
 
 " A gentleman, sir, wishes to see you." 
 
 " A gentleman," repeated the Colonel, glancing toward 
 the clock. 
 
 "Are you sure it is a gentleman ? " 
 
 The man hesitated. " Why, sir, I ben't exactly sure ; 
 but he speaks like a gentleman. He clo say he comes from 
 London to see you, sir." 
 
 A long and interesting correspondence was then being 
 held between the Colonel and one of his wife's trustees 
 touching the investment of Mrs. Pompley's fortune. It 
 might be the trustee nay, it must be. The trustee had 
 talked of running down to see him. 
 
 " Let him come in," said the Colonel, "and when I ring 
 sandwiches and sherry ! " 
 
 "Beef, sir?" 
 
 " Ham." 
 
 The Colonel put aside his house-book, and wiped his 
 pen. 
 
 In another minute the door opened, and the servant 
 announced 
 
 "MR. DlGBY." 
 
 The Colonel's face fell, and he staggered back. 
 
 The door closed, and Mr. Digby stood in the middle of 
 the room, leaning on the great writing-table for support. 
 The poor soldier looked sicklier and shabbier, and nearer 
 the end of all things in life and fortune, than when Lord 
 L'Estrange had thrust the pocket-book into his hands. 
 But still the servant showed knowledge of the world in 
 calling him gentleman ; there was no other word to apply 
 to him. 
 
 " Sir," began Colonel Pompley, recovering himself, and 
 with great solemnity, " I did not expect this pleasure."
 
 332 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 The poor visitor stared round him dizzily, and sank 
 into a chair, breathing hard. The Colonel looked as a 
 man only looks upon a poor relation, and buttoned up first 
 one trouser pocket and then the other. 
 
 " I thought you were in Canada," said the Colonel, at last. 
 
 Mr. Digby had now got breath to speak, and he said 
 meekly, " The climate would have killed my child, and it is 
 two years since I returned." 
 
 " You ought to have found a very good place in Eng- 
 land, to make it worth your while to leave Canada." 
 
 " She could- not have lived through another winter in 
 Canada the doctor said so." 
 
 " Pooh," quoth the Colonel. 
 
 Mr. Digby drew a long breath. " I would not come to 
 you, Colonel Pompley, while you could think that I came 
 as a beggar for myself." 
 
 The Colonel's brow relaxed. " A very honorable sen- 
 timent, Mr. Digby." 
 
 " No ; I have gone through a great deal ; but you see, 
 Colonel," added the poor relation, with a faint smile, " the 
 campaign is well-nigh over, and peace is at hand." 
 
 The colonel seemed touched. 
 
 " Don't talk so, Digby I don't like it. You are 
 younger than I am nothing more disagreeable than these 
 gloomy views of things. You have got enough to live upon, 
 you say at least so I understand you. I am very glad to 
 hear it ; and, indeed, I could not assist you so many 
 claims on me. So it is all very well, Digby." 
 
 "Oh, Colonel Pompley," cried the soldier, clasping his 
 hands, and with feverish energy, " I am a suppliant, not 
 for myself, but my child ! I have but one only one a 
 girl. She has been so good to me. She will cost you little. 
 Take her when I die ; promise her a shelter a home. I 
 ask no more. You are my nearest relative. I have no 
 other to look to. You have no children of your own. 
 She will be a blessing to you, as she has been all upon 
 earth to me ! " 
 
 If Colonel Pompley's face was red in ordinary hours, 
 no epithet sufficiently rubicund or sanguineous can express 
 its color at this appeal. " The man's mad," he said, at last, 
 with a tone of astonishment that almost concealed his 
 wrath " stark mad ! I take his child ! lodge and board a 
 great, positive, hungry child ! Why, sir, many and many a 
 time have I said to Mrs. Pompley, ' Tis a mercy we have no
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 333 
 
 children. We could never live in this style if we had chil- 
 dren never make both ends meet.' Child the most expen- 
 sive, ravenous, ruinous thing in the world a child." 
 
 " She has been accustomed to starve," said Mr. Digby, 
 plaintively. " Oh, Colonel, let me see your wife. Her 
 heart I can touch she is a woman." 
 
 Unlucky father ! A more untoward, unseasonable re- 
 quest the Fates could not have put into his lips. 
 
 Mrs. Pompley see the Digbies ! Mrs. Pompley learn 
 the condition of the Colonel's grand connections ! The 
 Colonel would never have been his own man again. At 
 the bare idea, he felt as if he could have sunk into the 
 earth with shame. In his alarm he made a stride to the 
 door, with the intention of locking it. Good heavens, if 
 Mrs. Pompley should) come in ! And the man, too, had 
 been announced by name. Mrs. Pompley might have 
 learned already that a Digby was with her husband she 
 might be actually dressing to receive him worthily there 
 was not a moment to lose. 
 
 The Colonel exploded. " Sir, I wonder a't your impu- 
 dence. See Mrs Pompley ! Hush, sir, hush ! hold your 
 tongue. I have disowned your connection. I will not 
 have my wife a woman, sir, of the first family disgraced 
 by it. Yes ; you need not fire up. John Pompley is not a 
 man to be bullied in his own house. I say disgraced. Did 
 not you run into debt, and spend your fortune ? Did not 
 you marry a low creature a vulgarian a tradesman's 
 daughter ? and your poor father such a respectable man 
 a beneficed clergyman ! Did not you sell your commission ? 
 Heaven knows what became of the money ! Did not you 
 turn (I shudder to say it) a common stage-player, sir ? And 
 then, when you were on your last legs, did I not give you 
 200 out of my own purse to go to Canada ? And now 
 here you are again and ask me, with a coolness that that 
 takes away my breath takes away my breath, sir to pro- 
 vide for the child you have thought proper to have ; a child 
 whose connections on the mother's side are of the most 
 abject and discreditable condition. Leave my house, leave 
 it good heavens, sir, not that way ! this." And the 
 Colonel opened the glass-door that led into the garden. 
 " I will let you out this way. If Mrs. Pompley should 
 see you ! " And with that thought the Colonel absolutely 
 hooked his arm into his poor relation's and hurried him into 
 the garden.
 
 334 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 Mr. Digby said not a word, but he struggled ineffectually 
 to escape from the Colonel's arm ; and his color went and 
 came, came and went, with a quickness that showed that in 
 those shrunken veins there were still some drops of a sol- 
 dier's blood. 
 
 But the Colonel had now reached a little postern-door 
 in the garden-wall. He opened the latch and thrust out his 
 poor cousin. Then looking down the lane, which was long, 
 straight, and narrow, and seeing it was quite solitary, his 
 eye fell upon the forlorn man, and remorse shot through 
 his heart. For a moment the hardest of all kinds of avarice, 
 that of the genteel, relaxed its gripe. For a moment the 
 most intolerant of all forms of pride, that which is based 
 upon false pretences, hushed its voice, and the Colonel 
 hastily drew out his purse. " There," said he, " that is all 
 I can do for you. Do leave the town as quick as you can, 
 and don't mention your name to any one. Your father was 
 such a respectable man beneficed clergyman ! " 
 
 "And paid for your commission, Mr. Pompley. My 
 name ! I am not ashamed of it. But do not fear I shall 
 claim your relationship. No ; I am ashamed oiyou!" 
 
 The poor cousin put aside the purse, still stretched to- 
 ward him, with a scornful hand, and walked firmly down 
 the lane. 
 
 Colonel Pompley stood irresolute. At that moment a 
 window in his house was thrown open. He heard the noise, 
 turned round, and saw his wife looking out. 
 
 Colonel Pompley sneaked back through the shrubbery, 
 hiding himself amongst the trees. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 " ILL-LUCK is a betise" said the great Cardinal Richelieu ; 
 and on the long run, I fear, his eminence was right. If you 
 could drop Dick Avenel and Mr. Digby in the middle of 
 Oxford Street Dick in a fustian jacket, Digby in a suit of 
 superfine Dick with five shillings in his pocket, Digby with 
 a thousand pounds and if, at the end of ten years, you 
 looked up your two men, Dick would be on his road to a 
 fortune, Digby what we have seen him ! Yet Digby had 
 no vice ; he did not drink, nor gamble. What was he, then ?
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 335 
 
 Helpless. He had been an only son a spoiled child 
 brought up as " a gentleman ; " that is, as a man who was 
 not expected to be able to turn his hand to anything. He 
 entered, as we have seen, a very expensive regiment, where- 
 in he found himself, at his father's death, with ^4,000, and 
 the incapacity to say "No." Not naturally extravagant, 
 but without an idea of the value of money the easiest, gen- 
 tlest, best tempered man whom example ever led astray. 
 This part of his career comprised a very common history 
 the poor man living on equal terms with the rich. Debt ; 
 recourse to usurers ; bills signed sometimes for others, re- 
 newed at twenty per cent, the ^4,000 melted like snow ; 
 pathetic appeal to relations ; relations have children of their 
 own ; small help given grudgingly, eked out by much ad- 
 vice, and coupled with conditions. Amongst the conditions 
 there was a very proper and prudent one exchange into a 
 less expensive regiment. Exchange effected ; peace ; ob- 
 scure country quarters ; ennui, flute-playing, and idleness. 
 Mr. Digby had no resources on a rainy day except flute- 
 playing ; pretty girl of inferior rank ; all the officers after 
 her ; Digby smitten ; pretty girl very virtuous ; Digby forms 
 honorable intentions ; excellent sentiments ; imprudent mar- 
 riage. Digby falls in life ; colonel's lady will not associate 
 with Mrs. Digby ; Digby cut by his whole kith and kin ; 
 many disagreeable circumstances in regimental life ; Digby 
 sells out ; love in a cottage ; execution in ditto. Digby had 
 been much applauded as an amateur actor ; thinks of the 
 stage ; genteel comedy a gentleman-like profession. Tries 
 in a provincial town, under another name ; unhappily suc- 
 ceeds ; life of an actor ; hand-to-mouth life ; illness ; chest 
 affected ; Digby 's voice becomes hoarse and feeble ; not 
 aware of it ; attributes failing success to ignorant provincial 
 public ; appears in London ; is hissed ; returns to the prov- 
 inces ; sinks into very small parts ; prison ; despair ; wife 
 dies ; appeal again to relations ; a subscription made to get 
 rid fo him ; send him out of the country ; place in Canada 
 superintendent to an estate, ^150 a year ; pursued by ill- 
 luck ; never before fit for business, not fit now ; honest as the 
 day, but keeps slovenly accounts ; child cannot bear the win- 
 ter of Canada ; Digby wrapped up in the child ; return home ; 
 mysterious life for two years ; child patient, thoughtful, lov- 
 ing ; has learned to work ; manages for father ; often sup- 
 ports him ; Constitution rapidly breaking ; thought of what 
 will become of his child worst disease of all. Poor Digby !
 
 336 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 Never did a base, cruel, unkind thing in his life ; and 
 here he is, walking down the lane from Colonel Pompley's 
 house ! Now, if Digby had but learned a little of the world's 
 cunning, I think he would have succeeded even with Colo- 
 nel Pompley. Had he spent the ^100 received from Lord 
 L' Estrange with a view to effect had he bestowed a fitting 
 wardrobe on himself and his pretty Helen ; had he stopped 
 at the last stage, taken thence a smart chaise and pair, and 
 presented himself at Colonel Pompley's in away that would 
 not have discredited the Colonel's connection, and then, 
 instead of praying for home and shelter, asked the Colonel 
 to become guardian to his child in case of his death, I have 
 a strong notion that the Colonel, in spite of his avarice, 
 would have stretched both ends so as to take in Helen Digby. 
 But our poor friend had no such arts. Indeed, of the ^100 
 he had already very little left, for before leaving town he 
 had committed what Sheridan considered the extreme of 
 extravagance frittered away his money in paying his debts ; 
 and as for dressing up Helen and himself if that thought 
 had ever occurred to him, he would have rejected it as fool- 
 ish. He would thought that the more he showed his pov- 
 erty, the more he would be pitied the worst mistake a poor 
 cousin can commit. According to Theophrastus, the par- 
 tridge of Paphlagonia has two hearts ; so have most men ; 
 it is the common mistake of the unlucky to knock at the 
 wrong one. 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 MR. DIGBY entered the room of the inn in which he had 
 left Helen. She was seated by the window, and looking 
 out wistfully on the narrow street, perhaps at the children 
 at play. There had never been a playtime for Helen Digby. 
 She sprang forward as her father came in. His coming was 
 her holiday. 
 
 "We must go back to London," said Mr. Digby, sinking 
 helplessly on the chair. Then with his sort of sickly smile 
 for he was bland even to his child "Will you kindly in- 
 quire when the first coach leaves ?" 
 
 All the active cares of their careful life devolved upon 
 that quiet child. She kissed her father, placed before him 
 a cough mixture which he had brought from London, and
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 337 
 
 went out silently to make the necessary inquiries, and pre- 
 pare for the journey back. 
 
 At eight o'clock the father and child were seated in the 
 night-coach, with one other passenger a man muffled up 
 to the chin. After the first mile, the man let down one of 
 the windows. Though it was summer, the air was chill and 
 raw. Digby shivered and coughed. 
 
 Helen placed her hand on the window, and, leaning to- 
 ward the passenger, whispered softly. 
 
 "Eh!" said the passenger, "draw up the windows? 
 You have got your own window ; this is mine. Oxygen, 
 young lady," he added solemnly, "oxygen is the breath of 
 life. Cott, child ! " he continued with suppressed choler, 
 and a Welsh pronunciation, " Cott ! let us breathe and 
 live." 
 
 Helen was frightened, and recoiled. 
 
 Her father, who had not heard, or had not heeded, this 
 colloquy, retreated into the corner, put up the collar of his 
 coat, and coughed again. 
 
 "It is cold, my dear," said he languidly to Helen. 
 
 The passenger caught the word, and replied indignantly, 
 but as if soliloquizing 
 
 " Cold ugh ! I do believe the English are the stuffiest 
 people ! Look at their four-post beds ! all the curtains 
 drawn, shutters closed, board before the chimney not a 
 house with a ventilator ! Cold ugh ! " 
 
 The window next Mr. Digby did not fit well into its 
 frame. 
 
 " There is a sad draught," said the invalid. 
 
 Helen instantly occupied herself in stopping up the 
 chinks of the windoAV with her handkerchief. Mr. Digby 
 glanced ruefully at the other window. The look, which was 
 very eloquent, aroused yet more the traveller's spleen. 
 
 " Pleasant ! " said he. " Cott ! I suppose you will ask 
 me to go outside next ! But people who travel in a coach 
 should know the law of a coach. I don't interfere with 
 your window ; you have no business to interfere with 
 mine." 
 
 "Sir, I did not speak," said Mr. Digby, meekly. 
 
 "But Miss here did." 
 
 "Ah, sir!" said Helen, plaintively, "if you knew how 
 papa suffers ! " And her hand again moved toward the ob- 
 noxious window. 
 
 " No, my dear ; the gentleman is in his right," said Mr.
 
 338 MY NOVEL; OK, 
 
 Digby : and, bowing with his wonted suavity, he added, 
 " Excuse her, sir. She thinks a great deal too much of 
 me." 
 
 The passenger said nothing, and Helen nestled closer to 
 her father, and strove to screen him from the air. 
 
 The passenger moved uneasily. "Well," said he, with 
 a sort of snort, "air is air, and right is right : but here goes " 
 and he hastily drew up the window. 
 
 Helen turned her face full toward the passenger with a 
 grateful expression, visible even in the dim light. 
 
 "You are very kind, sir," said poor Mr. Digby; "I am 
 ashamed to " his cough choked the rest of the sentence. 
 
 The passenger, who was a plethoric, sanguineous man, 
 felt as if he were stifling. But he took off his wrappers, and 
 resigned the oxygen like a hero. 
 
 Presently he drew nearer to the sufferer, and laid hand 
 on his wrist. 
 
 "You are feverish, I fear. I am a medical man. St ! 
 one two. Cott ! you should not travel ; you are not fit 
 for it." 
 
 Mr. Digby shook his head : he was too feeble to reply. 
 
 The passenger thrust his hand into his coat-pocket, and 
 drew out what seemed a cigar-case, but what, in fact, was a 
 leathern repertory, containing a variety of minute phials. 
 From one of these phials he extracted two tiny globules. 
 " There," said he, "open your mouth put those on the tip 
 of your tongue. They will lower the pulse check the 
 fever. Be better presently but should not travel want 
 rest you should be in bed. Aconite ! Henbane ! hum ! 
 Your papa is of fair complexion a timid character, I should 
 say a horror of work, perhaps. Eh, child?" 
 
 " Sir ! " faltered Helen, astonished and alarmed. Was 
 the man a conjuror ? 
 
 "A case for Phosphor ! " cried the passenger : "that fool 
 Browne would have said arsenic. Don't be persuaded to 
 take arsenic ! " 
 
 " Arsenic, sir ! " echoed the mild Digby. " No ; however 
 unfortunate a man may be, I think, sir, that suicide is 
 tempting, perhaps, but highly criminal." 
 
 " Suicide," said the passenger tranquilly " suicide is my 
 hobby ! You have no symptom of that kind, you say ! " 
 
 " Good heavens ! No, sir." 
 
 " If ever you feel violently impelled to drown yourself, 
 take pulsatilla. But if you feel a preference toward blowing
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 339 
 
 out your brains, accompanied with weight in the limbs, loss 
 of appetite, dry cough, and bad corns sulphuret of antimony, 
 Don't forget." 
 
 Though poor Mr. Digby confusedly thought that the 
 gentleman was out of his mind, yet he tried politely to say 
 "that he was much obliged, and would be sure to remem- 
 ber ; " but his tongue failed him, and his own ideas grew 
 perplexed. His head fell back heavily, and he sank into a 
 silence which seemed that of sleep. 
 
 The traveller looked hard at Helen, as she gently drew 
 her father's head on her shoulder, and there pillowed it 
 with a tenderness which was more that of mother than 
 child. 
 
 " Moral affections soft compassionate ! a good child, 
 and would go well Vfi\h_pulsatilla" 
 
 Helen held up her finger, and glanced from her father 
 to the traveller, and then to her father again. 
 
 " Certainly -pulsatilla ! " muttered the homoeopathist ; 
 and, ensconcing himself in his own corner, he also sought 
 to sleep. But after vain efforts, accompanied by restless 
 gestures and movements, he suddenly started up, and again 
 extracted his phial-book. 
 
 " What the deuce are they to me ! " he muttered. 
 "Morbid sensibility of character coffee? No! accom- 
 panied by vivacity and violence nux ! " He brought his 
 book to the window, contrived to read a label on a pigmy 
 bottle. Nux! that's it, he said and he swallowed a 
 globule ! 
 
 "Now," quoth he, after a pause, " I don't care a straw 
 for the misfortunes of other people nay, I have half a 
 mind to let down the window." 
 
 Helen looked up. 
 
 " But I'll not," he added, resolutely; and this time he 
 fell fairly asleep. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 THE coach stopped at eleven o'clock to allow the passen- 
 gers to sup. The homoeopathist woke up, got out, gave 
 himself a shake, and inhaled the fresh air into his vigorous 
 lungs with an evident sensation of delight. He then 
 turned and looked into the coach
 
 340 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 " Let your father get out, my dear," said he, with a tone 
 more gentle than usual. " I should like to see him in-doors 
 perhaps I can do him good." 
 
 But what was Helen's terror when she found that her 
 father did not stir ! He was in a deep swoon, and still quite 
 insensible when they lifted him from the carriage. When 
 he recovered his senses, his cough returned, and the effort 
 brought up blood. 
 
 It was impossible for him to proceed farther. The 
 homceopathist assisted to undress and put him to bed. And 
 having administered another of his mysterious globules, he 
 inquired of the landlady how far it was to the nearest doc- 
 tor for the inn stood by itself in a small hamlet. There 
 was the parish apothecary three miles off. But on hearing 
 that the gentlefolks employed Dr. Dosewell, and it was a 
 good seven miles to his house, the homceopathist fetched a 
 deep breath. The coach only stopped a quarter of an hour. 
 
 "Cott!" said he, angrily, to himself "the mix was a 
 failure. My sensibility is chronic. I must go through a 
 long course to get rid of it. Hollo, guard ! get out my car- 
 pet-bag. I shan't go on to-night." 
 
 And the good man, after a very slight supper, went up 
 stairs again to the sufferer. 
 
 " Shall I send for Dr. Dosewell, sir ? " asked the landlady, 
 stopping him at the door. 
 
 " Hum ! At what hour to-morrow does the next coach 
 to London pass ? " 
 
 " Not before eight, sir." 
 
 " Well, send for the doctor to be here at seven. That 
 leaves us at least some hours free from allopathy and 
 murder," grunted the disciple of Hahnemann, as he entered 
 the room. 
 
 Whether it was the globule that the homceopathist had 
 administered, or the effect of nature aided by repose, that 
 checked the effusion of blood, and restored some tempo- 
 rary strength to the poor sufferer, is more than it becomes 
 one not of the faculty to opine. But certainly Mr. Digby 
 seemed better, and he gradually fell into a profound sleep, 
 but not till the doctor had put his ear to his chest, tapped 
 it with his hand, and asked several questions ; after which 
 the homceopathist retired into a corner of the room, and 
 leaning his face on his hand, seemed to meditate. From 
 his thoughts he was disturbed by a gentle touch. Helen 
 was kneeling at his feet.
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 341 
 
 " Is he very ill- very ?" said she ; and her fond wistful 
 eyes were fixed on the physician's with all the earnestness 
 of despair. 
 
 " Your father is very ill," replied the doctor, after a short 
 pause. " He cannot move hence for some days at least. I 
 am going to London shall I call on your relations, and tell 
 some of them to join you ? " 
 
 " No, thank you, sir," answered Helen, coloring. " But 
 do not fear ; I can nurse papa. I think he has been worse 
 before that is, he has complained more." 
 
 The homoeopathist rose, and took two strides across the 
 room, then he paused by the bed, and listened to the breath- 
 ing of the sleeping man. 
 
 He stole back to the child, who was still kneeling, took 
 her in his arms and kissed her. " Tamn it," said he, angri- 
 ly, and putting her down, " go to bed now you are not 
 wanted any more." 
 
 " Please, sir," said Helen, " I cannot leave him so. If 
 he wakes, he would miss me." 
 
 The doctor's hand trembled ; he had recourse to his 
 globules. "Anxiety grief suppressed," muttered he. 
 Don't you want to cry, my dear ? Cry do ! " 
 
 "I can't," murmured Helen. 
 
 " Pulsatilla ! " said the doctor, almost with triumph. " I 
 said so from the first. Open your mouth here ! Good 
 night. My room is opposite No. 6 ; call me if he wakes." 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 AT seven o'clock Dr. Dosewell arrived, and was shown 
 into the room of the homoeopathist, who, already up and 
 dressed, had visited his patient. 
 
 " My name is Morgan," said the homoeopathist " I am 
 a physician. I leave in your hands a patient whom, I fear, 
 neither I nor you can restore. Come and look at him." 
 
 The two doctors went into the sick-room. Mr. Digby 
 was very feeble, but he had recovered his consciousness, 
 and inclined his head courteously. 
 
 "I am sorry to cause so much trouble," said he. The 
 homceopathist drew away Helen ; the allopathist seated 
 himself by the bedside and put his questions, felt the pulse,
 
 342 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 sounded the lungs, and looked at the tongue of the patient. 
 Helen's eye was fixed on the strange doctor, and her color 
 rose, and her eye sparkled when he got up cheerfully, and 
 said in a pleasant voice, " You may have a little tea." 
 
 " Tea ! " growled the homoeopathist " barbarian ! " 
 
 "He is better, then, sir?" said Helen, creeping to the 
 allopathist. 
 
 " Oh, yes, my dear certainly ; and we shall do very 
 well, I hope." 
 
 The two doctors then withdrew. 
 
 " Last about a week ! " said Dr. Dosewell, smiling pleas- 
 antly, and showing a very white set of teeth. 
 
 " I should have said a month ; but our systems are dif- 
 ferent," replied Dr. Morgan, dryly. 
 
 DR. DOSEWELL (courteously). We country doctors bow 
 to our metropolitan superiors ; what would you advise ? 
 You would venture, perhaps, the experiment of bleeding. 
 
 DR. MORGAN (spluttering and growing Welch, which he 
 never did but in excitement). Pleed ! Cott in heaven ! do 
 you think I am a putcher an executioner ? Pleed ! Never. 
 
 DR. DOSEWELL. I don't find it answer, myself, when 
 both lungs are gone ! But perhaps you are for inhaling. 
 
 DR. MORGAN. Fiddlededee ! 
 
 DR. DOSEWELL (with some displeasure). What would 
 you advise, then, in order to prolong our patient's life for 
 a month ? 
 
 DR. MORGAN. Give him Rhus ! 
 
 DR. DOSEWELL. Rhus, sir ! Rhus ! I don't know that 
 medicine. Rhus ! 
 
 DR. MORGAN. Rhus Toxicodendron. 
 
 The length of the last word excited Dr. Dosewell's re- 
 spect. A word of five syllables this was something like ! 
 He bowed deferentially, but still looked puzzled. At last 
 he said, smiling frankly, "You great London practitioners 
 have so many new medicines ; may I ask what Rhus toxico 
 toxico " 
 
 "Dendron." 
 
 " Is ? " 
 
 "The juice of the Upas vulgarly called the Poison- 
 Tree." 
 
 Dr. Dosewell started. 
 
 " Upas poison-tree little birds that come under the 
 shade fall down dead ! You give upas-juice in these des- 
 perate cases what's the dose ? "
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 343 
 
 Dr. Morgan grinned maliciously, and produced a globule 
 the size of a small pin's head. 
 
 Dr. Dosewell recoiled in disgust. 
 
 " Oh ! " said he very coldly, and assuming at once an air 
 of superb superiority, " I see a homoeopathist, sir! " 
 
 "A homoeopathist ! " 
 
 "Urn !" 
 
 " Urn ! " 
 
 "A strange system, Dr. Morgan," said Dr. Dosewell, re- 
 covering his cheerful smile, but with a curl of contempt in 
 it, " and would soon do for the druggists." 
 
 " Serve 'em right. The druggists soon do for the pa- 
 tients." 
 
 "Sir!" 
 
 " Sir ! " 
 
 DR. DOSEWELL (with dignity). You don't know, perhaps, 
 Dr. Morgan, that I am an apothecary as well as a surgeon. 
 In fact (he added, with a certain grand humility), I have not 
 yet taken a diploma, and am but Doctor by courtesy. 
 
 DR. MORGAN. All one, sir! Doctor signs the death- 
 warrant 'pothecary does the deed ! 
 
 DR. DOSEWELL (with a withering sneer). Certainly we 
 don't profess to keep a dying man alive upon the juice of 
 the deadly upas-tree. 
 
 DR. MORGAN (complacently). Of course you don't. 
 There are no poisons with us. That's just the difference 
 between you and me, Dr. Dosewell. 
 
 DR. DOSEWELL (pointing to the homoeopathist's travel- 
 ling pharmacopoeia, and with affected candor). Indeed, I 
 have always said that if you can do no good you can do no 
 harm, with your infinitesimals. 
 
 Dr. Morgan, who had been obtuse to the insinuation of 
 poisoning, fires up violently at the charge of doing no harm. 
 
 " You know nothing about it ! I could kill quite as 
 many people as you, if I chose it ; but I don't choose." 
 
 DR. DOSEWELL (shrugging his shoulders). Sir ! 'tis no 
 use arguing ; the thing's against common sense. In short, 
 it is my firm belief that it is is a complete 
 
 DR. MORGAN. A complete what ? 
 
 DR. DOSEWELL (provoked to the utmost). Humbug ! 
 
 DR. MORGAN. Humpug ! Cott in heaven ! You 
 old 
 
 DP. DOSEWELL. Old what, sir ? 
 
 DR. MORGAN (at home in a series of alliteral vowels,
 
 344 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 which none but a Cimbrian could have uttered without 
 gasping). Old allopathical anthropophagite ! 
 
 DR. DOSEWELL (starting up, seizing by the back the chair 
 on which he had sate, and bringing it down violently on its 
 four legs). Sir! 
 
 DR. MORGAN (imitating the action with his own chair). 
 Sir! 
 
 DR. DOSEWELL. You're abusive. 
 
 DR. MORGAN. You're impertinent. 
 
 DR. DOSEWELL. Sir. 
 
 DR. MORGAN. Sir. 
 
 The two rivals fronted each other. 
 
 They were both athletic men, and fiery men. Dr. Dose- 
 well was the taller, but Dr. Morgan was the stouter. Dr. 
 Dosewell on the mother's side was Irish ; but Dr. Morgan 
 on both sides was Welsh. All things considered, I would 
 have backed Dr. Morgan if it had come to blows. But, 
 luckily for the honor of science, here the chambermaid 
 knocked at the door, and said, " The coach is coming, 
 sir." 
 
 Dr. Morgan recovered his temper and his manners at 
 that announcement. "Dr. Dosewell," said he, "I have 
 been too hot I apologize." 
 
 "Dr. Morgan," answered the allopathist, "I forgot my- 
 self. Your hand, sir." 
 
 DR. MORGAN. We are both devoted to humanity, though 
 with different opinions. We should respect each other. 
 
 DR. DOSEWELL. Where look for liberality, if men of 
 science are illiberal to their brethren ? 
 
 DR. MORGAN (aside). The old hypocrite ! He would 
 pound me in a mortar if the law would let him. 
 
 DR. DOSEWELL (aside). The wretched charlatan ! I 
 should like to pound him in a mortar. 
 
 DR. MORGAN. Good bye, my esteemed and worthy 
 brother. 
 
 DR. DOSEWELL. My excellent friend, good bye. 
 
 DR. MORGAN (returning in haste). I forgot. I don't 
 think our poor patient is very rich. I confide him to your 
 disinterested benevolence. (Hurries away.) 
 
 DR. DOSEWELL (in a rage). Seven miles at six o'clock in 
 the morning, and perhaps done out of my fee ! Quack ! 
 Villain ! 
 
 Meanwhile Dr. Morgan had returned to the sick-room. 
 
 " I must wish you farewell," said he to poor Mr. Digby,
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 345 
 
 who was languidly sipping his tea. " But you are in the 
 hands of a of a gentleman in the profession." 
 
 "You have been too kind I am shocked," said Mr. 
 Digby. " Helen, where's my purse ? " 
 
 Dr. Morgan paused. 
 
 He paused, first, because it must be owned that his 
 practice was restricted, and a fee gratified the vanity 
 natural to unappreciated talent, and had the charm of 
 novelty, which is sweet to human nature itself. Secondly, 
 he was a man 
 
 " Who knew his rights ; and, knowing, dared maintain." 
 
 Fie had resigned a coach-fare stayed a night and thought 
 he had relieved his patient. He had a right to his fee. 
 
 On the other hand, he paused, because, though he had 
 small practice, he was tolerably 'well off, and did not care 
 for money in itself, and he suspected his patient to be no 
 Crcesus. 
 
 Meanwhile the purse was in Helen's hand. He took it 
 from her, and saw but a few sovereigns within the well- 
 worn net-work. He drew the child a little aside. 
 
 "Answer me, my dear, frankly is your papa rich?" 
 And he glanced at the shabby clothes strewed on the chair, 
 and Helen's faded frock. 
 
 " Alas, no !" said Helen, hanging her head. 
 
 " Is that all you have ? " 
 
 " All." 
 
 " I am ashamed to offer you two guineas," said Mr. 
 Digby's hollow voice from the bed. 
 
 " And I should be still more ashamed to take them. 
 Good bye, sir. Come here, my child. Keep your money, 
 and don't waste it on the other doctor more than you can 
 help. His medicines can do your father no good. But I 
 suppose you must have some. He's no physician, therefore 
 there's no fee. He'll send a bill it can't be much. You 
 understand. And now, God bless you." 
 
 Dr. Morgan was off. But, as he paid the landlady his 
 bill, he said, considerately, " The poor people up-stairs can 
 pay you, but not that doctor and he's of no use. Be kind 
 to the little girl, and get the doctor to tell his patient 
 (quietly, of course) to write to his friends soon you un- 
 derstand. Somebody must take charge of the poor child. 
 And stop hold your hand ; take care these globules for
 
 346 My NOVEL; OR, 
 
 the little girl when her father dies (here the Doctor 
 muttered to himself, ' grief aconite ') and if she cries too 
 much afterward these (don't mistake). Tears caustic ! " 
 
 " Come, sir," cried the coachman. 
 
 " Coming ; tears caustic" repeated the hornceopathist, 
 pulling out his handkerchief and his phial-book together as 
 he got into the coach ; and he hastily swallowed his anti- 
 lachrymal. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 RICHARD AVENEL was in a state of great nervous ex- 
 citement. He proposed to give an entertainment of a 
 kind wholly new to the experience of Screwstown. Mrs. 
 M'Catchley had described with much eloquence the Dejeuners 
 dansants of her fashionable friends residing in the elegant 
 suburbs of Wimbledon and Fulham. She declared that 
 nothing was so agreeable. She had even said point-blank 
 to Mr. Avenel, "Why don't you give a De'jetiner dansant ? " 
 And, therewith, a Dejef.ner dansant Mr. Avenel resolved to 
 give. 
 
 The day was fixed, and Mr. Avenel entered into all the 
 requisite preparations, with the energy of a man and the 
 providence of a woman. 
 
 One morning as he stood musing on the lawn, irresolute 
 as to the best site for the tents, Leonard came up to him 
 with an open letter in his hand. 
 
 " My dear uncle," said he, softly. 
 
 " Ha ! " exclaimed Mr. Avenel, with a start. " Ha 
 well what now ? " 
 
 " I have just received a letter from Mr. Dale. He tells 
 me that my poor mother is very restless and uneasy, because 
 he cannot assure her that he has heard from me ; and his 
 letter requires an answer. Indeed I shall seem very ungrate- 
 ful to him to all if I do not write." 
 
 Richard Avenel's brows met. He uttered an impatient 
 " pish ! " and turned away. Then coming back, he fixed his 
 clear hawk-like eye on Leonard's ingenuous countenance, 
 linked his arm in his nephew's, and drew him into the 
 shrubbery. 
 
 " Well, Leonard," said he, after a pause, " it is time that 
 I should give you some idea of my plans with regard to you.
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 347 
 
 You have seen my manner of living some difference from 
 what you ever saw before, I calculate ! Now I have given 
 you, what no one gave me, a lift in the world ; and where I 
 place you, there you must help yourself." 
 
 "Such is my duty, and my desire," said Leonard 
 heartily. 
 
 " Good. You are a clever lad, and a genteel lad, and 
 will do me credit. I have had doubts of what is best for 
 you. At one time I thought of sending you to college. 
 That, I know, is Mr. Dale's wish ; perhaps it is your own. 
 But I have given up that idea ; I have something better for 
 you. You have a clear head for business, and are a capital 
 arithmetician. I think of bringing you up to superintend 
 my business ; by-and-by I will admit you into partnership ; 
 and before you are thirty you will be a rich man. Come, 
 does that suit you ? " 
 
 " My dear uncle," said Leonard, frankly, but much 
 touched by this generosity, "it is not for me to have a 
 choice. I should have preferred going to college, because 
 there I might gain independence for myself, and cease to be 
 a burden on you. Moreover, my heart moves me to studies 
 more congenial with the college than the counting-house. 
 But all this is nothing compared with my wish to be of use 
 to you, and to prove in any way, however feebly, my grati- 
 tuie for all your kindness." 
 
 "You're a good, grateful, sensible lad," exclaimed Rich- 
 ard, heartily ; " and believe me, though I'm a rough dia- 
 mond, I have your true interest at heart. You can be of 
 use to me, and in being so you will best serve yourself. 
 To tell you the truth, I have some idea of changing my con- 
 dition. There's a lady of fashion and quality who, I think, 
 may condescend to become Mrs. Avenel ; and if so, I shall 
 probably reside a great part of the year in London. I don't 
 want to give up my business. No other investment will 
 yield the same interest. But you can soon learn to superin- 
 tend it for me, as some day or other I may retire, and then 
 you can step in. Once a member of our great commercial 
 class, and with your talents you may be anything member 
 of parliament, and after that, minister of state, for what I 
 know. And my wife hem! that is to be has great con- 
 nections, and you shall marry well ; and oh, the Avenels 
 will hold their heads with the highest, after all ! Damn the 
 aristocracy we clever fellows will be the aristocrats 
 eh ? " Richard rubbed his hands.
 
 348 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 Certainly, as we have seen, Leonard, especially in his 
 earlier steps to knowledge, had repined at his position in 
 the many degrees of life certainly he was still ambitious 
 certainly he could not now have returned contentedly to the 
 humble occupation he had left ; and woe to the young man 
 who does not hear with a quickened pulse, and brightening 
 eye, words that promise independence, and flatter with the 
 hope of distinction. Still, it was with all the reaction of 
 chill and mournful disappointment that Leonard, a few 
 hours after this dialogue with his uncle, found himself alone 
 in the fields, and pondering over the prospects before him. 
 He had set his heart upon completing his intellectual edu- 
 tion, upon developing those powers within him which 
 yearned for an arena of literature, and revolted from the 
 routine of trade. But to his credit be it said, that he vig- 
 orously resisted this natural disappointment, and by degrees 
 schooled himself to look cheerfully on the path imposed on 
 his duty, and sanctioned by the manly sense that was at the 
 core of his character. 
 
 I believe that this self-conquest showed that the boy had 
 true genius. The false genius would have written sonnets 
 and despaired. 
 
 But still, Richard Avenel left his nephew sadly perplexed 
 as to the knotty question from which their talk on the future 
 had diverged viz., should he write to the Parson, and 
 assure the fears of his mother? How do so without Rich- 
 ard's consent, when Richard had on a former occasion so 
 imperiously declared that, if he did, it would lose his mother 
 all that Richard intended to settle on her? While he was 
 debating this matter with his conscience, leaning against a 
 stile that interrupted a path to the town, Leonard Fairfield 
 was startled by an exclamation. He looked up, and beheld 
 Mr. Sprott, the tinker. 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 THE tinker, blacker and grimmer than ever, stared hard 
 at the altered person of his old acquaintance, and extended 
 his sable fingers, as if inclined to convince himself by the 
 sense of touch that it was Leonard in the flesh that he be- 
 held, under vestments so marvellously elegant and preter- 
 natu rally spruce.
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 349 
 
 Leonard shrunk mechanically from the contact, while in 
 great surprise he faltered 
 
 "You here, Mr. Sprott ! What could bring you so far 
 from home ? " 
 
 " 'Ome ! " echoed the tinker, " I 'as no 'ome ! or rather, 
 d'ye see, Muster Fairfilt, I makes myself at 'ome verever I 
 goes ! Lor' love ye, I ben't settled on no parridge. I 
 vanders here and I vanders there, and that's my 'ome verever 
 I can mend my kettles and sell my tracks ! " 
 
 So saying, the tinker slid his panniers on the ground, gave 
 a grunt of release and satisfaction, and seated himself with 
 great composure on the stile, from which Leonard had 
 retreated. 
 
 " But, dash my vig," resumed Mr. Sprott, as he once 
 more surveyed Leonard, " vy, you bees a rale gentleman, 
 now surety / Vot's the dodge eh ? " 
 
 " Dodge ! " repeated Leonard, mechanically " I don't 
 understand you." Then, thinking that it was neither neces- 
 sary nor expedient to keep up his acquaintance with Mr. 
 Sprott, nor prudent to expose himself to the battery of 
 questions which he foresaw that further parley would bring 
 upon him, he extended a crown-piece to the tinker ; and 
 saying with a half-smile, "You must excuse me for leaving 
 you I have business in the town ; and do me the favor to 
 accept this trifle," he walked briskly off. 
 
 The tinker looked long at the crown-piece, and then 
 sliding it into his pocket, said to himself 
 
 " Ho 'ush-money ! No go, my swell cove." 
 
 After venting that brief soliloquy, he sat silent a little 
 while, till Leonard was nearly out of sight, then rose, re- 
 sumed his fardel, and creeping quick along the hedge-rows, 
 followed Leonard toward the town. Just in the last field, 
 as he looked over the hedge, he saw Leonard accosted by a 
 gentleman of comely mien and important swagger. That 
 gentleman soon left the young man, and came, whistling 
 loud, up the path, and straight toward the tinker. Mr. 
 Sprott looked round, but the hedge Was too neat to allow 
 of a good hiding-place, so he put a bold front on it, and 
 stepped forth like a man. But, alas for him ! before he got 
 into the public path, the proprietor of the land, Mr. Richard 
 Avenel (for the gentleman was no less a personage), had 
 spied out the trespasser, and called to him with a " Hillo, 
 fellow," that bespoke all the dignity of a man who owns
 
 3$o MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 acres, and all the wrath of a man who beholds those acres 
 impudently invaded. 
 
 The Tinker stopped, and Mr. Avenel stalked up to him. 
 
 " What the devil are you doing on my property, lurking 
 by my hedge ? I suspect you are an incendiary ! " 
 
 " I be a tinker," quoth Mr. Sprott, not louting low (for 
 a sturdy republican was Mr. Sprott), but, like a lord of 
 human-kind, 
 
 " Pride in his port, defiance in his eye." 
 
 Mr. Avenel's fingers itched to knock the tinker's villan- 
 ous hat off his Jacobinical head, but he repressed the un- 
 dignified impulse by thrusting both hands deep into his 
 trousers pockets." 
 
 "A tinker ! " he cried " that's a vagrant ; and I'm a 
 magistrate, and I've a great mind to send you to the tread- 
 mill that I have. What do you do here, I say ? You have 
 not answered my question ? " 
 
 "What does I do 'ere ?" said Mr. Sprott. " Vy you had 
 better ax my crakter of the young gent I saw you talking 
 with just now ; he knows me !" 
 
 " What ! my nephew know you ? " 
 
 "W hew," whistled the Tinker, ''your nephew, is it, 
 sir? I have a great respeck for your family. I've known 
 Mrs.- Fairfilt, the vasher-voman, this many a year. I 'umbly 
 ax your pardon." And he took off his hat this time. 
 
 Mr. Avenel turned red and white in a breath. He growled 
 out something inaudible, turned on his heel, and strode off. 
 
 The Tinker watched him as he had watched Leonard, 
 and then dogged the uncle as he had dogged the nephew. 
 I don't presume to say that there was cause and effect in 
 what happened that night, but it was what is called a 
 "curious coincidence" that that night one of Richard 
 Avenel's ricks was set on fire ; and that that day he had 
 called Mr. Sprott an incendiary. Mr. Sprott was a man of 
 a very high spirit, and did not forgive an insult easily. His 
 nature was inflammatory, and so was that of the lucifers 
 which he always carried about him, with his tracts and glue- 
 pots. 
 
 The next morning there was an inquiry made for the 
 Tinker, but he had disappeared from the neighborhood.
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 IT was a fortunate thing that the dejefiner dansant so ab- 
 sorbed Mr. Richard Avenel's thoughts, that even the confla- 
 gration of his rick could not scare away the graceful and 
 poetic images connected with that pastoral festivity. He 
 was even loose and careless in the questions he put to 
 Leonard about the Tinker ; nor did he send justice in pur- 
 suit of that itinerant trader ; for, to say truth, Richard 
 Avenel was a man accustomed to make enemies amongst the 
 lower orders ; and though he suspected Mr. Sprott of 
 destroying his rick, yet, when he once set about suspecting, 
 he found he had quite as good cause to suspect fifty other 
 persons. How on earth could a man puzzle himself about 
 ricks and tinkers, when all his cares and energies w r ere de- 
 voted to a deje finer dansant? It Was a maxim of Richard 
 Avenel's, as it ought to be of every clever man, " to do one 
 thing at a time ; " and therefore he postponed all other con- 
 siderations till the de'jefiner dansant was fairly done with. 
 Amongst these considerations was the letter which Leonard 
 wished to write to the Parson. "Wait a bit, and we will 
 both write ! " said Richard, good-humoredly, " the moment 
 the cttjc&ner dansant is over ! " 
 
 It must be owned that this fete was no ordinary pro- 
 vincial ceremonial. Richard Avenel was a man to do a thing 
 well when he set about it 
 
 " He soused the cabbage with a bounteous heart." 
 
 By little and little his first notions had expanded, till what 
 had been meant to be only neat and elegant now embraced 
 the costly and magnificent. Artificers accustomed to 
 dejefiners dansants came all the way from London to assist, to 
 direct, to create. Hungarian singers, and Tyrolese singers, 
 and Swiss peasant-women who were to chaunt the Ranz des 
 Vaches, and milk cows, or make syllabubs, were engaged. 
 The great marquee was decorated as a Gothic banquet-hall ; 
 the breakfast itself was to consist of " all the delicacies of 
 the season." In short, as Richard Avenel said to himself, 
 " It is a thing once in a way ; a thing on which I don't ob- 
 ject to spend money, provided that the thing is the thing ! "
 
 352 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 It had been a matter of grave meditation how to make 
 the society worthy of the revel ; for Richard Avenel was 
 not contented with a mere aristocracy of the town his am- 
 bition had grown with his expenses. " Since it will cost so 
 much," said he, " I may as well come it strong, and get in 
 the county." 
 
 True, that he was personally acquainted with very few 
 of what are called county families. But still, when a man 
 makes himself a mark in a large town, and can return one 
 of the members whom that town sends to Parliament ; and 
 when, moreover, that man proposes to give some superb 
 and original entertainment, in which the old can eat and 
 the young can dance, there is no county in the island that 
 has not families enow who will be delighted by an invitation 
 from THAT MAN. And so Richard, finding that, as the thing 
 got talked of, the Dean's lady, and Mrs. Pompley, and 
 various other great personages, took the liberty to suggest 
 that Squire this, and Sir Somebody that, would be so pleased 
 if they w r ere asked, fairly took the bull by the horns, and 
 sent out his cards to Park, Hall, and Rectory, within a cir- 
 cumference of twelve miles. He met with but few refusals, 
 and he now counted upon five hundred guests. 
 
 " In for a penny, in for a pound," said Mr. Richard 
 Avenel. " I wonder what Mrs. M'Catchley will say ? " In- 
 deed, if the whole truth must be known, Mr. Richard Avenel 
 not only gave that dejeuner dansant in honor of Mrs. M 'Catch- 
 ley, but he had fixed in his heart of hearts upon that occa- 
 sion (when surrounded by all his splendor, and assisted by 
 the seductive arts of Terpsichore and Bacchus), to whisper 
 to Mrs. M'Catchley those soft words which but why not 
 here let Mr. Richard Avenel use his own idiomatic and un- 
 sophisticated expression? "Please the pigs, then," said 
 Mr. Avenel to himself, " I shall pop the question !" 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 THE Great Day arrived at last ; and Mr. Richard Avenel, 
 from his dressing-room window, looked on the scene below 
 as Hannibal or Napoleon looked from the Alps on Italy. 
 It was a scene to gratify the thought of conquest, and re- 
 ward the labors of ambition. Placed on a little eminence
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 353 
 
 stood the singers from the mountains of the Tyrol, their 
 high-crowned hats and filigree buttons and gay sashes 
 gleaming in the sun. Just seen from his place of watch, 
 though concealed from the casual eye, the Hungarian mu- 
 sicians lay in ambush amidst a little belt of laurels and 
 American shrubs. Far to the right lay what had once been 
 called (Jiorre:>co refer ens) the duck-pond, where Dulce sonant 
 tenui gutture carmen aves. But the ruthless ingenuity of the 
 head artificer had converted the duck-pond into a Swiss 
 lake, despite grievous wrong and sorrow to the assuetum 
 innocuumque genus the familiar and harmless inhabitants, 
 who had been all expatriated and banished from their native 
 waves. Large poles twisted with fir-branches, stuck thickly 
 around the lake, gave to the waters the becoming Helvetian 
 gloom. And here, beside three cows all bedecked with 
 ribbons, stood the Swiss maidens destined to startle the 
 shades with the Ranz des Vaches. To the left, full upon the 
 sward, which it almost entirely covered, stretched the great 
 Gothic marquee, divided into two grand sections one for 
 the dancing, one for the de'jefiner. 
 
 The day was propitious not a cloud in the sky. The 
 musicians were already tuning their instruments ; figures 
 of waiters hired of Gunter trim and decorous, in black 
 trousers and white waistcoats passed to and fro the space 
 between the house and marquee. Richard looked and 
 looked ; and as he looked he drew mechanically his razor 
 across the strop ; and when he had looked his fill, he turned 
 reluctantly to the glass and shaved ! All that blessed morn- 
 ing he had been too busy, till then, to think of shaving. 
 
 There is a vast deal of character in the way that a man 
 performs that operation of shaving ! You should have 
 seen Richard Avenel shave ! You could have judged at 
 once how he would shave his neighbors, when you saw the 
 celerity, the completeness with which he shaved himself 
 a forestroke and a backstroke, and tondenti barba cadebat! 
 Cheek and chin were as smooth as glass. You would have 
 buttoned up your pockets instinctively, if you had seen him. 
 
 But the rest of Mr. Avenel's toilet was not completed 
 with correspondent despatch. On his bed, and on his 
 chairs, and on his sofa, and on his drawers, lay trousers, 
 and vests, and cravats enough to distract the choice of a 
 Stoic. And first one pair of trousers was tried on, and 
 then another and one waistcoat, and then a second, and 
 then a third. Gradually that chef-dozuvre of Civilization a
 
 354 MY tfOVEL; OR, 
 
 man dressed grew into development and form ; and, finally, 
 Mr. Richard Avenel emerged into the light of day. He 
 had been lucky in his costume he felt it. It might not 
 suit every one in color or cut, but it suited him. 
 
 And this was his garb. On such occasions, what epic 
 poet would not describe the robe and tunic of a hero ? 
 
 His surtout in modern phrase, his frock-coat was blue, 
 a rich blue a blue that the royal brothers of George the 
 Fourth were wont to favor. And the surtout, single- 
 breasted, was thrown open gallantly ; and in the second 
 button-hole thereof was a moss-rose. The vest was white, 
 and the trousers a pearl-gray, with what tailors style "a 
 handsome fall over the boot." A blue and white silk 
 cravat, tied loose and dcbonnaire ; an ample field of shirt- 
 front, with plain gold studs ; a pair of lemon-colored kid 
 gloves, and a white hat, placed somewhat too knowingly 
 on one side, complete the description, and "give the world 
 assurance of the man." And, with his light, firm, well- 
 shaped figure, his clear complexion, his keen, bright eye, 
 and features that bespoke the courage, precision, and alert- 
 ness of his character that is to say, features bold, not large, 
 well-defined and regular you might walk long through 
 town or country before you would see a handsomer speci- 
 men of humanity than our friend, Richard Avenel. 
 
 Handsome, and feeling that he was handsome ; rich, and 
 feeling that he was rich ; lord of the fete, and feeling that 
 he was lord of the fete, Richard Avenel stepped out upon 
 his lawn. 
 
 And now the dust began to rise along the road, and car- 
 riages, and gigs, and chaises, and flies, might be seen at 
 near intervals, and in quick procession. People came pretty 
 much about the same time as they do in the country 
 Heaven reward them for it ! 
 
 Richard Avenel was not quite at his ease at first in re- 
 ceiving his guests, especially those whom he did not know 
 by sight. But when the dancing began, and he had secured 
 the fair hand of Mrs. M'Catchley for the initiatory quadrille, 
 his courage and presence of mind returned to him ; and, 
 seeing that many people whom he had not received at all 
 seemed to enjoy themselves very much, he gave up the at- 
 tempt to receive those who came after and that was a 
 great relief to all parties. 
 
 Meanwhile Leonard looked on the animated scene with 
 a silent melancholy, which he in vain endeavored to shake
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 355 
 
 off a melancholy more common amongst very young men 
 in such scenes than we are apt to suppose. Somehow or 
 other, the pleasure was not congenial to him ; he had no 
 Mrs. M'Catchley to endear it he knew very few people 
 he was shy he felt his position with his uncle was equivo- 
 cal he had not the habit of society he heard incidentally 
 many an ill-natured remark upon his uncle and the enter- 
 tainment he felt indignant and mortified. He had been 
 a great deal happier eating his radishes, and reading his 
 book by the little fountain in Riccabocca's garden. He re- 
 tired to a quiet part of the grounds, seated himself under 
 a tree, leaned his cheek on his hand, and mused. He was 
 soon far away : happy age, when, whatever the present, the 
 future seems so far and so infinite ! 
 
 But now the ddjefiner had succeeded the earlier dances ; 
 and, as champagne flowed royally, it is astonishing how the 
 entertainment brightened. 
 
 The sun was beginning to slope toward the west when, 
 during a temporary cessation of the dance, all the guests 
 had assembled in such space as the tent left on the lawn, or 
 thickly filled the walks immediately adjoining it. The gay 
 dresses of the ladies, the joyous laughter heard everywhere, 
 and the brilliant sunlight over all, conveyed even to Leon- 
 ard the notion, not of mere hypocritical pleasure, but actual 
 healthful happiness. He was attracted from his reverie, 
 and timidly mingled with the groups. But Richard Avenel, 
 with the fair Mrs. M'Catchley her complexion more vivid, 
 and her eyes more dazzling, and her step more elastic than 
 usual had turned from the gaiety just as Leonard had 
 turned toward it, and was now on the very spot (remote, 
 obscure, shaded by the few trees above five years old that 
 Mr. Avenel's property boasted) which the young dreamer 
 had deserted. 
 
 And then ! Ah, then ! moment so meet for the sweet 
 question of questions, place so appropriate for the delicate, 
 bashful, murmured popping thereof ! suddenly from the 
 sward before, from the groups beyond, there floated to the 
 ears of Richard Avenel an indescribable, mingled, ominous 
 sound a sound as of a general titter, a horrid, malignant, 
 but low cachinnation. And Mrs. M'Catchley, stretching 
 forth her parasol, exclaimed, " Dear me, Mr. Avenel, what 
 can they be all crowding there for ? " 
 
 There are certain sounds and certain sights the one 
 indistinct, the other vaguely conjccturable which, never-
 
 356 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 theless, we know, by an instinct, bode some diabolical 
 agency at work in our affairs. And if any man gives an en- 
 tertainment, and hears afar a general, ill-suppressed, derisive 
 titter, and sees all his guests hurrying toward one spot, I 
 defy him to remain unmoved and uninquisitive. I defy him 
 still more to take that precise occasion (however much he 
 may have before designed it) to drop gracefully on his right 
 knee before the handsomest Mrs. M'Catchley in the universe, 
 and, pop the question ! Richard Avenel blurted out 
 something very like an oath ; and, half guessing that some- 
 thing must have happened that it would not be pleasing to 
 bring immediately under the notice of Mrs. M'Catchley, he 
 said hastily " Excuse me. I'll just go and see what is the 
 matter ; pray, stay till I come back." With that he sprang 
 forward ; in a minute he was in the midst of the group, 
 that parted aside with the most obliging complacency to 
 make way for him. 
 
 " But what's the matter ? " he asked, impatiently, yet 
 fearfully. Not a voice answered. He strode on, and be- 
 held his nephew in the arms of a woman ! 
 
 "God bless my soul !" said Richard Avenel. 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 AND such a woman ! 
 
 She had on a cotton gown very neat, I dare say for an 
 under-housemaid ; and such thick shoes ! She had on a 
 little black straw bonnet ; and a kerchief, that might have 
 cost tenpence, pinned across her waist instead of a shawl ; 
 and she looked altogether respectable, no doubt, but ex- 
 ceedingly dusty ! And she was hanging upon Leonard's 
 neck, and scolding, and caressing, and crying, very loud. 
 " God bless my soul ! " said Mr. Richard Avenel. 
 
 As he uttered that innocent self-benediction, the woman 
 hastily turned round, and, darting from Leonard, threw 
 herself right upon Richard Avenel burying under her em- 
 brace blue coat, moss-rose, white waistcoat and all with a 
 vehement sob and a loud exclamation ! 
 
 " Oh ! brother Dick ! dear, dear brother Dick ! And 
 I lives to see thee agin ! " And then came two such kisses 
 you might have heard them a mile off ! The situation
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 357 
 
 of brother Dick was appalling ; and the crowd that had be- 
 fore only tittered politely, could not now resist the effect 
 of this sudden embrace. There was a- general explosion ! 
 It was a roar. That roar would have killed a weak man ; 
 but it sounded to the strong heart of Richard Avenel like 
 the defiance of a foe, and it plucked forth in an instant 
 from all conventional let and barrier the native spirit of the 
 Anglo-Saxon. 
 
 He lifted abruptly his handsome masculine head, and 
 looked round the ring of his ill-bred visitors with a haughty 
 stare of rebuke and surprise. 
 
 " Ladies and gentlemen," then said he, very coolly, " I 
 don't see what there is to laugh at ? A brother and sister 
 meet after many years' separation, and the sister cries, 
 poor thing ! For my part I think it very natural that she 
 should cry; but not that you should laugh!" In an in- 
 stant the whole shame was removed from Richard Avenel, 
 and rested in full weight upon the bystanders. It is im- 
 possible to say how foolish and sheepish they all looked, nor 
 how slinkingly each tried to creep off. 
 
 Richard Avenel seized his advantage with the prompti- 
 tude of a man who had got on in America, and was, there- 
 fore, accustomed to make the best of things. He drew 
 Mrs. Fairfield's arm in his, and led her into the house ; 
 but when he had got her safe into his parlor Leonard fol- 
 lowing all the time and the door was closed upon those 
 three, then Richard Avenel's ire burst forth. 
 
 "You impudent, ungrateful, audacious drab !" 
 
 Yes, drab was the word. I was shocked to say it, but 
 the duties of an historian are stern, and the word was 
 drab. 
 
 " Drab ! " faltered poor Jane Fairfield ; and she clutched 
 hold of Leonard, to save herself from falling. 
 
 " Sir ! " cried Leonard, fiercely. 
 
 You might as well have cried " Sir " to a mountain tor- 
 rent. Richard hurried on, for he was furious. 
 
 " You nasty dirty dusty dowdy ! How dare you come 
 here to disgrace me in my own house and premises, after 
 my sending you fifty pounds ! To take the very time too, 
 when when " 
 
 Richard gasped for breath ; and the laugh of his 
 guests rang in his ears, and got into his chest, and choked 
 him. Jane Fairfield drew herself up, and her tears were 
 dried
 
 358 MY NOVEL; OK, 
 
 " I did not come to disgrace you ; I came to see my boy, 
 and " 
 
 " Ha !" interrupted Richard, "to see him." 
 
 He turned to Leonard : " You have written to this 
 woman, then ? " 
 
 "No, sir, I have not." 
 
 " I believe you lie." 
 
 " He does not lie ; and he is as good as yourself, and 
 better, Richard Avenel," exclaimed Mrs. Fairfield ; "and I 
 won't stand here and hear him insulted that's what I 
 won't. And as for your fifty pounds, there are forty-five of 
 it ; and I'll work my fingers to the bone till I pay back the 
 other five. And don't be afeard I shall disgrace you, for I'll 
 never look on your face agin ; and you're a wicked, bad 
 man that's what you are." 
 
 The poor woman's voice was so raised and so shrill, 
 that any other and more remorseful feeling which Richard 
 might have conceived was drowned in his apprehension 
 that she would be overheard by his servants or his guests 
 a masculine apprehension, with which females rarely 
 sympathize ; which, on the contrary, they are inclined to 
 consider a mean and cowardly terror on the part of their 
 male oppressors. 
 
 "Hush! hold your infernal squall do!" said Mr. 
 Avenel, in a tone that he meant to be soothing. "There 
 sit down and don't stir till I come back again, and can 
 talk to you calmly. Leonard, follow me, and help to ex- 
 plain things to our guests." 
 
 Leonard stood still, but shook his head slightly. 
 
 "What do you mean, sir?" said Richard Avenel, in a 
 very portentous growl. "Shaking your head at me? Do 
 you intend to disobey me ? You had better take care ! " 
 
 Leonard's front rose ; he drew one arm round his 
 mother, and thus he spoke : 
 
 " Sir, you have been kind to me, and generous, and that 
 thought alone silenced my indignation, when I heard you 
 address such language to my mother ; for I felt that, if I 
 spoke, I should say too much. Now I speak, and it is to 
 say, shortly, that 
 
 " Hush, boy," said poor Mrs. Fairfield, frightened ; 
 " don't mind me. I did not come to make mischief, and 
 ruin your prospex. I'll go !" 
 
 "Will you ask her pardon, Mr. Avenel ?" said Leonard, 
 firmly ; and he advanced toward his uncle.
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 359 
 
 Richard, naturally hot and intolerant of contradiction, 
 was then excited, not only by the angry emotion, which, it 
 must be owned, a man so mortified, and in the very flush 
 of triumph, might well experience, but by much more wine 
 than he was in the habit of drinking ; and when Leonard 
 approached him, he misinterpreted the movement into one 
 of menace and aggression. He lifted his arm : "Come a 
 step nearer," said he, between his teeth, " and I'll knock 
 you down." Leonard advanced the forbidden step ; but as 
 Richard caught his eye, there was something in that eye 
 not defying, not threatening, but bold and dauntless 
 which Richard recognized and respected, for that something 
 spoke the Freeman. The uncle's arm mechanically fell to 
 his side. 
 
 "You cannot strike me, Mr. Avenel," said Leonard, 
 "for you are aware that I could not strike again my 
 mother's brother. As her son, I once more say to you ask 
 her pardon." 
 
 " Ten thousand devils ! Are you mad ? or do you want 
 to drive me mad ? you insolent beggar, fed and clothed by 
 my charity. Ask her pardon ! what for ? That she has 
 
 made me the object of jeer and ridicule with that d d 
 
 cotton gown, and those double d d thick shoes. I vow 
 
 and protest they've got nails in them ! Hark ye, sir, I've 
 been insulted by her, but I'm not to be bullied by you. 
 Come with me instantly, or I discard you ; not a shilling of 
 mine shall you have as long as I live. Take your choice 
 be a peasant, a laborer, or " 
 
 "A base renegade to natural affection, a degraded 
 beggar indeed ! " cried Leonard, his breast heaving, and his 
 cheeks in a glow. " Mother, mother, come away. Never 
 fear I have strength and youth, and we will work together 
 as before." 
 
 But poor Mrs. Fairfield, overcome by her excitement, had 
 sunk down into Richard's own handsome morocco leather 
 easy-chair, and could neither speak nor stir. 
 
 " Confound you both ! " muttered Richard. "You can't 
 be seen creeping out of my house now. Keep her here, you 
 young viper, you ; keep her till I come back ; and then, if 
 you choose to go, go and be " 
 
 Not finishing his sentence, Mr. Avenel hurried out of the 
 room, and locked the door, putting the key into his pocket. 
 He paused for a moment in the Hall, in order to collect his 
 thoughts drew three or four deep breaths gave himself a
 
 3 6o MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 great shake and, resolved to be faithful to his principle of 
 doing one thing at a time, shook off in that shake all disturb- 
 ing recollection of his mutinous captives. Stern as Achilles 
 when he appeared to the Trojans, Richard Avenel stalked 
 back to his lawn. 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 BRIEF as had been his absence, the host could see that, 
 in the interval, a great and notable change had come over 
 the spirit of his company. Some of those who lived in the 
 town were evidently preparing to return home on foot ; those 
 who lived at a distance, and whose carriages (having been 
 sent away, and ordered to return at a fixed hour) had not yet 
 arrived, were gathered together in small knots and groups ; 
 all looked sullen and displeased, and all instinctively turned 
 from their host as he passed them by. They felt they had 
 been lectured, and they were more put out than Richard 
 himself. They did not know if they might not be lectured 
 again. This vulgar man, of what might he not be capable ? 
 
 Richard's shrewd sense comprehended in an instant all 
 the difficulties of his position; but he walked on deliberately 
 and directly toward Mrs. M'Catchley", who was standing 
 near the grand marquee with the Pompleys and the Dean's 
 lady. As these personages saw him make thus boldly 
 toward them, there w r as a flutter. " Hang the fellow ! " said 
 the Colonel, intrenching himself in his stock, "he is coming 
 here. Low and shocking what shall we do ? Let us stroll 
 on." 
 
 But Richard threw himself in the way of the retreat. 
 
 "Mrs. M'Catchley," said he, very gravely, and offering 
 her his arm, "allow me three words with you." 
 
 The poor widow looked very much discomposed. Mrs. 
 Pompley pulled her by the sleeve. Richard still stood gaz- 
 ing into, her face, with his arm extended. She hesitated a 
 minute, and then took the arm. 
 
 "Monstrous impudent! " cried the Colonel. 
 
 "Let Mrs. M'Catchley alone, my dear, "responded Mrs. 
 Pompley ; "she will know how to give him a lesson." 
 
 " Madam," said Richard, as soon as he and his compan- 
 ion were out of hearing, " I rely on you to do me a favor."
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 361 
 
 "On me?" 
 
 " On you, and you alone. You have influence with all 
 those people, and a word from you will effect what I desire. 
 Mrs. M'Catchley," added Richard, with a solemnity that was 
 actually imposing, " I flatter myself that you have some 
 friendship for me, which is more than I can say of any other 
 soul in these grounds will you do me this favor, ay or no ? " 
 
 "What is it, Mr. Avenel?" asked Mrs. M'Catchley, 
 much disturbed, and somewhat softened for she was by no 
 means a woman without feeling ; indeed, she considered 
 herself nervous. 
 
 " Get all your friends all the company, in short to 
 come back into the tent for refreshments for anything. I 
 want to say a few* words to them." 
 
 " Bless me ! Mr. Avenel a few words ! " cried the widow ; 
 " but that's just what they're all afraid of ! You must pardon 
 me, but you really can't ask people to a dcjefiner dansant, and 
 then scold 'em ! " 
 
 " I'm not going to scold them," said Mr. Avenel, very 
 seriously "upon my honor, I'm not ! I'm going to make 
 all right, and I even hope afterward that the dancing may 
 go on and that you will honor me again with your hand. 
 I leave you to your task and believe me, I'm not an un- 
 grateful man." He spoke, and bowed not without some 
 dignity and vanished within the breakfast division of the 
 marquee. There he busied himself in recollecting the 
 waiters, and directing them to rearrange the mangled re- 
 mains of the table as they best could. Mrs. M'Catchley, 
 whose curiosity and interest were aroused, executed her 
 commission with all the ability and tact of a woman of the 
 world, and in less than a quarter of an hour the marquee 
 was filled the corks flew the champagne bounced and 
 sparkled people drank in silence, munched fruits and 
 cakes, kept up their courage with the conscious sense of 
 numbers, and felt a great desire to know what was coming. 
 Mr. Avenel, at the head of the table, suddenly rose. 
 
 " Ladies and gentlemen," said he, " I have taken the 
 liberty to invite you once more into this tent, in order to 
 ask you to sympathize with me upon an occasion which took 
 us all a little by surprise to-day. 
 
 "Of course, you all know I am a new man the maker 
 of my own fortunes." 
 
 A great many heads bowed involuntarily. The words 
 were said manfully, and there wasageneral feeling of respect. 
 16
 
 362 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 " Probably, too," resumed Mr. Avenel, "you may know 
 that I am the son of very honest trades-people. I say hon- 
 est, and they are not ashamed of me I say trades-people, 
 and I'm not ashamed of them. My sister married and 
 settled at a distance. I took her son to educate and bring 
 up. But I did not tell her where he was, nor even that I had 
 returned from America I wished to choose my own time 
 for that, when I could give her the surprise, not only of a 
 rich brother, but of a son whom I intended to make a gen- 
 tleman, so far as manners and education can make one. 
 Well, the poor dear woman has found me out sooner than I 
 expected, and turned the tables on me by giving me a sur- 
 prise of her own invention. Pray, forgive the confusion 
 this little family scene has created ; and though I own it was 
 very laughable at the moment, and I was wrong to say 
 otherwise, yet I am sure I don't judge ill of your good hearts 
 when I ask you to think what brother and sister must feel 
 who parted from each other when they were boy and girl. 
 To me (and Richard gave a great gulp for he felt that a 
 great gulp alone could swallow the abominable lie he was 
 about to utter) to me this has been a very happy occasion ! 
 I'm a plain man ; no one can take ill what I've said. And, 
 wishing that you may be all as happy in your family as I am 
 in mine humble though it be I beg to drink your very 
 good healths ! " 
 
 There was a universal applause when Richard sat down ; 
 and so well in his plain way had he looked the thing, and 
 done the thing, that at least half of those present who till 
 then had certainly disliked and half-despised him suddenly 
 felt that they were proud of his acquaintance. For how- 
 ever aristocratic this country of ours may be, and however 
 especially aristocratic be the gcnteeler classes in provincial 
 towns and coteries there is nothing which English folks, 
 from the highest to the lowest, in their hearts so respect as 
 a man who has risen from nothing, and owns it frankly. 
 Sir Cornpton Delaval, an old baronet, with a pedigree as 
 long as a Welshman's, who had been reluctantly decoyed to 
 the feast by his three unmarried daughters not one of 
 whom, however, had hitherto condescended even to bow to 
 the host now rose. It was his right he was the first per- 
 son there in rank and station. 
 
 " Ladies and gentlemen," quoth Sir Compton Delaval, 
 " I am sure that I express the feelings of all present when I 
 say that we have heard with great delight and admiration
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 363 
 
 the words addressed to us by our excellent host. (Applause.) 
 And if any of us, in what Mr. Avenel describes justly as the 
 surprise of the moment, were betrayed into an unseemly 
 merriment at at (the Dean's lady whispered 'some of 
 the ') some of the " repeated Sir Compton, puzzled, and 
 coming to a dead lock ('holiest sentiments,' whispered the 
 Dean's lady) "ay, some of the holiest sentiments in our 
 nature I beg him to accept our sincerest apologies. I can 
 only say, for my part, that I am proud to rank Mr. Avenel 
 amongst the gentlemen of the county (here Sir Compton 
 gave a sounding thump on the table), and to thank him for 
 one of the most brilliant entertainments it has ever been 
 my lot to witness. If he won his fortune honestly, he 
 knows how to spend it nobly." 
 
 Whiz went a fresh bottle of champagne. 
 
 " I am not accustomed to public speaking, but I could 
 not repress my sentiments. And I've now only to propose 
 to you the health of our host, Richard Avenel, Esquire ; 
 and to couple with that the health of his very interesting 
 sister, and long life to them both." 
 
 The sentence was half-drowned in enthusiastic plaudits 
 and in three cheers for Richard Avenel, Esquire, and his 
 very interesting sister. 
 
 " I'm a cursed humbug," thought Richard Avenel, as he 
 wiped his forehead ; " but the world is such a humbug." 
 
 Then he glanced toward Mrs. M'Catchley, and, to his 
 great satisfaction, saw Mrs. M'Catchley with her handker- 
 chief before her eyes. 
 
 Truth must be told although the fair widow might cer- 
 tainly have contemplated the probability of accepting Mr. 
 Avenel as a husband, she had never before felt the least bit 
 in love with him ; and now she did. There is something in 
 courage and candor at a word, in manliness that all wo- 
 men, the most worldly, do admire in men ; and Richard 
 Avenel, humbug though his conscience said he was, seemed 
 to Mrs. M'Catchley like a hero. 
 
 The host saw his triumph. " Now for another dance !" 
 said he, gaily ; and he was about to offer his hand to Mrs. 
 M'Catchley, when Sir Compton Delaval, seizing it, and giv- 
 ing it a hearty shake, cried, "You have not yet danced with 
 my eldest daughter ; so, if you'll not ask her, why, I must 
 offer her to you as your partner. Here Sarah." 
 
 Miss Sarah Delaval, who was five feet eight, and as 
 stately as she was tall, bowed her head graciously ; and
 
 364 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 Mr. Avenel, before he knew where he was, found her lean- 
 ing on his arm. But as he passed into the next division of 
 the tent, he had to run the gauntlet of all the gentlemen, 
 who thronged round to shake hands with him. Their 
 warm English\hearts could not be satisfied till they had so 
 repaired the sin of their previous haughtiness and mockery. 
 Richard Avenel might then have introduced his sister 
 gown, kerchief, thick shoes and all to the crowd ; but he 
 had no such thought. He thanked Heaven devoutly that 
 she was safely under lock and key. 
 
 It was not till the third dance that he could secure Mrs. 
 M'Catchley's hand, and then it was twilight. The carriages 
 were at the door, but no one yet thought of going. People 
 were really enjoying themselves. Mr. Avenel had had time, 
 in the interim, to mature all his plans for completing and 
 consummating that triumph which his tact and pluck had 
 drawn from his momentary disgrace. Excited as he was 
 with wine and suppressed passion, he had yet the sense to 
 feel that, when all the halo that now surrounded him had 
 evaporated, and Mrs.M'Catchley was re-delivered up to the 
 Pompleys, whom he felt to be the last persons his interest 
 could desire for her advisers the thought of his low rela- 
 tions could return with calm reflection. Now was the time. 
 The iron was hot now was the time to strike it, and forge 
 the enduring chain. 
 
 As he led Mrs. M'Catchley after the dance into the lawn 
 he therefore said tenderly 
 
 " How shall I thank you for the favor you have done 
 me ? " 
 
 " Oh !" said Mrs. M'Catchley, warmly, " it was no favor 
 and I am so glad She stopped. 
 
 " You're not ashamed of me, then, in spite of what has 
 happened ? " 
 
 " Ashamed of you ! Why, I should be so proud of .you, 
 if I were " 
 
 " Finish the sentence and say ' your wife ! ' there, it is 
 out. My dear madam, I am rich, as you know ; I love you 
 very heartily. With your help, I think I can make a figure 
 in a larger world than this ; and that, whatever my father, 
 my grandson at least will be but it is time enough to speak 
 of him. What say you ? you turn away. I'll not tease 
 you it is not my way. I said before, ay or no ; and your 
 kindness so emboldens me that I say it again ay or no ? " 
 
 " But you take me so unawares so so Lord, my dear
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 365 
 
 Mr. Avenel ; you are so hasty I I " And the widow 
 actually blushed, and was genuinely bashful. 
 
 " Those horrid Pompleys ! " thought Richard, as he saw 
 the Colonel bustling up with Mrs. M'Catchley's cloak on 
 his arm. 
 
 " I press for your answer," continued the suitor, speak- 
 ing very fast. " I shall leave this place to-morrow, if you 
 will not give it." 
 
 " Leave this place leave me ? " 
 
 " Then you will be mine ! " 
 
 " Ah, Mr. Avenel ! " said the widow, languidly, and leav- 
 ing her hand in his ; " who can resist you ? " 
 
 Up came Colonel Pompley ; Richard took the shawl. 
 "No hurry for that now, Colonel Mrs. M'Catchley feels 
 already at home here." 
 
 Ten minutes afterward, Richard Avenel so contrived 
 that it was known by the whole company that their host 
 was accepted by the Honorable Mrs. M'Catchley. And 
 every one said, " He is a very clever man, and a very good 
 fellow," except the Pompleys and the Pompleys were 
 frantic. Mr. Richard Avenel has forced his way into the 
 aristocracy of the country ; the husband of an Honorable 
 connected with peers ! 
 
 " He will stand for our city Vulgarian ! " cried the 
 Colonel. 
 
 " And his wife will walk out before me," cried the 
 Colonel's lady " nasty woman ! " And she burst into 
 tears. 
 
 The guests were gone ; and Richard had now leisure to 
 consider what course to pursue with regard to his sister and 
 her son. 
 
 His victory over his guests had in much softened his 
 heart toward his relations ; but he still felt bitterly aggrieved 
 at Mrs. Fairfield's unseasonable intrusion, and his pride was 
 greatly chafed by the boldness of Leonard. He had no 
 idea of any man whom he had served, or meant to serve, 
 having a will of his own having a single thought in opposi- 
 tion to his pleasure. He began, too, to feel that words had 
 passed between him and Leonard which could not be well 
 forgotten by either, and would render their close connection 
 less pleasant than heretofore. He, the great Richard Avenel, 
 beg pardon of Mrs. Fairfield, the washerwoman ! No ; she 
 and Leonard must beg his. " That must be the first step," 
 said Richard Avenel ; " and I suppose they have come to
 
 366 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 their senses." With that expectation he unlocked the door 
 of his parlor, and found himself in complete solitude. The 
 moon, lately risen, shone full into the room, and lit up every 
 corner. He stared round bewildered the birds had flown. 
 "Did they go through the keyhole?" said Mr. Avenel. 
 " Ha ! I see ! the window is open ! " The window reached 
 to the ground. Mr. Avenel, in his excitement, had forgotten 
 that easy mode of egress. 
 
 " Well," said he, throwing himself into his easy chair, 
 " I suppose I shall soon hear from them ; they'll be wanting 
 my money fast enough, I fancy." His eye caught sight of 
 a letter, unsealed, lying on the table. He opened it, and 
 saw bank-notes to the amount of ^50 the widow's forty- 
 five country notes, and a new note, Bank of England, that 
 he had lately given to Leonard. With the money were these 
 lines, written in Leonard's bold, clear writing, though a 
 word or two here and there showed that the hand had 
 trembled 
 
 " I thank you for all you have done to one whom you 
 regarded as the object of charity. My mother and I forgive 
 what has passed. I depart with her. You bade me make 
 my choice, and I have made it. 
 
 "LEONARD FAIRFIELD." 
 
 The paper dropped from Richard's hand, and he re- 
 mained mute and remorseful for a moment. He soon felt, 
 however, that he had no help for it but working himself up 
 into a rage. " Of all people in the world," cried Richard, 
 stamping his foot on the floor, " there are none so disagree- 
 able, insolent, and ungrateful as poor relations. I wash my 
 hands of them ! "
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 367 
 
 BOOK SIXTH. 
 
 INITIAL CHAPTER. 
 
 WHEREIN MR. CAXTON IS PROFOUNDLY METAPHYSICAL. 
 
 " LIFE," said my father, in his most dogmatical tone, " is 
 a certain quantity in time, which may be regarded in two 
 ways ist, as life Integral ; 2nd, as life Fractional. Life 
 integral is that complete whole, expressive of a certain 
 value, large or small, which each man possesses in himself. 
 Life fractional is that same whole seized upon and invaded 
 by other people, and subdivided amongst them. They who 
 get a large slice of it say ' A very valuable life this ! ' those 
 who get but a small handful say, ' So, so ; nothing very 
 great ! ' those who get none of it in the scramble exclaim, 
 ' Good for nothing ! ' ' 
 
 " I don't understand a word you are saying," growled 
 Captain Roland. 
 
 My father surveyed his brother with compassion " I 
 will make it all clear, even to your understanding. When 
 I sit down by myself in my study, having carefully locked 
 the door on all of you, alone with my books and thoughts, 
 I am in full possession of my integral life. I am lotus, 
 teres, alque rotundus a whole human being equivalent in 
 value, we will say, for the sake of illustration, to a fixed 
 round sum ^100 for example. But when I go forth into 
 the common apartment, each of those to whom I am of 
 any worth whatsoever puts his finger into the bag that con- 
 tains me, and takes out of me what he wants. Kitty requires 
 me to pay a bill ; Pisistratus to save him the time and 
 trouble of looking into a score or two of books ; the children 
 to tell them stories, or play at hide-and-seek ; and so on 
 throughout the circle to which I have incautiously given 
 myself up for plunder and subdivision. The ^100 which I 
 represented in my study is now parcelled out ; I am worth 
 or ^"50 to Kitty, ,20 to Pisistratus, and perhaps 305. to
 
 368 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 the children. This is life fractional. And I cease to be an 
 integral till once more returning to my study, and again clos- 
 ing the door on all existence but my own. Meanwhile, it is 
 perfectly clear that, to those who, whether I am in the study, 
 or whether I am in the common sitting-room, get nothing 
 at all out of me, I am not worth a farthing. It must be 
 wholly indifferent to a native of Kamtschatka whether Austin 
 Caxton be or be not raised out of the great account-book of 
 human beings. 
 
 " Hence," continued my father, " hence it follows that 
 the more fractional a life is id est, the greater the number 
 of persons among whom it can be subdivided why, the 
 more there are to say, ' A very valuable life that ! ' Thus, 
 the leader of apolitical party, a conqueror, a king, an author 
 who is amusing hundreds, or thousands, or millions, has a 
 greater number of persons whom his worth interests and 
 affects than a Saint Simon Stylites could have when he 
 perched himself at the top of a column ; although, regarded 
 each in himself, Saint Simon, in his grand mortification of 
 flesh, in the idea that he thereby pleased his Divine Bene- 
 factor, might represent a larger sum of moral value per se, 
 than Buonaparte or Voltaire." 
 
 PISISTRATUS. Perfectly clear, sir ; but I don't see what 
 it has to do with My Novel. 
 
 MR. CAXTON. Everything. Your novel, if it is to be a 
 full and comprehensive survey of the " Quicquid agunt homi- 
 nes " (which it ought to be, considering the length and 
 breadth to which I foresee, from the slow development of 
 your story, you meditate extending and expanding it), will 
 embrace the two views of existence the integral and the 
 fractional. You have shown us the former in Leonard, when 
 he is sitting in his mother's cottage, or resting from his 
 work by the little fount in Riccabocca's garden. And in har- 
 mony with that view of his life, you have surrounded him 
 with comparative integrals, only subdivided by the tender 
 hands of their immediate families and neighbors your 
 Squires and Parsons, your Italian exile and his Jemima. 
 With all these life is, more or less, the life Natural, and this 
 is always, more or less, the life Integral. Then comes the 
 life Artificial, which is always, more or less, the life Frac- 
 tional. In the life Natural, wherein we are swayed but by 
 our native impulses and desires, subservient only to the 
 great silent law of Virtue (which has pervaded the universe 
 since it swung out of chaos), a man is worth from what he
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 369 
 
 is in himself Newton was as worthy before the apple fell 
 from the tree as when ,all Europe applauded the discoverer 
 of the Principle of Gravity. But in the life Artificial we 
 are only of worth inasmuch as we affect others. And, rela- 
 tive to that life, Newton rose in value more than a million 
 per cent, when down fell the apple from which, ultimately, 
 sprang up his discovery. In order to keep civilization go- 
 ing", and spread over the world the light of the human in- 
 tellect, we have certain desires within us, ever swelling be- 
 yond the ease and independence which belongs to us as in- 
 tegrals. Cold man as Newton might be (he once took a 
 lady's hand in his own, Kitty, and used her forefinger for 
 his tobacco-stopper ; great philosopher !) cold as he might 
 be, he was yet moved into giving his discoveries to the 
 world, and that from motives very little differing in their 
 quality from the motives that made Dr. Squills communi- 
 cate articles to the Phrenological Journal upon the skulls of 
 Bushmen and Wombats. For it is the property of light to 
 travel. When a man has light in him, forth it must go. But 
 the first passage of Genius from its integral state (in which 
 it has been reposing on its own wealth) into the fractional, 
 is usually thought a hard and vulgar pathway. It leaves 
 behind it the reveries of solitude, that self-contemplating 
 rest which maybe called the Visionary, and enters suddenly 
 into the state that may be called the Positive and Actual. 
 There, it sees the operations of money on the outer life 
 sees all the ruder and commoner springs of action sees 
 ambition without nobleness love without romance is 
 bustled about, and ordered, and trampled, and cowed in 
 short, it passes an apprenticeship with some Richard Avenel, 
 and does not yet detect what good and what grandeur, what 
 addition even to the true poetry of the social universe, frac- 
 tional existences like Richard Avenel's bestow ; for the pil- 
 lars that support society are like those of the Court of the 
 Hebrew Tabernacle they are of brass, it is true, but they 
 are filleted with silver. From such intermediate state Genius 
 is expelled and driven on in its way, and would have been 
 so in this case had Mrs. Fairfield (who is but the represen- 
 tative of the homely natural affections, strongest ever in true 
 genius for light is warm) never crushed Mr. Avenel's moss- 
 rose on her sisterly bosom. Now, forth from this passage 
 and defile of transition into the larger world, must Genius 
 go on, working out its natural destiny amidst things and 
 forms the most artificial. Passions that move and influence 
 16*
 
 370 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 the world are at work around it. Often lost sight of itself, 
 its very absence is a silent contrast to the agencies present. 
 Merged and vanished for a while amidst the Practical 
 World, yet we ourselves feel all the while that it is there ; is 
 at work amidst the workings around it. This practical 
 world that effaces it, rose out of some genius that has gone 
 before ; and so each man of genius, though we never come 
 across him, as his operations proceed, in places remote from 
 our thoroughfares, is yet influencing the practical world that 
 ignores him, for ever and ever. That is GENIUS ! We can't 
 describe it in books we can only hint and suggest it, by 
 the accessories which we artfully heap about it. The en- 
 trance of a true Probationer into the terrible ordeal of Prac- 
 tical Life is like that into the miraculous cavern, by which, 
 legend informs us, St. Patrick converted Ireland. 
 
 BLANCHE. What is that legend ? I never heard of it. 
 
 MR. CAXTON. My dear, you will find it in a thin folio 
 at the right on entering my study, written by Thomas Mes- 
 singham, and called " Florilegium Insulae Sanctorum," etc. 
 The account therein is confirmed by the relation of an 
 honest soldier, one Louis Ennius, who had actually entered 
 the cavern. In short, the truth of the legend is undeni- 
 able, unless you mean to say, which I can't for a moment 
 suppose, that Louis Ennius was a liar. Thus it runs : St. 
 Patrick, finding that the Irish pagans were incredulous as to 
 his pathetic assurances of the pains and torments destined 
 to those who did not expiate their sins in this world, prayed 
 for a miracle to convince them. His prayer was heard ; and 
 a certain cavern, so small that a man could not stand up 
 therein at his ease, was suddenly converted into a Purga- 
 tory, comprehending tortures sufficient to convince the 
 most incredulous. One unacquainted with human nature 
 might conjecture that few would be disposed to venture 
 voluntarily into such a place ; on the contrary, pilgrims 
 came in crowds. Now, all who entered from vain curiosity, 
 or with souls unprepared, perished miserably ; but those 
 who entered with deep and earnest faith, conscious of their 
 faults, and if bold, yet humble, not only came out safe and 
 sound, but purified, as if from the waters of a second bap- 
 tism. See Savage and Johnson, at night in Fleet Street ; 
 and who shall doubt the truth of St. Patrick's Purgatory ! 
 (Therewith my father sighed closed his Lucian, which 
 had lain open on the table, and would read none but "good 
 books " for the rest of the evening.)
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 371 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 ON their escape from the prison to which Mr. Avenel 
 had condemned them, Leonard and his mother found their 
 way to a small public-house that lay at a little distance from 
 the town, and on the outskirts of the high-road. With his 
 arm round his mother's waist, Leonard supported her steps, 
 and soothed her excitement. In fact, the poor woman's 
 nerves were greatly shaken, and she felt an uneasy re- 
 morse at the injury her intrusion had inflicted on the young 
 man's worldly prospects. As the shrewd reader has guessed 
 already, that infamous Tinker was the prime agent of evil 
 in this critical turn in the affairs of his quondam customer. 
 For, on his return to his haunts around Hazeldean and the 
 Casino, the Tinker had hastened to apprise Mrs. Fairfield 
 of his interview with Leonard, and, on finding that she was 
 not aware that the boy was under the roof of his uncle, the 
 pestilent vagabond (perhaps from spite against Mr. Avenel, 
 or perhaps from that pure love of mischief by which meta- 
 physical critics explain the character of lago, and which 
 certainly formed a main element in the idiosyncrasy of Mr. 
 Sprott) had so impressed on the widow's mind the haughty 
 demeanor of the uncle and the refined costume of the 
 nephew, that Mrs. Fairfield had been seized with a bitter 
 and insupportable jealousy. There was an intention to rob 
 her of her boy ! he was to be made too fine for her. His 
 silence was now accounted for. This sort of jealousy, al- 
 ways more or less a feminine quality, is often very strong 
 amongst the poor; and it was the more strong in Mrs. Fair- 
 field, because, lone woman that she was, the boy was all in 
 all to her. And though she was reconciled to the loss of 
 his presence, nothing could reconcile her to the thought 
 that his affections should be weaned from her. Moreover, 
 there were in her mind certain impressions, of the justice of 
 which the reader may better judge hereafter, as to the grat- 
 itude more than ordinarily filial which Leonard owed to 
 her. In short, she did not like, as she phrased it, " to be 
 shaken off ; " and after a sleepless night she resolved to 
 judge for herself, much moved thereto by the malicious 
 suggestions to that effect made by Mr. Sprott, who mightily
 
 372 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 enjoyed the idea of mortifying the gentleman by whom he 
 had been so disrespectfully threatened with the treadmill. 
 The widow felt angry with Parson Dale, and with the Ric- 
 caboccas ; she thought they were in the plot against her ; 
 she communicated, therefore, her intentions to none and 
 off she set, performing the journey partly on the top of the 
 coach, -partly on foot. No wonder that she was dusty, poor 
 woman ! 
 
 "And, O boy!" said she, half-sobbing, "when I got 
 through the- lodge-gates, came on the lawn, and saw all that 
 power o' fine folk I said to myself, says I (for I felt 
 fritted) I'll just have a look at him and go back. But ah, 
 Lenny, when I saw thee, looking so handsome and when 
 thee turned and cried ' mother,' my heart was just ready to 
 leap out o' my mouth and so I could not help hugging thee, 
 if I had died for it. And thou wert so kind, that I forgot all 
 Mr. Sprott had said about Dick's pride, or thought he had just 
 told a fib about that, as he had wanted me to believe a fib 
 about thee. Then Dick came up and I had not seen him 
 for so many long years and we come o' the same father 
 and mother ; and so and so " The widow's sobs here 
 fairly choked her. "Ah," she said, after giving vent to her 
 passion, and throwing her arms round Leonard's neck, as 
 they sat in the little sanded parlor of the public house 
 " Ah, and I've brought thee to this. Go back ; go back, 
 boy, and never mind me." 
 
 With some difficulty Leonard pacified poor Mrs. Fair- 
 field, and got her to retire to bed ; for she was, indeed, 
 thoroughly exhausted. He then stepped forth into the 
 road, musingly. All the stars were out ; and Youth, in its 
 troubles, instinctively looks up to the stars. Folding his 
 arms, Leonard gazed on the heavens, and his lips murmured. 
 
 From this trance, for so it might be called, he was 
 awakened by a voice in a decidedly London accent ; and, 
 turning hastily round, saw Mr. Avenel's very gentlemanlike 
 butler. Leonard's first idea was that his uncle had re- 
 pented, and sent in search of him. But the butler seemed 
 as much surprised at the rencontre as himself ; that person- 
 age, indeed, the fatigues of the day being over, was accom- 
 panying one of Mr. Gunter's waiters to the public-house 
 (at which the latter had secured his lodging), having discov- 
 ered an old friend in the waiter, and proposing to regale 
 himself with a cheerful glass, and (that, of course) abuse 
 of his present sitiz'ation.
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 373 
 
 " Mr. Fairfield ! " exclaimed the butler, while the waiter 
 walked discreetly on. 
 
 Leonard looked, and said nothing. The butler began to 
 think that some apology was due for leaving his plate and 
 his pantry, and that he might as well secure Leonard's pro- 
 pitiatory influence with his master. 
 
 " Please, sir," said he, touching his hat, " I was just 
 a-showing Mr. Giles the way to the Blue Bells, where he 
 puts up for the night. I hope my master will not be offended. 
 If you are a-going back, sir, would you kindly mention it ?" 
 
 " I am not going back, Jarvis," answered Leonard, after 
 a pause ; <; I am leaving Mr. Avenel's house to accompany 
 my mother, rather suddenly. I should be very much 
 obliged to you if you would bring some things of mine to 
 me at the Blue Bells. I will give you the list, if you will 
 step with me to the inn." 
 
 Without waiting for a reply, Leonard then turned to- 
 ward the inn, and made his humble inventory : item, the 
 clothes he had brought with him from the Casino ; item, the 
 knapsack that had contained them ; item, a few books, ditto ; 
 item, Dr. Riccabocca's watch ; item, sundry MSS., on which 
 the young student now built all his hopes of fame and for- 
 tune. This list he put into Mr. Jarvis's hand. 
 
 " Sir," said the butler, twirling the paper between his 
 finger and thumb, "you're not a-going for long, I hope?" 
 and he looked on the face of the young man, who had always 
 been " civil-spoken to him," with as much curiosity and as 
 much compassion as so apathetic and princely a personage 
 could experience in matters affecting a family less aristo- 
 cratic than he had hitherto condescended to serve. 
 
 "Yes," said Leonard, simply and briefly; ''and your 
 master will no doubt excuse you for rendering me this 
 service." 
 
 Mr. Jarvis postponed for the present his glass and chat 
 with the waiter, and went back at once to Mr. Avenel. That 
 gentleman, still seated in his library, had not been aware of 
 the butler's absence ; and when Mr. Jarvis entered and told 
 him that he had met Mr. Fairfield, and, communicating the 
 commission with which he was intrusted, asked leave to 
 execute it, Mr. Avenel felt the man's inquisitive eye was on 
 him, and conceived new wrath against Leonard for a new 
 humiliation to his pride. It was awkward to give no explan- 
 ation of his nephew's departure, still more awkward to ex- 
 plain.
 
 374 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 After a short pause, Mr. Avenel said, sullenly, " My 
 nephew is going away on business for some time do what 
 he tells you ; " and then turned his back, and lighted his 
 cigar. 
 
 "That beast of a boy," said he, soliloquizing, "either 
 means this as an affront, or an overture ; if an affront, he is 
 indeed well got rid of ; if an overture, he will soon make a 
 more respectful and proper one. After all, I can't have too 
 little of relations till I have fairly secured Mrs. M'Catchley. 
 An Honorable ! I wonder if that makes me an Honorable 
 too ? This cursed Debrett contains no practical information 
 on those points.'' 
 
 The next morning, the clothes and the watch with which 
 Mr. Avenel presented Leonard were returned, with a note 
 meant to express gratitude, but certainly written with very 
 little knowledge of the world, and so full of that somewhat 
 over-resentful pride which had in earlier life made Leonard 
 fly from Hazeldean, and refuse all apology to Randal, that 
 it is not to be wondered at that Mr. Avenel's last remorseful 
 feelings evaporated in ire. " I hope he will starve ! " said 
 the uncle, vindictively. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 " LISTEN to me, my dear mother," said Leonard the next 
 morning, as with knapsack on his shoulder and Mrs. Fair- 
 field on his arm, he walked along the high-road; "I do 
 assure you, from my heart, that I do not regret the loss of 
 favors which I see plainly would have crushed out of me the 
 very sense of independence. But do not fear* for me ; I 
 have education and energy I shall do well for myself, trust 
 me. No, I cannot, it is true, go back to our cottage I can- 
 not be a gardener again. Don't ask me I should be discon- 
 tented, miserable. But I will go up to London ! That's the 
 place to make a fortune and a name ; I will make both. O 
 yes. trust me, I will. You shall soon be proud of your Leon- 
 ard ; and then we will always live together always ! Don't 
 cry." 
 
 " But what can you do in Lunnon such a big place, 
 Lenny ? " 
 
 " What ! Every year does not some lad leave our village,
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 375 
 
 and go and seek his fortune, taking with him but health and 
 strong hands ? I have these, and I have more : I have 
 brains, and thoughts, and hopes, that again I say, no, no 
 never fear for me ! " 
 
 The boy threw back his head proudly ; there was some- 
 thing sublime in his young trust in the future. 
 
 "Well. But you will write to Mr. Dale, or to me? I 
 will get Mr. Dale or the good Mounseer (now I know they 
 were not agin me) to read your letters." 
 
 " I will, indeed ! " 
 
 "And, boy, you have nothing in your pockets. We have 
 paid Dick ; these, at least, are my own, after paying the 
 coach-fare." And she would thrust a sovereign and some 
 shillings into Leonard's waistcoat-pocket. 
 
 After some resistance, he was forced to consent. 
 
 "And there's a sixpence with a hole in it. Don't part 
 with that, Lenny ; it will bring thee good luck." 
 
 Thus talking, they gained the inn where the three roads 
 met, and from which a coach went direct to the Casino. 
 And here, without entering the inn, they sat on the green- 
 sward by the hedgerow, waiting the arrival of the coach. 
 Mrs. Fairfield was much subdued in spirits, and there was 
 evidently on her mind something uneasy some struggle 
 with her conscience. She not only upbraided herself for 
 her rash visit, but she kept talking of her dead Mark. And 
 what would he say of her, if he could see her in heaven ? 
 
 " It was so selfish in me. Lenny." 
 
 " Pooh, pooh ! Has not a mother a right to her child ? " 
 
 " Ay, ay, ay ! " cried Mrs. Fairfield. " I do love you as 
 a child my own child. But if I was not your mother, after 
 all, Lenny, and cost you all this oh, what would you say 
 of me then ? " 
 
 " Not my own mother ! " said Leonard, laughing, as he 
 kissed her. " Well, I don't know what I should say then 
 differently from what I say now that you, who brought 
 me up, and nursed and cherished me, had a right to my 
 home and my heart, wherever I was." 
 
 " Bless thee ! " cried Mrs. Fairfield, as she pressed him 
 to her heart. " But it weighs here it weighs," she said, 
 starting up. 
 
 At that instant the coach appeared, and Leonard ran 
 forward to inquire if there was an outside place. Then 
 there was a short bustle while the horses were being 
 changed ; and Mrs. Fairlield was lifted up to the roof of
 
 376 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 the vehicle. So all farther private conversation between 
 her and Leonard ceased. But as the coach whirled away, 
 and she waved her hand to the boy, who stood on the road- 
 side gazing after her, she still murmured " It weighs here 
 it weighs ! " 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 LEONARD walked sturdily on in the high-road to the 
 Great City. The day was calm and sunlit, but with a 
 gentle breeze from gray hills at the distance.; and with 
 each rnile that he passed, his step seemed to grow more 
 firm, and his front more elate. Oh ! it is such joy in 
 youth to be alone with one's day-dreams. And youth 
 feels so glorious a vigor in the sense of its own strength, 
 though the world be before and against it ! Removed 
 from that chilling counting-house from the imperious 
 will of a patron and master all friendless, but all inde- 
 pendent the young adventurer felt a new being felt his 
 grand nature as Man. And on the Man rushed the genius 
 long interdicted and thrust aside rushing back, with the 
 first breath of adversity, to console no ! the Man needed 
 not consolation to kindle, to animate, to rejoice ! If there 
 is a being in the world worthy of our envy, after we have 
 grown wise philosophers of the fireside, it is not the palled 
 voluptuary, nor the careworn statesman, nor even the great 
 prince of arts and letters, already crowned with the laurel, 
 whose leaves are as fit for poison as for garlands ; it is the 
 young child of adventure and hope. Ay, and the emptier 
 his purse, ten to one but the richer his heart, and the wider 
 the domains which his fancy enjoys as he goes on with 
 kingly step to the Future. 
 
 Not till toward the evening did our adventurer slacken 
 his pace, and think of rest and refreshment. There, then, 
 lay before him on either side the road, those wide patches 
 of unenclosed land, which in England often denote the 
 entrance to a village. Presently one or two neat cottages 
 came in sight then a small farm-house, with its yard and 
 barns. And some way farther yet, he saw the sign swing- 
 ing before an inn of some pretensions the sort of inn 
 often found on a long stage between two great towns, 
 commonly called " The Half-way House." But the inn
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 377 
 
 stood back from the road, having its own separate sward 
 in front, whereon was a great beech-tree (from which the 
 sign extended) and a rustic arbor so that to gain the 
 inn, fhe coaches that stopped there took a sweep from 
 the main thoroughfare. Between our pedestrian and the 
 inn there stood, naked and alone, on the common land, a 
 church ; our ancestors never would have chosen that site 
 for it ; therefore it was a modern church modern Gothic 
 handsome to an eye not versed in the attributes of 
 ecclesiastical architecture very barbarous to an eye that 
 was. Somehow or other the church looked cold and raw 
 and uninviting. It looked a church for show much too 
 big for the scattered hamlet and void of all the venera- 
 ble associations which give their peculiar and unspeakable 
 atmosphere of piety to the churches in which succeeding 
 generations have knelt and worshipped. Leonard paused 
 and surveyed the edifice with an unlearned but poetical 
 gaze it dissatisfied him. And he was yet pondering why, 
 when a young girl passed slowly before him, her eyes 
 fixed on the ground, opened the little gate that led into the 
 church-yard, and vanished. He did not see the child's 
 face ; but there was something in her movements so ut- 
 terly listless, forlorn, and sad, that his heart was touched. 
 What did she there ? He approached the low wall with a 
 noiseless step, and looked over it wistfully. 
 
 There, by a grave evidently quite recent, with no wooden 
 tomb nor tombstone like the rest, the little girl had thrown 
 herself, and she was sobbing loud and passionately. Leon- 
 ard opened the gate, and approached her with a soft step. 
 Mingled with her sobs, he heard broken sentences,. wild and 
 vain, as all human sorrowings over graves must be. 
 
 " Father! oh, father ! do you not really hear me ? I am 
 so lone so lone ! Take me to you take me ! " And she 
 buried her face in the deep grass. 
 
 " Poor child !" said Leonard, in a half-whisper " he is 
 not there. Look above ! " 
 
 The girl did not heed him he put his arm round her 
 waist gently she made a gesture of impatience and anger, 
 but she would not turn her face and she clung to the 
 grave with her hands. 
 
 After clear sunny days the dews fall more heavily ; and 
 now, as the sun set, the herbage was bathed in a vaporous 
 haze a dim mist rose around. The young man seated 
 himself beside her, and tried to draw the child to his
 
 378 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 breast. Then she turned eagerly, indignantly, and pushed 
 him aside with jealous arms. He profaned the grave. He 
 understood her with his deep poet-heart, and rose. TJiere 
 was a pause. 
 | Leonard was the first to break it. 
 
 " Come to your home with me, my child, and we will 
 talk of him by the way." 
 
 " Him ! Who are you ? You did not know him ! " said 
 the girl, still with anger. " Go away why do you disturb 
 me ? I do no one harm. Go go ! " 
 
 " You do yourself harm, and that will grieve him if he 
 sees you yonder ! Come ! " 
 
 The child looked at him through her blinding tears, and 
 his face softened and soothed her. 
 
 " Go ! " she said, very plaintively, and in subdued ac- 
 cents. " I will but stay a minute more. I I have so much 
 to say yet." 
 
 Leonard left the church-yard, and waited without ; and 
 in a short time the child came forth, waived him aside as he 
 approached her, and hurried away. He followed her at a 
 distance, and saw her disappear within the inn. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 " HIP HIP HURRAH ! " Such was the sound that 
 greeted our young traveller as he reached the inn-door a 
 sound joyous in itself, but sadly out ot harmony with the 
 feeling which the child sobbing on the tombless grave had 
 left at his heart. The sound came from within, and was 
 followed by thumps and stamps, and the jingle of glasses. 
 A strong odor of tobacco was wafted to his olfactory sense. 
 He hesitated a moment at the threshold. Before him, on 
 benches under the beech-tree and within the arbor, were 
 grouped sundry athletic forms with " pipes in the liberal air." 
 
 The landlady, as she passed across the passage to the 
 tap-room, caught sight of his form at the door-way, and 
 came forward. Leonard still stood irresolute. He would 
 have gone on his way, but for the child ; she had interested 
 him strongly. 
 
 "You seem full, ma'am," said he. "Can. I have accom- 
 modation for the night ? "
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 379 
 
 " Why, indeed, sir," said the landlady, civilly, " I can 
 give you a bed-room, but I don't know where to put you 
 meanwhile. The two parlors and the tap-room and the 
 kitchen are all choke-full. There has been a great cattle- 
 fair in the neighborhood, and I suppose we have as many 
 as fifty farmers and drovers stopping here." 
 
 "As to that, ma'am, I can sit in the bed-room you are 
 kind enough to give me ; and if it does not cause you much 
 trouble to let me have some tea there, I should be glad ; but 
 I can wait your leisure. Do not put yourself out of the 
 way for me." 
 
 The landlady was touched by a consideration she was 
 not much habituated to receive from her bluff customers. 
 
 " You speak very handsome, sir, and we will do our best 
 to serve you, if you will excuse all faults. This way, sir." 
 Leonard lowered his knapsack, stepped into the passage, 
 with some difficulty forced his way through a knot of sturdy 
 giants in top-boots or leathern gaiters, who were swarming 
 in and out the tap-room, and followed his hostess up-stairs 
 to a little bed-room at the top of the house. 
 
 " It is small, sir, and high," said the hostess, apologeti- 
 cally. "But there be four gentlemen farmers that have 
 come a great distance, and all the first floor is engaged ; 
 you will be more out of the noise here." 
 
 " Nothing can suit me better. But, stay pardon me ; " 
 and Leonard, glancing at the garb of the hostess, observed 
 she was not in mourning. "A little girl whom I saw in the 
 church-yard, yonder, weeping very bitterly is she a relation 
 of yours ? Poor child, she seems to have deeper feelings 
 than are common at her age." 
 
 "Ah, sir," said the landlady, putting the corner of her 
 apron to her eyes, " it is a very sad story I dpn't know 
 what to do. Her father was taken ill on his way to Lunnon, 
 and stopped here, and has been buried four days. And the 
 poor little girl seems to have no relations and where is she 
 to go ? Laryer Jones says we must pass her to Marybone 
 parish, where her father lived last ; and what's to become 
 of her then ? My heart bleeds to think on it." Here there 
 rose such an uproar from below, that it was evident some 
 quarrel had broken out; and the hostess, recalled to her 
 duties, hastened to carry thither her propitiatory influences. 
 
 Leonard seated himself pensively by the little lattice. 
 Here was some one more alone in the world than he. And 
 she, poor orphan, had no stout man's heart to grapple with
 
 380 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 fate, and no golden manuscripts that were to be as the 
 " Open-Sesame " to the treasures of Aladdin. By-and-by 
 the hostess brought him up a tray with tea and other 
 refreshments, and Leonard resumed his inquiries. " No rel- 
 atives ? " said he ; " surely the child must have some kins- 
 folk in London ? Did her father leave no directions, or" 
 was he in possession of his faculties ? " 
 
 " Yes, sir ; he was quite reasonable like to the last. And 
 I asked him if he had not anything on his mind, and he said, 
 'I have.' And I said, 'Your little girl, sir?' And he an- 
 swered me, ' Yes, ma'am ; ' and laying his head on his pillow, 
 he wept very quietly. I could not say more myself, for it 
 set me off to see him cry so meekly ; but my husband is 
 harder nor I, and he said, ' Cheer up, Mr. Digby ; had not 
 you better write t ) your friends ? ' 
 
 ' Friends ! ' said the gentleman, in such a voice ! 
 ' Friends ! I have but one, and I am going to Him ! I can- 
 not take her there ! ' Then he seemed suddenly to recollect 
 hisself, and called for his clothes, and rummaged in the 
 pockets as if looking for some address, and could not find 
 it. He seemed a forgetful kind of gentleman, and his hands 
 were what I call helpless hands, sir ! And then he gasped 
 out, ' Stop stop ! I never had the address. Write to Lord 
 
 Les ,' something like Lord Lester ; but we could not 
 
 make out the name. Indeed he did not finish it, for there 
 was a rush of blood to his lips ; and though he seemed sen- 
 sible when he recovered (and knew us and his little girl too, 
 till he went off smiling), he never spoke word more." 
 
 " Poor man ! " said Leonard, wiping his eyes. " But his 
 little girl surely remembers the name that he did not 
 finish ?" 
 
 " No. jShe says he must have meant a gentleman whom 
 they had met in the Park not long ago, who was very kind 
 to her father, and was Lord something ; but she don't re- 
 member the name, for she never saw him before or since, 
 and her father talked very little about any one lately, but 
 thought he should find some kind friends at Screwstown, 
 and travelled down there with her from Lunnon. But she 
 supposes he was disappointed, for he went out, came back, 
 and merely told her to put up the things, as they must go 
 back to Lunnon. And on his way there he died. Hush, 
 what's that ? I hope she did not overhear us. No, we were 
 talking low. She has the next room to your'n, sir. I 
 thought I heard her sobbing. Hush ! "
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 381 
 
 " In the next room ? I hear nothing. Well, with your 
 leave I will speak to her before I quit you. And had her 
 father no money with him ?" 
 
 " Yes, a few sovereigns, sir ; they paid for his funeral, 
 and there is a little left still enough to take her to town ; 
 for my husband said, says he, 'Hannah, the widow gave her 
 mite, and we must not take the orphan's ; ' and my husband 
 is a hard man, too, sir bless him ! " 
 
 " Let me take your hand, ma'am. God reward you 
 both ! " 
 
 " La, sir ! why, even Dr. Dosewell said, rather grumpily 
 though, 'Never mind my bill ; but don't call me up at six 
 o'clock in the morning again, without knowing a little more 
 about people.' And I never afore knew Dr. Dosewell go 
 without his bill being paid. He said it was a trick o' the 
 other Doctor to spite him." 
 
 "What other Doctor ? " 
 
 " Oh, a very good gentleman, who got out with Mr. 
 Digby when he was taken ill, and stayed till the next morn- 
 ing ; and our Doctor says his name is Morgan, and he lives 
 in Lunnon, and is a homy something." 
 
 " Homicide," suggested Leonard, ignorantly. 
 
 " Ah homicide ; something like that, only a deal longer 
 and worse. But he left some of the tiniest little balls you 
 ever see, sir, to give the child ; but, bless you, they did her 
 no good how should they ? " 
 
 " Tiny balls, oh homceopathist I understand. And 
 the Doctor was kind to her ; perhaps he may help her. 
 Have you written to him ? " 
 
 " But we don't know his address, and Lunnon is a vast 
 place, sir." 
 
 " I am going to London, and will find it out." 
 
 "Ah, sir, you seem very kind ; and sin' she must go to 
 Lunnon (for what can we do with her here ? she's too 
 genteel for service), I wish she was going with you." 
 
 "With me!" said Leonard, startled "with me! Well, 
 why not ? " 
 
 " I am sure she comes of good blood, sir. You would 
 have known her father was quite the gentleman, only to see 
 him die, sir. He went off so kind and civil like, as if he 
 was ashamed to give so much trouble quite a gentleman, 
 if ever there was one. And so are you, sir, I'm sure," said 
 the landlady, courtesying ; " I know what gentlefolk be. I've 
 been a housekeeper in the first of families in this very shire,
 
 382 MY NOl'EL; OR, 
 
 sir, though I can't say I've served in Lunnon ; and so, as 
 gentlefolks know each other, I've no doubt you could find 
 out her relations. Dear dear! Coming, coming ! " 
 
 .Here there were loud cries for the hostess, and she 
 hurried away. The farmers and drovers were beginning to 
 depart, and their bills were to be made out and paid. Leon- 
 ard saw his hostess no more that night. The last hip hip 
 hurrah, was heard ; some toast, perhaps to the health of 
 the county members ; and the chamber of woe, beside 
 Leonard's, rattled with the shout. By-and-by, silence gradu- 
 ally succeeded the various dissonant sounds below. The 
 carts and gigs rolled away : the clatter of hoofs on the road 
 ceased : there was then a dumb dull sound as of locking- 
 up, and low humming voices below and footsteps mounting 
 the stairs to bed, with now and then a drunken hiccough or 
 maudlin laugh, as some conquered votary of Bacchus was 
 fairly carried up to his domicile. 
 
 All, then, at last was silent, just as the clock from the 
 church sounded the stroke of eleven. 
 
 Leonard, meanwhile, had been looking over his MSS. 
 There was first a project for an improvement on the steam- 
 engine, a project that had long lain in his mind, begun 
 with the first knowledge of mechanics that he had gleaned 
 from his purchases of the Tinker. He put that aside now 
 it required too great an effort of the reasoning faculty to 
 re-examine. 
 
 He glanced less hastily over a collection of essays on 
 various subjects some that he thought indifferent, some 
 that he thought good. He then lingered over a collection 
 of verses, written in his best hand, with loving care verses 
 first inspired by his perusal of Nora's melancholy memorials. 
 These verses were as a diary of his heart and his fancy those 
 deep unwitnessed struggles which the boyhood of all more 
 thoughtful natures has passed in its bright yet murky storm 
 of the cloud and the lightning-flash, though but few boys 
 pause to record the crisis from which slowly emerges Man. 
 And these first desultory grapplings with the fugitive airy 
 images that flit through the dim chambers of the brain, had 
 become with each effort more sustained and vigorous, till 
 the phantoms were spelled, the flying ones arrested, the Im- 
 material seized, and clothed with Form. Gazing on his last 
 effort, Leonard felt that there, at length, spoke forth the 
 Poet. It was a work which, though as yet but half com- 
 pleted, came from a strong hand ; not that shadow trembling
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 383 
 
 on unsteady waters, which is but the pale reflex and imita- 
 tion of some bright mind, sphered out of reach and afar, 
 but an original substance a life a thing of the Creative 
 Faculty, breathing back already the breath it had received. 
 This work had paused during Leonard's residence with Mr. 
 Avenel, or had only now and then, in stealth, and at night, 
 received a rare touch. Now, as with a fresh eye, he re- 
 perused it, and with that strange, innocent admiration, not 
 of self for a man's work is not, alas ! himself, it is the 
 beautified and idealized essence (extracted, he knows not 
 how, from his own human elements of clay), admiration 
 known but to poets their purest delight, often their sole 
 reward. And then, with a warmer and more earthly beat of 
 his full heart, he rushed in fancy to the Great City, where 
 all rivers of Fame meet, but not to be merged and lost, 
 sallying forth again, individualized and separate, to flow 
 through that one vast Thought of God which we call THE 
 WORLD. 
 
 He put up his papers, and opened his window, as was his 
 ordinary custom, before he retired to rest for he had many 
 odd habits ; and he loved to look out into the night when 
 he prayed. His soul seemed to escape from the body, to 
 mount on the air, to gain more rapid access to the far 
 Throne in the Infinite, when his breath went forth among 
 the winds, and his eyes rested fixed on the stars of heaven. 
 
 So the boy prayed silently ; and after his prayer, he was 
 about, lingering, to close the lattice, when he heard dis- 
 tinctly sobs close at hand. He paused, and held his breath ; 
 then looked gently out ; the casement next his own was 
 also open. Some one was also at watch by that casement 
 perhaps also praying. He listened yet more intently, and 
 caught, soft and low, the words, " Father, father, do you 
 hear me now ? " 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 LEONARD opened his door, and stole toward that of the 
 room adjoining ; for his first natural impulse had been to 
 enter and console. But when his touch was on the handle, 
 he drew back. Child though the mourner was, her sorrows 
 were rendered yet more sacred from intrusion by her sex. 
 Something, he knew not what, in his young ignorance,
 
 3 S 4 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 withheld him from the threshold. To have crossed it then 
 would have seemed to him profanation ; so he returned, and 
 for hours yet he occasionally heard the sobs, till they died 
 away, and childhood wept itself to sleep. 
 
 But the next morning, when he heard his neighbor astir, 
 he knocked gently at her door ; there was no answer. He 
 entered softly, and saw her seated very listlessly in the cen- 
 tre of the room as if it had no familiar nook or corner, as 
 the rooms of home have, her hands drooping on her lap, 
 and her eyes gazing desolately on the floor. Then he ap- 
 proached and spoke to her. 
 
 Helen was very subdued, and very silent. Her tears 
 seemed dried up ; and it was long before she gave sign or 
 token that she heeded him. At length, however, he gradu- 
 ally succeeded in rousing her interest ; and the first symptom 
 of his success was in the quiver of her lip, and the overflow 
 of her downcast eyes. 
 
 By little and little he wormed himself into her confi- 
 dence ; and she told him, in broken whispers, her simple 
 story. But what moved him the most was, that, beyond her 
 sense of loneliness, she did not seem to feel her own unpro- 
 tected state. She mourned the object she had nursed, and 
 heeded, and cherished ; for she had been rather the protec- 
 tress than the protected to the helpless dead. He could not 
 gain from her any more satisfactory information than the 
 landlady had already imparted, as to her friends and pros- 
 pects ; but she permitted him passively to look among the 
 effects her father had left save only that, if his hand 
 touched something that seemed to her associations especi- 
 ally holy, she waived him back, or drew it quickly away. 
 There were many bills receipted in the name of Captain 
 Digby old yellow faded music-scores for the flute, ex- 
 tracts of parts from Prompt Books, gay parts of lively 
 comedies, in which heroes have so noble a contempt for 
 money fit heroes for a Sheridan and a Farquhar ; close by 
 these were several pawnbroker's tickets ; and not arrayed 
 smoothly, but crumpled up, as if with an indignant, nervous 
 clutch of the helpless hands, some two or three letters. He 
 asked Helen's permission to glance at these, for they might 
 afford a clue to friends. Helen gave the permission by a 
 silent bend of the head. The letters, however, were but 
 short and freezing answers from what appeared to be distant 
 connections, or former friends, or persons to whom the de- 
 ceased had applied for some situation. They were all very
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 385 
 
 disheartening in their tone. Leonard next endeavored to 
 refresh Helen's memory as to the name of the nobleman 
 which had been last on her father's lips ; but there he failed 
 wholly. For it may be remembered that Lord L'Estrange, 
 when he pressed his loan on Mr. Digby, and subsequently 
 told that gentleman to address to him at Mr. Egerton's, had, 
 from a natural delicacy, sent the child on, that she might 
 not witness the charity bestowed on the father ; and Helen 
 said truly, that Mr. Digby had sunk latterly into an habitual 
 silence on all his affairs. She might have heard her father 
 mention the name, but she had not treasured it up ; all she 
 could say was, that she should know the stranger again if 
 she met him, and his dog too. Seeing that the child had 
 grown calm, Leonard was then going to leave the room, in 
 order to confer with the hostess ; when she rose suddenly 
 though noiselessly, and put her little hand in his, as if to de- 
 tain him. She did not say a word the action said all said, 
 "Do not desert me." And Leonard's heart rushed to his 
 lips, and he answered to the action, as he bent down and 
 kissed her cheek, " Orphan, will you go with me ? We have 
 one Father yet to both of us, and He will guide us on earth. 
 I am fatherless, like you." She raised her eyes to his 
 looked at him long and then leant her head confidingly on 
 his strong young shoulder. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 AT noon that same day, the young man and the child 
 were on their road to London. The host had at first a little 
 demurred at trusting Helen to so young a companion ; 
 but Leonard, in his happy ignorance, had talked so san- 
 guinely of finding out this lord, or some adequate protectors 
 for the child ; and in so grand a strain, though with all 
 sincerity had spoken of his own great prospects in the 
 metropolis (he did not say what they were !) that had he 
 been the craftiest impostor, he could not more have taken 
 in the rustic host. And while the landlady still cherished 
 the illusive fancy, that all gentlefolks must know each other 
 in London, as they did in a county, the landlord believed, 
 at least, that a young man so respectably dressed, although 
 but a foot-traveller who talked in so confident a tone, and
 
 386 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 who was willing to undertake what might be rather a bur- 
 densome charge, unless he saw how to rid himself of it - 
 would be sure to have friends, older and wiser than himself, 
 who would judge what could best be done for the orphan. 
 
 And what was the ho^t to do with her ? Better this vol- 
 unteered escort, at least, than vaguely passing her on from 
 parish to parish, and leaving her friendless at last in the 
 streets of London. Helen, too, smiled for the first time on 
 being asked her wishes, and again put her hand in Leon- 
 ard's. In short, so it was settled. 
 
 The little girl made up a bundle of the things she most 
 prized or needed. Leonard did not feel the additional load, 
 as he slung it to his knapsack ; the rest of the luggage was 
 to be sent to London as soon as Leonard wrote (which he 
 promised to do soon), and gave an address. 
 
 Helen paid her last visit to the church-yard ; and she 
 joined her companion as he stood on the road, without the 
 sole;nn precincts. And now they had gone on some hours; 
 and when he asked if she were tired, she still answered 
 "No." But Leonard was merciful, and made their day's 
 journey short ; and it took them some days to reach Lon- 
 don. By the long lonely way they grew so intimate, at the 
 end of the second day, they called each other brother and 
 sister ; and Leonard, to his delight, found that as her grief, 
 with the bodily movement and the change of scene, sub- 
 sided from its first intenseness and its insensibility to other 
 impressions, she developed a quickness of comprehension 
 far beyond her years. Poor child ! that had been forced 
 upon her by Necessity. And she understood him in his 
 spiritual consolations half poetical, half religious ; and she 
 listened to his own tale, and the story of his self-education 
 and solitary struggles those, too, she xjnderstood. But 
 when he burst out with his enthusiasm, his glorious hopes, 
 his confidence in the fate before them, then she would 
 shake her head very quietly and very sadly. Did she com- 
 prehend them? Alas ! perhaps too well. She knew more as 
 to real life than he did. Leonard was at first their joint 
 treasurer ; but before the second day was over, Helen 
 seemed to discover that he was too lavish ; and she told him 
 so with a prudent grave look, putting her hand on his arm 
 as he was about to enter an inn to dine ; and the gravity 
 would have been comic, but that the eyes through their 
 moisture were so meek and grateful. She felt he was about 
 to incur that ruinous extravagance on her account. Some-
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 387 
 
 how or other, the purse found its way into her keeping, and 
 then she looked proud and in her natural element. 
 
 Ah ! what happy meals under her care were provided ; 
 so much more enjoyable than in dull, sanded inn parlors, 
 swarming with flies, and reeking with stale tobacco. She 
 would leave him at the entrance of a village, bound forward, 
 and cater, and return with a little basket and a pretty blue 
 jng which she had bought on the road the last filled with 
 new milk ; the first with new bread and some special dainty 
 in radishes or water-cresses. And she had such a talent for 
 finding out the prettiest spot whereon to halt and dine : 
 sometimes in the heart of a wood so still, it was like a for- 
 est in fairy tales, the hare stealing through the alleys, or 
 the squirrel peeping at them from the boughs ; sometimes 
 by a little brawling stream, with the fishes seen under the 
 clear wave and shooting round the crumbs thrown to them. 
 They made an Arcadia of the dull road up to their dread 
 Thermopylae the war against the million that waited them 
 on the other side of their pass through Tempe. 
 
 " Shall we be as happy when we are great? " said Leon- 
 ard, in his grand simplicity. 
 
 Helen sighed, and the wise little head was shaken. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 AT last they came within easy reach of London ; but 
 Leonard had resolved not to enter the metropolis fatigued 
 and exhausted as a wanderer needing refuge, but fresh and 
 elate, as a conquerer coming in triumph to take possession 
 of the capital. Therefore they halted early in the evening 
 of the day preceding this imperial entry, about six miles 
 from the metropolis, in the neighborhood of Baling (for by 
 that route lay their way). They were not tired on arriving 
 at their inn. The weather was singularly lovely, with that 
 combination of softness and brilliancy which is only known 
 to the rare true summer days of England ; all below so 
 green, above so blue days of which we have about six in 
 the year, and recall vaguely when we read of Robin Hood 
 and Maid Marian, of damsel and knight in Spenser's golden 
 Summer Song or of Jacques, dropped under the oak-tree,
 
 3 88 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 watching the deer amidst the dells of Ardennes. So, after 
 a little pause at their inn, they strolled forth, not for travel 
 but pleasure, toward the cool of sunset, passing by the 
 grounds that once belonged to the Duke of Kent, and 
 catching a glimpse of the shrubs and lawns of that beautiful 
 domain through the lodge-gates ; then they crossed into 
 some fields, and came to a little rivulet called the Brent. 
 Helen had been more sad that day than on any during their 
 journey. Perhaps because, on approaching London, the 
 memory of her father became more vivid ; perhaps from 
 her precocious knowledge of life, and her foreboding of 
 what was to befall them, children that they both were. 
 But Leonard was selfish that day ; he could not be influ- 
 enced by his companion's sorrow ; he was so full of his own 
 sense of being, and he had already caught from the atmos- 
 phere the fever that belongs to anxious capitals. 
 
 "Sit here, sister," said he imperiously, throwing himself 
 under the shade of a pollard tree that overhung the wind- 
 ing brook, "sit here and talk." 
 
 He flung off his hat, tossed back his rich curls, and 
 sprinkled his brow from the stream that eddied round the 
 roots of the tree that bulged out, bald and gnarled, from 
 the bank, and delved into the waves below. Helen quietly 
 obeyed him, and nestled close to his side. 
 
 " And so this London is really very vast ? VERY ? " he 
 repeated inquisitively. 
 
 " Very," answered Helen, as, abstractedly, she plucked 
 the cowslips near her, and let them fall into the running 
 waters. " See how the flowers are carried down the stream ? 
 They are lost now. London is to us what the river is to the 
 flowers very vast very strong ; " and she added, after a 
 pause " very cruel ! " 
 
 " Cruel ! Ah, it has been so to you ; but now ! now I 
 will take care of you ! " He smiled triumphantly ; and his 
 smile was beautiful both in its pride and its kindness. It is 
 astonishing how Leonard had altered since he had left his 
 uncle's : he was both younger and older ; for the sense of 
 genius, when it snaps its shackles, makes us both older and 
 wiser as to the world it soars to younger and blinder as to 
 the world it springs from. 
 
 " And it is not a very handsome city either, you say ? " 
 
 "Very ugly, indeed," said Helen, with some fervor, "at 
 least all I have seen of it." 
 
 " But there must be parts that are prettier than others ?
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 389 
 
 You say there are parks : why should not we lodge near 
 them, and look upon the green trees ? " 
 
 " That would be nice," said Helen, almost joyously : 
 " but " and here the head was shaken " there are no lodg- 
 ings for us except in courts and alleys." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 "Why?" echoed Helen, with a smile, and she held up 
 the purse. 
 
 " Pooh ! always that horrid purse ; as if, too, we were 
 not going to fill it. Did not I tell you the story of Fortu- 
 nio ? Well, at all events, we will go first to the neighbor- 
 hood where you last lived, and learn there all we can ; and 
 then the day after to-morrow, I will see this Dr. Morgan, 
 and find out the Lord." 
 
 The tears started to Helen's soft eyes: "You want to 
 get rid of me soon, brother." 
 
 " I ! Ah, I feel so happy to have you with me, it seems 
 to me as if I had pined lor you all my life, and you had 
 come at last ; for I never had brother, nor sister, nor any 
 one to love, that was not older than myself, except 
 
 " Except the young lady you told me of," said Helen, 
 turning away her face ; for children are very jealous. 
 
 " Yes, I loved her, love her still. But that was different," 
 said Leonard. " I could never have talked to her as to you : 
 to you I open my whole heart ; you are my little Muse, 
 Helen : I confess to you my wild whims and fancies as 
 frankly as if I were writing poetry." As he said this, a step 
 was heard, and a shadow fell over the stream. A belated 
 angler appeared on the margin, drawing his line impatiently 
 across the water, as if to worry some dozing fish into a- bite 
 before it finally settled itself for the night. Absorbed in 
 his occupation, the angler did not observe the young per- 
 sons on the sward under the tree, and he halted there, close 
 upon them. 
 
 " Curse that perch ! " said he aloud. 
 
 " Take care, sir ! " cried Leonard ; for the man, in step- 
 ping back, nearly trod upon Helen. 
 
 The angler turned. ''What's the matter? Hist! you 
 have frightened my perch. Keep still, can't you ? " 
 
 Helen drew herself out of the way, and Leonard re- 
 mained motionless : he remembered Jackeymo, and felt a 
 sympathy for the angler. 
 
 " It is the most extraordinary perch, that ! " muttered 
 the stranger, soliloquizing. " It has the devil's own luck.
 
 390 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 It must have been born with a silver spoon in its mouth, 
 that damned perch ! I shall never catch it never ! Ha ! 
 no only a weed. I give it up." With this, he indig- 
 nantly jerked his rod from the water and began to disjoint 
 it. While leisurely engaged in this occupation, he turned 
 to Leonard. 
 
 " Humph ! are you intimately acquainted with this 
 stream, sir ? " 
 
 " No," answered Leonard ; " I never saw it before." 
 
 ANGLER (solemnly). Then, young man, take my ad- 
 vice, and do not give way to its fascinations. Sir, I am a 
 martyr to this stream ; it has been the Delilah of my exist- 
 ence. 
 
 LEONARD (interested : the last sentence seemed to him 
 poetical). The Delilah, sir ! the Delilah ! 
 
 ANGLER. The Delilah. Young man, listen, and be 
 warned by example. When I was about your age, I first 
 came to this stream to fish. Sir, on that fatal day, about 
 3 P.M., I hooked up a fish such a big one, it must have 
 weighed a pound and a half. Sir, it was that length [and 
 the angler put finger to wrist]. And just when I had got 
 it nearly ashore by the very place where you are sitting, 
 on that shelving bank, young man, the line broke, and the 
 perch twisted himself amongst those roots and cacodoemon 
 that he was ran off, hook and all. Well, that fish haunted 
 me ; never before had I seen such a fish. Minnows I had 
 caught in the Thames and elsewhere, also gugdeons, and 
 occasionally a dace. But a fish like that a PERCH 
 all his fins up, like the sails of a man-of-war a monster 
 perch a whale of a perch! No, never till then had I 
 known what leviathans lie hid within the deeps. I could 
 not sleep till I had returned ; and, again, sir, I caught 
 that perch. And this time I pulled him fairly out of the 
 water. He escaped ; and how did he escape ? Sir, he 
 left his eye behind him on the hook. Years, long years, 
 have passed since then ; but never shall I forget the agony 
 of that moment. 
 
 LEONARD. To the perch, sir? 
 
 ANGLER. Perch ! agony to him ! He enjoyed it : 
 agony to me. I gazed on that eye, and the eye looked as 
 sly and as wicked as if it was laughing in my face. Well, 
 sir, I had heard that there is no better bait for a perch than 
 a perch's eye. I adjusted that eye on the hook, and drop- 
 ped in the line gently. The water was unusually clear ; in
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 391 
 
 two minutes, I saw that perch return. He approached the 
 hook ; he recognized his eye frisked his tail made a 
 plunge and, as I live, carried off the eye, safe and sound ; 
 and I saw him digesting it by the side of that water-lily. 
 The mocking fiend ! Seven times since that day, in the 
 course of a varied and eventful life, have I caught that 
 perch, and seven times has that perch escaped. 
 
 LEONARD (astonished). It can't be the same perch ; 
 perches are very tender fish a hook inside of it, and an 
 eye hooked out of it no perch could withstand such havoc 
 in its constitution. 
 
 ANGLER (with an appearance of awe). It does seem 
 supernatural. But it is that perch ; for, harkye, sir, there 
 is ONLY ONE perch in the whole brook ! All the years I have 
 fished here, I have never caught another perch ; and this 
 solitary inmate of the watery element I know by sight bet- 
 ter than I knew my own lost father. For each time that I 
 have raised it out of the water, its profile has been turned 
 to me, and I have seen, with a shudder, that it has had 
 only One Eye ! It is a most mysterious and a most dia- 
 bolical phenomenon, that perch ! It has been the ruin of 
 my prospects in life. I was offered a situation in Jamaica ; 
 I could not go with that perch left here in triumph. I 
 might afterward have had an appointment in India, but I 
 could not put the ocean between myself and that perch ; 
 thus have I frittered away my existence in the fatal metro- 
 polis of my native land. And once a week, from February 
 to December, I come hither. Good Heavens ! if I should 
 catch the perch at last, the occupation of my existence will 
 be gone. 
 
 Leonard gazed curiously at the angler, as the last thus 
 mournfully concluded. The ornate turn of his periods 
 did not suit with his costume : he looked woefully thread- 
 bare and shabby a genteel sort of shabbiness too shab- 
 biness in black. There was humor in the corners of his 
 lip ; and his hands, though they did not seem very clean 
 indeed his occupation was not friendly to such niceties 
 were those of a man who had not known manual labor. 
 His face was pale and puffed, but the tip of the nose was 
 red ; he did not seem as if the watery element was as 
 familiar to himself as to his Delilah the perch. 
 
 "Such is Life!" recommenced the angler, in a moral- 
 izing tone, as he slid his rod into its canvas case. " If a 
 man knew what it was to fish all one's life in a stream that
 
 392 MY NOVEL ; OR, 
 
 has only one perch ; to catch that one perch nine times in 
 all, and nine times to see it fall back into the water, plump ; 
 if a man knew what it was why, then " Here the 
 angler looked over his shoulder full at Leonard "why 
 then, young sir, he would know what human life is to vain 
 ambition. Good evening." 
 
 Away he went, treading over the daisies and king-cups. 
 Helen's eyes followed him wistfully. 
 
 "What a strange person !" said Leonard, laughing. 
 
 " I think he is a very wise one," murmured Helen ; and 
 she came close up to Leonard, and took his hand in both 
 hers, as if she felt already that he was in need of a Com- 
 forter the line broken, and perch lost ! 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 AT noon the next day, London stole upon them through 
 a gloomy, thick, oppressive atmosphere ; for where is it 
 that we can say London bursts on the sight? It stole on 
 them through one of its fairest and most gracious avenues 
 of approach by the stately gardens of Kensington along 
 the side of Hyde Park, and so on toward Cumberland Gate. 
 
 Leonard was not the least struck. And yet, with a very 
 little money, and a very little taste, it would be easy to 
 render this entrance to London as grand and as imposing 
 as that to Paris from the Champs Elysfas. As they came 
 near the Edgeware Road, Helen took her new brother by 
 the hand and guided him ; for she knew all that neigh- 
 borhood, and she was acquainted with a lodging near that 
 occupied by her father (to thai lodging itself she could 
 not have gone for the world), where they might be housed 
 cheaply. 
 
 But just then the sky, so dull and overcast since morn- 
 ing, seemed one mass of black cloud. There suddenly 
 came on a violent storm of rain. The boy and girl took 
 refuge in a covered mews, in a street running out of the 
 Edgeware Road. This shelter soon became crowded ; the 
 two young pilgrims crept close to the wall, apart from the 
 rest Leonard's arm round Helen's waist, sheltering her 
 from the rain that the strong wind contending with it beat 
 in through the passage. Presently a young gentleman of
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 393 
 
 better mien and dress than the other refugees, entered, not 
 hastily, but rather with a slow and proud step, as if, though 
 he deigned to take shelter, he scorned to run to it. He 
 glanced somewhat haughtily at the assembled group 
 passed on through the midst of it came near Leonard 
 took off his hat, and shook the rain from its brim. His 
 head thus uncovered, left all his features exposed ; and the 
 village youth recognized, at the first glance, his old vic- 
 torious assailant on the green at Hazeldean. 
 
 Yet Randal Leslie was altered. His dark cheek was as 
 thin as in boyhood, and even yet more wasted by intense 
 study and night vigils ; but the expression of his face was 
 at once more refined and manly, and there was a steady 
 concentrated light in his eye, like that of one who has been 
 in the habit of bringing all his thoughts to one point. He 
 looked older than he was. He was dressed simply in black, 
 a color which became him ; and altogether his aspect and 
 figure were not showy indeed, but distinguished. He 
 looked to the common eye a gentleman ; and to the more 
 observant, a scholar. 
 
 Helter-skelter ! pell-mell ! the group in the passage 
 now pressed each on each now scattered on all sides mak- 
 ing way rushing down the mews against the w y alls, as a 
 fiery horse darted under shelter. The rider, a young man, 
 with a very handsome face, and dressed with that peculiar 
 care which we commonly call dandyism, cried out, good- 
 humoredly, " Don't be afraid ; the horse shan't hurt any of 
 you a thousand pardons so ho ! so ho ! " He patted the 
 horse, and it stood as still as a statue filling up the centre 
 of the passage. The groups resettled Randal approached 
 the rider. 
 
 "Frank Hazeldean!" 
 
 "Ah is it indeed Randal Leslie !" 
 
 Frank was off his horse in a moment, and the bridle was 
 consigned to the care of a slim 'prentice-boy holding a 
 bundle. 
 
 " My dear fellow, how glad I am to see you ! How lucky 
 it was that I should turn in here ! Not like me either, for I 
 don't much care for a ducking. Staying in town, Randal ?" 
 
 "Yes; at your uncle's, Mr. Egerton. I have left Ox- 
 ford." 
 
 " For good ?" 
 
 " For good." 
 
 " But you have not taken your degree, I think ? We 
 17*
 
 394 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 Etonians all considered you booked for a double-first. Oh ! 
 we have been so proud of your fame you carried off all the 
 prizes." 
 
 " Not all ; but some, certainly. Mr. Egerton offered me 
 my choice to stay for my degree, or to enter at once into 
 the Foreign Office. I preferred the end to the means : for, 
 after all, what good are academical honors but as the en- 
 trance to life ? To enter now, is to save a step in a long 
 way, Frank." 
 
 "Ah! you were always a'mbitious, and you will make a 
 great figure, I am sure." 
 
 " Perhaps so if I work for it. Knowledge is power ! " 
 
 Leonard started. 
 
 "And you ! " resumed Randal, looking with some curious 
 attention at his old school-fellow " You never came to Ox- 
 ford. I did hear you were going in the army." 
 
 " I am in the Guards," said Frank, trying hard not to 
 look too conceited as he made that acknowledgment. "The 
 Governor pished a little, and would rather I had come to live 
 with him in the old Hall, and take to farming. Time enough 
 for that eh ? By Jove, Randal, how pleasant a thing is life 
 in London ! Do you go to Almack's to-night ?" 
 
 " No ; Wednesday is a holiday in the House ! There is 
 a great Parliamentary dinner at Mr. Egerton's. He is in 
 the cabinet now, you know ; but you don't see much of your 
 uncle, I think." 
 
 " Our sets are different," said the young gentleman, in a 
 tone of voice worthy of Brummell. " All those Parliamen- 
 tary fellows are devilish dull. The rain's over. I don't know 
 whether the Governor would like me to call at Grosvenor 
 Square ; but pray come and see me. Here's my card to re- 
 mind you ; you must dine at our mess. Such capital fellows ! 
 What day will you fix ? " 
 
 " I will call and let you know. Don't you find it rather 
 expensive in the Guards ? I remember that you thought the 
 Governor, as you call him, used to chafe a little when you 
 wrote for more pocket-money ; and the only time I ever saw 
 you with tears in your eyes, was when Mr. Hazeldean, in 
 sending you five pounds, reminded you that his estates were 
 not entailed were at his own disposal, and they should 
 never go to an extravagant spendthrift. It was not a pleas- 
 ant threat that, Frank." 
 
 "Oh!" cried the young man, coloring deeply; "it was 
 not the threat that pained me ; it was that my father could
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 395 
 
 think so meanly of me as to fancy that Well well, but 
 those were school-boy days : and my father was always more 
 generous than I deserved. We must see a great deal of each 
 other, Randal. How good-natured you were at Eton, mak- 
 ing my longs and shorts for me ; I shall never forget it. Do 
 call soon." 
 
 Frank swung himself into his saddle, and rewarded the 
 slim youth with half a crown a largess four times more 
 ample than his father would have deemed sufficient. A jerk 
 of the reins and a touch of the heel off bounded the fiery 
 horse and the gay young rider. Randal mused ; and as the 
 rain had now ceased, the passengers under shelter dispersed 
 and went their way. Only Randal, Leonard, and Helen, re- 
 mained behind. Then, as Randal, still musing, lifted his 
 eyes, they fell upon Leonard's face. He started, passed his 
 hand quickly over his brow looked again, hard and pierc- 
 ingly ; and the change in his pale cheek to a shade still 
 paler a quick compression and nervous gnawing of his lip 
 showed that he too recognized an old foe. Then his glance 
 ran over Leonard's dress, which was somewhat dust-stained, 
 but far above the class amongst which the peasant was 
 born. Randal raised his brows in surprise, and with a 
 smile slightly supercilious the smile stung Leonard : and 
 with a slow step Randal left the passage, and took his way 
 toward Grosvenor Square. The Entrance of Ambition was 
 clear to him. 
 
 Then the little girl once more took Leonard by the hand, 
 and led him through rows of humble, obscure, dreary streets. 
 It seemed almost like an allegory personified, as the sad, 
 silent child led on the penniless and low-born adventurer of 
 genius by the squalid shops, and through the winding lanes, 
 which grew meaner and meaner till both their forms van- 
 ished from view. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 " BUT do come ; change your dress, retwrn and dine with 
 me ; you will have just time, Harley. You will meet the 
 most eminent men of our party ; surely they are worth your 
 study, philosopher that you affect to be." 
 
 Thus said Audley Egerton to Lord L'Estrange, with 
 whom he had been riding (after the toils of his office). The
 
 396 MY NOVEL: OR, 
 
 two gentlemen were in Audley's library. Mr. Egerton, as 
 usual, buttoned up, seated in his chair, in the erect posture 
 of a man who scorns " inglorious ease." Harley, as usual, 
 thrown at length on the sofa, his long hair in careless curls, 
 his neckcloth loose, his habiliments flowing simplex mun- 
 ditiis, indeed his grace all his own ; seemingly negligent, 
 never slovenly ; at ease everywhere and with every one, 
 even with Mr. Audley Egerton, who chilled or awed the 
 ease out of most people. 
 
 "Nay, my dear Audley, forgive me. But your eminent 
 men are all men of one idea, and that not a diverting one 
 politics ! politics ! politics ! The storm in the saucer." 
 
 " But what is your life, Harley ? the saucer without the 
 storm ?" 
 
 " Do you know, that's very well said, Audley ? I did 
 not think you had so much liveliness of repartee. Life 
 life ! it is insipid, it is shallow. No launching Argosies in 
 the saucer. Audley, I have the oddest fancy " 
 
 " That cf course," said Audley, dryly ; "you never have 
 any other. What is the new one ? " 
 
 HARLEY (with great gravity). Do you believe in Mes- 
 merism ? 
 
 AUDLEY. Certainly not. 
 
 HARLEY. If it were in the power of an animal magnet- 
 izer to get me out of my own skin into somebody else's ! 
 Thafs my fancy ! I am so tired of myself so tired ! I 
 have run through all my ideas know every one of them by 
 heart. When some pretentious impostor of an idea perks 
 itself up and says, Look at me I'm a new acquaintance, I 
 just give it a nod, and say, Not at all you have only got 
 a new coat on; you are the same old wretch that has bored 
 me these last twenty years ; get away. But if one could be 
 in a new skin ! if I could be for half an hour your tall por- 
 ter, or one of your eminent matter-of-fact men, I should then 
 really travel into a new world.* Every man's brain must 
 be a world in itself, eh ? If I could but make a parochial 
 settlement even in yours, Audley run over all your thoughts 
 and sensations. Upon my life, I'll go and talk to that French 
 mesmerixer about it. 
 
 AUDLEY (who does not seem to like the notion of having 
 
 * If, at the date in which Lord L'Kstrange held this conversation with Mr. Egerton, Alfred 
 de Mussel had written his comedies, we should suspect that his lordship had plagiarized from 
 one of them the whimsical idea that he here vents upon Audley. In repeating it. the author 
 at least cannot escape from the charge of obligation to a writer whose humor is sufficiently op- 
 ulent to justify the luan.
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 397 
 
 his thoughts and sensations rummaged, even by his friend, 
 and even in fancy). Pooh, pooh, pooh ! Do talk like a man 
 of sense. 
 
 HARLEY. Man of sense ! Where shall I find a model ? 
 I don't know a man of sense ! never met such a creature. 
 Don't believe it ever existed. At one time I thought 
 Socrates must have been a man of sense ; a delusion ; he 
 would stand gazing into the air, and talking to his Genius 
 from sunrise to sunset. Is that like a man of sense ? Poor 
 Audley ; how puzzled he looks ! Well, I'll try and talk 
 sense to oblige you. And first [here Harley raised himself 
 on his elbow] first, is it true, as I have heard vaguely, that 
 you are paying court to the sister of that infamous Italian 
 traitor ? 
 
 "Madame di Negra ? No: I am not paying court to 
 her," answered Audley, with a cold smile. " But she is 
 very handsome ; she is very clever ; she is useful to me I 
 need not say how or why ; that belongs to my metier as a 
 politician. But I think, if you will take my advice, or get 
 your friend to take it, I could obtain from her brother, 
 through my influence with her, some liberal concessions to 
 your exile. She is very anxious to know where he is." 
 
 "You have not told her ? " 
 
 "No ; I promised you I would keep that secret." 
 
 "Be sure you do ; it is only for some mischief, some 
 snare, that she could desire such information. Conces- 
 sions ! pooh ! This is no question of concessions^ but of 
 rights." 
 
 "I think you should leave your friend to judge of that." 
 
 " Well, I will write to him. Meanwhile, beware of this 
 woman. I have heard much of her abroad, and she has the 
 character of her brother for duplicity and " 
 
 "Beauty," interrupted Audley, turning the conversation 
 with practised adroitness. " I am told that the Count is 
 one of the handsomest men in Europe, much handsomer 
 than his sister, still, though nearly twice her age. Tut tut 
 Harley ; fear not for me. I am proof against all feminine 
 attractions. This heart is dead." 
 
 " Nay, nay ; it is not for you to speak thus leave that 
 to me. But even / will not say it. The heart never dies. 
 And you ; what have you lost ? a wife ; true : an excellent 
 noble-hearted woman. But was it love that you felt for 
 her? Enviable man, have you ever loved?" 
 
 "Perhaps not, Harley," said Audley, with a sombre as-
 
 398 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 pect, and in dejected accents; "very few men ever have 
 loved, at least as you mean by the word. But there are 
 other passions than love that kill the heart, and reduce us 
 to mechanism." 
 
 While Egerton spoke, Harley turned aside, and his 
 breast heaved. There was a short silence ; Audley was the 
 first to break it. 
 
 " Speaking of my lost wife, I am sorry that you do not 
 approve of what I have done for her young kinsman, Ran- 
 dal Leslie." 
 
 HARLEY (recovering himself with an effort). Is it true 
 kindness to bid him exchange manly independence for the 
 protection of an official patron ? 
 
 AUDLEY. I did not bid him. I gave him his choice. At 
 his age, I should have chosen as he has done. 
 
 HARLEY. I trust not; I think better of you. But an- 
 swer me one question frankly, and then I will ask another. 
 Do you mean to make this young man your heir ? 
 
 AUDLEY (with a slight embarrassment). Heir, pooh ! I 
 am young still. I may live as long as he time enough to 
 think of that. 
 
 HARLEY. Then now to my second question. Have you 
 told this youth plainly that he may look to you for influ- 
 ence, but not for wealth ? 
 
 AUDLEY (firmly). I think I have ; but I shall repeat it 
 more emphatically. 
 
 HARLEY. Then I am satisfied as to your conduct, but 
 not as to his. For he has too acute an intellect not to know 
 what it is to forfeit independence ; and, depend on it, he 
 has made his calculations, and would throw you into the 
 bargain in any balance that he could strike in his favor. 
 You go by your experience in judging men ; I by my in- 
 stincts. Nature warns us as it does the inferior animals 
 only we are too conceited, we bipeds, to heed her. My in- 
 stincts of soldier and gentleman recoil from that old young 
 man. He has the soul of the Jesuit. I see it in his eye I 
 hear it in the tread* of his foot ; volto seiolto he has not ; 
 i pensieri stretti he has. Hist ! I hear now his step in the 
 hall. I should know it from a thousand. That's his very 
 touch on the handle of the door. 
 
 Randal Leslie entered. Harley who, despite his disre- 
 gard for forms, and his dislike to Randal, was too high-bred 
 not to be polite to his junior in age or inferior in rank 
 rose and bowed. But his bright piercing eyes did not
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 399 
 
 soften as they caught and bore down the deeper and more 
 latent fire in Randal's. Harley did not resume his seat, but 
 moved to the mantel-piece, and leant against it. 
 
 RANDAL. I have fulfilled your commission, Mr. Eger- 
 ton. I went first to Maida Hill, and saw Mr. Burley. I 
 gave him the check, but he said " it was too much, and he 
 should return half to the banker ;" he will write the article 
 as you suggested. I then 
 
 AUDLEY. Enough, Randal ! we will not fatigue Lord 
 L'Estrange with these little details of a life that displeases 
 him the life political. 
 
 HARLEY. But these details do not displease me ; they 
 reconcile me to my own life. Go on, pray, Mr. Leslie. 
 
 Randal had too much tact to need the cautioning glance 
 of Mr. Egerton. He did not continue, but said, with a soft 
 voice, " Do you think, Lord L'Estrange, that the contem- 
 plation of the mode of life pursued by others can reconcile 
 a man to his own, if he had before thought it needed a re- 
 conciler ? " Harley looked pleased, for the question was 
 ironical ; and if there was a thing in the world he abhorred, 
 it was flattery. 
 
 " Recollect your Lucretius, Mr. Leslie, the Suave mare, 
 etc., 'pleasant from the cliff to see the mariners tossed on 
 the ocean.' Faith, I think that sight reconciles one to the 
 cliff though, before, one might have been teased by the 
 splash from the spray, and deafened by the scream of the 
 sea-gulls. But I leave you, Audley. Strange that I have 
 heard no more of my soldier. Remember I have your 
 promise when I come to claim it. Good-bye, Mr. Leslie, I 
 hope that Burley's article will be worth the check." 
 
 Lord L'Estrange mounted his horse, which was still at the 
 door, and rode through the Park. But he was no longer now 
 unknown by sight ; bows and nods saluted him on every side. 
 
 " Alas, I am found out, then," said he to himself. " That 
 terrible Duchess of Knaresborough, too I must fly my 
 country." He pushed his horse into a canter, and was 
 soon out of the Park. As he dismounted at his father's 
 sequestered house, you would have hardly supposed him 
 the same whimsical, fantastic, but deep and subtle humorist 
 that delighted in perplexing the material Audley for his 
 expressive face was unutterably serious ; but the moment 
 he came into the presence of his parents, the countenance 
 was again lighted and cheerful it brightened the whole 
 room like sunshine.
 
 4 oo MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 <; MR. LESLIE," said Egerton, when Harley had left the 
 library, "you did not act with your usual discretion in 
 touching upon matters connected with politics in the pres- 
 ence of a third party." 
 
 " I feel that already, sir ; my excuse is, that I held Lord 
 L'Estrange to be your most intimate friend." 
 
 " A public man, Mr. Leslie, would ill serve his country 
 if he were not especially reserved toward his private friends 
 when they do not belong to his party." 
 
 " But, pardon me my ignorance, Lord Lansmere is so 
 well known to be one of your supporters, that I fancied his 
 son must share his sentiments, and be in your confidence." 
 
 Egerton's brows slightly contracted, and gave a stern 
 expression to a countenance always firm and decided. He 
 however answered in a mild tone : 
 
 " At the entrance into political life, Mr. Leslie, there is 
 nothing in which a young man of your talents should be 
 more on his guard than thinking for himself ; he will nearly 
 always think wrong. And I believe that is one reason why 
 young men of talent disappoint their friends, and remain 
 so long out of office." 
 
 A haughty flush passed over Randal's brow, and faded 
 away quickly ; he bowed in silence. 
 
 Egerton resumed, as if in explanation, and even in 
 kindly apology 
 
 "Look at Lord L'Estrange himself. What young man 
 could come into life with brighter auspices ? Rank, wealth, 
 high animal spirits (a great advantage those same spirits, 
 Mr. Leslie), courage, self-possession, scholarship as bril- 
 liant perhaps as your own ; and now see how his life is 
 wasted! Why? He always thought fit to think for him- 
 self. He could never be broken in to harness, and never 
 will be. The State coach, Mr. Leslie, requires that all the 
 horses should pull together." 
 
 "With submission, sir," answered Randal, "I should 
 think that there were other reasons why Lord L'Estrange, 
 whatever be his talents and of these you must be indeed 
 an adequate judge would never do anything in public life."
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 401 
 
 "Ay, and what ?" said Egerton, quickly. 
 
 "First," said Randal, shrewdly, " private life has done 
 too much for him. What could public life give to one who 
 needs nothing ? Born at the top of the social ladder, why 
 should he put himself voluntarily at the last step, for the 
 sake of climbing up again ? And secondly, Lord L'Es- 
 trange seems to me a man in whose organization sentiment 
 usurps too large a share for practical existence." 
 
 " You have a keen eye," said Audley, with some admira- 
 tion ; " keen for one so young. Poor Harley ! " 
 
 Mr. Egerton's last words were said to himself. He re- 
 sumed, quickly 
 
 " There is something on my mind, my young friend. 
 Let us be frank with each other. I placed before you fairly 
 the advantages and disadvantages of the choice I gave you. 
 To take your degree with such honors as no doubt you 
 would have Avon, to obtain your fellowship, to go to the 
 bar, with those credentials in favor of your talents : this 
 was one career. To come at once into public life, to profit 
 by my experience, avail yourself of my interest, to take 
 the chances of rise or fall with a party : this was another. 
 You chose the last. But, in so doing, there was a con- 
 sideration which might weigh with you ; and on which, in 
 stating your reasons for your option, you were silent." 
 
 "What is that, sir?" 
 
 "You might have counted on my fortune, should the 
 chances of party fail you ; speak and without shame, 
 if so ; it would be natural in a young man, Avho comes 
 from the elder branch of the house whose heiress was my 
 wife." 
 
 "You wound me, Mr. Egerton," said Randal, turning 
 away. 
 
 Mr. Egerton's cold glance followed Randal's movement ; 
 the face was hid from the glance, and the statesman's eye 
 rested on the figure, which is often as self-betraying as the 
 countenance itself. Randal baffled Mr. Egerton's penetra- 
 tion the young man's emotion might be honest pride, and 
 pained and generous feeling ; or it might be something else. 
 Egerton continued, slowly 
 
 ' Once for all, then, distinctly and emphatically, I say 
 .never count upon that ; count upon all else that I can do 
 for you, and forgive me when I advise harshly or censure 
 coldly ; ascribe this to my interest in your career. More- 
 over, before decision becomes irrevocable, I wish you to
 
 402 My NOVEL; OR, 
 
 know practically all that is disagreeable or even humiliat- 
 ing in the first subordinate steps of him who, without 
 wealth or station, would rise in public life. I will not con- 
 sider your choice settled till the end of a year at least 
 your name will be kept on the college books till then ; if, 
 on experience, you should prefer to return to Oxford, and 
 pursue the slower but surer path to independence and dis- 
 tinction, you can. And now give me your hand, Mr. Les- 
 lie, in sign that you forgive my bluntness ; it is time to 
 dress." 
 
 Randal, with his face still averted, extended his hand. 
 Mr. Egerton held it a moment, then dropping it, left the 
 room. Randal turned as the door closed. And there was 
 in his dark face a power of sinister passion, that justified 
 all Harley's warnings. His lips moved, but not audibly ; 
 then, as if struck by a sudden thought, he followed Egerton 
 into the hall. 
 
 "Sir," said he, "I forgot to say, that on returning from 
 Maida Hill, I took shelter from the rain under a covered 
 passage, and there I met, unexpectedly, with your nephew, 
 Frank Hazeldean." 
 
 " Ah ! " said Egerton, indifferently, "a fine young man ; 
 in the Guards. It is a pity that my brother has such an- 
 tiquated notions ; he should put his son into Parliament, 
 and under my guidance ; I could push him. Well, and 
 what said Frank ? " 
 
 " He invited me to call on him. I remember that you 
 once rather cautioned me against too intimate an acquaint- 
 ance with those who have not got their fortune to make." 
 
 " Because they are idle, and idleness is contagious. 
 Right better not to be intimate with a young Guards- 
 man." 
 
 "Then you would not have me call on him, sir? We 
 were rather friends at Eton ; and if I wholly reject his over- 
 tures, might he not think that you 
 
 "I!" interrupted Egerton. "Ah, true; my brother 
 might think I bore him a grudge; absurd. Call then, and 
 ask the young man here. Yet still, I do not advise inti- 
 macy." 
 
 Egerton turned into his dressing-room. " Sir," said his 
 valet, who was in waiting, "Mr. Levy is here he says, by 
 appointment ; and Mr. Grinders is also just come from the 
 country." 
 
 " Tell Mr. Grinders to come in first," said Egerton,
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 403 
 
 seating himself. " You need not wait ; I can dress without 
 you. Tell Mr. Levy I will see him in five minutes." 
 
 Mr. Grinders was steward to Audley Egerton. 
 
 Mr. Levy was a handsome man, who wore a camelia in 
 his button-hole drove, in his cabriolet, a high-stepping 
 horse that had cost ^200 ; was well known to young men 
 of fashion, and considered by their fathers a very dangerous 
 acquaintance. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 As the company assembled in the drawing-rooms, Mr. 
 Egerton introduced Randal Leslie to his eminent friends in 
 a way that greatly contrasted the distant and admonitory 
 manner which he had exhibited to him in private. The 
 presentation was made with that cordiality, and that gracious 
 respect by which those who are in station command notice 
 for those who have their station yet to win. 
 
 " My dear Lord, let me introduce to you a kinsman of 
 my late wife's [in a whisper] the heir to the eldest branch 
 of her family. Stanmore, this is Mr. Leslie, of whom I 
 spoke to you. You, who were so distinguished at Oxford, 
 will not like him the worse for the prizes he gained there. 
 Duke, let me present to you Mr. Leslie. The duchess is 
 angry with me for deserting her balls ; I shall hope to make 
 my peace by providing myself with a younger and livelier 
 substitute. Ah, Mr. Howard, here is a young gentleman 
 just fresh from Oxford, who will tell us all about the new 
 sect springing up there. He has not wasted his time on 
 billiards and horses." 
 
 Leslie was received with all that charming courtesy 
 which is the To Kalon of an aristocracy. 
 
 After dinner, conversation settled on politics. Randal 
 listened with attention, and in silence, till Egerton drew him 
 gently out ; just enough, and no more just enough to 
 make his intelligence evident, without subjecting him to the 
 charge of laying down the law. Egerton knew how to draw 
 out young men a difficult art. It was one reason why he 
 was so peculiarly popular with the more rising members of 
 his party. 
 
 The party broke up early.
 
 404 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 "We ar$ in time for Almack's," said Egerton, glancing 
 at the clock, " and I have a voucher for you ; come." 
 
 Randal followed his patron into the carriage. By the 
 way, Egerton thus addressed him : 
 
 " I shall introduce you to the principal leaders of so- 
 ciety ; know them and study them. I do not advise you to 
 attempt to do more that is, to attempt to become the fash- 
 ion. It is a very expensive ambition ; some men it helps, 
 most men it ruins. On the whole, you have better cards in 
 your hands. Dance or not, as it pleases you don't flirt. If 
 you flirt, people will inquire into your fortune an inquiry 
 that will do you little good ; and flirting entangles a young 
 man into marrying ; that would never do. Here we arc." 
 
 In two minutes more they were in the great ball-room, 
 and Randal's eyes were dazzled with the lights, the dia- 
 monds, the blaze of beauty. Audley presented him in quick 
 succession to some dozen ladies, and then disappeared 
 amidst the crowd. Randal was not at a loss ; he was with- 
 out shyness ; or if he had that disabling infirmity, he con- 
 cealed it. He answered the languid questions put to him 
 with a certain spirit that kept up talk, and left a favorable 
 impression of his agreeable qualities. But the lady with 
 whom he got on the best, was one who had no daughters 
 out, a handsome and witty woman of the world Lady 
 Frederick Coniers. 
 
 " It is your first ball at Almack's then, Mr. Leslie ? " 
 
 "My first." 
 
 "And you have not secured a partner? Shall I find you 
 one ? What do you think of that pretty girl in pink ?' 
 
 "I see her but I cannot think of her." 
 
 "You are rather, perhaps, like a diplomatist in a new 
 court, and your first object is to know who is who." 
 
 "I confess that on beginning to study the history of my 
 own day, I should like to distinguish the portraits that il- 
 lustrate the memoir." 
 
 " Give me your arm, then, and we will come into the 
 next room. We shall see the different notabilit'es enter one 
 by one, and observe without being observed. This is the 
 least I can do for a friend of Mr. Egerton's." 
 
 "Mr. Egerton, then," said Randal (as they threaded their 
 way through the space without the rope that protected the 
 dancers) "Mr. Egerton has had the good fortune to win 
 your esteem, even for his friends, however obscure ? " 
 
 " Why, to say the truth, I think no one whom Mr. Eger-
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 405 
 
 ton calls his friend need long remain obscure, if he has the 
 ambition to be otherwise ; for Mr. Egerton holds it a maxim 
 never to forget a friend, nor a service." 
 
 "Ah, indeed ! " said Randal, surprised. 
 
 "And, therefore," continued Lady Frederick, "as he 
 passes through life, friends gather round him. He will rise 
 even higher yet. Gratitude, Mr. Leslie, is a very good 
 policy." 
 
 " Hem ! " muttered Mr. Leslie. 
 
 They had now gained the room where tea and bread-and- 
 butter were the homely refreshments to the habitues of what 
 at that day was the most exclusive assembly in London. 
 They ensconced themselves in a corner by a window, and 
 Lady Frederick performed her task of cicerone with lively 
 ease, accompanying each notice of the various persons who 
 passed panoramically before them with sketch and anecdote, 
 sometimes good-natured, generally satirical, always graphic 
 and amusing. 
 
 By-and-by, Frank Hazeldean, having on his arm a young 
 lady of haughty air, and with high though delicate features, 
 came to the tea-table. 
 
 "The last new Guardsman," said Lady Frederick ; "very 
 handsome, and not yet quite spoiled. But he has got into 
 a dangerous set." 
 
 RANDAL. The young lady with him is handsome enough 
 to be dangerous. 
 
 LADY FREDERICK (laughing). No danger for him there,' 
 as yet at least. Lady Mary (the Duke of Knaresborough's 
 daughter) is only in her second year. The first year, nothing 
 under an earl ; the second, nothing under a baron. It will 
 be full four years before she comes down to a commoner. 
 Mr. Hazeldean's danger is of another kind. He lives much 
 with men who are not exactly mauvais ton, but certainly not 
 of the best taste. Yet he is very young ; he may extricate 
 himself leaving half his fortune behind him. What, he 
 nods to you ! You know him ? 
 
 "Very well ; he is nephew to Mr. Egerton." 
 
 " Indeed ! I did not know that. Hazeldean is a new 
 name in London. I heard his father was a plain country 
 gentleman, of good fortune, but not that he was related to 
 Mr. Egerton." 
 
 " Half-brother." 
 
 "Will Mr. Egerton pay the young gentleman's debts? 
 He has no sons himself."
 
 406 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 RANDAL. Mr. Egerton's fortune comes from his wife, 
 from my family from a Leslie, not from a Hazeldean. 
 
 Lady Frederick turned sharply, looked at Randal's 
 countenance with more attention than she had yet vouch- 
 safed to it, and tried to talk of the Leslies. Randal was 
 very short there. 
 
 An hour afterward, Randal, who had not danced, was 
 still in the refreshment-room, but Lady Frederick had long 
 quitted him. He was talking with some old Etonians who 
 had recognized him, when there entered a lady of very re- 
 markable appearance, and a murmur passed through the 
 room as she appeared. 
 
 She might be three or fovir and twenty. She was 
 dressed in black velvet, which contrasted with the alabaster 
 whiteness of her throat and the clear paleness of her com- 
 plexion, while it set off the diamonds with which she was 
 profusely covered. Her hair was of the deepest jet, and 
 worn simply braided. Her eyes, too, were dark and bril- 
 liant, her features regular and striking ; but their expression, 
 when in repose, was not prepossessing to such as love 
 modesty and softness in the looks of woman. But when 
 she spoke and smiled, there was so much spirit and vivacity 
 in the countenance, so much fascination in the smile, that 
 all which might before have marred the effect of her beauty 
 strangely and suddenly disappeared. 
 
 " Who is that very handsome woman ? " asked Randal. 
 
 "An Italian a Marchesa something," said one of the 
 Etonians. 
 
 "Di Negra," suggested another, who had been abroad ; 
 " she is a widow ; her husband was of the great Genoese 
 family of Negra a younger branch of it." 
 
 Several men now gathered thickly around the fair Ital- 
 ian. A few ladies of the highest rank spoke to her, but 
 with a more distant courtesy than ladies of high rank 
 visually show to foreigners of such quality as Madame di 
 Negra. Ladies of a rank less elevated seemed rather shy 
 of her ; that might be from jealousy. As Randal gazed at 
 the Marchesa with more admiration than any woman, per- 
 haps, had before excited in him, he heard a voice near him 
 say 
 
 " Oh, Madame di Negra is resolved to settle amongst us, 
 and marry an Englishman." 
 
 " If she can find one sufficiently courageous," returned a 
 female voice.
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 407 
 
 " Well, she's trying hard for Egerton ; and he has 
 courage enough for anything." 
 
 The female voice replied, with a laugh, " Mr. Egerton 
 knows the world too well, and has resisted too many temp- 
 tations, to be " 
 
 " Hush ! there he is." 
 
 Egerton came into the room with his usual firm step and 
 erect mien. Randal observed that a quick glance was ex- 
 changed between him and the Marchesa ; but the minister 
 passed her by with a bow. 
 
 Still Randal watched, and, ten minutes afterward. 
 Egerton and the Marchesa were seated apart in the very 
 same convenient nook that Randal and Lady Frederick had 
 occupied an hour or so before. 
 
 "Is this the reason why Mr. Egerton so insultingly 
 warns me against counting on his fortune ? " muttered Ran- 
 dal. " Does he mean to marry again ? " 
 
 Unjust suspicion ! for, at that moment, these were the 
 words that Audley Egerton was dropping forth from his lips 
 of bronze 
 
 "Nay, dear madam, do not ascribe to my frank admir- 
 ation more gallantry than it merits. Your conversation 
 charms me, your beauty delights me ; your society is as a 
 holiday that I look forward to in the fatigues of my life. 
 But I have done with love, and I shall never marry again." 
 
 "You almost pique me into trying to win, in order to 
 reject you," said the Italian, with a Hash from her bright 
 eyes. 
 
 " I defy even you," answered Audley, with his cold hard 
 smile. " But to return to the point : You have more influ- 
 ence, at least, over this subtle ambassador ; and the secret we 
 speak of I rely on you to obtain me. Ah, madam, let 
 us rest friends. You see I have conquered the unjust pre- 
 judices against you ; you are received and fetee everywhere, 
 as becomes your birth and your attractions. Rely on me 
 ever, as I on you. But I shall excite too much envy if I 
 stay here longer, and am vain enough to think that I may 
 injure you if I provoke the gossip of the ill-natured. As 
 the avowed friend, I can serve you as the supposed lover, 
 No Audley rose as he said this, and, standing by the 
 chair, added carelessly, "Apropos, the sum you do me the 
 honor to borrow will be paid to your bankers to-morrow." 
 
 " A thousand thanks ! my brother will hasten to repay 
 you."
 
 408 MY NOVEL; OK, 
 
 Audley bowed. " Your brother, I hope, will repay me 
 in person, not before. When does he come ? " 
 
 " Oh, he has again postponed his visit to London ; he is 
 so much needed in Vienna. But while we are talking of 
 him, allow me to ask if your friend, Lord L'Estrange, is in- 
 deed still so bitter against that poor brother of mine ? " 
 
 " Still the same." 
 
 "It is shameful!" cried the Italian, with warmth; 
 " what has my brother ever done to him that he should ac- 
 tually intrigue against the Count in his own court ?" 
 
 "Intrigue! I think you wrong Lord L'Estrange ; he 
 but represented what he believed to be the truth, in defence 
 of a ruined exile." 
 
 " And you will not tell me where that exile is, or if his 
 daughter still lives ? " 
 
 " My dear Marchesa, I have called you friend, therefore 
 I will not aid L'Estrange to injure you or yours. But I call 
 L'Estrange a friend also ; and I cannot violate the trust 
 that " Audley stopped short, and bit his lip. "You 
 understand me," he resumed, with a more genial smile than 
 usual ; and he took his leave. 
 
 The Italian's brows met as her eye followed him ; then, 
 as she too rose, that eye encountered Randal's. 
 
 " That young man has the eye of an Italian," said the 
 Marchesa to herself, as she passed by him into the ball- 
 room. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 LEONARD and Helen settled themselves in two little 
 chambers in a small lane. The neighborhood was dull 
 enough the accommodation humble ; but their landlady had 
 a smile. That was the reason, perhaps, why Helen chose 
 the lodgings : a smile is not always found on the face of a 
 landlady when the lodger is poor. And out of their win- 
 dows they caught sight of a green tree, an elm, that grew 
 up fair and tall in a carpenter's yard at the rear. That tree 
 was like another smile to the place. They saw the birds 
 come and go to its shelter ; and they even heard, when a 
 breeze arose, the pleasant murmur of its boughs. 
 
 Leonard went the same evening to Captain Digby's old
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 409 
 
 lodgings ; but he could learn there no intelligence of friends 
 or protectors for Helen. The people were rude and surly, 
 and said that the Captain still owed them ^i 175. The 
 claim, however, seemed very disputable, and was stoutly 
 denied by Helen. The next morning Leonard set off in 
 search of Dr. Morgan. He thought his best plan was to 
 inquire the address of the Doctor at the nearest chemist's ; 
 and the chemist civilly looked into the Court Guide, and re- 
 ferred him to a house in Balstrode Street, Manchester Square. 
 To this street Leonard contrived to find his way, much mar- 
 velling at the meanness of London : Screwstown seemed to 
 him the handsomer town of the two. 
 
 A shabby man-servant opened the door, and Leonard 
 remarked that the narrow passage was choked with boxes, 
 trunks, and various articles of furniture. He was shown 
 into a small room containing a very large round table, 
 whereon were sundry works on homoeopathy, Parry's Cym- 
 brian Plutarch, Davies's Celtic Researches, and a Sunday 
 newspaper. An engraved portrait of the illustrious Hahne- 
 mann occupied the place of honor, over the chimney-piece. 
 In a few minutes the door to an inner room opened, and 
 Dr. Morgan appeared, and said, politely, "Come in, sir." 
 
 The Doctor seated himself at a desk, looked hastily at 
 Leonard, and then at a great chronometer lying on the 
 table. " My time's short, sir going abroad : and now that 
 I am going, patients flock to me. Too late. London will 
 repent its apathy. Let it." 
 
 The Doctor paused majestically, and not remarking on 
 Leonard's face the consternation he had anticipated, he re- 
 peated, peevishly, " I am going abroad, sir, but I will make 
 a synopsis of your case, and leave it to my successor. 
 Hum ! Hair chestnut ; eyes what color? Look this way 
 blue, dark blue. Hem ! Constitution nervous. What 
 are the symptoms ?" 
 
 " Sir," began Leonard, " a little girl 
 
 DR. MORGAN (impatiently). Little girl ! Never mind 
 the history of your sufferings ; stick to the symptoms stick 
 to the symptoms. 
 
 LEONARD. You mistake me, Doctor ; I have nothing the 
 matter with me. A little girl 
 
 DR. MORGAN. Girl again ! I understand ! it is she who 
 
 is ill ! Shall I go to her ? She must describe her own 
 
 symptoms I can't judge from your talk. You'll he telling 
 
 me she has consumption, or dyspepsia, or some such disease 
 
 18
 
 410 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 that don't exist : mere allopathic inventions symptoms, 
 sir, symptoms. 
 
 LEONARD (forcing his way). You attended her poor 
 father. Captain Digby, when he was taken ill in the coach 
 with you. He is dead, and his child is an orphan. 
 
 DR. MORGAN (fumbling in his medical pocket-book). 
 Orphan ! nothing for orphans, especially if inconsolable, 
 like aconite and chauiomilla* 
 
 With some difficulty Leonard succeeded in bringing 
 Helen to the recollection of the homoeopathist, stating how 
 he came in charge of her, and why he sought Dr. Morgan. 
 
 The Doctor was much moved. 
 
 " But, really," said he, after a pause, " I don't see how I 
 can help the poor child. I know nothing of her relations. 
 This Lord Les whatever his name is I know of no lords 
 in London. I know lords, and physicked them too, when I 
 was a blundering allopathist. There was the Earl of Lans- 
 mere has had many a blue pill from me, sinner that I was. 
 His son was wiser ; never would take physic. Very clever 
 boy was Lord L'Estrange -" 
 
 " Lord L'Estrange ! that name begins with Les 
 
 " Stuff ! He's always abroad shows his sense. I'm 
 going abroad too. No development for science in this hor- 
 rid city full of prejudices, sir, and given up to the most 
 barbarous allopathical and phlebotomical propensities. I'm 
 going to the land of Hahnemann, sir, sold my good-will, 
 lease, and furniture, and have bought in on the Rhine. 
 Natural life, there, sir homoeopathy needs nature : dine 
 at one o'clock, get up at four tea little known, and science 
 appreciated. But I forget. Cott ! what can I do for the 
 orphan ? " 
 
 "Well, sir," said Leonard, rising, "Heaven will give me 
 strength to support her." 
 
 The Doctor looked at the young man attentively. " And 
 yet," said he, in a gentler voice, "you, young man, are, by 
 your account, a perfect stranger to her, or were so when 
 you undertook to bring her to London. You have a good 
 heart always keep it. Very healthy thing, sir, a good heart 
 that is, when not carried to excess. But you have friends 
 of your own in town ? " 
 
 LEONARD. Not yet, sir ; I hope to make them. 
 
 DOCTOR. Pless me, you do ? How? I can't make any. 
 
 * It may be necessary to observe, that homoeopathy professes to deal with our moral affec- 
 tions as well as with our physical maladies, and has a globule for every sorrow. 
 
 v y b
 
 VARIETIES IX ENGLISH LIFE. , 411 
 
 Leonard colored and hung his head. He longed to say 
 "Authors find friends in their readers I am going to be an 
 author." But he felt that the reply would savor of pre- 
 sumption, and held his tongue. 
 
 The Doctor continued to examine him, and with friendly 
 interest. 
 
 " You say you walked up to London was that from 
 choice or economy ? 
 
 LEONARD. Both, sir. 
 
 DOCTOR. Sit down again, and let us talk. I can give 
 you a quarter of an hour, and I'll see if I can help either of 
 you, provided you tell me all the symptoms I mean all the 
 particulars. 
 
 Then, with that peculiar adroitness which belongs to 
 experience in the medical profession, Dr. Morgan, who was 
 really an acute and able man, proceeded to put his ques- 
 tions, and soon extracted from Leonard the boy's history 
 and hopes. But when the Doctor, in admiration at a sim- 
 plicity which contrasted so evident an intelligence, finally 
 asked him his name and connections, and Leonard told them, 
 the homceopathist actually started. " Leonard Fairfield, 
 grandson of my old friend, John Avenel, of Lansmere ! I 
 must shake you by the hand. Brought up by Mrs. Fair- 
 field ! Ah, now I look, strong family likeness very 
 strong ! " 
 
 Tjhe tears stood in the Doctor's eyes. " Poor Nora ! " 
 said he. 
 
 " Nora ! Did you know my aunt ? " 
 
 " Your aunt ! Ah ! ah ! ah ; yes yes ! Poor Nora ! 
 she died almost in these arms so young, so beautiful. I 
 remember it as if yesterday." 
 
 The Doctor brushed his hand across his eyes, and swal- 
 lowed a globule ; and, before the boy knew what he was 
 about, had in his benevolence thrust another between Leon- 
 ard's quivering lips. 
 
 A knock was heard at the door. 
 
 "Ha ! that's my great patient," cried the Doctor, recov- 
 ering his self-possession--" must see him. A chronic case 
 excellent patient tic, sir, tic. Puzzling and interesting. 
 If I could take that tic with me, I should ask nothing more 
 from Heaven. Call again on Monday; I may haye some- 
 thing to tell you then as to yourself. The little girl can't 
 stay with you wrong and nonsensical. I will see after 
 her. Leave me your address write it here. I think \
 
 4 I2 MY NOVEL ; OK, 
 
 know a lady who will take charge of her. Good-bye. Mon- 
 day next, ten o'clock." 
 
 With this the Doctor thrust out Leonard, and ushered in 
 his grand patient, whom he was very anxious to take with 
 him to the banks of the Rhine. 
 
 Leonard had now only to discover the nobleman whose 
 name had been so vaguely uttered by poor Captain Digby. 
 He had again recourse to the Court Guide, and finding the 
 address of two or three lords, the first syllable of whose titles 
 seemed similar to that repeated to him, and all living pretty 
 near to each other, in the regions of May-Fair, he ascer- 
 tained his way to that quarter, and, exercising his mother- 
 wit, inquired at the neighboring shops as to the personal 
 appearance of these noblemen. Out of consideration for 
 his rusticity he got very civil and clear answers ; but none 
 of the lords in question corresponded with the description 
 given by Helen. One was old, another was exceedingly 
 corpulent, a third was bed-ridden none of them was known 
 to keep a great dog. It is needless to say that the name of 
 L'Estrange (no habitant of London), was not in the Court 
 Guide ; and Dr. Morgan's assertion that that person was 
 always abroad, unluckily dismissed from Leonard's mind the 
 name the homceopathist had so casually mentioned. But 
 Helen was not disappointed when her young protector re- 
 turned, late in the day, and told her of his ill-success. Poor 
 child ! she was so pleased in her heart not to be 'sepa- 
 rated from her new brother ; and Leonard was touched to 
 see how she had contrived in his absence to give a certain 
 comfort and cheerful grace to the bare room devoted to 
 himself. She had arranged his few books and papers so 
 neatly, near the window, in sight of the one green elm. 
 She had coaxed the smiling landlady out of one or two 
 extra articles of furniture, especially a walnut-tree bureau, 
 and some odds and ends of ribbon with which last she had 
 looped up the curtains. Even the old rush-bottom chairs 
 had a strange air of elegance, from the mode in which they 
 were placed. The fairies had given sweet Helen the art that 
 adorns a home, and brings out a smile from the dingiest cor- 
 ner of hut and atti'c. 
 
 Leonard wondered and praised. He kissed his blushing 
 ministrant gratefully, and they sate down in joy to their ab- 
 stemious meal ; when suddenly his face was overclouded 
 there shot through him the remembrance of Dr. Morgan's 
 words " The little girl can't stay with you wrong and non-
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 413 
 
 sensical. I think I know a lady who will take charge of 
 her." 
 
 "Ah," cried Leonard, sorrowfully, "how could I forget?" 
 And he told Helen what grieved him. Helen at first ex- 
 claimed, "that she would not go." Leonard, rejoiced, then 
 began to talk as usual of his great prospects ; and, hastily 
 finishing his meal, as if there were no time to lose, sate down 
 at once to his papers. Then Helen contemplated him sadly, 
 as he bent over his delighted work. And when, lifting his 
 radiant eyes from his manuscripts, he exclaimed, "No, no, 
 you shall not go. This must succeed and we shall live to- 
 gether in some pretty cottage, where we can see more than 
 one tree ; " then Helen sighed, and did not answer this time, 
 " No, I will not go." 
 
 Shortly after, she stole from the room, and into her own ; 
 and there, kneeling down, she prayed, and her prayer was 
 somewhat like this : " Guard me against my own selfish 
 heart ; may I never be a burden to him who has shielded 
 me." 
 
 Perhaps, as the Creator looks down on this world, whose 
 wondrous beauty beams on us more and more in proportion 
 as our science would take it from poetry into law perhaps 
 He beholds nothing so beautiful as the pure heart of a sim- 
 ple, loving child. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 LEONARD went out the next day with his precious manu- 
 scripts. He had read sufficient of modern literature to know 
 the names of the principal London publishers ; and to these 
 he took his way with a bold step, though a beating heart. 
 
 That day he was out longer than the last ; and when he 
 returned, and came into the little room, Helen uttered a 
 cry, for she scarcely recognized him ; there was on his face 
 so deep, so silent, and so concentrated a despondency. He 
 sate down listlessly, and did not kiss her this time, as she 
 stole toward him. He felt so humbled. He was a king 
 deposed. He take charge of another life ! He ! 
 
 She coaxed him, at last, into communicating his day's 
 chronicle. The reader beforehand knows too well what it 
 must be, to need detailed repetition. Most of the publishers 
 had absolutely refused to look at his manuscripts ; one or
 
 414 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 two had good-naturedly glanced over and returned them at 
 once, with a civil word or two of flat rejection. One pub- 
 lisher alone himself a man of letters, and who in youth had 
 gone through the same bitter process of disillusion that now 
 awaited the village genius volunteered some kindly though 
 Stern explanation and counsel to the unhappy boy. This 
 gentleman read a portion of Leonard's principal poem with 
 attention, and even with frank admiration. He could appre- 
 ciate the rare promise that it manifested. He sympathized 
 with the boy's history, and even with his hopes ; and then 
 he said, in bidding him farewell, 
 
 " If I publish this poem for you, spsaking as a trader, I 
 shall be a considerable loser. Did I publish all I admire, 
 out of sympathy with the author, I should be a ruined man. 
 But suppose that, impressed as I really am with the evidence 
 of no common poetic gifts in this manuscript, I publish it, 
 not as a trader, but a lover of literature, I shall in reality, I 
 fear, render you a great disservice, and perhaps unfit your 
 whole life for the exertions on which you must rely for in- 
 dependence." 
 
 " How, sir ? " cried Leonard " Not that I would ask you to 
 injure yourself for me," he added, with proud tears in his eyes. 
 
 " How, my young friend ? I will explain. There is 
 enough talent in these verses to induce very flattering re- 
 views in some of the literary journals. You will read these, 
 find yourself proclaimed a poet, will cry, ' I am on the road 
 to fame.' You will come to me, 'And my poem, how does 
 it sell ?' I shall point to some groaning shelf, and say, ' Not 
 twenty copies ! ' The journals may praise, but the public 
 will not buy it. 'But you will have got a name,' you say. 
 Yes, a name as a poet just sufficiently known to make every 
 man in practical business disinclined to give fair trial to your 
 talents in a single department of positive life ; none like to 
 employ poets, a name that will not put a penny in your 
 purse ; worse still, that will operate as a barrier against every 
 escape into the ways whereby men get to fortune. But, 
 having once tasted praise, you will continue to sigh for it ; 
 you will perhaps never again get a publisher to bring forth 
 a poem, but you will hanker round the purlieus of the Muses, 
 scribble for periodicals fall at last into a bookseller's 
 drudge. Profits will be so precarious and uncertain, that to 
 avoid debt may be impossible ; then, you who now seem so 
 ingenuous and so proud, will sink deeper still into the liter- 
 ary mendicant begging, borrowing "
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 415 
 
 "Never never never !" cried Leonard, veiling his face 
 with his hands. 
 
 " Such would have been my career," continued the pub- 
 lisher ; "but I, luckily, had a rich relative, a trader, whose 
 calling I despised as a boy, who kindly forgave my folly, 
 bound me as an apprentice, and here I am ; and now I can 
 afford to write books, as well as sell them. Young man, you 
 must have respectable relations go by their advice and 
 counsel ; cling fast to some positive calling. Be anything in 
 this city rather than poet by profession." 
 
 " And how, sir, have there ever been poets ? Had they 
 other callings ?" 
 
 " Read their biography, and then envy them ! " 
 
 Leonard was silent a moment ; but, lifting his head, an- 
 swered loud and quickly, " I have read their biography. 
 True, their lot was poverty perhaps hunger. Sir, I envy 
 them !" 
 
 " Poverty and hunger are small evils," answered the book- 
 seller, with a grave, kind smile ; " there are worse, debt, 
 and degradation, and despair ! " 
 
 " No, sir, no you exaggerate ; these last are not the lot 
 of all poets." 
 
 " Right ; for most of our greatest poets had some private 
 means of their own. And for others why," all who have 
 put into a lottery have not drawn blanks. But who could 
 advise another man to set his whole hope of fortune on the 
 chance of a prize in a lottery? And such a lottery!" 
 groaned the publisher, glancing toward sheets and reams of 
 dead authors, lying like lead upon his shelves. 
 
 Leonard clutched his manuscripts to his heart, and 
 hurried away. 
 
 "Yes," he muttered, as Helen clung to him, and tried to 
 console " yes, you were right : London is very vast, very 
 strong, and very cruel ; " and his head sank lower and lower 
 yet upon his bosom. 
 
 The door was flung widely open, and in, unannounced, 
 walked Dr. Morgan. 
 
 The child turned to him, and at the sight of his face she 
 remembered her father ; and the tears that, for Leonard's 
 sake, she had been trying to suppress, found way. 
 
 The good Doctor soon gained all the confidence of 
 these two young hearts. And after listening to Leonard's 
 story of his paradise lost in a day, he patted him on the 
 shoulder and said, "Well, you will call on me on Monday,
 
 416 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 and we will see. Meanwhile, borrow these of me ;" and 
 he tried to slip three sovereigns into the boy's* hand. 
 Leonard was indignant. The bookseller's warning flashed 
 on him. Mendicancy ! Oh no, he had not yet come to that ! 
 He was almost rude and savage in his rejection ; and the 
 Doctor did not like him the less for it. 
 
 " You are an obstinate mule," said the homoeopathist, 
 reluctantly putting up his sovereigns. "Will you work 
 at something practical and prosy, and let the poetry rest 
 awhile ? " 
 
 " Yes," said Leonard, doggedly, " I will work." 
 
 " Very well, then. I know an honest bookseller, and 
 he shall give you some employment ; and meanwhile, at all 
 events, you will be among books, and that will be some 
 comfort." 
 
 Leonard's eyes brightened "A great comfort, sir." 
 Ha pressed the hand he had before put aside to his grate- 
 ful heart. 
 
 " But," resumed the Doctor, seriously, " you really feel 
 a strong predisposition to make verses ? " 
 
 "I did, sir." 
 
 " Very bad symptom indeed, and must be stopped before 
 a relapse ! Here, I have cured three prophets and ten 
 poets with this novel specific." 
 
 While thus speaking, he had got out his book and a 
 globule. " Agai -icus muscarius dissolved in a tumbler of 
 distilled water teaspoonful whenever the fit comes on. 
 Sir, it would have cured Milton himself. And now for you, 
 my child," turning to Helen "I have found a lady who 
 will be very kind to you, not a menial situation ; she 
 wants some one to read to her, and tend on her she is old, 
 and has no children. She wants a companion, and prefers 
 a girl of your age to one older. Will this suit you ? " 
 
 Leonard walked away. 
 
 Helen got close to the Doctor's ear, and whispered, 
 " No, I cannot leave him now he is so sad." 
 
 " Cott ! " grunted the Doctor, "you two must have been 
 reading Paul and Virginia. If I could but stay in England, 
 I would try what ignatia would do in this case interesting 
 experiment ! Listen to me little girl ; and go out of the 
 room, you, sir. " 
 
 Leonard, averting his face, obeyed. Helen made an in- 
 voluntary step after him the doctor detained and drew her 
 on his knee.
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 417 
 
 "What's your Christian name ? I forget." 
 
 " Helen." 
 
 " Helen, listen. 'In a year or two you will be a young 
 woman, and it would be very wrong then to live along with 
 that young man. Meanwhile, you have no right to cripple 
 all his energies. He must not have you leaning on his right 
 arm you would weigh it down. I am going away, and 
 when I am gone there will be no one to help you, if you re- 
 reject the friend I offer you. Do as I tell you, for a little 
 girl so peculiarly susceptible (a thorough pulsatilla constitu- 
 tion) cannot be obstinate and egotistical." 
 
 " Let me see him cared for and happy, sir," said she 
 firmly, " and I will go where you wish." 
 
 " He shall be so ; and to-morrow, while he is out, I will 
 come and fetch you. Nothing so painful as leave-taking 
 shakes the nervous system, and is a mere waste of the ani- 
 mal economy." 
 
 Helen sobbed aloud ; then, writhing from the Doctor, 
 she exclaimed, " But he may know where I am ? We may 
 see each other sometimes ? Ah, sir, it was at my father's 
 grave that we first met, and I think Heaven sent him to me. 
 Do not part us for ever ! " 
 
 " I should have a heart of stone if I did," cried the 
 Doctor, vehemently ; "and Miss Starke shall let him come 
 and visit you once a week I'll give her something to make 
 her. She is naturally indifferent to others ; I will alter her 
 whole constitution, and melt her into sympathy with 
 rhododendron and arsenic ! " 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 BEFORE he went, the doctor wrote a line to " Mr. 
 Prickett, Bookseller, Holborn," and told Leonard to take 
 it, the next morning, as addressed. " I will call on Prickett 
 myself to-night, and prepare him for your visit ; but 1 hope 
 and trust you will only have to stay there a few days." 
 
 He then turned the conversation, to communicate his 
 plans for Helen. Miss Starke lived at Highgate a worthy 
 woman, stiff and prim, as old maids sometimes are ; but 
 just the place for a little girl like Helen, and Leonard should 
 certainly be allowed to call and see her. 
 18*
 
 4 i8 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 Leonard listened and made no opposition ; now that 
 his day-dream was dispelled, he had no right to pretend 
 to be Helen's protector. He could have prayed her to 
 share his wealth and his fame ; his penury and his drudgery 
 no. 
 
 It was a very sorrowful evening that between the ad- 
 venturer and the child. They sate up late, till their candle 
 had burned down to the socket ; neither did they talk much ; 
 but his hand clasped hers all the time, and her head pil- 
 lowed itself on his shoulder. I fear, when they parted it 
 was not for sleep. 
 
 And when Leonard went forth the next morning, Helen 
 stood at the street-door watching him depart slowly, 
 slowly. No doubt, in that humble lane there were many 
 sad hearts ; but no heart so heavy as that of the still, quiet 
 child, when the form she' had watched was to be seen no 
 more, and, still standing on the desolate threshold, she 
 gazed into space and all was vacant. 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 MR. PRICKETT was a believer in homoeopathy, and de- 
 clared, to the indignation of all the apothecaries round 
 Holborn, that he had been cured of a chronic rheumatism 
 by Dr. Morgan. The good Doctor had, as he promised, 
 seen Mr. Prickett when he left Leonard, and asked him as a 
 favor to find some light occupation for the boy, that would 
 serve as an excuse for a modest weekly salary. " It will 
 not be for long," said the Doctor ; " his relations are re- 
 spectable and well off. I will write to his grandparents, and 
 in a few days I hope to relieve you of the charge. Of 
 course, if you don't want him, I will repay what he costs 
 meanwhile." 
 
 Mr. Prickett, thus prepared for Leonard, received him 
 very graciously, and, after a few questions, said Leonard 
 was just the person he wanted to assist him in cataloguing 
 his books, and offered him most handsomely 1 a week for 
 the task. 
 
 Plunged at once into a world of books vaster than he had 
 ever before won admission to, that old divine dream of 
 knowledge, out of which poetry had sprung, returned to the
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 419 
 
 village student at the very sight of the venerable volumes. 
 The collection of Mr. Prickett was, however, in reality, by 
 no means large ; but it comprised not only the ordinary 
 standard works, but several curious and rare ones. And 
 Leonard paused in making the catalogue, and took many a 
 hasty snatch of the contents of each tome, as it passed 
 through his hands. The bookseller, who was an enthusiast 
 for old books, was pleased to see a kindred feeling (which 
 his shop-boy had never exhibited) in hi j new assistant ; and 
 he talked about rare editions and scarce copies, and initiated 
 Leonard into many of the mysteries of the bibliographist. 
 
 Nothing could be more dark and dingy than the shop. 
 There was a booth outside, containing cheap books and 
 old volumes, round which there was always an attractive 
 group ; within, a gas-lamp burned night and day. 
 
 But time passed quickly to Leonard. He missed not the 
 green fields, he forgot his disappointments, he ceased to re- 
 member even Helen. O strange passion of knowledge ! 
 nothing like thee for strength and devotion. 
 
 Mr. Prickett was a bachelor, and asked Leonard to dine 
 with him on a cold shoulder of mutton. During dinner, 
 the shop-boy kept the shop, and Mr. Prickett was really 
 pleasant, as well as loquacious. He took a liking to Leon- 
 ard and Leonard told him his adventures with the publish- 
 ers, at which Mr. Prickett rubbed his hands and laughed, as 
 at a capital joke. Oh, give up poetry, and stick to a shop," 
 cried he ; "and, to cure you forever of the mad whim to be 
 an author, I'll just lend you the Life and Works of Chatter- 
 ton. You may take it home with you and read before you 
 go to bed. You'll come back quite a new man to-morrow." 
 
 Not till night, when the shop was closed, did Leonard 
 return to his lodging. And when he entered the room, he 
 was struck to the soul by the silence, by the void ; Helen 
 was gone ! 
 
 There was a rose-tree in its pot on the table at which he 
 wrote, and by it a scrap of paper, on which was written 
 
 " Dear, dear brother Leonard, God bless you. I will let 
 you know when we can meet again. Take care of this rose, 
 brother, and don't forget poor 
 
 " HELEN." 
 
 Over the word "forget" there was a big round blistered 
 spot that nearly effaced the word.
 
 4 2o MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 Leonard leant his face on his hands, and for the first 
 time in his life he felt what solitude really is. He could 
 not stay long in the room. He walked out again, and 
 wandered objectless to and fro the streets. He passed that 
 stiller and humbler neighborhood, he mixed with the throng 
 that swarmed in the more populous thoroughfares ; hundreds 
 and thousands passed him by, and still still such solitude. 
 
 He came back, lighted his candle, and resolutely drew 
 forth the " Chatterton " which the bookseller had lent him. 
 It was an old edition, in one thick volume. It had evidently 
 belonged to some contemporary of the poet's apparently 
 an inhabitant of Bristol some one who had gathered up 
 many anecdotes respecting Chatterton's habits, and who ap- 
 peared even to have seen him, nay been in his company ; 
 for the book was interleaved, and the leaves covered with 
 notes and remarks, in a stiff clear hand all evincing 
 personal knowledge of the mournful immortal dead. At 
 first, Leonard read with an effort, then the strange and fierce 
 spell of that dread life seized upon him seized with pain, 
 and gloom, and terror this boy dying by his own hand, 
 about the age Leonard had attained himself. This won- 
 drous boy, of a genius beyond all comparison the greatest 
 that ever yet was developed and extinguished at the age 
 of eighteen ! self taught self-struggling self-immolated. 
 Nothing in literature like that life and that death ! 
 
 With intense interest Leonard perused the tale of the 
 brilliant imposture, which had been so harshly and so ab- 
 surdly construed into the crime of a forgery, and which was 
 (if not wholly innocent) so akin to the literary devices al- 
 ways in other cases viewed with indulgence, and exhibiting 
 in this, intellectual qxialities in themselves so amazing 
 such patience, such forethought, such labor, such courage, 
 such ingenuity the qualities that, well directed, make men 
 great, not only in books, but action. And, turning from 
 the history of the imposture to the poems themselves, the 
 young reader bent before their beauty, literally awed and 
 breathless. How this strange Bristol boy tamed and mas- 
 tered his rude and motley materials into a music that com- 
 prehended every tune and key, from the simplest to the 
 sublimest ! He turned back to the biography he read on 
 he saw the proud, daring, mournful spirit, alone in the 
 Great City like himself. He followed its dismal career, he 
 saw it falling with bruised and soiled wings into the mire. 
 He turned again to the later works, wrung forth as tasks
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 421 
 
 for bread, the satires without moral grandeur, the politics 
 without honest faith. He shuddered and sickened as he 
 read. True, even here his poet mind appreciated (what 
 perhaps only poets can) the divine fire that burned fitfully 
 through that meaner and more sordid fuel he still traced 
 in those crude, hasty, bitter offerings to dire Necessity, the 
 hand of the young giant who had built up the stately verse 
 of Rowley. But, alas! how different from that "mighty 
 line." How all serenity and joy had fled from these later 
 exercises of art degraded into journey-work ! Then rapidly 
 came on the catastrophe the closed doors the poison 
 the suicide the manuscripts torn by the hands of despair- 
 ing wrath, and strewed round the corpse upon the funeral 
 floors. It was terrible ! The spectre of the Titan boy (as 
 described in the notes written on the margin), with his 
 haughty brow, his cynic smile, his lustrous eyes, haunted all 
 the night the baffled and solitary child of song. 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 IT will ofttn happen that what ought to turn the human 
 mind from some peculiar tendency produces the opposite 
 effect. One would think that the perusal in the newspapers 
 of some crime and capital punishment would warn away 
 all who had ever meditated the crime, or dreaded the chance 
 of detection ; yet it is well known to us that many a crimi- 
 nal is made by pondering over the fate of some predecessor 
 in guilt. There is a fascination in the Dark and Forbid- 
 den, which, strange to say, is only lost in fiction. No man 
 is more inclined to murder his nephews, or stifle his wife, 
 after reading Richard the Third or Othello. It is the reality 
 that is necessary to constitute the danger of contagion. 
 Now, it was this reality in the fate, and life, and crowning 
 suicide of Chatterton, that forced itself upon Leonard's 
 thoughts, and sate there like a visible evil thing, gathering 
 evil like cloud around it. There was much in the dead 
 poet's character, his trials and his doom, that stood out to 
 Leonard like a bold and colossal shadow of himself and 
 his fate. Alas ! the bookseller, in one respect, had said 
 truly ; Leonard came back to him the next day a new man ; 
 and it seemed even to himself as if he had lost a good angel
 
 422 M\ NOVEL; OR, 
 
 in losing Helen. " Oh, that she had been by my side," 
 thought he ; " oh, that I could have felt the touch of her 
 confiding hand that, looking up from the scathed and 
 dreary ruin of this life, that had sublimely lifted itself from 
 the plain, and sought to tower aloft from a deluge, her 
 mild look had spoken to me of innocent, humble, unaspir- 
 ing childhood ! Ah ! if indeed I were still necessary to her 
 still the sole guardian and protector then could I say 
 to myself, ' Thou must not despair and die ! thou hast her 
 to live and to strive for.' But no, no! Only this vast and 
 terrible London the solitude of the dreary garret, and those 
 lustrous eyes glaring alike through the throng and through 
 the solitude." 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 ON the following Monday, Dr. Morgan's shabby man- 
 servant opened the door to a young man in whom he did not 
 at first remember a former visitor. A few days before, em- 
 browned with healthful travel serene light in his eye, 
 simple trust in his careless lip Leonard Fairfield had 
 stood at that threshold. Now again hes too'd there, pale 
 and haggard, with a cheek already hollowed into those deep 
 anxious lines that speak of working thoughts and sleep- 
 less nights ; and a settled sullen gioom resting heavily on 
 his whole aspect. 
 
 " I call by appointment," said the boy, testily, as the 
 servant stood irresolute. The man gave way. " Master is 
 just gone out to a patient ; please to wait, sir;" and he 
 showed him into the little parlor. In a few moments, two 
 other patients were admitted. These were women, and 
 they began talking very loud. They disturbed Leonard's 
 unsocial thoughts. He saw that the door into the Doctor's 
 receiving-room was half-open, and ignorant of the etiquette 
 which holds such penetralia as sacred, he walked in to escape 
 from the gossips. He threw himself into the Doctor's own 
 well-worn chair, and muttered to himself, "Why did he tell 
 me to come ? What new can he think of for me ? And 
 if a favor, should I take it ? He has given me the means 
 of bread by work ; that is all I have a right to ask from him, 
 from any man all I should accept." 
 
 While thus soliloquizing, his eye fell on a letter lying
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 423 
 
 \ 
 
 open on the table. He started. He recognized the hand- 
 writing the same as that of the letter which had enclosed 
 ^50 to his mother the letter of his grandparents. He saw 
 his own name ; he saw something more words that made his 
 heart stand still, and his blood seem like ice in his veins. As 
 he thus stood aghast, a hand was laid on the letter, and a 
 voice, in an angry growl, muttered, " How dare you come 
 into my room, and be reading my letters ? Er r r ! " 
 
 Leonard placed his own hand on the Doctor's firmly, 
 and said, in a fierce tone, " This letter relates to me be- 
 longs to me crushes me. I have seen enough to know that. 
 I demand to read all learn all." 
 
 The Doctor looked round, and seeing the door into the 
 waiting-room still open, kicked it to with his foot,and then 
 said, under his breath, " What have you read? Tell me the 
 truth." 
 
 "Two lines only; and I am called I am called " 
 
 Leonard's frame shook from head to foot, and the veins on 
 his forehead swelled like cords. He could not complete the 
 sentence. It seemed as if an ocean was rolling up through 
 his brain, and roaring in his ears. The Doctor saw at a 
 glance that there was physical danger in this state, and 
 hastily and soothingly answered, " Sit down, sit down 
 calm yourself you shall know all read all drink this 
 water ; " and he poured into a tumbler of the pure liquid a 
 drop or two from a tiny phial. Leonard obeyed mechanic- 
 ally, for he was no longer able to stand. He closed his eyes, 
 and for a minute or two life seemed to pass from him ; then 
 he recovered, and saw the good Doctor's gaze fixed on him 
 with great compassion. He silently stretched forth his 
 hand toward the letter. " Wait a few moments," said the 
 physician, judiciously, " and hear me, meanwhile. It is 
 very unfortunate you should have seen a letter never meant 
 for your eye, and containing allusions to a secret you were 
 never to have known. But, if I tell you more, will you 
 promise me, on your word of honor, that you will hold the 
 confidence sacred from Mrs. Fairfield, the Avenels from 
 all ? I myself am pledged to conceal a secret, which I can 
 only share with you on the same condition." 
 
 "There is nothing," announced Leonard, indistinctly, 
 and with a bitter smile on his lip " nothing, it seems, that 
 I should be proud to boast of. Yes, I promise the letter, 
 the letter ! " 
 
 The Doctor placed it in Leonard's right hand, and
 
 424 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 quietly slipped to the wrist of the left his forefinger and 
 thumb, as physicians are said to do when a victim is stretched 
 on the rack. " Pulse decreasing," he muttered ; " wonder- 
 ful thing, Aconite ! " Meanwhile Leonard read as follows, 
 faults in spelling and all : 
 
 " DR. MORGAN, 
 
 " Sir, I received your favur duly, and am glad to hear 
 that the pore boy is safe and Well. But he has been behav- 
 ing ill, and ungrateful to my good son Richard, who is a 
 credit to the whole Famuly, and has made himself a Gentle- 
 man, and Was very kind and good to the boy, not knowing 
 who and What he is God forbid ! I don't want never to 
 see him again the boy. Pore John was ill and Restless 
 for days afterward. John is a pore cretur now, and has had 
 paralyticks. And he Talked of nothing but Nora the boy's 
 eyes were so like his Mother's. I cannot, cannot see the 
 Child of Shame. He can't cum here for our Lord's sake, 
 sir, don't ask it he can't, so Respectable as we've always 
 been ! and such disgrace ! Base born base born. Keep 
 him where he is, bind him prentis, I'll pay anything for 
 That. You says, sir, he's clever, and quick at learning ; so 
 did Parson Dale, and wanted him to go to Collidge and 
 make a Figur then all would cum out. It would be my 
 death, sir ; I could not sleep in my grave, sir. Nora, that 
 we were all so proud of. Sinful creturs that we are ! Nora's 
 good name that we've saved now, gone, gone. And Rich- 
 ard, who is so grand, and who was so fond of pore, pore 
 Nora ! He would not hold up his Head again. Don't let 
 him make a Figur in the world let him be a tradesman, 
 as we were afore him any trade he takes to and not cross 
 us no more while he lives. Then I shall pray for him, and 
 wish him happy. And have not we had enuff of bringing 
 up children to be above their birth ? Nora, that I used to 
 say was like the first lady o' the land oh, but we were 
 rightly punished ! So now, sir, I leave all to you, and will 
 Pay all you want for the boy. And be sure that the secret's 
 kept. For we have never heard from the father, and, at 
 leest, no one knows that Nora has a living son but I and my 
 daughter Jane, and Parson Dale and you and you Two 
 are good Gentlemen and Jane will keep her word, and I 
 am old, and shall be in my grave Soon, but I hope it wont 
 be while poor John needs me. What could he do without
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 425 
 
 me ? And if that got wind, it would kill me straght, sir. 
 Pore John is a helpless cretur, God bless him. So no more 
 from your servant in all dooty, 
 
 " M. AVEN.EL." 
 
 Leonard laid down this letter very calmly, and, except 
 by a slight heaving at his breast, and a deathlike whiteness 
 of his lips, the emotions he felt were undetected. And it is 
 a proof how much exquisite goodness there was in his heart, 
 that the first words he spoke were "Thank Heaven!" 
 
 The Doctor did not expect that thanksgiving, and he was 
 so startled that he exclaimed, " For what ? " 
 
 " I have nothing to pity or excuse in the woman I knew 
 and honored as a mother. I am not her son her " 
 
 He stopped short. 
 
 "No; but don't be hard on your true mother poor 
 Nora!" 
 
 Leonard staggered and then burst into a sudden par- 
 oxysm of tears. 
 
 " Oh, my own mother ! my dead mother ! Thou for 
 whom I felt so mysterious a love thou from whom I took 
 this poet soul pardon me, pardon me ! Hard on thee ! 
 Would that thou wert living yet, that I might comfort thee ! 
 What thou must have suffered ! " 
 
 These words were sobbed forth in broken gasps from 
 the depth of his heart. Then he caught up the letter 
 again, and his thoughts were changed as his eyes fell upon 
 the writer's shame and fear, as it were, of his very existence. 
 All his native haughtiness returned to him. His crest rose, 
 his tears dried. "Tell her," he said, with a stern, unfalter- 
 ing voice "tell Mrs. Avenel that she is obeyed that I will 
 never seek her roof, never cross her path, never disgrace 
 her wealthy son. But tell her, also, that I will choose my 
 own way in life that I will not take from her a bribe for 
 concealment. Tell her that I am nameless, and will yet 
 make a name." 
 
 A name ! Was this but an idle boast, or was it one of 
 those flashes of conviction which are never belied, lighting 
 up our future for one lurid instant, and then fading into 
 darkness? 
 
 " I do not doubt it, my prave poy," said Dr. Morgan, 
 growing exceedingly Welsh in his excitement; "and per- 
 haps you may find a father who 
 
 " Father who is he what is he? He lives, then ! But
 
 426 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 he has deserted me he must have betrayed her ! I need 
 him not. The law gives me no father." 
 
 The last words were said with a return of bitter anguish ; 
 then, in a calmer tone, he resumed, " But I should know 
 who he is as another one whose path I may not cross." 
 
 Dr. Morgan looked embarrassed, and paused in deliber- 
 ation. " Nay," said he at length, "as you know so much, 
 it is surely best that you should know all." 
 
 The Doctor then proceeded to detail with some circum- 
 locution what we will here repeat from his account more 
 succinctly. 
 
 Nora Avenel, while yet very young, left her native vil- 
 lage, or rather the house of Lady Lansmere, by whom she 
 had been educated and brought up, in order to accept the 
 place of companion to a lady in London. One evening, 
 she suddenly presented herself at her father's house, and at 
 the sight of her mother's face she fell down insensible. She 
 \vas carried to bed. Dr. Morgan (then the chief medical 
 practitioner of the town) was sent for ; that night Leonard 
 came into the world, and his mother died. She never re- 
 covered her senses, never spoke intelligibly from the time 
 she entered the house. "And never, therefore, named your 
 father," said Dr. Morgan. " We knew not who he was." 
 
 " And how," cried Leonard, fiercely " how have they 
 dared to slander this dead mother? How knew they that 
 I was was was not the child of wedlock ? " 
 
 "There was no wedding-ring on Nora's finger never 
 any rumor of her marriage ; her strange and sudden appear- 
 ance at her father's house her emotions on entrance, so 
 unlike those natural to a wife returning to a parent's home ; 
 these are all the evidence against her. But Mrs. Avenel 
 deemed them strong, and so did I. You have a right to 
 think we judged too harshly perhaps we did." 
 
 " And no inquiries were ever made ? " said Leonard, 
 mournfully, and after long silence " no inquiries to learn 
 who was the father of the motherless child ?" 
 
 " Inquiries ! Mrs. Avenel would have died first. Your 
 grandmother's nature is very rigid. Had she come from 
 princes, from Cadwallader himself," said the Welshman, 
 "she could not more have shrunk from the thought of dis- 
 honor. Even over her dead child, the child she had loved 
 the best, she thought but how to save that child's name and 
 memory from suspicion. There was luckily no servant in
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 427 
 
 the house, only Mark Fairfield and his wife (Nora's sister) 
 they had arrived the same day on a visit. 
 
 " Mrs. Fairfield was nursing her own infant, two or three 
 months old ; she took charge of you ; Nora was buried, and 
 the secret kept. None out of the family knew of it but my- 
 self and the curate of the town Mr. Dale. The day after 
 your birth, Mrs. Fairfield, to prevent discovery, moved to a 
 village at some distance. There her child died ; and when 
 she returned to Hazeldean, where her husband was settled, 
 you passed as the son she had lost. Mark, I know, was as 
 a father to you, for he had loved Nora ; they had been 
 children together." 
 
 " And she came to London London is strong and cruel," 
 muttered Leonard. "She was friendless and deceived. I 
 see all I desire to know no more. This father, he must 
 indeed have been like those whom I have read of in books. 
 To love, to wrong her that I can conceive ; but then to 
 leave, to abandon ; no visit to her grave no remorse no 
 search for his own child. Well, well ; Mrs. Avenel was right. 
 Let us think of him no more." 
 
 The man-servant knocked at the door, and then put in 
 his head. "Sir, the ladies are getting very impatient, and 
 say they'll go." 
 
 "Sir," said Leonard, with a strange calm return to the 
 things about him, "I ask your pardon for taking up your 
 time so long. I go now. I will never mention to my moth 
 I mean to Mrs. Fairfield what I have learned, nor to any 
 one. I will work my way somehow. If Mr. Prickett will 
 keep me, I will stay with him at present ; but I repeat, I 
 cannot take Mrs. Avenel's money and be bound apprentice. 
 Sir, you have been good and patient with me Heaven re- 
 ward you." 
 
 The Doctor was too moved to answer. He wrung Leon- 
 ard's hand, and in another minute the door closed upon the 
 nameless boy. He stood alone in the streets of London ; 
 and the sun flashed on him, red and menacing, like the eye 
 of a foe !
 
 4 z8 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 LEONARD did not appear at the shop of Mr. Prickett that 
 day. Needless it is to say where he wandered what he 
 suffered what thought what felt. All within was storm. 
 Late at night he returned to his solitary lodging. On his 
 table, neglected since the morning, was Helen's rose-tree. 
 It looked parched and fading. His heart smote him ; he 
 watered the poor plant perhaps with his tears. 
 
 Meanwhile Dr. Morgan, after some debate with himself, 
 whether or not to apprise Mrs. Avenel of Leonard's discov- 
 ery and message, resolved to spare her an uneasiness and 
 alarm that might be dangerous to her health, and unneces- 
 sary in itself. He replied shortly, that she need not fear 
 Leonard's coming to her house that he was disinclined to 
 bind himself an apprentice, but that he was provided for at 
 present ; and in a few weeks, when Dr. Morgan heard more 
 of him through the tradesman by whom he was employed, 
 the doctor would write to her from Germany. He then 
 went to Mr. Prickett's told the willing bookseller to keep 
 the young man for the present to be kind to him, watch 
 over. his habits and conduct, and to report to the Doctor in 
 his new home, on the Rhine, what avocation he thought 
 Leonard would be best suited for, and most inclined to 
 adopt. The charitable Welshman divided with the book- 
 seller the salary given to Leonard, and left a quarter of his 
 moiety in advance. It is true that he knew he should be 
 repaid on applying to Mrs. Avenel ; but being a man of in- 
 dependent spirit himself, he so sympathized with Leonard's 
 present feelings, that he felt as if he should degrade the boy 
 did he maintain him, even secretly, out of Mrs. Avenel's 
 money money intended not to raise, but keep him down 
 in life. At the worst, it was a sum the Doctor could afford, 
 and he had brought the boy into the world. 
 
 Having thus, as he thought, safely provided for his two 
 young charges, Helen and Leonard, the Doctor then gave 
 himself up to his final preparations for departure. He left 
 a short note for Leonard with Mr. Prickett, containing some 
 brief advice, some kind cheering ; a postscript to the effect 
 that he had not communicated to Mrs. Avenel the informa-
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 429 
 
 tion Leonard had acquired, and that it were best to leave 
 her in that ignorance ; and six small powders to be dissolved 
 in water, and a teaspoonful every fourth hour " Sovereign 
 against rage and sombre thoughts," wrote the Doctor. 
 
 By the evening of the next day, Dr. Morgan, accompa- 
 nied by his pet patient, with the chronic tic, whom he had 
 talked into exile, was on the steamboat on his way to 
 Ostend. 
 
 Leonard resumed his life at Mr. Prickett's ; but the 
 change in him did not escape the bookseller. All his in- 
 genuous simplicity had deserted him. He was very distant 
 and very taciturn ; he seemed to have grown much older. 
 I shall not attempt to analyze metaphysically this change. 
 By the help of such words as Leonard may himself occa- 
 sionally let fall, the reader will dive into the boy's heart, 
 and see how there the change has worked, and is working 
 still. The happy dreamy peasant-genius, gazing on Glory 
 with inebriate, undazzled eyes, is no more. It is a man, 
 suddenly cut off from the old household holy ties con- 
 scious of great powers, and confronted on all sides by 
 barriers of iron alone with hard Reality, and scornful 
 London ; and if he catches a glimpse of the lost Helicon, 
 he sees, where he saw the Muse, a pale melancholy spirit 
 veiling its face in shame the ghost of the mournful mother, 
 whose child has no name, not even the humblest, among the 
 family of men. 
 
 On the second evening after Dr. Morgan's departure, 
 as Leonard was just about to leave the shop, a customer 
 stepped in with a book in his hand, which he had snatched 
 from the shop-boy, who was removing the volumes for the 
 night from the booth without. 
 
 " Mr. Prickett, Mr. Prickett ! " said the customer, " I am 
 ashamed of you. You presume to put upon this work, in 
 two volumes, the sum of eight shillings." 
 
 Mr. Prickett stepped forth from the Cimmerian gloom 
 of some recess, and cried, " What ! Mr. Burley, is that 
 you ? But for your voice, I should not have known you." 
 
 " Man is like a book, Mr. Prickett ; the commonalty 
 only look to his binding. I am better bound, it is very true." 
 
 Leonard glanced toward the speaker, who now stood 
 under the gas-lamp, and thought he recognized his face. 
 He looked again. Yes ; it was the perch-fisher whom he 
 had met on the banks of the Brent, and who had warned 
 him of the lost fish and the broken line.
 
 430 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 MR. BURLEY (continuing). But the "Art of Think- 
 ing ! " you charge eight shillings for the " Art of Think- 
 ing." 
 
 MR. PRICKETT. Cheap enough, Mr. Burley. A very 
 clean copy. 
 
 MR. BURLEY. Usurer! I sold it to you for three 
 shillings. It is more than 150 per cent, you propose to 
 gain from my " Art of Thinking." 
 
 MR. PRICKETT (stuttering, and taken aback). You. 
 sold it to me ! Ah, now I remember. But it was more 
 than three shillings I gave. You forget two glasses of 
 brandy-and-water. 
 
 MR. BURLEY. Hospitality, sir, is not to be priced. 
 If you sell your hospitality, you are not worthy to pos- 
 sess my " Art of Thinking." I resume it. There are three 
 shillings, and a shilling more for interest. No ; on second 
 thoughts, instead of that shilling, I will return your hospi- 
 tality ; and the first lime you come my way you shall have 
 two glasses of brandy-and-water. 
 
 Mr. Prickett did not look pleased, but he made no 
 objection ; and Mr. Burley put the book into his pocket, 
 and turned to examine the shelves. He bought an old 
 jest-book, a stray volume of the "Comedies of Des- 
 totiches " paid for them put them also into his pocket, 
 and was sauntering out when he perceived Leonard, who 
 was now standing at the doorway. 
 
 " Hem ! who is that ? M he asked, whispering Mr. Pickett. 
 
 "A young assistant of mine, and very clever." 
 
 Mr. Burley scanned Leonard from top to toe. 
 
 "We have met before, sir. But you look as if you had 
 returned to the Brent, and been fishing for my perch." 
 
 " Possibly, sir," answered Leonard. " But my line is 
 tough and is not yet broken, though the fish drags it 
 amongst the weeds, and buries itself in the mud." 
 
 Fie lifted his hat, bowed slightly, and walked on. 
 
 " He is clever," said Mr. Burley to the bookseller ; " he 
 understands allegory." 
 
 MR. PRICKETT. Poor youth ! He came to town with 
 the idea of turning author ; you know what that is, Mr. 
 Burley. 
 
 MR. BURLEY (with an air of superb dignity). Biblio- 
 pole, yes ! An author is a being between gods and men, 
 who ought to be lodged in a palace, and entertained at the 
 public charge upon ortolans and Tokay. He should be
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE, 431 
 
 kept lapped in down, and curtained with silken awnings 
 from the cares of life have nothing to do but to write 
 books upon tables of cedar, and fish for perch from a 
 gilded galley. And that's what will come to pass when the 
 ages lose their barbarism, and know their benefactors. 
 Meanwhile, sir, I invite you to my rooms, and will regale 
 you upon brandy-and-water as long as I can pay for it ; 
 and when I cannot you shall regale me." 
 
 Mr. Prickett muttered, " A very bad bargain, indeed," as 
 Mr. Burley, with his chin in the air, stepped into the street. 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 AT first, Leonard had always returned home through 
 the crowded thoroughfares the contact of numbers had 
 animated his spirits. But the last two days, since his dis- 
 covery of his birth, he had taken his way down the com- 
 paratively unpeopled path of the New Road. 
 
 He had just gained that part of this outskirt in which 
 the statuaries and tomb-makers exhibit their gloomy wares 
 furniture alike for gardens and for graves and, pausing, 
 contemplated a column, on which was placed an urn 
 half covered with a funeral mantle, when his shoulder 
 was lightly tapped, and, turning quickly, he saw Mr. Burley 
 standing behind him. 
 
 " Excuse me, sir, but you understand perch-fishing ; and 
 since we find ourselves on the same road, I should like to be 
 better acquainted with you. I hear you once wished to be 
 an author. I am one." 
 
 Leonard had never before, to his knowledge, seen an 
 author, and a mournful smile passed his lips as he surveyed 
 the perch-fisher. 
 
 Mr. Burley was indeed very differently attired since the 
 first interview by the brooklet. He looked much less like 
 an author but more perhaps like a perch-fisher. He had 
 anew white hat, stuck on one side of his head a new green 
 overcoat new gray trousers, and new boots. In his hand 
 was a whalebone stick, with a silver handle. Nothing 
 could be more vagrant, devil-me-carish, and, to use a slang 
 Avord, tigrish, than his whole air. Yet, vulgar as was his 
 costume, he did not himself seem vulgar, but rather
 
 432 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 eccentric lawless something out of the pale of conven- 
 tion. His face looked more pale and more puffed than be- 
 fore, the tip of his nose redder ; but the spark in his eye 
 was of livelier light, and there was self-enjoyment in the 
 corners of his sensual humorous lip. 
 
 "You are an author, sir," repeated Leonard. "Well. 
 And what is your report of the calling ? Yonder column 
 props an urn. The column is tall, and the urn is graceful. 
 But it looks out of place by the roadside ; what say you ?" 
 
 MR. BURLEY. It would look better in the churchyard. 
 
 LEONARD. So I was thinking. And you are an author ! 
 
 MR. BURLEY. Ah, I said you had a quick sense of alle- 
 gory. And so you think an author looks better in a church- 
 yard, when you see him but as a muffled urn under the 
 moonshine, than standing beneath the gas-lamp in a white 
 hat, and with a red tip to his nose. Abstractedly, you are 
 right. But with your leave, the author would rather be 
 where he is. Let us walk on. 
 
 The two men felt an interest in each other, and they 
 walked some yards in silence. 
 
 " To return to the urn," said Mr. Burley " you think of 
 fame and churchyards. Natural enough, before illusion 
 dies ; but I think of the moment, of existence and I laugh 
 at fame. Fame, sir not worth a glass of cold without ! 
 And as for a glass of warm, with sugar and five shillings in 
 one's pocket to spend as one pleases what is there in 
 Westminster Abbey to compare with it ? " 
 
 " Talk on, sir I should like to hear you talk. Let me 
 listen and hold my tongue." Leonard pulled his hat over 
 his brows, and gave up his moody, questioning, turbulent 
 mind to his new acquaintance. 
 
 And John Burley talked on. A dangerous and fascina- 
 ting talk it was the talk of a great intellect fallen. A ser- 
 pent trailing its length on the ground, and showing bright, 
 shifting, glorious hues as it grovelled. A serpent, yet with- 
 out the serpent's guile. If John Burley deceived and 
 tempted, he meant it not he crawled and glittered alike 
 honestly. No dove could be more simple. 
 
 Laughing at Fame, he yet dwelt with an eloquent en- 
 thusiasm on the joy of composition. "What do I care 
 what men without are to say and think of the words that 
 gush forth on my page ? " cried he. " If you think of the 
 public, of urns, and laurels, while you write, you are no 
 genius ; you are not fit to be an author. I write because it
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 433 
 
 rejoices me because it is my nature. Written, I care no 
 more what becomes of it than the lark for the effect that 
 the song has on the peasant it wakes to the plough. The 
 poet, like the lark, sings 'from his watchtower in the skies.' 
 Is this true ? " 
 
 " Yes, very true ! " 
 
 " What can rob us of this joy ? The bookseller will not 
 buy ; the public will not read. Let them sleep at the foot 
 of the ladder of the angels we climb it all the same. And 
 then one settles down into such good-tempered Lucianic 
 contempt for men. One wants so little from them, when 
 one knows what one's-self is worth, and what they are. 
 They are just worth the coin one can extract from them, in 
 order to live. Our life that is worth so much to us. And 
 then their joys, so vulgar to them, we can .make them 
 golden and kingly. Do you suppose Burns drinking at 
 the alehouse, with his boors around him, was drinking, like 
 them, only beer and whiskey ? No, he was drinking nectar 
 he was imbibing his own ambrosial thoughts shaking 
 with the laughter of the gods. The coarse human liquid 
 was just needed to unlock his spirit from the clay take it 
 from jerkin and corduroys, and wrap it in the ' singing 
 robes ' that floated wide in the skies ; the beer or the whis- 
 key needed but for that, and then it changed at once into 
 the drink of the Hebe. But come, you have riot known 
 this life you have not seen it. Come, give me this night. 
 I have moneys about me I will fling them abroad as liber- 
 ally as Alexander himself, when he left to his share but 
 hope. Come ! " 
 
 "Whither?" 
 
 "To my throne. On that throne last sat Edmund Kean 
 mighty mime. I am his successor. We will see whether 
 in truth these wild sons of genius, who are cited but 'to 
 point a moral and adorn a tale/ were objects of compassion. 
 Sober-suited cits to lament over a Savage and a Morland 
 a Porson and a Burns ! 
 
 "Or a Chatterton," said Leonard, gloomily. 
 
 " Chatterton was an impostor in all things ; he feigned 
 excesses that he never knew. He a bacchanalian a royster ! 
 HE ! no. We will talk of him. Come ! " 
 
 Leonard went. 
 
 '9
 
 434 My NOVEL; OK, 
 
 CHAPTER XXL 
 
 THE ROOM ! And the smoke-reek, and the gas-glare of 
 it ! The whitewash of the walls, and the prints thereon of 
 the actors in their mime robes, and stage postures ; actors 
 as far back as their own lost Augustan era, when the 
 stage was a real living influence on the manners and the 
 age ! There was Betterton in wig and gown as Cato, mor- 
 alizing on the soul's eternity, and halting between Plato and 
 the dagger. There was Woodward as "The Fine Gentle- 
 man," with the inimitable rake-hell air in which the heroes 
 of Wycherly and Congreve and Farquhar live again. There 
 was jovial Quin as Falstaff, with round buckler and " fair 
 round belly." There was Colley Gibber in brocade taking 
 snuff as with " his Lord," the thumb and forefinger raised 
 in air and looking at you for applause. There was Mack- 
 lin as Shylock, with knife in hand ; and Kemble in the sol- 
 emn weeds of the Dane ; and Kean in the place of honor 
 over the chimney-piece. 
 
 When we are suddenly taken from practical life, with 
 its real work-clay men, and presented to the portraits of 
 those sole heroes of a world Phantastic and Phantasmal, in 
 the garments wherein they did " strut and fret their hour 
 upon the stage," verily there is something in the sight that 
 moves an inner sense within ourselves for all of us have an 
 inner sense of some existence, apart from the one that 
 wears away our days ; an existence, that afar from St. 
 James's, and St. Giles's, the Law Courts and Exchange, 
 goes its way in terror or mirth, in smiles or in tears, through 
 a vague magic land of the poets. There, see those actors 
 they are the men who lived it to whom our world was the 
 false one, to whom the Imaginary was the Actual ! And 
 did Shakspeare himself, in his life, ever hearken to such 
 applause as thundered round the personators of his airy 
 images ? Vague children of the most transient of the arts, 
 fleet shadows on running waters, though thrown down from 
 the steadfast stars, were ye not happier than we who live in 
 the Real ? How strange you must feel in the great circuit 
 that ye now take through eternity ! No prompt-books, no 
 lamps, no acting Congreve and Shakspeare there ! For
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 435 
 
 what parts in the skies have your studies on the earth fitted 
 you ? Your ultimate destinies are very puzzling. Hail to 
 your effigies, and pass we on ! 
 
 There, too, on the whitewashed walls, were admitted the 
 portraits of ruder rivals in the arena of fame yet they, too, 
 had known an applause warmer than his age gave to Shak- 
 speare ; the Champions of the Ring Crib and Molyneux, 
 and Dutch Sam. Interspersed with these was an old print of 
 Newmarket in the early part of the last century, and sun- 
 dry engravings from Hogarth. But poets, oh ! they were 
 there too ; poets who might be supposed to have been suffi- 
 ciently good fellows to be at home with such companions. 
 Shakspeare, of course, with his placid forehead ; Ben Jon- 
 son, with his heavy scowl ; Burns and Byron cheek by jowl. 
 But the strangest of all these heterogeneous specimens of 
 graphic art was a full-length print of William Pitt ! Wil- 
 liam Pitt, the austere and imperious. What the deuce did 
 he do there amongst prize-fighters, and actors, and poets ? 
 It seemed an insult to his grand memory. Nevertheless 
 there he was, very erect, and with a look of ineffable 
 disgust in his upturned nostrils. The portraits on the sor- 
 did walls were very like the crambo in the minds of ordi- 
 nary men very like the motley pictures of the FAMOUS 
 hung up in your parlor, O my Public ! Actors and prize- 
 fighters, poets and statesmen, all without congruity arid fit- 
 ness, all whom you have been to see or to hear for a mo- 
 ment, and whose names have stared out in your newspapers, 
 O my Public ! 
 
 And the company ? Indescribable ! Comedians, from 
 small theatres, out of employ ; pale, haggard-looking boys, 
 probably the sons of worthy traders, trying their best to 
 break their father's hearts ; here and there the marked fea- 
 tures of a Jew. Now and then you might see the curious 
 puzzled face of some greenhorn about town, or perhaps a 
 Cantab ; and men of grave age, and gray-haired, were there, 
 and amongst them a wondrous proportion of carbuncled 
 faces and bottle noses. And when John Burley entered, 
 there was a shout that made William Pitt shake in his frame. 
 Such stamping and hallooing, and such hurrahs for "Burly 
 John." And the gentleman who had filled the great high 
 leathern chair in his absence gave it up to John Burley ; 
 and Leonard, with his grave, observant eye, and lip half 
 sad and half scornful, placed himself by the side of his in- 
 troducer. There was a nameless expectant stir through
 
 436 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 the assembly, as there is in the pit of the opera when some 
 great singer advances to the lamps, and begins, " Di tanti 
 palpiti." Time flies. Look at the Dutch clock over the 
 door. Half-an-hour. John Burley begins to warm. A yet 
 quicker light begins to break from his eye ; his voice has a 
 mellow luscious roll in it. 
 
 " He will be grand to-night," whispered a thin man, who 
 looked like a tailor, seated on the other side of Leonard. 
 
 Time flies an hour ! Look again at the Dutch clock. 
 John Burley is grand, he is in his zenith, at his culminating 
 point. What magnificent drollery ! what' luxuriant hu- 
 mor ! How the Rabelais shakes in his easy-chair ! Under 
 the rush and the roar of this fun (what word else shall de- 
 scribe it ?) the man's intellect is as clear as gold sand under 
 a river. Such wit and such truth, and, at times, such a flood 
 of quick eloquence. All now are listeners silent, save in 
 applause. And Leonard listened too. Not, as he would 
 some nights ago, in innocent unquestioning delight. No ; 
 his mind has passed through great sorrow, great passion, 
 and it comes out unsettled, inquiring, eager, brooding over 
 joy itself as over a problem. And the drink circulates, and 
 faces change ; and there are gabbling and babbling ; and 
 Burley's head sinks in his bosom, and he is silent. And up 
 starts a wild, dissolute, bacchanalian glee for seven voices. 
 And the smoke-reek grows denser and thicker, and the gas- 
 light looks dizzy through the haze. And John Burley's 
 eyes reel. 
 
 Look again at the Dutch clock. Two hours have gone. 
 John Burley has broken out again from his silence, his 
 voice thick and husky, and his laugh cracked ; and he 
 talks, O ye Gods ! such rubbish and ribaldry ; and the 
 listeners roar aloud, and think it finer than before. And 
 Leonard, who had hitherto been measuring himself in his 
 mind against the giant, and saying inly, " He soars out 
 of my reach," finds the giant sink smaller and smaller, and 
 saith to himself, " He is but of man's common standard, 
 after all ! " 
 
 Look again at the Dutch clock. Three hours have 
 passed. Is John Burley now of man's common standard ? 
 Man himself seems to have vanished from the scene ; his 
 soul stolen from him, his form gone away with the fumes 
 of the smoke, and the nauseous steam from that fiery bowl. 
 And Leonard looked round, and saw but the swine of Circe 
 some on the floor, some staggering against the walls,
 
 VARIETIES Iff ENGLISH LIFE. 437 
 
 some hugging each other on the tables, some fighting, some 
 bawling, some weeping. The divine spark had fled from 
 the human face ; the Beast is everywhere growing more 
 and more out of the thing that had been Man. And John 
 Burley, still unconquered, but clean lost to his senses, fan- 
 cies himself a preacher, and drawls forth the most lugu- 
 brious sermon upon the brevity of life that mortal ever 
 heard, accompanied with unctuous sobs ; and now and then, 
 in the midst of balderdash, gleams out a gorgeous sen- 
 tence, that Jeremy Taylor might have envied ; drivelling 
 away again into cadence below the rhetoric of a Muggle- 
 tonian. And the waiters choked up the doorway, listening 
 and laughing, and prepared to call cabs and coaches ; and 
 suddenly some one turned off the gas-light, and all was 
 dark as pitch howls and laughter, as of the damned, ring- 
 ing through the Pandemonium. Out from the black 
 
 o o 
 
 atmosphere stepped the boy-poet ; and the still stars rushed 
 on his sight, as they looked over the grimy roof-tops. 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 WELL, Leonard, this is the first time thou hast shown 
 that thou hast in thee the iron out of which true manhood 
 is forged and shaped. Thou hast the power to resist. Forth, 
 unebriate, unpolluted, he came from the orgy, as yon star 
 above him came from the cloud. 
 
 He had a latch-key to his lodgings. He let himself in, 
 and walked noiselessly up the creaking, wooden stair. It 
 was dawn. He passed on to his window and threw it open. 
 The green elm-tree from the carpenter's yard looked as 
 fresh and fair as if rooted in solitudes, leagues away from 
 the smoke of Babylon. 
 
 "Nature, Nature!" murmured Leonard, "I hear thy 
 voice now. This stills this strengthens. But the struggle 
 is very dread. Here, despair of life there, faith in life. 
 Nature thinks of neither, and lives serenely on." 
 
 By-and by a bird slid softly from the heart of a tree, 
 and dropped on the ground below out of sight. But 
 Leonard heard its carol. It awoke its companions wings 
 began to glance in the air, and the clouds grew red toward 
 the east.
 
 438 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 Leonard sighed and left the window. On the table, 
 near Helen's rose-tree, which he bent over wistfully, lay a 
 letter. He had not observed it before. It was in Helen's 
 hand. He took it to the light, and read it by the pure, 
 healthful gleams of morn : 
 
 " Oh, my dear brother Leonard, will this find you well, 
 and (more happy I dare not say, but) less sad than when 
 we parted ? I write kneeling, so that it seems to me as if I 
 wrote and prayed at the same time. You may come, and 
 see me to-morrow evening, Leonard. Do come, do we 
 shall walk together in this pretty garden ; and there is an 
 arbor all covered with jessamine and honeysuckle, from 
 which we can look down on London. I have looked from 
 it so many times so many trying if I can guess the roofs 
 in our poor little street, and fancying that I do see the dear 
 elm-tree. 
 
 "Miss Starke is very kind to me; and I think after I 
 have seen you, that I shall be happy here that is, if you 
 are happy. 
 
 " Your own grateful sister, 
 
 " HELEN." 
 "Ivy Lodge." 
 
 " P. S. Any one will direct you to our house ; it lies near 
 the top of the hill, a little way down the lane that is over- 
 hung on one side with chestnut trees and lilacs. I shall be 
 watching for you at the gate." 
 
 Leonard's brow softened, he looked again like his for- 
 mer self. Up from the dark sea at his heart smiled the 
 meek face of a child, and the waves lay still as at the charm 
 of a spirit. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 "AND what is Mr. Burley, and what has he written?" 
 asked Leonard of Mr. Prickett, when he returned to the 
 shop. 
 
 Let us reply to that question in our own words, for we 
 know more about Mr. Burley than Mr. Prickett does. 
 
 John Burley was the only son of a poor clergyman, in a 
 village near Ealing, who had scraped, and saved, and
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 
 
 439 
 
 pinched, to send his son to an excellent provincial school in 
 a northern county, and thence to college. At the latter, 
 during his first year, young Burley was remarked by the 
 under-graduates for his thick shoes and coarse linen, and 
 remarkable to the authorities for his assiduity and learning. 
 The highest hopes were entertained of him by the tutors 
 and examiners. At the beginning of the second year, his 
 high animal spirits, before kept down by study, broke out. 
 Reading had become ea'sy to him. He knocked off his 
 tasks with a facile stroke, as it were. He gave up his leisure 
 hours to symposia by no means Socratical. He fell into an 
 idle, hard-drinking set. He got into all kinds of scrapes. 
 The authorities were at first kind and forbearing in their 
 admonitions, for they respected his abilities, and still hoped 
 he might become an honor to the university. But at last 
 he went drunk into a formal examination, and sent in 
 papers, after the manner of Aristophanes, containing 
 capital jokes upon the Dons and Bigwigs themselves. The 
 offence was the greater, and seemed the more premeditated, 
 for being clothed in Greek. John Burley was expelled. 
 He went home to his father's a miserable man, for, with all 
 his follies, he had a good heart. Removed from ill exam- 
 ple, his life for a year was blameless. He got admitted as 
 usher into the school in \vhich he had received instruction 
 as a pupil. The school was in a large town. John Burley 
 became member of a club formed among the tradesmen, 
 and spent three evenings a-week there. His astonishing 
 convivial and conversational powers began to declare them- 
 selves. He grew the oracle of the club ; and, from being 
 the most sober, peaceful assembly in which grave fathers 
 of a family ever smoked a pipe or sipped a glass, it grew, 
 under Mr. Burlcy's auspices, the parent of revels as frolick- 
 ing and frantic as those out of which the old Greek Goat 
 Song ever tipsily rose. This would not do. There was a 
 great riot in the streets one night, and the next morning 
 the usher was dismissed. Fortunately for John Burley's 
 conscience, his father had died before this happened died 
 believing in the reform of his son. During his ushership 
 Mr. Burley had scraped acquaintance with the editor of the 
 county newspaper, and given him some capital political 
 articles ; for Burley was, like Parr and Porson, a notable 
 politician. The editor furnished him with letters to the 
 journalists in London, and John came to the metropolis 
 and got employed on a very respectable newspaper. At
 
 440 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 college he had known Audley Egerton, though but slightly ; 
 that gentleman was then just rising into repute in Parlia- 
 ment. Burley sympathized with some question on which 
 Audley had distinguished himself, and wrote a very good 
 article thereon an article so good that Egerton inquired 
 into the authorship, found out Burley, and resolved in his 
 own mind to provide for him whenever he himself came 
 into office. But Burley was a man whom it was impossible 
 to provide for. He soon lost his connection with the news- 
 paper. First, he was so irregular that he could never be de- 
 pended upon. Secondly, he had strange, honest, eccentric 
 twists of thinking, that could coalesce with the thoughts of 
 no party in the long run. An article of his, inadvertently 
 admitted, had horrified all the proprietors, staff, and readers 
 of the paper. It was diametrically opposite to the princi- 
 ples the paper advocated, and compared its pet politician 
 to Catiline. Then John Burley shut himself up and wrote 
 books. He wrote two or three books, very clever, but not 
 at all to the popular taste abstract and learned, full of 
 whims that were caviare to the multitude, and larded with 
 Greek. Nevertheless they obtained for him a little money, 
 and among literary men some reputation. Now Audley 
 Egerton came into power, and got him, though with great 
 difficulty for there were many prejudices against this 
 scampish, harum-scarum son of the Muses a place in a 
 public office. He kept it about a month, and then volun- 
 tarily resigned it. " My crust of bread and liberty ! " quoth 
 John Burley, and he vanished into a garret. From that 
 time to the present he lived Heaven knows how ! Litera- 
 ture is a business, like everything else ; John Burley grew 
 more and more incapable of business. " He could not do 
 task-work," he said ; he wrote when the whim seized him, 
 or when the last penny was in his pouch, or when he was 
 actually in the spunging-house or the Fleet migrations 
 which occurred to him, on an average, twice a-year. He 
 could generally sell what he had actually written, but no 
 one would engage him beforehand. Editors of magazines 
 and other periodicals were very glad to have his articles, on 
 the condition that they were anonymous ; and his style was 
 not necessarily detected, for he could vary it with the facility 
 of a practised pen. Audley Egerton continued his best 
 supporter, for there were certain questions on which no 
 one wrote with such force as John Burley questions con- 
 nected with the metaphysics of politics, such as law reform
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 441 
 
 and economical science. And Audley Egerton was the 
 only man John Burley put himself out of the way to serve, 
 and for whom he would give up a drinking bout and do 
 task-work ; for John Burley was grateful by nature, and he 
 felt that Egerton had really tried to befriend him. Indeed, 
 it was true, as he had stated to Leonard by the Brent, that, 
 even after he had resigned his desk in the London office, he 
 had the offer of an appointment in Jamaica, and a place in 
 India, from the Minister. But probably there were other 
 charms then than those exercised by the one-eyed perch 
 that kept him to the neighborhood of London. With all 
 his grave faults of character and conduct, John Burley was 
 not without the fine qualities of a large nature. He was 
 most resolutely his own enemy, it is true, but he could 
 hardly be said to be any one else's. Even when he criti- 
 cised some more fortunate writer, he was good-humored in 
 his very satire ; he had no bile, no envy. And as for free- 
 dom from malignant personalities, he might have been a 
 model to all critics. I must except politics, however, for 
 in these he could be rabid and savage. He had a passion 
 for independence, which, though pushed to excess, was not 
 without grandeur. No lick-platter, no parasite, no toad- 
 eater, no literary beggar, no hunter after patronage and 
 subscriptions ; even in his dealings with Audley Egerton, 
 he insisted on naming the price for his labors. He took a 
 price, because, as the papers required by Audley demanded 
 much reading and detail, which was not at all to his taste, 
 he considered himself entitled fairly to something more 
 than the editor of the journal wherein the papers appeared 
 was in the habit of giving. But he assessed this extra price 
 himself, and as he would have done to a bookseller. And 
 when in debt and in prison, though he knew a line to Eger- 
 ton would have extricated him, he never wrote that line. 
 He would depend alone on his pen dipped it hastily in the 
 ink, and scrawled himself free. The most debased point 
 about him was certainly the incorrigible vice of drinking, 
 and with it the usual concomitant of that vice - the love of 
 low company. To be King of the Bohemians to dazzle 
 by his wild humor, and sometimes to exalt by his fanciful 
 eloquence, the rude, gross natures that gathered round him 
 this was a royalty that repaid him for all sacrifice of solid 
 dignity ; a foolscap crown tnat he would not have changed 
 for an emperor's diadem. Indeed, to appreciate rightly the 
 talents of John Burley, it was necessary to hear him talk 
 19*
 
 442 MY NOVEL; OK, 
 
 on such occasions. As a writer, after all, he was now only 
 capable of unequal desultory efforts. But as a talker, in 
 his own wild way, he was original and matchless. And the 
 gift of talk is one of the most dangerous gifts a man can 
 possess for his own sake the applause is so immediate, 
 and gained with so little labor. Lower, and lower, and 
 lower, had sunk- John Burley, not only in the opinion of nil 
 who knew his name, but in the habitual exercise of his 
 talents. And this seemed wilfully from choice. He 
 would write for some unstamped journal of the populace, 
 out of the pale of the law, for pence, when he could have 
 got pounds from journals of high repute. He was very 
 fond of scribbling off penny ballads, and then standing in 
 the street to hear them sung. He actually once made him- 
 self the poet of an advertising tailor, and enjoyed it exces- 
 sively. But that did not last long, for John Burley was a 
 Pittite not a Tory, he used to say, but a Pittite. And if 
 you had heard him talk of Pitt, you would never have 
 known what to make of that great statesman. He treated 
 him as the German commentators do Shakspeare, and 
 invested him with all imaginary meanings and objects, that 
 would have turned the grand practical man into a sibyl. 
 Well, he was a Pittite ; the tailor a fanatic for Thelwall and 
 Cobbett. Mr. Burley wrote a poem, wherein Britannia 
 appeared to the tailor, complimented him highly on the art 
 he exhibited in adorning the persons of her sons ; and, 
 bestowing upon him a gigantic mantle, said that he, and he 
 alone, might be enabled to fit it to the shoulders of living 
 men. The rest of the poem was occupied in Mr. Snip's 
 unavailing attempts to adjust this mantle to the eminent 
 politicians of the day, when, just as he had sunk down in 
 despair, Britannia re-appeared to him, and consoled him 
 with the information that he had done all mortal man 
 could do, and that she had only desired to convince 
 pigmies that no human art could adjust to their propor- 
 tions the mantle of William Pitt. Sic itur ad astro, she 
 went back to the stars, mantle and all ! Mr. Snip was 
 exceedingly indignant at this allegorical effusion, and with 
 wrathful shears cut the tie between himself and his poet. 
 
 Thus, then, the reader has, we trust, a pretty good idea 
 of John Burley a specimen of his genus, not very common 
 in any age, and now happily almost extinct, since authors of 
 all degrees share in the general improvement in order, econ- 
 omy, and sober decorum, which has obtained in the national
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 443 
 
 manners. Mr. Prickett, though entering into less historical 
 detail than we have done, conveyed to Leonard a tolerably 
 accurate notion of the man, representing him as a person of 
 great powers and learning, who had thoroughly thrown him- 
 self away. 
 
 Leonard did not, however, see how much Mr. Burley 
 himself was to be blamed for his waste of life ; he could not 
 conceive a man of genius voluntarily seating himself at the 
 lowest step in the social ladder. He rather supposed he had 
 been thrust down there by Necessity. 
 
 And when Mr. Prickett, concluding, said, "Well, I should 
 think Burley would cure you of the desire to be an author 
 even more than Chatterton," the young man answered, 
 gloomily, " Perhaps," and turned to the book-shelves. 
 
 With Mr. Prickett's consent, Leonard was released earlier 
 than usual from his task, and a little before sunset he took his 
 way to Highgate. He was fortunately directed to take the 
 new road by the Regent's Park, and so on through a very 
 green and smiling country. The walk, the freshness of the 
 air, the songs of the birds, and, above all, when he had got 
 half-way, the solitude of the road, served to rouse him from 
 his stern and sombre meditations. And when. he came into 
 the lane overhung with chestnut trees, and suddenly caught 
 sight of Helen's watchful and then brightening face, as she 
 stood by the wicket and under the shadow of cool murmur- 
 ous boughs, the'blood rushed gaily through his veins, and 
 his heart beat loud and gratefully. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 SHE drew him into the garden with such true childlike joy. 
 
 Now behold them seated in the arbor a perfect bovver 
 of sweets and blossoms ; the wilderness of roof-tops and 
 spires stretching below, broad and far ; London seen dim 
 and silent, as in a dream. 
 
 She took his hat from his brows gently, and looked him 
 in the face with tearful, penetrating eyes. 
 
 She did not say, "You are changed." She said, "Why, 
 why did I leave you ?" and then turned awav. 
 
 " Never mind me, Helen. I am man, and rudely born 
 speak of yourself. This lady is kind to you then ? "
 
 444 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 " Does she not let me see you ? Oh ! very kind and 
 look here." 
 
 Helen pointed to fruits and cakes set out on the table. 
 "A feast, brother." 
 
 And she began to press her hospitality with pretty win- 
 ning ways, more playful than was usual to her, and talking 
 very fast, and with forced, but silvery, laughter. 
 
 By degrees she stole him from his gloom and reserve ; 
 and though he could not reveal to her the cause of his 
 bitterest sorrow, he owned that he had suffered much. He 
 would not have owned that to another living being. And 
 then, quickly turning from this brief confession, with assur- 
 ances that the worst was over, he sought to amuse her by 
 speaking of his new acquaintance with the perch-fisher. 
 But when he spoke of this man with a kind of reluctant ad- 
 miration, mixed with compassionate yet gloomy interest, and 
 drew a grotesque, though subdued, sketch of the wild scene 
 in which he had- been spectator, Helen grew alarmed and 
 grave. 
 
 " Oh, brother, do not go there again do not see more 
 of this bad man." 
 
 " Bad ! no ! Hopeless and unhappy, he has stooped to 
 stimulants and oblivion ; but you cannot understand these 
 things, my pretty preacher." 
 
 "Yes, I do, Leonard. What is the difference between 
 being good and bad ? The good do not yield to temptations, 
 and the bad do." 
 
 The definition was so simple and so wise, that Leonard 
 was more struck \vith it than he might have been by the 
 most elaborate sermon by Parson Dale. 
 
 " I have often murmured to myself, since I lost you, 
 ' Helen was my good angel;' say on. For my heart is 
 dark to myself, and while you speak light seems to dawn on 
 it." 
 
 This praise so confused Helen, that it was long before 
 she could obey the command annexed to it. But, by little 
 and little, words came to both more frankly. And then he 
 told her the sad tale of Chatterton, and waited, anxious to 
 hear her comments. 
 
 "Well," he said, seeing that she remained silent, "how 
 can /hope, when this mighty genius labored and despaired ? 
 What did he want, save birth and fortune, and friends, and 
 human justice ? " 
 
 " Did he pray to God?" asked Helen, drying her tears.
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 445 
 
 Again Leonard was startled. In reading the life of 
 Chatterton, he had not much noted the scepticism, assumed 
 or real, of the ill-fated aspirer to earthly immortality. At 
 Helen's question, that scepticism struck him forcibly. 
 
 <; Why do you ask that, Helen ? " 
 
 " Because, when we pray often, we grow so very, very 
 patient," answered the child'. " Perhaps, had he been pa- 
 tient a few months more, all would have been won by him, 
 as it will be by you, brother ; for you pray, and you will be 
 patient." 
 
 Leonard bowed his head in deep thought, and this time 
 the thought was not gloomy. Then out from that awful life 
 there glowed another passage, which before he had not 
 heeded duly, but regarded rather as one of the darkest mys- 
 teries in the fate of Chatterton. 
 
 At the very time the despairing poet had locked himself 
 up in his garret, to dismiss his soul from its earthly ordeal, 
 his genius had just found its way into the light of renown. 
 Good, and learned, and powerful men were preparing to 
 serve and save him. Another year nay, perchance another 
 month and he might have stood acknowledged and sublime 
 in the foremost rank of his age. 
 
 " Oh, Helen ! " cried Leonard, raising his brows from 
 which the cloud had passed, "why, indeed, did you leaveme ?" 
 
 Helen started in her turn as he repeated this regret, and 
 in her turn grew thoughtful. At length she asked him if he 
 had written for the box which had belonged to her father, 
 and been left at the inn. 
 
 And Leonard, though a little chafed at what he thought 
 a childish interruption to themes of greater interest, owned, 
 with self-reproach, that he had forgotten to do so. Should 
 he not write now to order the box to be sent to her at Miss 
 Starke's ? 
 
 " No ; let it be sent to you. Take care of it. I should 
 like to know that something of mine is with you ; and per- 
 haps I may not stay here long." 
 
 " Not stay here ? That you must, my dear Helen at 
 least as long as Miss Starke will keep you, and is kind. 
 By-and-by" (added Leonard, with something of his former 
 sanguine tone) " I may yet make my way, and we shall have 
 our cottage to ourselves. But Oh Helen ! I forgot you 
 wounded me ; you left your money with me. I only found 
 it in my drawers the other clay. Fie ! I have brought it 
 back."
 
 446 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 " It was not mine it is yours. We were to share to- 
 gether you paid all ; and how can I want it here, too ? " 
 
 But Leonard was obstinate ; and as Helen mournfully 
 received back all that of fortune her father had bequeathed 
 to her, a tall female figure stood at the entrance of the arbor, 
 and said, in a voice that scattered all sentiment to the winds 
 " Young man, it is time to go." 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. - 
 
 "ALREADY?" said Helen, with faltering accents as she 
 crept to Miss Starke's side, while Leonard rose and bowed. 
 " 1 am very grateful to you, madam," said he, with the grace 
 that comes from all refinement of idea, "for allowing me to 
 see Miss Helen. Do not let me abuse your kindness." 
 
 Miss Starke seemed struck with his look and manner, 
 and made a stiff half-curtsey. 
 
 A form more rigid than Miss Starke's it was hard to con- 
 ceive. She was like the Grim White Woman in the nursery 
 ballads. Yet, apparently, there was a good-nature in allow- 
 ing the stranger to enter her trim garden, and providing for 
 him and her little charge those fruits and cakes, which be- 
 lied her aspect. " May I go with him to the gate ? " 
 whispered Hel-en, as Leonard had already passed up the 
 path. 
 
 "You may, child ; but do not loiter. And then come 
 back, and lock up the cakes and cherries, or Patty will get 
 at them." 
 
 Helen ran after Leonard. 
 
 " Write to me, brother write to me ; and do not, do not 
 be friends with this man, who took you to that wicked, 
 wicked place." 
 
 "Oh, Helen, I go from you strong enough to brave 
 worse dangers than that," said Leonard, almost gaily. 
 
 They kissed each other at the little wicket gate, and 
 parted. 
 
 Leonard walked home under the summer moonlight, 
 and on entering his chamber looked first at his rose-tree, 
 The leaves of yesterday's flowers lay strewn around it ; but 
 the tree had put forth new buds. 
 
 "Nature ever restores," said the young man. He
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 447 
 
 paused a moment and added, " Is it that Nature is very 
 patient ? " 
 
 His sleep that night was not broken by the fearful 
 dreams he had lately known. He rose refreshed, and went 
 his way to his day's work not stealing along the less- 
 crowded paths, but, with a firm step, through the throng 
 of men. Be bold, adventurer thou hast more to suffer ! 
 Wilt thou sink ? I look into thy heart, and I cannot an- 
 swer. 
 
 NOTE ON HOMOEOPATHY. 
 
 A gentleman who practises Homoeopathy, and who rtjoices in the name 
 of Luther, has done me the honor to issue a pamphlet in grave vindication of 
 the art of Hahnemann from what he conceives to be the assault thereon per- 
 petrated in " My Novel." Luther the First, though as combative as Luther 
 the Second, did not waste his polemical vigor upon giants of his own making. 
 It is true that, though in "My Novel" Dr. Morgan is represented as an 
 able and warm-hearted man, there is a joke at his humors what then ? Do 
 I turn the art itself into ridicule ? As well might some dignitary of the 
 Church accuse me of satirizing his sacred profession, whenever the reader is 
 invited to smile at the expense of Parson Dale, or a country gentleman 
 take up his pen to clear the territorial class from participation in the preju- 
 dices assigned to. the Squire of Hazeldean. Nay, as well might some literary 
 allopathist address to me a homily on profaning the dignity of the College of 
 Physicians, by the irreverent portraiture of Dr. Dosewell. " My Novel " is 
 intended as a survey of varieties in English life, chiefly through the medium 
 of the prevailing humors in various modifications of character. Like other 
 enthusiasts, Dr. Morgan pushes his favorite idea into humorous extravagance 
 and must bear the penalty of a good-natured banter. If I were opposed 
 altogether to Homoeopathy, I should take a very different mode of dealing 
 with it ; and Dr. Morgan, instead of being represented as an experienced 
 practitioner in allopathy, converted to the homceopathical theory by honest 
 convictions, and redeeming his foibles by shrewd observation and disinter- 
 ested benevolence, would be drawn as an ignorant charlatan and a greedy 
 impostor. 
 
 But the fact is that, if I do not think Homoeopathy capable of all the 
 wonders ascribed to it by some of its professors, or the only scientific mode 
 of dealing with human infirmities, I sincerely believe that it is often resorted 
 to with very great benefit nay, I myself have frequently employed, and even 
 advised it, I opine, with advantage. And if it had done nothing else than 
 introduce many notable reforms in allopathical practice, it would be entitled 
 to the profound gratitude of all. with stomachs no longer over-irrigated by 
 the apothecary, and veins no longer under-drained by the phlebotomist. 
 
 But Dr. Luther assumes that I have no authority for the crotchets ascribed 
 to Dr. Morgan that it is monstrous in me to assert that Homoeopathy pro- 
 fes>es to have globules for the mind as well as the body, that I have evidently 
 only read some shallow catch- penny treatises on the subject, etc., etc. Un- 
 luckv Dr. Luther ! Does he profess to be a Homoeopathist, and yet forget 
 his JAHR ! Will he tell me that JAHR is not the great original manual of the 
 science the Blackstone of Homoeopathy ? And what says this master text-
 
 448 My NOVEL; OR, 
 
 book? I quote therefrom, not for the purpose only of justifying Dr. Morgan 
 and myself from the charges so inconsiderately brought against us by Dr. 
 I.uther, but also for the purpose of proving to the general leader, that Dr. 
 Morgan has full authority for prescribing CAUSTIC for tears, and AGARICUS 
 MUSCARIUS for the propensity to indulge in verse-making. Nay, I will add 
 that there is not a single prescription lor mental disturbance suggested by 
 Dr. Morgan for which, strange as it may seem to the uninitiated, he is not 
 warranted literally by that work by JAHR, which is the ground-work of all 
 homceopathicftl literature. Imprimis, O too oblivious Luther, does not JAHR 
 assign a large section of his manual to Moral Affections ? Open vol. iii. of 
 the Paris Edition, in 4 vols., 1850 go on to page 236. Dues not JAHR pre- 
 scribe ARSENIC for la Mclancohe noire. HELLEBORE for la hlelancolie 
 donee, and, with the nice distinction only known to homoeopathical philoso- 
 phy, GOLD for la Ale'lancolie religieuse ? If it be the patient's inclination to 
 rest silent, must he not take IGNATIA if he have a desire to drown himself, 
 should not the globule be PULSATILLA? 
 
 For /'// /minor (p. 246) is there no suggestion of ACONITE ? If that humor 
 is of the contemptuous character, like Dr. Luther's, is there no injunction to 
 try IPECACUANHA ? If it be " disposition ct faire des rcproches, a critiquer " 
 (to quarrel and criticise), does not JAHR give you O frowning Luther a 
 wide choice from BELLADONNA to VERATRIUM? Nsy, if it be in a close 
 apartment rather than the open air that the attack seizes you, should you not 
 ingurgitate a pin's head of platinum ? JAHR, JAHR ! O Dr. Luther, would 
 you have fallen into such a scrape, if you had consulted your JAHR ? 
 
 Turn to the same volume, p. 30, on Moral Emotions, is there not a glob- 
 ule for an Amour malheureux fora lover disappointed are there not HYOS: 
 IGN : PHOS-AC ? Nay, to sum up and clench the whole by the very proposi- 
 tion which I undertook to prove, does not JAHR. vol. iii., p, 255, recommend 
 AGARICUS for the disposition a faire des vers (to make verses), and more 
 than once or twice throughout the same volume, is not CAUSTIC the remedy, 
 by preference, for a tendency to shed tears, provided, of course, other symp- 
 toms invite its application ? 
 
 And, O Dr. Luther, do you mean to tell us that the enthusiast of an art, 
 to which this book, by JAHR, is an acknowledged text-book, may not, what- 
 ever the skill of the man or the excellence of the art, or the vnlue of the 
 text-book, incur every one of tiie extravagances imputed to Dr. Morgan, or 
 not freely lay himself open to the gall-less pleasantries of a writer in search of 
 the Humorous? 
 
 Dr. Morgan is represented as one of the earliest disciples of Hahnemann 
 in this country, and therefore likely, in the zeal of a tyro; and the passion of 
 a convert, aprnm consumere totum which Horatian elegancy our vernacu- 
 lar has debased into the familiar vulgarism, '' Go the whole hog." But even 
 in the present day, I assure Dr. Luther, and my readers generally, that I 
 have met, abroad, Homoeopathic physicians of considerable eminence, who 
 have seriously contended for the application of globules to the varieties of 
 mental affliction and human vicissitude ; who have solemnly declared that, 
 while the rest of the family have been plunged into despair at the death of its 
 head, one of the bereaved children resorting to Homoeopathy has been pre- 
 served from the depressing consequence of grief, and been as cheerful as usual ; 
 that a lover who meditated suicide at the perfidy of his beloved, has in ten 
 days been homoeopathically reduced into felicitous indifference ; and that 
 there are secrets in the science professed by Dr. Luther, that cannot be too 
 earnestly urged on his own attention, by which an irritable man may be taught 
 to control his temper, and a dull man to comprehend a joke.
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 449 
 
 BOOK SEVENTH. 
 
 INITIAL CHAPTER. 
 
 MR. CAXTON UPON COURAGE AND PATIENCE. 
 
 " WHAT is courage ? " said my Uncle Roland, rousing 
 himself from a reverie into which he had fallen, after the 
 sixth book in this history had been read to our family 
 circle. 
 
 " What is courage ? " he repeated more earnestly. " Is 
 it insensibility to fear ? That may be the mere accident of 
 constitution ; and, if so, there is no more merit in being 
 courageous than in being this table." 
 
 " I am very glad to hear you speak thus," observed Mr. 
 Caxton, "for I should not like to consider myself a coward ; 
 yet I am very sensible to fear in all dangers, bodily and 
 moral." 
 
 " La, Austin, how can you say so ? " cried my mother, fir- 
 ing up ; " was it not only last week that you faced the great 
 bull that was rushing after Blanche and the children?" 
 
 Blanche at that recollection stole to my father's chair, 
 and, hanging over his shoulder, kissed his forehead. 
 
 MR. CAXTON (sublimely unmoved by those flatteries), I 
 don't deny that I faced the bull, but I assert that I was hor- 
 ribly frightened. 
 
 ROLAND. The sense of honor which conquers fear is the 
 true courage of chivalry : you could not run away when 
 others were looking on no gentleman could. 
 
 MR. CAXTON. Fiddlededee ! It was not on my gentility 
 that I stood, Captain. I should have run fast enough, if it 
 had done any good. I stood upon my understanding. As 
 the bull could run faster than I could, the only chance of 
 escape was to make the brute as frightened as myself.
 
 450 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 BLANCHE. Ah, you did not think of that ; your only 
 thought was to save me and the children. 
 
 MR. CAXTON. Possibly, my dear very possibly I might 
 have been afraid for you too ; but I was very much afraid 
 for myself. However, luckily, I had the umbrella, and I 
 sprang it up and spread it forth in the animal's stupid eyes, 
 hurling at him simultaneously the biggest lines I could think 
 of in the First Chorus of the " Seven against Thebes." I 
 began with ELEDEMNAS PEDIOPLOKTUPOS ; and when I came 
 to the grand howl of 'Io>, iw, iw, iw, the beast stood appalled as 
 at the roar of a lion. I shall never forget his amazed snort 
 at the Greek. Then he kicked up his hind legs, and went 
 bolt through the gap in the hedge. Thus armed with 
 ^Eschylus and the umbrella, I remained master of the field : 
 but (continued Mr. Caxton, ingenuously) I should not like 
 to go through that half-minute again. 
 
 " No man would," said the Captain, kindly. " I should 
 be very sorry to face, a bull myself, even with a bigger um- 
 brella than yours, and even though I had ^Eschylus, and 
 Homer to boot, at my fingers' ends." 
 
 MR. CAXTON. You would not have minded if it had been 
 a Frenchman with a sword in his hand ? 
 
 CAPTAIN. Of course not. Rather liked it than other- 
 wise, he added, grimly. 
 
 MR. CAXTON. Yet many a Spanish matador, who doesn't 
 care a button for a bull, would take to his heels at the first 
 lunge en quart from a Frenchman. Therefore, in fact, if 
 courage be a matter of constitution, it is also a matter of 
 custom. We face calmly the dangers we are habituated to, 
 and recoil from those of which we have no familiar experi- 
 ence. I doubt if Marshal Turenne himself would have been 
 quite at his ease on the tight-rope ; and a rope-dancer, who 
 seems disposed to scale the heavens with Titanic temerity, 
 might possibly object to charge on a cannon. 
 
 CAPTAIN ROLAND. Still either this is not the courage I 
 mean, or it is another kind of it. I mean by courage that 
 which is the especial force and dignity of the human char- 
 acter, without which there is no reliance on principle, no 
 constancy in virtue a something, continued my uncle gal- 
 lantly, and with a half-bow toward my mother, which your 
 sex shares with our own. When the lover, for instance, 
 clasps the hand of his betrothed, and says, "Wilt thou be 
 true to me, in spite of absence and time, in spite of hazard 
 and fortune, though my foes malign me, though thy friends
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 451 
 
 may dissuade thee, and our lot in life may be rough and 
 rude?" and when the betrothed answers, U I will be true," 
 does not the lover trust to her courage as well as her love ? 
 
 "Admirably put, Roland," said my father. " But apropos 
 of what do you puzzle us with these queries on courage ?" 
 
 CAPTAIN ROLAND (with a slight blush). I was led to the 
 inquiry (though, perhaps, it may be frivolous to take so 
 much thought of what, no doubt, costs Pisistratus so little) 
 by the last chapters in my nephew's story. I see this poor 
 boy Leonard alone with his fallen hopes (though very irra- 
 tional they were), and his sense of shame. And I read his 
 heart, I dare say, better than Pisistratus does, for I could 
 feel like that boy if I had been in the same position ; and 
 conjecturing what he and thousands like him must go 
 through, I asked myself, " What can save him and them ? " 
 I answered, as a soldier would answer, "Courage !" Very 
 well. But pray, Austin, what is courage ? 
 
 MR. CAXTON (prudently backing out of a reply). Papce ! 
 Brother, since you have just complimented the ladies on that 
 quality, you had better address your question to them. 
 
 Blanche here leant both hands on my father's chair, and 
 said, looking down at first bashfully, but afterward warm- 
 ing with the subject, " Do you not think, sir, that little Helen 
 has already suggested, if not what is courage, what at least 
 is the real essence of all courage that endures and conquers, 
 that ennobles and hallows, and redeems ? Is it not PATIENCE, 
 father ? and that is why we women have a courage of our 
 own. Patience does not affect to be superior to fear, but at 
 least it never admits despair." 
 
 PISISTRATUS. Kissme, my Blanche, for you havecome near 
 to the truth which perplexed the soldier and puzzled the sage. 
 
 MR. CAXTON (tartly). If you mean me by the sage, I was 
 not puzzled at all. Heaven knows you do right to inculcate 
 patience it is a virtue very much required in your readers. 
 Nevertheless (added my father, softening with the enjoy- 
 ment of his joke) nevertheless Blanche and Helen are 
 quite right. Patience is the courage of the conqueror ; it 
 is the virtue, par excellence, of Man against Destiny of the 
 One against the World, and of the Soul against Matter. 
 Therefore this is the courage of the Gospel ; and its impor- 
 tance, in a social view its importance to races and institu- 
 tionscannot be too earnestly inculcated. What is it that 
 distinguishes the Anglo-Saxon from all other branches of 
 the human family, peoples deserts with his children, and
 
 452 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 consigns to them the heritage of rising worlds ? What but 
 his faculty to brave, to suffer, to endure the patience that 
 resists firmly, and innovates slowly. Compare him with the 
 Frenchman. The Frenchman has plenty of valor that 
 there is no denying ; but as for fortitude, he has not enough 
 to cover the point of a pin. He is ready to rush out of the 
 world if he is bitten by a flea. 
 
 CAPTAIN ROLAND. There was a case in the papers the 
 other day, Austin, of a Frenchman who actually did destroy 
 himself because he was so teased by the little creatures you 
 speak of. He left a paper on his table, saying that "life was 
 not worth having at the price of such torments." * 
 
 MR. CAXTON (solemnly). Sir, their whole^ political his- 
 tory, since the great meeting of the Tiers Etat, has been 
 the history of men who would rather go to the devil than 
 be bitten by a flea. It is the record of human impatience, 
 that seeks to force time, and expects to grow forests from 
 the spawn of a mushroom. Wherefore, running through 
 all extremes of constitutional experiment, when they are 
 nearest to democracy they are next door to a despot ; and 
 all they have really done is to destroy whatever consti- 
 tutes the foundation of every tolerable government. A 
 constitutional monarchy cannot exist without aristocracy, 
 nor a healthful republic endure with corruption of manners. 
 The cry of Equality is incompatible with Civilization, 
 which, of necessity, contrasts poverty with wealth and, in 
 short, whether it be an emperor or a mob f that is to rule, 
 Force is the sole hope of order, and the government is but 
 an army. 
 
 "Impress, O Pisistratus ! impress the value of patience 
 as regards man and men. You touch there on the kernel 
 of the social system the secret that fortifies the individual 
 and disciplines the million. I care not, for my part, if you 
 are tedious, so long as you are earnest. Be minute and de- 
 tailed. Let the real Human Life, in its war with Circum- 
 stance, stand out. Never mind if one can read you but 
 slowly better chance of being less quickly forgotten. 
 Patience, patience ! By the soul of Epictetus, your readers 
 shall set you an example ! " 
 
 * Fact. In a work by M. GIBERT, a celebrated French physician, on diseases of the skin, 
 he states that that minute troublesome kind of rash, known by the name of pmrigo, though 
 not dangerous in itself, has often driven the individual afflicted by it to suicide. I believe 
 that our more varying climate, and our more heating drinks and aliments, render this skin 
 complaint more common in England than in France, yet I doubt if nny Knglish physician 
 could state that it had ever driven one of his l-'nglisfi patients to suicide. 
 
 t Published more than a year before the date of the French empire under Louis Napoleon.
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 453 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 LEONARD had written twice to Mrs. Fairfield, twice to 
 Riccabocca, and once to Mr. Dale ; and the poor proud boy 
 could not bear to betray his humiliation. He wrote as 
 with cheerful spirits as if perfectly satisfied with his pros- 
 pects. He said that he was well employed, in the midst of 
 books, and that he had found kind friends. Then he turned 
 from himself to write about those whom he addressed, and 
 the affairs and interests of the quiet world wherein they 
 lived. He did not give his own address, nor that of Mr. 
 Prickett. He dated his letters from a small coffee-house 
 near the bookseller's, to which he occasionally went for his 
 simple meals. He had a motive in this. He did not desire 
 to be found out. Mr. Dale replied for himself and for Mrs. 
 Fairfield, to the epistles addressed to these two. Riccabocca 
 wrote also. Nothing could be more kind than the replies of 
 both. They came to Leonard in a very dark period in his 
 life, and they strengthened him in the noiseless battle with 
 despair. 
 
 If there be a good in the world that we do without know- 
 ing it, without conjecturing the effect it may have upon a 
 human soul, it is when we show kindness to the young in 
 the first barren foot-path up the mountain of life. 
 
 Leonard's face resumed its serenity in his intercourse 
 with his employer ; but he did not recover his boyish ingenu- 
 ous frankness. The under-currents flowed again pure from 
 the turbid soil and the splintered fragments uptorn from the 
 deep ; but they were still too strong and too rapid to allow 
 transparency to the surface. And now he stood in the sub- 
 lime world of books, still and earnest as a seer who invokes 
 the dead. And thus, face to face with knowledge, hourly 
 he discovered how little he knew. Mr. Prickett lent him 
 such works as he selected and asked to take home with him. 
 He spent whole nights in reading ; and no longer desulto- 
 rily. He read no more poetry, no more Lives of Poets. He 
 read what poets must read if they desire to be great Sapcre 
 principium et fons strict reasonings on the human mind : 
 the relations between motive and conduct, thought and ac- 
 tion, the grave and solemn truths of the past world ; anti-
 
 454 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 quities, history, philosophy. He was taken out of himself. 
 He was carried along the ocean of the universe. In that 
 ocean, O seeker, study the law of the tides ; and seeing 
 Chance nowhere Thought presiding over all, Fate, that 
 dread phantom, shall vanish from creation, and Providence 
 alone be visible in heaven and on earth ! 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THERE was to be a considerable book-sale at a country 
 house one day's journey from London. Mr. Prickett meant 
 to have attended it on his own behalf, and that of several 
 gentlemen who had given him commissions for purchase ; 
 but, on the morning fixed for his departure, he was seized 
 with a severe return of his old foe, the rheumatism. He 
 requested Leonard to attend instead of himself. Leonard 
 went, and was absent for the three days during which the 
 sale lasted. He returned late in the evening, and went at 
 once to Mr. Prickett's house. The shop was closed ; he 
 knocked at the private entrance ; a strange person opened 
 the door to him, and, in reply to his question if Mr. Prickett 
 was at home, said with a long and funereal face " Young 
 man, Mr. Prickett, senior, is gone to his long home, but 
 Mr. Richard Prickett will see you." 
 
 At this moment a very grave-looking man, with lank 
 hair, looked forth from the side-door communicating be- 
 tween the shop and the passage, and then stepped forward 
 " Come in, sir ; you are my late uncle's assistant, Mr. 
 Fairfield, I suppose ? " 
 
 " Your late uncle ! Heavens, sir, do I understand aright 
 can Mr. Prickett be dead since I left London ? " 
 
 " Died, sir, suddenly last night. It was an affection of 
 the heart. The doctor thinks the rheumatism attacked that 
 organ. He had small time to provide for his departure, and 
 his account-books seem in sad disorder ; I am his nephew 
 and executor." 
 
 Leonard had now followed the nephew into the shop. 
 There still burned the gas-lamp. The place seemed more 
 dingy and cavernous than before. Death always makes its 
 presence felt in the house it visits. 
 
 Leonard was greatly affected and yet more, perhaps,
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 455 
 
 by the utter want of feeling which the nephew exhibited. 
 In fact, the deceased had not been on friendly terms with 
 this person, his nearest relative and heir-at-law, who was 
 also a bookseller. 
 
 "You were engaged but by the week, I find, young 
 man, on reference to my late uncle's papers. He gave you 
 -\ a week a monstrous sum ! I shall not require your 
 services any further. I shall move these books to my own 
 house. You will be good enough to send me a list of those 
 you bought at the sale, and your account of travelling ex- 
 penses, etc. What may be due to you shall be sent to your 
 address. Good evening." 
 
 Leonard went home, shocked and saddened at the sud- 
 den death of his kind employer. He did not think much 
 of himself that night ! but, when he rose the next day, he 
 suddenly felt that the world of London lay before him, 
 without a friend, without a calling, without an occupation 
 for bread. 
 
 This time it was no fancied sorrow, no poetic dream 
 disappointed. Before him, gaunt and palpable, stood Fam- 
 ine. 
 
 Escape ! yes Back to the village ; his mother's cot- 
 tage ; the exile's garden ; the radishes and the fount. Why 
 could he not escape ? Ask why civilization cannot escape 
 its ills, and fly back to the wild and the wigwam. 
 
 Leonard could not have returned to the cottage, even if 
 the Famine that faced had already seized him with her 
 skeleton hand. London releases not so readily her fated 
 step-sons. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 ONE day three persons were standing before an old book- 
 stall in a passage leading from Oxford Street into Totten- 
 ham Court Road. Two were gentlemen ; the third, of the 
 class and appearance of those who more habitually halt at 
 old book-stalls. 
 
 "Look," said one of the gentlemen to the other, "I 
 have discovered here what I have searched for in vain the 
 last ten years the Horace of 1580, the Horace of the Forty 
 Commentators a perfect treasury of learning, and marked 
 only fourteen shillings ! "
 
 456 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 " Hush, Norreys," said the other, " and observe what is 
 yet more worth your study ;" and he pointed to the third 
 bystander, whose face, sharp and attenuated, was bent with 
 an absorbed, and, as it^were, with a hungering attention 
 over an old worm-eaten volume. 
 
 "What is the book, my lord?" whispered Mr. Norreys. 
 
 His companion smiled, and replied by another question, 
 " What is the man who reads the book ? " 
 
 Mr. Norreys moved a few paces, and looked over the 
 student's shoulder. " Preston's translation of BOETHIUS. 
 The Consolations of Philosophy" he said, coming back to his 
 friend. 
 
 " He looks as if he wanted all the consolations Philo- 
 sophy can give him, poor boy." 
 
 At this moment a fourth passenger paused at the book- 
 stall, and, recognizing the pale student, placed his hand 
 on his shoulder, and said, "Aha, young sir, we meet again. 
 So poor Prickett is dead. But you are still haunted by 
 associations. Books books magnets to which all iron 
 minds move insensibly. What is this ? BOETHIUS ! Ah, a 
 book written in prison, but a little time before the advent 
 of the only philosopher who solves to the simplest under- 
 standing every mystery of life " 
 
 " And that philosopher ? " 
 
 " Is Death ! " said Mr. Burley. " How can you be dull 
 enough to ask ? Poor Boethius, rich, nobly born, a consul, 
 his sons consuls the world one smile to the Last Philo- 
 sopher of Rome. Then suddenly, against this type of the 
 old world's departing WISDOM, stands frowning the new 
 world's grim genius, FORCE Theodoric the Ostrogoth con- 
 demning Boethius the Schoolman ; and Boethius, in his 
 Pavian dungeon, holding a dialogue with the shade of 
 Athenian Philosophy. It is the finest picture upon which 
 lingers the glimmering of the Western golden day, before 
 night rushes over time." 
 
 "And," said Mr. Norreys, abruptly, "Boethius comes 
 back to us with the faint gleam of returning light, translated 
 by Alfred the Great. And, again, as the sun of knowledge 
 bursts forth in all its splendor, by Queen Elizabeth. Boe- 
 thius influences us as we stand in this passage ; and that 
 is the best of all the Consolations of Philosophy eh, Mr. 
 Burley ? " 
 
 Mr. Burley turned and bowed. 
 
 The two men looked at each other ; you could not see a
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 457 
 
 greater contrast. Mr. Burley, in his gay green dress already 
 shabby and soiled, with a rent in the skirts, and his face 
 speaking of habitual night-cups. Mr. Norreys, neat and 
 somewhat precise in dress, with firm lean figure, and quiet, 
 collected, vigorous energy in his eye and aspect. 
 
 "If," replied Mr. Burley, "a poor devil like me may 
 argue with a gentleman who may command his own price 
 with the booksellers, I should say it is no consolation at all, 
 Mr. Norreys. And I should like to see any man of sense 
 accept the condition of Boethius in his prison, with some 
 strangler or headsman waiting behind the door, upon the 
 promised proviso that he should be translated, centuries 
 afterward, by Kings and Queens, and help indirectly to in- 
 fluence the minds of Northern barbarians, babbling about 
 him in an alley, jostled by passers-by who never heard the 
 name of Boethius, and who don't care a fig for philosophy. 
 Your servant, sir young man, come and talk." 
 
 Burley hooked his arm within Leonard's, and led the 
 boy passively away. 
 
 "That is a clever man," said Harley L'Estrange. " But 
 I am sorry to see yon young student, with his bright earnest 
 eyes, and his lip that has the quiver of passion and enthusi- 
 asm, leaning on the arm of a guide who seems disenchanted 
 of all that gives purpose to learning, and links philosophy 
 with use to the world. Who and what is this clever man 
 whom you call Burley ? " 
 
 " A man who might have been famous, if he had conde- 
 scended to be respectable ! The boy listening to us both so 
 attentively interested me too I should like to have the 
 making of him. But I must buy this Horace." 
 
 The shopman, lurking within his hole like a spider for 
 flies, was now called out. And when Mr. Norreys had 
 bought the Horace, and given an address where to send it, 
 Harley asked the shopman if he knew the young man who 
 had been reading Boethius. 
 
 "Only by sight. He has come here every day the last 
 week, and spends hours at the stall. When once he fastens 
 on a book, he reads it through." 
 
 " And never buys ?" said Mr. Norreys. 
 
 "Sir," said the shopman, with a good-natured smile, 
 " they who buy seldom read. The poor boy pays me two- 
 pence a day to read as long as he pleases. I would not take 
 it, but he is proud." 
 
 "I have known men nmass great learning in that way,"
 
 453 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 said Mr. Norreys. " Yes, I should like to have that boy in 
 my hands. And now, my lord, I am at your service, and 
 we will go to the studio of your artist." 
 
 The two gentlemen walked on toward one of the streets 
 out of Fitzroy Square. 
 
 In a few minutes more Harley L'Estrange was in his 
 element, seated carelessly on a deal table, smoking his cigar, 
 and discussing art with the gusto of a man who honestly 
 loved, and the taste of a man who thoroughly understood 
 it. The young artist, in his dressing-robe, adding slow 
 touch upon touch, paused often to listen the better. And 
 Henry Norreys, enjoying a brief respite from a life of great 
 labor, was gladly reminded of idle hours under rosy skies ; 
 for these three men had formed their friendship in Italy, 
 where the bands of friendship are woven by the hands of the 
 Graces. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 LEONARD and Mr. Burley walked on into the suburbs 
 round the north road from London, and Mr. Burley offered 
 to find literary employment for Leonard an offer eagerly 
 accepted. 
 
 Then they wen^ into a public-house by the way-side. 
 Burley demanded a private room, called for pen, ink, and 
 paper ; and placiftg these implements before Leonard, 
 said, " Write what you- please in prose, five sheets of letter- 
 paper, twenty-two lines to a page neither more nor less." 
 
 " I cannot write so." 
 
 "Tut, 'tis for bread." 
 
 The boy's face crimsoned. 
 
 " I must forget that," said he. 
 
 " There is an arbor in the garden, under a weeping ash," 
 returned Burley. " Go there, and fancy yourself in Ar- 
 cadia." 
 
 Leonard was to pleased to obey. He found out the 
 little arbor at one end of a deserted bowling-green. All 
 was still the hedge-row shut out the sight of the inn. The 
 sun lay warm on the grass, and glinted pleasantly through 
 the leaves of the ash. And Leonard there wrote the first 
 essay from his hand as Author by profession. What was it 
 that he wrote ? His dreamy impressions of London ? an
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 459 
 
 anathema on its streets, and its hearts of stone ? murmurs 
 against poverty ? dark elegies on fate ? 
 
 Oh no ! little knowest thou true genius, if thou askest 
 such questions, or thinkest that there, under the weeping 
 ash, the taskwork for bread was remembered ; or that the 
 sunbeam glinted but over the practical world, which, vul- 
 gar and sordid, lay around. Leonard wrote a fairy tale 
 one of the loveliest you can conceive, with a delicate touch 
 of playful humor in a style all flowered over with happy 
 fancies. He smiled as he wrote the last word he was 
 happy. In rather more than an hour Mr. Burley came to 
 him, and found him with that smile on his lips. 
 
 Mr. Burley had a glass of brandy-and- water in his hand ; 
 it was his third. He too smiled he too looked happy. He 
 read the paper aloud, and well. He was very complimen- 
 tary. "You will do! "said he, clapping Leonard on the 
 back. " Perhaps some day you will catch my one-eyed 
 perch." Then he folded up the MS., scribbled off a note, 
 put the whole in one envelope and they returned to 
 London. 
 
 Mr. Burley disappeared within a dingy office near Fleet 
 Street, on which was inscribed " Office of the Beehive" 
 and soon came forth with a golden sovereign in his hand 
 Leonard's first-fruits. Leonard thought Peru lay before 
 him. He accompanied Mr. Burley to that gentleman's 
 lodging in Maida Hill. The walk had been very long ; 
 Leonard was not fatigued. He listened with a livelier atten- 
 tion than before to Burley's talk. And when they reached 
 the apartments of the latter, and Mr. Burley sent to the 
 cookshop, and their joint supper was taken out of the golden 
 sovereign, Leonard felt proud, and for the first time for 
 weeks he laughed the heart's laugh. The two writers grew 
 more and more intimate and cordial. And .there was avast 
 deal in Burley by which any young man might be made 
 the wiser. There was no apparent evidence of poverty in 
 the apartments clean, new, well-furnished ; but all things 
 in the most horrible litter all speaking of the huge literary 
 sloven. 
 
 For several days Leonard almost lived in those rooms. 
 He wrote continuously save when Burley's conversation 
 fascinated him into idleness. Nay, it was not idleness 
 his knowledge grew larger as he listened ; but the cynicism 
 of the talker began slowly to work its way. That cynicism 
 in which there was no faith, no hope, no vivifying breath
 
 460 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 from Glory from Religion. The cynicism of the Epicu- 
 rean, more degraded in his sty than ever was Diogenes in 
 his tub ; and yet presented with such ease and such elo- 
 quence, with such art and such mirth, so adorned with 
 illustration and anecdote, so unconscious of debasement ! 
 Strange and dread philosophy that made it a maxim to 
 squander the gifts of mind on the mere care for matter, and 
 fit the soul to live but as from day to day, with its scornful 
 cry, " A fig for immortality and laurels ! " An author for 
 bread ! Oh, miserable calling ! was there something grand 
 and holy, after all, even in Chatterton's despair ? 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE villanous Beehive ! Bread was worked out of it, 
 certainly ; but fame, but hope for the future certainly not. 
 Milton's Paradise Lost would have perished without a sound, 
 had it appeared in the Beehive. 
 
 Fine things were there in a fragmentary crude state, 
 composed by Burley himself. At the end of a week they 
 were dead and forgotten never read by one man of educa- 
 tion and taste ; taken simultaneously and indifferently with 
 shallow politics and wretched essays, yet selling, perhaps, 
 twenty or thirty thousand copies an immense sale and 
 nothing got out of them but bread and brandy ! 
 
 "What more would you have?" cried John Burley. 
 " Did not stern old Sam Johnson say he could never write 
 but from want ? " 
 
 " He might say it," answered Leonard ; " but he never 
 meant posterity to believe him. And he w r ould have died 
 of want, I suspect, rather than have written Rassdas for 
 the Beehive! Want is a grand thing," continued the boy, 
 thoughtfully, "a parent of grand things. Necessity is 
 strong, and should give us its own strength ; but Want 
 should shatter asunder with its very writhings the walls of 
 our prison-house, and not sit contented with the allowance 
 the jail gives us in exchange for our work." 
 
 " There is no prison-house to a man who calls upon 
 Bacchus stay I will translate to you Schiller's Dithyramb. 
 ' Then see I Bacchus then up come Cupid and Phoebus, 
 and all the Celestials are filling my dwelling.' "
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 461 
 
 Breaking into impromptu careless rhymes, Burley threw 
 off a rude but spirited translation of that divine lyric. 
 
 " O materialist ! " cried the boy, with his bright eyes 
 suffused. " Schiller calls on the gods to take him to their 
 heaven with them ; and you would debase the gods to a 
 gin-palace." 
 
 " Ho, ho ! " cried Burley, with his giant laugh. " Drink, 
 and you will understand the Dithyramb." 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 SUDDENLY one morning, as Leonard sat with Burley, a 
 fashionable cabriolet, with a very handsome horse, stopped 
 at the door a loud knock a quick step on the stairs, 
 and Randal Leslie entered. Leonard recognized him, and 
 started. Randal glanced at him in surprise, and then, with 
 a tact that showed he had already learned to profit by 
 London life, after shaking hands with Burley, approached, 
 and said, with some successful attempt at ease, " Unless I 
 am not mistaken, sir, we have met before. If you remem- 
 ber me, I hope all boyish quarrels are forgotten ? " 
 
 Leonard bowed, and his heart was still good enough to 
 be softened. 
 
 " Where could you two ever have met ? " asked Burley. 
 
 " In a village green, and in single combat," answered 
 Randal, smiling; and he told the story of the Battle of the 
 Stocks, with a well-bred jest on himself. Burley laughed at 
 the story. " But," said he, when this laugh was over, "my 
 young friend had better have remained guardian of the 
 village stocks, than come to London in search of such 
 fortune as lies at the bottom of an ink-horn." 
 
 ' ; Ah," said Randal, with the secret contempt which men 
 elaborately cultivated are apt to feel for those who seek to 
 educate themselves " ah, you make literature your calling, 
 sir ? At what school did you conceive a taste for letters 
 not very common at our great public schools.'" 
 
 " I am at school now for the first time, " answered 
 Leonard, dryly. 
 
 " Experience is the best school-mistress," said Burley ; 
 "and that was the maxim of Goethe, who had book-learning 
 enough in all conscience."
 
 462 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 Randal slightly shrugged his shoulders, and, without 
 wasting another thought on Leonard, peasant-born and 
 self-taught, took his seat, and beg^in to talk to Burley upon 
 a political question, which made the then war-cry between 
 the two great Parliamentary parties. It was a subject in 
 which Burley showed much general knowledge ; and Ran- 
 dal, seeming to differ from him, drew forth alike his informa- 
 tion and his argumentative powers. The conversation lasted 
 more than an hour. 
 
 "I can't quite agree \vith you," said Randal, taking his 
 leave; "but you must allow me to call again will the 
 same hour to-morrow suit you ? " 
 
 " Yes," said Burley. 
 
 Away went the young man in his cabriolet. Leonard 
 watched him from the window. 
 
 For five days, consecutively, did Randal call and discuss 
 the question in all its bearings ; and Burley, after the 
 second day, got interested in the matter, looked up his 
 authorities refreshed his memory and even spent an hour 
 or two in the Library of the British Museum. 
 
 By the fifth day, Burley had really exhausted all that 
 could well be said on his side of the question. 
 
 Leonard, during these colloquies, had sat apart seem- 
 ingly absorbed in reading, and secretly stung by Randal's 
 disregard of his presence. For indeed that young man, in 
 his superb self-esteem, and in the absorption of his am- 
 bitious projects, scarce felt even curiosity as to Leonard's 
 rise above his earlier station, and looked on him as a mere 
 journeyman of Burley's. But the self-taught are keen and 
 quick observers. And Leonard had remarked that Randal 
 seemed more as one playing a part for some private purpose, 
 than arguing in earnest ; and that, when he rose and said, 
 " Mr. Burley, you have convinced me," it was not with the 
 modesty of a sincere reasoner, but the triumph of one who 
 has gained his end. But so struck, meanwhile, was our un- 
 heeded and silent listener, with Burley's power of general- 
 ization, and the wide surface over which his information 
 extended, that when Randal left the room the boy looked 
 at the slovenly purposeless man, and said aloud " True ; 
 knowledge is not power." 
 
 " Certainly not," said Burley, dryly "the weakest thing 
 in the world." 
 
 " Knowledge is power," muttered Randal Leslie, as, 
 with a smile on his lip, he drove from the door.
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 463 
 
 Not many days after this last interview there appeared a 
 short pamphlet ; anonymous, but one which made a great 
 impression on the town. It was on the subject discussed 
 between Randal and Hurley. It was quoted at great length 
 in the newspapers. And Burley started to his feet one 
 morning and exclaimed, " My own thoughts ! my very 
 words ! Who the devil is this pamphleteer ? " 
 
 Leonard took the newspaper from Burley's hand. The 
 most flattering encomiums preceded the extracts, and the 
 extracts were as stereotypes of Burley's talk. 
 
 " Can you doubt the author ? " cried Leonard, in deep 
 disgust and ingenuous scorn. " The young man who came 
 to steal your brains and turn your knowledge " 
 
 " Into power," interrupted Burley, with a laugh, but it 
 was a laugh of pain. " Well, ttiis was very mean ; I shall 
 tell him so when he comes." 
 
 " He will come no more," said Leonard. Nor did 
 Randal come again. But he sent Mr. Burley a copy of the 
 pamphlet with a polite note, saying, with candid but care- 
 less acknowledgment, that " he had profited much by Mr. 
 Burley's hints and remarks." 
 
 And now it was in all the papers, that the pamphlet 
 which had made so great a noise was by a very young 
 man, Mr. Audley Egerton's relation. And high hopes 
 were expressed respecting the future career of Mr. Randal 
 Leslie. 
 
 Burley still attempted to laugh, and still his pain was 
 visible. Leonard most cordially despised and hated Randal 
 Leslie, and his heart moved to Burley with noble but peril- 
 ous compassion. In his desire to soothe and comfort the 
 man whom he deemed cheated out of fame, he forgot the 
 caution he had hitherto imposed on himself, and yielded 
 more and more to the charm of that wasted intellect. He 
 accompanied Burley now to the haunts to which his friend 
 went to spend his evenings ; and more and more though 
 gradually and with many a recoil and self-rebuke there 
 crept over him the cynic's contempt for glory, and misera- 
 ble philosophy of debased content. 
 
 Randal had risen into grave repute upon the strength of 
 Burley's knowledge. But, had Burley written the pamphlet, 
 would the same repute have attended him? Certainly not. 
 Randal Leslie brought to that knowledge qualities all his own 
 a style, simple, strong, and logical ; a certain tone of good 
 society, and allusions to men and to parties that showed his
 
 464 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 connection with a cabinet minister, and proved that he had 
 profited no less by Egerton's talk than Burley's. 
 
 Had Burley written the pamphlet, it would have shown 
 more genius, it would have had humor and wit, but have 
 been so full of whims and quips, sins against taste, and 
 defects in earnestness, that it would have failed to create 
 any serious sensation. Here, then, there was something 
 else besides knowledge, by which knowledge became power. 
 Knowledge must not smell of the brandy-bottle. 
 
 Randal Leslie might be mean in his plagiarism, but he 
 turned the useless into use. And so far he was original. 
 
 But one's admiration, after all, rests where Leonard's 
 rested with the poor, riotous, lawless, big, fallen man. 
 
 Burley took himself off to the Brent, and fished again 
 for the one-eyed perch. Leonard accompanied him. His 
 feelings were indeed different from what they had been 
 when he had reclined under the old tree, and talked with 
 Helen of the future. But it was almost pathetic to see how 
 Burley's nature seemed to alter, as he strayed along the 
 banks of the rivulet, and discoursed of his own boyhood. The 
 man then seemed restored to something of the innocence 
 of the child. He cared, in truth, little for the perch, which 
 continued intractable, but he enjoyed the air and the sky, 
 the rustling grass and the murmuring waters. These ex- 
 cursions to the haunts of youth seemed to rebaptize him, 
 and then his eloquence took a pastoral character, and Isaac 
 Walton himself would have loved to hear him. But as he 
 got back into the smoke of the metropolis, and the gas- 
 lamps made him forget the ruddy sunset and the soft even- 
 ing star, the gross habits resumed their sway, and on he 
 went with his swaggering reckless step to the orgies in 
 which his abused intellect flamed forth, and then sank into 
 the socket quenched and rayless. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 HELEN was seized with profound and anxious sadness. 
 Leonard had been three or four times to see her, and each 
 time she saw a change in him that excited all her fears. He 
 seemed, it is true, more shrewd, more worldly-wise, more 
 fitted, it might be, for coarse daily life.; but, on the other
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 465 
 
 hand, the freshness and glory of his youth were waning 
 slowly. His aspirations dropped earthward. He had not 
 mastered the Practical, and moulded its uses with the strong- 
 hand of the Spiritual Architect, of the Ideal Builder ; the 
 Practical was overpowering himself. She grew pale when 
 he talked of Burley, and shuddered, poor little Helen ! when 
 she found he was daily and almost nightly in a companion- 
 ship which, with her native honest prudence, she saw so 
 unsuited to strengthen him in his struggles, and aid him 
 against temptation. She almost groaned when, pressing 
 him as to his pecuniary means, she found his old terror of 
 debt seemed fading away, and the solid healthful principles 
 he had taken from his village were loosening fast. Under 
 all, it is true, there was what a wiser and older person than 
 Helen would have hailed as the redeeming promise. But 
 that something was grief a sublime grief in his o\vn sense 
 .of falling in his own impotence against the Fate he had 
 provoked and coveted. The sublimity of that grief Helen 
 could not detect ; she saw only that it was grief, and she 
 grieved with it, letting it excuse every fault making her 
 more anxious to comfort, in order that she might save. 
 Even from the first, when Leonard had exclaimed, " Ah, 
 Helen, why did you ever leave me?" she had revolved the 
 idea of return to him ; and when in the boy's last visit he 
 told her that Burley, persecuted by duns, was about to fly 
 from his present lodgings, and take his abode with Leon- 
 ard in the room she had left vacant, all doubt was over. 
 She resolved to sacrifice the safety and shelter of the home 
 assured her. She resolved to come back and share Leon- 
 ard's penury and struggles, and save the old room, wherein 
 she had prayed for him, from the tempter's dangerous pres- 
 ence. Should she burden him ? No ; she had assisted her 
 father by many little female arts in needle and fancy work. 
 She had improved herself in these during her sojourn with 
 Miss Starke. She could bring her share to the common 
 stock. Possessed with this idea, she determined to realize 
 it before the day on which Leonard had told her Burley 
 was to move his quarters. Accordingly she rose very early 
 one morning ; she wrote a pretty and grateful note to Miss 
 Starke, who was fast asleep, left it on the table, and, before 
 any one was astir, stole from the house, her little bundle on 
 her arm. She lingered an instant at the garden-gate, with 
 a remorseful sentiment a feeling that she had ill-repaid 
 the cold and prim protection that Miss Starke had shown
 
 466 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 her. But sisterly love carried all before it. She closed the 
 gate with a sigh, and went on. 
 
 She arrived at the lodging-house before Leonard was 
 up, took possession of her old chamber, and presenting her- 
 self to Leonard, as he was about to go forth, said (story- 
 teller that she was), "I am sent away, brother, and I have 
 come to you to take care of me. Do not let us part again. 
 But you must be very cheerful and very happy, or I shall 
 think that I am sadly in your way." 
 
 Leonard at first did look cheerful, and even happy ; but 
 then he thought of Burley, and then of his own means of 
 supporting Helen, and was embarrassed, and began ques- 
 tioning her as to the possibility of reconciliation with Miss 
 Starke. And Helen said, gravely, " Impossible do not ask 
 it, and do not go near her." 
 
 Then Leonard thought she had been humbled and in- 
 sulted, and remembered that she was a gentleman's child, 
 and felt for her wounded pride he was so proud himself. 
 Yet still he was embarrassed. 
 
 " Shall I keep the purse again, Leonard ? " said Helen, 
 coaxingly. 
 
 "Alas !" replied Leonard, "the purse is empty." 
 
 "That is very naughty in' the purse," said Helen, "since 
 you put so much into it." 
 
 "1?" 
 
 " Did not you say that you made, at least, a guinea a week?" 
 
 "Yes ; but Burley takes the money ; and then, poor fel- 
 low ! as I owe all to him, I have not the heart to prevent 
 him spending it as he likes." 
 
 " Please, I wish you could settle the month's rent," said 
 the landlady, suddenly showing herself. She said it civilly, 
 but with firmness. 
 
 Leonard colored. "It shall be paid to-day." 
 
 Then he pressed his hat on his head, and putting Helen 
 gently aside, went forth. 
 
 " Speak to me in future, kind Mrs. Smedley,'' said Helen, 
 with the air of a housewife. " He is always in study, and 
 must not be disturbed." 
 
 The landlady a good woman, though she liked her 
 rent smiled benignly. She was fond of Helen, whom she 
 had known of old. 
 
 " I am so glad you are come back ; and perhaps now 
 the young man will not keep such late hours. I meant to 
 give him warning, but "
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 467 
 
 " But he will be a great man one of these days, and you 
 must bear with him now." And Helen kissed Mrs. Smedley, 
 and sent her away half inclined to cry. 
 
 Then Helen busied herself in the rooms. She found 
 her father's box, which had been duly forwarded. She re- 
 examined its contents, and wept, as she touched each 
 humble and pious relic. But her father's memory itself 
 thus seemed to give this home a sanction which the former 
 had not ; and she rose quietly, and began mechanically to 
 put things in order, sighing, as she saw all so neglected, 
 till she came to the rose-tree, and that alone showed heed 
 and care. " Dear Leonard ! " she murmured, and the srnile 
 resettled on her lips. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 NOTHING, perhaps, could have severed Leonard from 
 Burley but Helen's return to his care. It was impossible 
 for him, even had there been another room in the house 
 vacant (which there was not), to install this noisy, riotous 
 son of the Muse by Bacchus, talking at random, and smell- 
 ing of spirits, in the same dwelling with an innocent, deli- 
 cate, timid, female child. And Leonard could not leave her 
 alone all the twenty-four hours. She restored a home to 
 him, and imposed its duties. He therefore told Mr. Burley 
 that in future he should write and study in his own room, 
 and hinted, with many , blush, and as delicately as he 
 could, that it seemed to him that whatever he obtained from 
 his pen ought to be halved with Burley, to whose interest 
 he owed the employment, and from whose books or whose 
 knowledge he took what helped to maintain it ; but that 
 the other half, if his, he could no longer afford to spend 
 upon feasts or libations. He had another life to provide 
 for. 
 
 Burley pooh poohed the notion of taking half his 
 coadjutor's earning with much grandeur, but spoke very 
 fretfully of Leonard's sober appropriation of the other half; 
 and, though a good-natured, warm-hearted man, felt ex- 
 tremely indignant at the sudden interposition of poor 
 Helen. However, Leonard was firm ; and then Burley 
 grew sullen, and so they parted. But the rent was still to
 
 468 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 be paid. How ? Leonard for the first time thought of the 
 pawnbroker. He had clothes to spare, and Riccabocca's 
 watch. No ; that last he shrank from applying to such 
 base uses. 
 
 He went home at noon, and met Helen at the street-door. 
 She, too, had been out, and her soft cheek was rosy-red 
 with unwonted exercise and the sense of joy. She had 
 still preserved the few gold pieces which Leonard had taken 
 back to her on his first visit to Miss Starke's. She had now 
 gone out and bought wools and implements for work ; and 
 meanwhile she had paid the rent. 
 
 Leonard did not object to the work, but he blushed 
 deeply when he knew about the rent, and was very angry. 
 He paid back to her that night what she had advanced ; and 
 Helen wept silently at his pride, and wept more when she 
 saw the next day a woeful hiatus in his wardrobe. 
 
 But Leonard now worked at home, and worked reso- 
 lutely ; and Helen sat by his side, working too ; so that 
 next day, and the next, slipped peacefully away, and in the 
 evening of the second he asked her to walk out in the fields. 
 She sprang up joyously' at the invitation, when bang went 
 the door, and in reeled John Burley drunk ; and so 
 drunk ! 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 AND with Burley there reeled in another man a friend 
 of his a man who had been a wealthy trader and once well 
 to do, but who, unluckily, had literary tastes, and was 
 fond of hearing Burley talk. So, since he had known the 
 wit, his business had fallen from him, and he had passed 
 through the Bankrupt Court. A very shabby-looking dog 
 he was, indeed, and his nose was redder than Burley's. 
 
 John made a drunken dash at poor Helen. " So you 
 are the Pentheus in petticoats who defies Bacchus," cried 
 he ; and therewith he roared out a verse from Euripides. 
 Helen ran away, and Leonard interposed. 
 
 " For shame, Burley ! " 
 
 " He's drunk," said Mr. Douce, the bankrupt trader 
 "very drunk don't mind him. I say, sir, I hope we don't 
 intrude. Sit still, Burley, sit still, and talk, do that's a 
 good man. You should hear him ta ta talk, sir."
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 469 
 
 Leonard meanwhile had got Helen out of the room, into 
 her own, and begged her not to be alarmed, and keep the 
 door locked. He then returned to Burley, who had seated 
 himself on the bed, trying wondrous hard to keep himself 
 upright ; while Mr. Douce was striving to light a short pipe 
 that he carried in his button-hole without having filled it 
 and, naturally failing in that attempt, was now beginning 
 to weep. 
 
 Leonard was deeply shocked and revolted for Helen's 
 sake ; but it was hopeless to make Burley listen to reason. 
 And how could the boy turn out of his room the man to 
 Avhom he was under obligations ? 
 
 Meanwhile there smote upon Helen's shrinking ears loud 
 jarring talk and maudlin laughter, and cracked attempts at 
 jovial songs. Then she heard Mrs. Smedley in Leonard's 
 room, remonstrating ; and Burley's laugh was louder than 
 before, and Mrs. Smedley, who was a weak woman, evi- 
 dently got frightened, and was heard in precipitate retreat. 
 Long and loud talk recommenced, Burley's great voice pre- 
 dominant. Mr. Douce chiming in with hiccupy broken 
 treble. Hour after hour this lasted, for want of the drink 
 that would have brought it to a premature close. And 
 Burley gradually began to talk himself somewhat sober. 
 Then, Mr. Douce was heard descending the stairs, and 
 silence followed. At dawn, Leonard knocked at Helen's 
 door. She opened it at once, for she had not gone to bed. 
 
 " Helen," said he, very sadly, " you cannot continue 
 here. I must find out some proper home for you. This 
 man has served me when all London was friendless, and he 
 tells me that he has nowhere else to go that the bailiffs 
 are after him. He has now fallen asleep. I will go and 
 find you some lodging close at hand for I cannot expel him 
 who has protected me ; and yet you cannot be under the 
 same roof with him. My own good angel, I must lose 
 you." 
 
 He did not wait for her answer, but hurried down the 
 stairs. 
 
 The morning looked through the shutterless panes in 
 Leonard's garret, and the birds began to chirp from the 
 elm-tree, when Burley rose and shook himself, and stared 
 round. He could not quite make out where he was. He got 
 hold of the water-jug, which he emptied at three draughts, 
 and felt greatly refreshed. He then began to reconnoitre 
 the chamber looked at Leonard's MSS. peeped into the
 
 470 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 drawers wondered where the devil Leonard himself had 
 gone to and finally amused himself by throwing down the 
 fire-irons, ringing tho bell, and making all the noise he 
 could, in the hopes of attracting the attention of somebody 
 or other, and procuring himself his morning dram. 
 
 In the midst of this charivari the door opened softly, 
 but as if with a resolute hand, and the small quiet form of 
 Helen stood before the threshold. Burley turned round, 
 and the two looked at each other for some moments with 
 silent scrutiny. 
 
 BURLEY (composing his features into their most friendly 
 expression). Come hither, my dear. So you are the little 
 girl whom I saw with Leonard on the banks of the Brent, 
 and you have come back to live with him and I have come 
 to live with him too. You shall be our little housekeeper, 
 and I will tell you the story of Prince Prettyman, and a 
 great many others not to be found in Mother Goose. Mean- 
 while, my dear little girl, here's sixpence just run out and 
 change this for its worth in rum. 
 
 HELEN (coming slowly up to Mr. Burley, and still gazing 
 earnestly into his face). Ah, sir, Leonard says you have a 
 kind heart, and that you have served him he cannot ask 
 you to leave the house ; and so I, who have never served 
 him, am to go hence and live alone. 
 
 BURLEY (moved). You go, my little lady? and why ? 
 Can we not all live together ? 
 
 HELEN. No, sir. I left everything to come to Leonard, 
 for we had met first at my father's grave. But you rob me 
 of him, and I have no other friend on earth. 
 
 BURLEY (discomposed). Explain yourself. Why must 
 you leave him because I come ? 
 
 Helen looks at Mr. Burley again, long and wistfully, but 
 makes no answer. 
 
 BURLEY (with a gulp). Is it because he thinks I am not 
 fit company for you ? 
 
 Helen bowed her head. 
 
 Burley winced, and after a moment's pause, said " He 
 is right." 
 
 HELEN (obeying the impulse at her heart, springs for- 
 ward and takes Burley's hand). "Ah, sir," she cried, "be- 
 fore he knew you, he was so different ; then he was cheer- 
 ful then, even when his first disappointment came, I 
 grieved and wept ; but I felt he would conquer still for 
 his heart was so good and pure. Oh, sir, don't think I re-
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 471 
 
 proach you ; but what is to become of him if if No, it is 
 not for myself I speak. I know that if I was here, that if 
 he had me to care for, he would come home early and work 
 patiently and and that I might save him. But now 
 when I am gone, and you live with him you to whom he 
 is grateful, you whom he would follow against his own con- 
 science (you must see that, sir), what is to become of him ?" 
 
 Helen's voice died in sobs. 
 
 Burley took three or four long strides through the room ; 
 he was greatly agitated. "I am a demon," he murmured. 
 " I never saw it before but it is true I should be this 
 boy's ruin." Tears stood in his eyes, lie paused abruptly, 
 made a clutch at his hat, and turned to. the door. 
 
 Helen stopped the way, and taking him gently by the 
 arm, said " Oh, sir, forgive me I have pained you ; " and 
 looked up at him with a compassionate expression, that in- 
 deed made the child's sweet face as that of an angel. 
 
 Burley bent down as if to kiss her, and then drew back 
 perhaps with a sentiment that his lips were not worthy to 
 touch that innocent brow. 
 
 " If I had had a sister a child like you, little one," he 
 muttered, " perhaps I too might have been saved in time. 
 Now " 
 
 "Ah, now you may stay, sir ; I don't fear you anymore." 
 
 " No, no ; you would fear me again ere night-time, and 
 I might not be always in the right mood to listen to a voice 
 like yours, child. Your Leonard has a noble heart and rai'e 
 gifts. He should rise yet, and he shall. I will not drag him 
 into the mire. Good-bye you will see me no more." He 
 broke from Helen, cleared the stairs with a bound, and was 
 out of the house. 
 
 When Leonard returned, he was surprised to hear his 
 unwelcome guest was gone but Helen did not venture to 
 tell him of her interposition. She knew instinctively how 
 such officiousness would mortify and offend the pride of 
 man but she never again spoke harshly of poor Burley. 
 Leonard supposed that he should either see or hear of the 
 humorist in the course of the day. Finding he did not, he 
 went in search of him at his old haunts ; but no trace. He 
 inquired at the Beehive if they knew there of his new address, 
 but no tidings of Burley could be obtained. 
 
 As he came home disappointed and anxious, for he felt 
 uneasy as to the disappearance of his wild friend, Mrs. 
 Smedley met him at the -dour.
 
 472 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 " Please, sir, suit yourself with another lodging," said 
 she ; '' I can have no such singings and shoutings going on 
 at night in my house. And that poor little girl, too ! you 
 should be ashamed of yourself." 
 
 Leonard frowned, and passed by. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 MEANWHILE, on leaving Helen, Burley strode on ; and, 
 as if by some better instinct, for he was unconscious of his 
 own steps, he took the way toward the still green haunts of 
 his youth. When he paused at length, he was already be- 
 fore the door of a rural cottage, standing alone in the midst 
 of fields, with a little farm-yard at the back ; and far through 
 the trees in front was caught a glimpse of the winding 
 Brent. 
 
 With this cottage Burley was familiar ; it was inhabited 
 by a good old couple who had known him from a boy. 
 There he habitually left his rods and fishing-tackle ; there, 
 for intervals in his turbid, riotous life, he had sojourned 
 for two or three days together fancying the first day that 
 the country was a heaven, and convinced before the third 
 that it was a purgatory. 
 
 An old woman, of neat and tidy exterior, came forth to 
 greet him. 
 
 "Ah, Master John," said she, clasping his nerveless 
 hand "well, the fields be pleasant now I hope you are 
 come to stay a bit ? Do ; it will freshen you ; you lose all 
 the fine color you had once, in Lunnon town." 
 
 " I will stay with you, my kind friend," said Burley, with 
 unusal meekness " I can have the old room, then ? " 
 
 " Oh, yes, come and look at it. I never let it now to 
 any one but you never have let it since that dear beauti- 
 ful lady with the angel's face went away. Poor thing, 
 what could have become of her ? " 
 
 Thus speaking, while Burley listened not, the old 
 woman drew him within the cottage, and led him up the 
 stairs into a room that might have well become a better 
 house, for it was furnished with taste, and even elegance. 
 A small cabinet piano-forte stood opposite the fire-place, and 
 the window looked upon pleasant meads and tangled hedge-
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 473 
 
 rows, and the narrow windings of the blue rivulet. Burley 
 sank down exhausted, and gazed wistfully from the case- 
 ment. 
 
 "You have not breakfasted?" said the hostess, anx- 
 iously. 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Well, the eggs are fresh laid, and you would like a 
 rasher of bacon, Master John ? And if you will have 
 brandy in your tea, I have some that you left long ago in 
 your own bottle." 
 
 Burley shook his head. " No brandy, Mrs. Goodyer ; 
 only fresh milk. I will see whether I can yet coax Na- 
 ture." 
 
 Mrs. Goodyer did not know what was meant by coaxing 
 Nature, but she said, "Pray do, Master John," and van- 
 ished. 
 
 That day Burley went out with his rod, and he fished 
 hard for the one-eyed perch ; but in vain. Then he roved 
 along the stream with his hands in his pockets, whistling. 
 He returned to the cottage at sunset, partook of the fare 
 provided for him, abstained from the brandy, and felt 
 dreadfully low. He called for pen, ink, and paper, and 
 sought to write, but could not achieve two lines. He sum- 
 moned Mrs. Goodyer. " Tell your husband to come and sit 
 and talk." 
 
 Up came old Jacob Goodyer, and the great wit bade him 
 tell him all the news of the village. Jacob obeyed willingly, 
 and Burley at last fell asleep. The next day it was much 
 the same, only at dinner he had up the brandy-bottle, and 
 finished it ; and he did not have up Jacob, but he contrived 
 to write. 
 
 The third day it rained incessantly. " Have you no 
 books, Mrs. Goodyer?" asked poor John Burley. 
 
 " Oh, yes, some that the dear lady left behind her ; and 
 perhaps you would like to look at some papers in her own 
 writing ? " 
 
 " No, not the papers all women scribble, and all scrib- 
 ble the same things. Get me the books." 
 
 The books were brought up poetry and essays John 
 knew them by heart. He looked out on the rain, and at 
 evening the rain had ceased. He rushed to his hat, and 
 fled. 
 
 " Nature, Nature ! " he exclaimed, when he was out in 
 the air and hurrying by the dripping hedge-rows, ' you are
 
 474 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 not to be coaxed by me ! I have jilted you shamefully, I 
 own it ; you are a female, and unforgiving. I don't com- 
 plain. You may be very pretty, but you are the stupidest 
 and most tiresome companion that ever I met with. Thank 
 heaven, I am not married to you ! " 
 
 Thus John Burley made his way into town, and paused 
 at the first public-house. Out of that house he came with a 
 jovial air, and on he strode toward the heart of London. 
 Now he is in Leicester Square, and he gazes on the foreign- 
 ers who stalk that region, and hums a tune ; and now from 
 yonder alley two forms emerge, and dog his careless foot- 
 steps ; now through the maze of passages toward St. 
 Martin's he threads his path, and, anticipating an orgy as he 
 nears his favorite haunts, jingles the silver in his pockets; 
 and now the two forms are at his heels. 
 
 " Hail to thee, O Freedom !" muttered John Burley, "thy 
 dwelling is in cities, and thy palace is the tavern." 
 
 " In the king's name," quoth a gruff voice ; and John 
 Burley feels the horrid and familiar tap on the shoulder. 
 
 The two bailiffs who dogged have seized their prey. 
 
 " At whose suit ? " asked John Burley, falteringly. 
 
 "Mr. Cox, the wine-merchant." 
 
 " Cox ! A man to whom I gave a cheque on my banker's 
 not three months ago ! " 
 
 " But it warn't cashed." 
 
 "What does that signify? the intention was the same. 
 A good heart takes the will for the deed. Cox is a monster 
 of ingratitude, and I withdraw my custom." 
 - " Sarve him right. Would your honor like a jarvey ? " 
 
 " I would rather spend the money on something else," 
 said John Burley. "Give me your arm, I am not proud. 
 After all, thank heaven, I shall not sleep in the country." 
 
 And John Burley made a night of it in the Fleet. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 Miss STARKE was one of those ladies who pass their lives 
 in the direst of all civil strife war with their servants. She 
 looked upon the members of that class as the unrelenting 
 and sleepless enemies of the unfortunate householders con-
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 475 
 
 demned to employ them. She thought they ate and drank 
 to their villanous utmost, in order to ruin their benefactors 
 that they lived in one constant conspiracy with one another 
 and the tradesmen, the object of which was to cheat and 
 pilfer. Miss Starke was a miserable woman. As she had no 
 relations or friends who cared enough for her to share her 
 solitary struggle against her domestic foes ; and her income, 
 though easy, was an annuity that died with herself, thereby 
 reducing various nephews, nieces, or cousins, to the strict 
 bounds of a natural affection that did not exist ; and as she 
 felt the want of some friendly face amidst this world of dis- 
 trust and hate, so she had tried the resource of venal com- 
 panions. But the venal companions had never stayed long 
 either they disliked Miss Starke, or Miss Starke disliked 
 them. Therefore the poor woman had resolved upon bring- 
 ing up some little girl whose heart, as she said to herself, 
 would be fresh and uncorrupted, and from whom she might 
 expect gratitude. She had been contented, on the whole, 
 with Helen, and had meant to keep that child in her house 
 as long as she (Miss Starke) remained upon the earth per- 
 haps some thirty years longer ; and then, having carefully 
 secluded her from marriage, and other friendship, to leave 
 her nothing but the regret of having lost so kind a benefac- 
 tress. Conformably with this notion, and in order to secure 
 the affections of the child. Miss Starke had relaxed the frigid 
 austerity natural to her manner and mode of thought, and 
 been kind to Helen in an iron way. She had neither slapped 
 nor pinched her, neither had she starved. She had allowed 
 her to see Leonard, according to the agreement made with 
 Dr. Morgan, and had laid out tenpence on cakes, besides 
 contributing fruit from her garden for the first interview a 
 hospitality she did not think it fit to renew on subsequent 
 occasions. In return for this, she conceived she had pur- 
 chased the right to Helen bodily and spiritually, and nothing 
 could exceed her indignation when she rose one morning and 
 found the child had gone. As it never had occurred to her 
 to ask Leonard's address, though she suspected Helen had 
 gone to him, she was at a loss what to do, and remained for 
 twenty-four hours in a state of inane depression. But then 
 she began to miss the child so much that her energies woke, 
 and she persuaded herself that she was actuated by the purest 
 benevolence in trying to reclaim this poor creature from the 
 world into which Helen had thus rashly plunged. 
 
 Accordingly, she put an advertisement into the Times, to
 
 47 6 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 the following effect, literally imitated from one by which, in 
 former years, she had recovered a favorite Blenheim : 
 
 TWO GUINEAS REWARD. 
 
 STRAYED, from Ivy Cottage. Highgate, a Little Girl answers to the 
 name of Helen ; with blue eyes and brown hair ; white muslin frock, 
 and straw hat with blue ribbons. Whoever will bring the same to Ivy Cottage, 
 shall receive the above Reward. 
 
 A 7 ". B. Nothing more will be offered. 
 
 Now, it so happened that Mrs. Smedley had put an ad- 
 vertisement in the Times on her own account, relating to a 
 niece of hers who was coming from the country, and for 
 whom she desired to find a situation. So, contrary to her 
 usual habit, she sent for the newspaper, and, close by her 
 own advertisement, she saw Miss Starke's. 
 
 It was impossible that she could mistake the description 
 of Helen ; and, as this advertisement caught her eye the 
 very day after the whole house had been disturbed and 
 scandalized by Mr. Burley's noisy visit, and on which she 
 had resolved to get rid of a lodger who received such visitors, 
 the good-hearted woman was delighted to think that she 
 could restore Helen to some safe home. While thus think- 
 ing, Helen herself entered the kitchen where Mrs. Smedley 
 sat, and the landlady had the imprudence to point out the 
 advertisement, and talk, as she called it, " seriously " to the 
 little girl. 
 
 Helen in vain and with tears entreated her to take no 
 step in reply to the advertisement. Mrs. Smedley felt it 
 was an affair of duty, and was obdurate, and shortly after- 
 ward put on her bonnet and left the house. Helen con- 
 jectured that she was on her way to Miss Starke's, and her 
 whole soul was bent on flight. Leonard had gone to the 
 office of the Beehive with his MSS. ; but she packed up all 
 their joint effects, and just as she had done so, he returned. 
 She communicated the news of the advertisement, and said 
 she should be so miserable if compelled to go back to Miss 
 Starke's, and implored him so pathetically to save her from 
 such sorrow, that he at once assented to her proposal of 
 flight. Luckily, little was owing to the landlady that little 
 was left with the maid-servant ; and, profiting by Mrs. 
 Smedley's absence, they escaped without scene or conflict. 
 Their effects were taken by Leonard to a stand of hackney-
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 477 
 
 vehicles, and then left at a coach-office, while they went in 
 search of lodgings. It was wise to choose an entirely new 
 and remote district ; and before night they were settled in 
 an attic in Lambeth. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 As the reader will expect, no trace of Burley could 
 Leonard find ; the humorist had ceased to communicate 
 with the Beehive. But Leonard grieved for Burley's sake ; 
 and, indeed, he missed the intercourse of the large wrong 
 mind. But he settled down by degrees to the simple loving 
 society of his child-companion, and in that presence grew 
 more tranquil. The hours in the daytime that he did not 
 pass at work, he spent as before, picking up knowledge at 
 book-stalls ; and at dusk he and Helen would stroll out 
 sometimes striving to escape from the long suburbs into 
 fresh rural air, more often wandering to and fro the bridge 
 that led to glorious Westminster London's classic land 
 and watching the vague lamps reflected on the river. This 
 haunt suited the musing melancholy boy. He would stand 
 long and with wistful silence by the balustrade seating 
 Helen thereon, that she too might look along the dark 
 mournful waters which, dark though they be, still have their 
 charm of mysterious repose. 
 
 As the river flowed between the world of roofs, and the 
 roar of human passions on either side, so in those two hearts 
 flowed Thought and all they knew of London was its 
 shadow. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 THERE appeared in the Beehive certain very truculent 
 political papers papers very like the tracts in the Tinker's 
 bag. Leonard did not heed them much, but they made far 
 more sensation in the public that read the Beehive than 
 Leonard's papers, full of rare promise though the last were. 
 They greatly increased the sale of the periodical in the man- 
 ufacturing towns, and began to awake the drowsy vigilance
 
 478 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 of the Home Office. Suddenly a descent was made upon 
 the Beehive, and all its papers and plant. The editor saw 
 himself threatened with a criminal prosecution, and the cer- 
 tainty of two years' imprisonment ; he did not like the pros- 
 pect, and disappeared. One evening, when Leonard, un- 
 conscious of these mischances, arrived at the door of the 
 office, he found it closed. An agitated mob was before it, 
 and a voice that was not new to his ear was haranguing the 
 bystanders, with many imprecations against " tyrants." He 
 looked, and to his amaze, recognized in the orator Mr. 
 Sprott the Tinker. 
 
 The police came in numbers to disperse the crowd, and 
 Mr. Sprott prudently vanished. Leonard learned, then, 
 what had befallen, and again saw himself without employ- 
 ment and the means of bread. 
 
 Slowly he walked back. " O knowledge, knowledge ! 
 powerless, indeed ! " he murmured. 
 
 As he spoke thus, a handbill in large capitals met his 
 eyes on a dead wall " Wanted, a few smart young men for 
 India." 
 
 A crimp accosted him "You would make a fine soldier, 
 my man. You have stout limbs of your own." 
 
 Leonard moved on. 
 
 "It has come back, then, to this. Brute physical force 
 after all! O Mind, despair! O Peasant, be a machine 
 again ! " 
 
 He entered his attic noiselessly, and gazed upon Helen 
 as she sate at work, straining her eyes by the open window 
 with tender and deep compassion. She had not heard 
 him enter, nor was she aware of his presence. Patient and 
 still she sat, and the small fingers plied busily. He gazed, 
 and saw that her cheek was pale and hollow, and the hands 
 looked so thin ! His heart was deeply touched, and at that 
 moment he -had not one memory of the baffled Poet, one 
 thought that proclaimed the Egotist. 
 
 He approached her gently, laid his hand on her shoul- 
 der "Helen, put on your shawl and bonnet, and walk out 
 I have much to say." 
 
 In a few moments she was ready, and they took their 
 way to their favorite haunt upon the bridge. Pausing in 
 one of the recesses, or nooks, Leonard then began " Helen, 
 we must part." 
 
 "Part? Oh, brother!" 
 
 " Listen. All work that depends on mind is over for
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 479 
 
 me nothing remains but the labor of thews and sinews. I 
 cannot go back to my village and say to all, ' My hopes 
 were self-conceit, and my intellect a delusion ! ' I cannot. 
 Neither in this sordid city can I turn menial or porter. I 
 might be born to that drudgery, but my mind has, it may 
 be unhappily, raised me above my birth. What, then, shall 
 I do ? I know not yet serve as a soldier, or push my way 
 to some wilderness afar, as an emigrant, perhaps. But 
 whatever my choice, I must henceforth be alone ; I have a 
 home no more. But there is a home for you, Helen, a very 
 humble one (for you, too, so well born), but very safe the 
 roof of of my peasant mother. She will love you for my 
 sake, and and " 
 
 Helen clung to him trembling, and sobbed out, "Any- 
 thing, anything you will. But I can work ; I can make 
 money, Leonard. I do, indeed, make money you do not 
 know how much but enough for us both till better times 
 come to you. Do not let us part." 
 
 " And I a man, and born to labor, to be maintained by 
 the work of an infant ! No, Helen, do not so degrade me." 
 
 She drew back as she looked on his flushed brow, bowed 
 her head submissively, and murmured, "Pardon." 
 
 " Ah ! " said Helen, after a pause, " if now we could but 
 find my poor father's friend ! I never so much cared for it 
 before." 
 
 " Yes, he would surely provide for you. " 
 
 " For me ! " repeated Helen, in a tone of soft deep re- 
 proach, and she turned away her head to conceal her tears. 
 
 "You are sure you would remember him, if we met him 
 by chance ?" 
 
 " Oh yes. He was so different from all we see in this 
 terrible city, and his eyes were like yonder stars, so clear 
 and so bright ; yet the light seemed to come from afar off, 
 as ths light does in yours, when your thoughts are away 
 from all things round you. And then, too, his dog, whom 
 he called Nero I could not forget that." 
 
 " But his dog may not be always with him." 
 
 But the bright clear eyes are ! Ah, now you look up to 
 heaven, and yours seem to dream like his." 
 
 Leonard did not answer, for his thoughts were indeed 
 less on earth than struggling to pierce into that remote and 
 mysterious heaven. 
 
 Both were silent long ; the crowd passed them by un- 
 heedingly. Night deepened over the river, but the reflec-
 
 480 MY NOl'EL; OR, 
 
 tion of the lamp-lights on its waves was more visible than 
 that of the stars. The beams showed the darkness of the 
 strong current, and the craft that lay eastward on the tide, 
 with sail-less spectral masts and black dismal hulks, looked 
 death-like in their stillness. 
 
 Leonard looked down, and the thought of Chatterton's 
 grim suicide came back to his soul ; and a pale scornful 
 face, with luminous haunting eyes, seemed to look up from 
 the stream, and murmur from livid lips " Struggle no 
 more against the tides on the surface all is calm and rest 
 within the deep." 
 
 Starting in terror from the gloom of his reverie, the boy 
 began to talk fast to Helen, and tried to soothe her with 
 descriptions of the lowly home which he had offered. 
 
 He spoke of the light cares which she would participate 
 with his mother (for by that name he still called the widow), 
 and dwelt, with an eloquence that the contrast round him 
 made sincere and strong, on the happy rural life, the shadowy 
 woodlands, the rippling corn-fields, the solemn lone church- 
 spire soaring from the tranquil landscape. Flatteringly he 
 painted the flowery terraces of the Italian exile, and the 
 playful fountain that, even as he spoke, was flinging up its 
 spray to the stars, through serene air untroubled by the 
 smoke of cities, and untainted by the sinful sighs of men. 
 He promised her the love and protection of natures akin to 
 the happy scene ; the simple affectionate mother the gen- 
 tle pastor the exile wise and kind Violante, with dark 
 eyes full of the mystic thoughts that solitude calls from 
 childhood, Violante should be her companion. 
 
 "And, oh !" cried Helen, "if life be thus happy there, 
 return with me, return return ! " 
 
 " Alas ! " murmured the boy, " if the hammer once strike 
 the spark from the anvil, the spark must fly upward ; it 
 cannot fall back to earth until light has left it. Upward 
 still, Helen let me go upward still!" 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 THE next morning Helen was very ill so ill that, shortly 
 after rising, she was forced to creep back to bed. Her 
 frame shivered her eyes were heavy her hand burned like
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 481 
 
 fire. Fever had set in. Perhaps she might have caught 
 cold on the bridge perhaps her emotions had proved too 
 much for her frame. Leonard, in great alarm, called in the 
 nearest apothecary. The apothecary looked grave, and 
 said there was danger. And danger soon declared itself 
 Helen became delirious. For several days she lay in this 
 state, between life and death. Leonard then felt that all 
 the sorrows of earth are light, compared with the fear of 
 losing what we love. How valueless the envied laurel 
 seemed beside the dying rose. 
 
 Thanks, perhaps, more to his heed and tending than to 
 medical skill, she recovered sense at last immediate peril 
 was over. But she was very weak and reduced her ulti- 
 timate recovery doubtful convalescence, at best, likely to 
 be very slow. 
 
 But when she learned how long she had been thus ill, 
 she looked anxiously at Leonard's face as he bent over her, 
 and faltered forth, " Give me my work ; I am strong 
 enough for that now it would amuse me." 
 
 Leonard burst into tears. 
 
 Alas ! he had no work himself ; all their joint money had 
 melted away. The apothecary was not like good Dr. Mor- 
 gan ; the medicines were to be paid for and the rent. Two 
 days before, Leonard had pawned Riccabocca's watch ; and 
 when the last shilling thus raised was gone, how should he 
 support Helen ? Nevertheless he conquered his tears, and 
 assured her that he had employment ; and that so earnestly, 
 that she believed him, and sank into soft sleep. He listened 
 to her breathing, kissed her forehead, and left the room. 
 He turned into his own neighboring garret, and, leaning his 
 face on his hands, collected all his thoughts. 
 
 He must be a beggar at last. He must write to Mr. Dale 
 for money Mr. Dale, too, who knew the secret of his birth. 
 He would rather have begged of a stranger it seemed to 
 add a new dishonor to his mother's memory for the child to 
 beg of one who was acquainted with her shame. Had he 
 himself been the only one to want and to starve, he would 
 have sunk inch by inch into the grave of famine, before he 
 would have so subdued his pride. But Helen, there on that 
 bed Helen needing, for weeks perhaps, all support, and 
 illness making luxuries themselves like necessaries ! Beg 
 he must. And when he so resolved, had you but seen the 
 proud bitter soul he conquered, you would have said 
 " This, which he thinks is degradation this is heroism."
 
 482 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 Oh strange human heart ! no epic ever written achieves the 
 Sublime and the Beautiful which are graven, unread by 
 human eye, in thy secret leaves. Of whom else should he 
 bag? His mother had nothing, Riccabocca was poor, and 
 the stately Violante, who had exclaimed, " Would that I 
 were a man ! " he could not endure the thought that she 
 should pity him, and despise. The Avenels ! No thrice no. 
 He drew toward him hastily ink and paper, and wrote 
 rapid lines, that were wrung from him as from the bleeding 
 strings of life. 
 
 But the hour for the post had passed the letter must 
 wait till the next day ; and three days at least would elapse 
 before he could, receive an answer. He left the letter on 
 the table, and, stifling as for air, went forth. He crossed 
 the bridge he passed on mechanically and was borne 
 along by a crowd pressing toward the doors of Parliament. 
 A debate that excited popular interest was fixed for that even- 
 ing, and many bystanders collected in the street to see the 
 members pass to and fro, or hear what speakers had yet risen 
 to take part in the debate, or try to get orders for the gallery. 
 
 He halted amidst these loiterers, with no interest, indeed, 
 in common with them, but looking over their heads abstract- 
 edly toward the tall Funeral Abbey imperial Golgotha of 
 Poets, and Chiefs, and Kings. 
 
 Suddenly his attention was diverted to those around by 
 the sound of a name displeasingly known to him. " How 
 are you, Randal Leslie ? coming to hear the debate ? " said 
 a member, who was passing through the street. 
 
 " Yes ; Mr. Egerton promised to get me under the gal- 
 lery. He is to speak himself to-night, and I have never 
 heard him. As you are going into the House, will you re- 
 mind him of his promise to me ? " 
 
 " I can't now, for he is speaking already and well too. 
 I hurried from the Athenaeum, where I was dining, on pur- 
 pose to be in time, as I heard that his speech was making a 
 great effect." 
 
 " This is very unlucky," said Randal. " I had no idea he 
 would speak so early." 
 
 "C brought him up by a direct personal attack. 
 
 But follow me ; perhaps I can get you into the House ; and 
 a man like you, Leslie, from whom we expect great things 
 some day, I can tell you, should not miss any such oppor- 
 tunity of knowing what this House of ours is on a field 
 night. Come on ! "
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 483 
 
 The member hurried toward the door ; and as Randal 
 followed him, a bystander cried " That is the young man 
 who wrote the famous pamphlet Egerton's relation." 
 
 " Oh, indeed ! " said another. " Clever man, Egerton 
 I am Availing for him." 
 
 "So am I." 
 
 " Why, you are not a constituent as I am." 
 
 " No ; but he has been very kind to my nephew, and I 
 must thank him. You are a constituent he is an honor to 
 your town." 
 
 " So he is ; enlightened man ! " 
 
 " And so generous ! " 
 
 " Brings forward really good measures," quoth the poli- 
 tician. 
 
 " And clever young men," said the uncle. 
 
 Therewith one or two others joined in the praise of Aud- 
 ley Egerton, and many anecdotes of his liberality were told. 
 
 Leonard listened at first listlessly, at last with thought- 
 ful attention. He had heard Burley, too, speak highly of 
 this generous statesman, who, without pretending to genius 
 himself, appreciated it in others. He suddenly remem- 
 bered, too, that Egerton was half-brother to the Squire. 
 Vague notions of some appeal to this eminent person, not 
 for charity, but employment to his mind, gleamed across him 
 inexperienced boy that he yet was ! And while thus med- 
 itating, the door of the House opened, and out came Audley 
 Egerton himself. A partial cheering, followed by a gen- 
 eral murmur, apprised Leonard of the presence of the popu- 
 lar statesman. Egerton was caught hold of by some five or 
 six persons in succession ; a shake of the hand, a nod, a brief 
 whispered word or two, sufficed the practised member for 
 graceful escape ; and soon, freed from the crowd, his tall, 
 erect figure passed on, and turned toward the bridge. He 
 paused at the angle and took out his watch, looking at it by 
 the lamplight. 
 
 " Harlcy will be here soon," he muttered " he is always 
 punctual ; and now that I have spoken, I can give him an 
 hour or so. That is well." 
 
 As he replaced the watch in his pocket, and rebuttoned 
 his coat over his firm, broad chest, he lifted his eyes, and 
 saw a young man, standing before him. 
 
 " Do you want me ? " asked the statesman, with the direct 
 brevity of his practical character. 
 
 " Mr. Egerton," said the young man, with a voice that
 
 484 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 slightly trembled, and yet was manly amidst emotion, " you 
 have a great name, and great power I stand here in these 
 streets of London without a friend, and without employ- 
 ment. I believe that I have it in me to do some nobler work 
 than that of bodily labor, had I but one friend one opening 
 for my thoughts. And now I have said this, I scarcely know 
 how, or why, but from despair, and the sudden impulse 
 which that despair took from the praise that follows your 
 success I have nothing more to add." 
 
 Audley Egerton was silent for a moment, struck by the 
 tone and address of the stranger ; but the consummate and 
 wary man of the world, accustomed to all manner of strange 
 applications, and all varieties of imposture, quickly re- 
 covered from a passing and slight effect. 
 
 " Are you a native of ? " (naming the town which 
 
 the statesman represented.) 
 
 "No, sir." 
 
 " Well, young man, I am very sorry for you ; but the 
 good sense you must possess (for I judge of that by the 
 education you have evidently received) must tell you that a 
 public man, whatever be his patronage, has it too fully ab- 
 sorbed by claimants who have a right to demand it, to be 
 able to listen to strangers." 
 
 He paused a moment, and, as Leonard stood silent, 
 added, with more kindness than most public men so ac- 
 costed would have shown 
 
 "You say you are friendless ; poor fellow. In early 
 life that happens to many of us, who find friends enough 
 before the close. Be honest, and well-conducted ; lean on 
 yourself, not on strangers ; work with the body if you can't 
 with the mind ; and, believe me, that advice is all I can give 
 you, unless this trifle," and the minister held out a crown 
 piece. 
 
 Leonard bowed, shook his head sadly, and walked away. 
 Egerton looked after him with a slight pang. 
 
 " Pooh ! " said he to himself, "there must be thousands 
 in the same state in these streets of London. I cannot re- 
 dress the necessities of civilization. Well educated ! It is 
 not from ignorance henceforth that society will suffer it 
 is from over-educating the hungry thousands who, thus un- 
 fitted for manual toil, and with no career for mental, will 
 some day or other stand like that boy in our streets, and 
 puzzle wiser ministers than I am." 
 
 As Egerton thus mused, and passed on to the bridge, a
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 485 
 
 bugle-horn rang merrily from the box of a gay four-in- 
 hand. A drag-coach with superb blood-horses rattled over 
 the causeway, and in the driver Egerton recognized his 
 nephew Frank Hazeldean. 
 
 The young Guardsman was returning, with a lively party 
 of men, from dining at Greenwich ; and the careless laugh- 
 ter of these children of pleasure floated far over the still 
 water ; it vexed the ear of the careworn statesman sad, 
 perhaps, with all his greatness, lonely amidst all his crowd 
 of friends. It reminded him, perhaps, of his own youth, 
 when such parties and companionships were familiar to 
 him, though through them all he had borne an ambitious, 
 aspiring soul " Le jeu, -uaut-il la chandelle?" said he, shrug- 
 ging his shoulders. 
 
 The coach rolled rapidly past Leonard, as he stood lean- 
 ing against the corner of the bridge, and the mire of the 
 kennel splashed over him from the hoofs of the fiery horses. 
 The laughter smote on his ear more discordantly than on 
 the minister's, but it begot no envy. 
 
 " Life is a dark riddle," said he, smiting his breast. 
 
 And he walked slowly on, gained the recess where he 
 had stood several nights before with Helen, and, dizzy with 
 want of food, and worn out for want of sleep, he sank down 
 into the dark corner ; while the river that rolled under the 
 arch of stone muttered dirge-like in his ear as under the 
 social key-stone wails and rolls on for ever the mystery of 
 Human Discontent. Take comfort, O Thinker by the 
 stream ! 'Tis the river that founded and gave pomp to the 
 city ; and without the discontent, where were progress 
 what were Man ? Take comfort, O THINKER ! wherever the 
 stream over which thou bendest, or beside which thou sink- 
 est, weary and desolate, frets the arch that supports thee ; 
 never dream that, by destroying the bridge, thou canst 
 silence the moan of the wave ! 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 BEFORE a table, in the apartments appropriated to him 
 in his father's house at Knightsbridge, sat Lord L'Estrange, 
 sorting or destroying letters and papers an ordinary symp- 
 tom of change of residence. There are certain trifles by
 
 486 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 which a shrewd observer may judge of a man's disposition. 
 Thus, ranged on the table, with some elegance, but with 
 soldierlike precision, were sundry little relics of former 
 days, hallowed by some sentiment of memory, or perhaps 
 endeared solely by custom ; which, whether he was in 
 Egypt, Italy, or England, always made part of the furniture 
 of Harley's room. Even the small, old-fashioned, and some- 
 what inconvenient inkstand into which he dipped the pen 
 as he labelled the letters he put aside belonging to the writ- 
 ing-desk which had been his pride as a schoolboy. Even 
 the books that lay scattered round were not new works, not 
 those to which we turn to satisfy the curiosity of an hour, 
 or to distract our graver thoughts ; they were chiefly either 
 Latin or Italian poets, with many a pencil-mark on the 
 margin ; or books which, making severe demand on thought, 
 require slow and frequent perusal, and become companions. 
 Somehow or other, in remarking that even in dumb, inani- 
 mate things, the man was averse to change, and had the 
 habit of attaching himself to whatever was connected with 
 old associations, you might guess that he clung with perti- 
 nacity to affections more important, and you could better 
 comprehend the freshness of his friendship for one so dis- 
 similar in pursuits and character as Audley Egerton. An 
 affection once admitted into the heart of Harley L'Estrange, 
 seemed never to be questioned or reasoned with ; it became 
 tacitly fixed, as it were, into his own nature ; and little less 
 than a revolution of his whole system could dislodge or dis- 
 turb it. 
 
 Lord L'Estrange's hand rested now upon a letter in a 
 stiff, legible Italian character ; and instead of disposing of 
 it at once as he had done with the rest, he spread it before 
 him, and re-read the contents. It was a letter from Ricca- 
 bocca, received a few weeks since, and ran thus : 
 
 Letter from Signor Riccabocca to Lord L'Estrange. 
 
 " I thank you, my noble friend, for judging of me with 
 faith in my honor, and respect for my reverses. 
 
 " No, and thrice no, to all concessions, all overtures, all 
 treaty with Giulio Franzini. I write the name, and my 
 emotions choke me. I must pause, and cool back into dis- 
 dain. It is over. Pass from that subject. But you have 
 alarmed me. This sister! I have not seen her since her 
 childhood ; but she was brought up under his influence
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 487 
 
 she can but work as his agent. She wish to learn my resi- 
 dence ! It can be but for some hostile and malignant pur- 
 pose. I may trust in you I know that. You say I may 
 trust equally in the discretion of your friend. Pardon me 
 my confidence is not so elastic. A word may give the clue 
 to my retreat. But, if discovered, what harm can ensue ? 
 An English roof protects me from Austrian despotism, true; 
 but not the brazen tower of Danae could protect me from 
 Italian craft. And, were there nothing worse, it would be 
 intolerable to me to live under the eyes of a relentless spy. 
 Truly saith our proverb, * He sleeps ill whom the enemy 
 wakes.' Look you, my friend, I have done with my old 
 life I wish to cast it from me as a snake its skin. I have 
 denied myself all that exiles deem consolation. No pity for 
 misfortune, no messages from sympathizing friendship, no 
 news from a lost and bereaved country, follow me to my 
 hearth under the skies of the stranger. From all these I 
 have voluntarily cut myself off. I am as dead to the life I 
 once lived as if the Styx rolled between // and me. With 
 that sternness which is admissible only to the afflicted, I 
 have denied myself even the consolation of your visits. 
 I have told you fairly and simply that your presence would 
 unsettle all my enforced and infirm philosophy, and remind 
 rne only of the past, which I seek to blot from remembrance. 
 You have complied on the one condition, that whenever I 
 really want your aid I will ask it ; and, meanwhile, you 
 have generously sought to obtain me justice from the cabi- 
 nets of ministers and in the courts of kings. I did not re- 
 fuse your heart this luxury ; for I have a child (Ah ! I have 
 taught that child already to revere your name, and in her 
 prayers it is not forgotten). But now that you are con- 
 vinced that even your zeal is unavailing, I ask you to dis- 
 continue attempts which may but bring the spy upon my 
 track, and involve me in new misfortunes. Believe me, O 
 brilliant Englishman, that I am satisfied and contented 
 with my lot. I arU sure it would not be for my happiness 
 to change it, 'Chi non ha provato il male non conosce il 
 bene.' (One does not know when one is well off till one 
 has known misfortune.) You ask me how I live I answer 
 alia giornata (to the day), not for the morrow, as I did 
 once. I have accustomed myself to the calm existence of 
 a village. I take interest in its details. There is my wife, 
 good creature, sitting opposite to me, never asking what I 
 write, or to whom, but ready to throw aside her work and
 
 488 MY NOVEL; Off, 
 
 talk the moment the pen is out of my hand. Talk and 
 what about ? Heaven knows ! But I would rather hear 
 that talk, though on the affairs of a hamlet, than babble 
 again with recreant nobles and blundering professors about 
 commonwealths and constitutions. When I want to see 
 how little those last influence the happiness of wise men, 
 have I not Machiavelli and Thucydides ? Then, by and by, 
 the Parson will drop in, and we argue. He never knows 
 when he is beaten, so the argument is everlasting. On fine 
 days I ramble out by a winding rill with my Violante, or 
 stroll to my friend the Squire's, and see how healthful a 
 thing is true pleasure ; and on wet days I shut myself up 
 and mope, perhaps, till, hark ! a gentle tap at the door, and 
 in comes Violante, witli her dark eyes, that shine out 
 through reproachful tears reproachful that I should mourn 
 alone, while she is under my roof so she puts her arms 
 around me, and in five minutes all is sunshine within. 
 What care we for your English gray clouds without ? " 
 
 " Leave me, my dear Lord leave me to this quiet happy 
 passage toward old age, serenerthan the youth that I wasted 
 so wildly ; and guard well the secret on which my happiness 
 depends. 
 
 " Now to yourself, before I close. Of that same yourself 
 you speak too little, as of me too much. But I so well 
 comprehend the profound melancholy that lies beneath the 
 wild and fanciful humor with which you but suggest, as in 
 sport, what you feel so in earnest. The laborious solitude 
 of cities weighs on you. You are flying back to the dolce 
 far niente to friends few, but intimate ; to life monotonous, 
 but unrestrained ; and even there the sense of loneliness will 
 again seize upon you ; and you do not seek, as I do, the 
 annihilation of memory ; your dead passions are turned to 
 ghosts that haunt you, and unfit you for the living world. I 
 see it all I see it still, in your hurried, fantastic lines, as I 
 saw it when we two sat amidst the pines and beheld the blue 
 lake stretched below ; I troubled by tfte shadow of the 
 Future, you disturbed by that of the Past. 
 
 "Well, but you say, half seriously, half in jest, 'I will 
 escape from this prison-house of memory ; I will form new 
 ties, like other men, and before it be too late ; I will marry 
 Ay, but I must love there is the difficulty' difficulty 
 yes, and Heaven be thanked for it ! Recall all the unhappy 
 marriages that have come to your knowledge pray have not 
 eighteen out of twenty been marriages for love ? It always
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE, 489 
 
 has been so, and it always will. Because, whenever we love 
 deeply, we exact so much and forgive so little. Be content 
 to find some one with whom your hearth and your honor 
 are safe. You will grow to love what never wounds your 
 heart you will soon grow out of love with what must 
 always disappoint your imagination. Coi>petto ! I wish my 
 Jemima had a younger sister for you. Yet it was with a 
 deep groan that I settled myself to a Jemima. 
 
 " Now, I have written you a long letter, to prove how 
 little I need of your compassion or your zeal. Once more 
 let there be long silence between us. It is not easy for me 
 to correspond with a man of your rank, and not incur the 
 curious gossip of my still little pool of a world which the 
 splash of a pebble can break into circles. I must take this 
 over to a post-town some ten miles off, and drop it into the 
 box by stealth. 
 
 "Adieu, dear and noble friend, gentlest heart and subt- 
 lest fancy that I have met in my walk through life. Adieu. 
 Write me word when you have abandoned a day-dream and 
 found a Jemima. 
 
 " ALPHONSO. 
 
 " P.S. For heaven's sake, caution and recaution your 
 friend the minister not to drop a word to this woman that 
 may betray my hiding-place." 
 
 " Is he really happy ? " murmured Harley, as he closed 
 the letter ; and he sank for a few moments into a reverie. 
 
 " This life in a village this wife in a lady who puts down 
 her work to talk about villagers what a contrast to Audley's 
 full existence! And I cannot envy nor comprehend either 
 yet my own existence what is it ? " 
 
 He rose, and moved toward the window, from which a 
 rustic stair descended to a green lawn studded with larger 
 trees than are often found in the grounds of a suburban 
 residence. There were calm and coolness in the sight, and 
 one could scarcely have supposed that London lay so near. 
 
 The door opened softly, and a lady past middle age 
 entered ; and approaching Harley, as he still stood musing 
 by the window, laid her hand on his shoulder. What char- 
 acter there is in a hand ! Hers was a hand that Titian 
 would have painted with elaborate care ! Thin, white, and 
 delicate with the blue veins raised from the surface. Yet 
 there was something more than mere patrician elegance in 
 
 21*
 
 490 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 the form and texture. A true physiologist would have said 
 at once, " There are intellect and pride in that hand, which 
 seems to fix a hold where it rests ; and lying so lightly, yet 
 will not be as lightly shaken off." 
 
 " Harley," said the lady and Harley turned "you do 
 not deceive me by that smile," she continued, sadly ; "you 
 were not smiling when I entered." 
 
 " It is rarely that we smile to ourselves, my dear mother ; 
 and I have done nothing lately so foolish as to cause me to 
 smile at myself." 
 
 "My son," said Lady Lansmere, somewhat abruptly, but 
 with great earnestness, "you come from a line of illustrious 
 ancestors ; and methinks they ask from their tombs why the 
 last of their race has no aim and no object no interest no 
 home in the land which they served, and which rewarded 
 them with its honors." 
 
 " Mother," said the soldier, simply, " when the land was 
 in danger, I served it as my forefathers served and my 
 answer would be the scars on my breast." 
 
 " Is it only in danger that a country is served only in 
 war that duty is fulfilled ? Do you think that your father, 
 in his plain manly life of country gentleman, does not fulfil, 
 though perhaps too obscurely, the objects for which aristo- 
 cracy is created, and wealth is bestowed ? " 
 
 " Doubtless he does, ma'am and better than his vagrant 
 son ever can." 
 
 "Yet his vagrant son has received such gifts from nature 
 his youth was so rich in promise his boyhood so glowed 
 at the dream of glory ! 
 
 "Ay," said Harley, very softly, "it is possible and all 
 to be buried in a single grave ! " 
 
 The Countess started, and withdrew her hand from Har- 
 ley's shoulder. 
 
 Lady Lansmere's countenance was not one that much 
 varied in expression. She had in this, as in her cast of fea- 
 ture, little resemblance to her son. 
 
 Her features were slightly aquiline the eyebrows of 
 that arch which gives a certain majesty to the aspect ; the 
 lines round the mouth were habitually rigid and compressed. 
 Her face was that of one who had gone through great emo- 
 tion and subdued it. There was something formal, and even 
 ascetic, in the character of her beauty, which was still consider- 
 able in her air and in her dress. She might have suggested 
 to you the idea of some Gothic baroness of old, half chate-
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 491 
 
 laine, half abbess ; you would see at a glance that she did 
 not live in the light world around her, and disdained its 
 fashion and its mode of thought ; yet with all this rigidity 
 it was still the face of the woman who has known human 
 ties and human affections. And now, as she gazed long on 
 Harley's quiet, saddened brow, it was the face of a mother. 
 
 " A single grave," she said, after a long pause. "And 
 you were then but a boy, Harley ! Can such a memory 
 influence you even to this day ! It is scarcely possible ; it 
 does not seem to me within the realities of man's life 
 though it might be of woman's." 
 
 " I believe," said Harley, half soliloquizing, " that I have 
 a great deal of the woman in me. Perhaps men who live 
 much alone, and care not for men's objects, do grow tena- 
 cious of impressions, as your sex does. But oh," he cried, 
 aloud, and with a sudden change of countenance, " oh, the 
 hardest and the coldest man would have felt as I do, had he 
 known her had he loved her. She was like no other 
 woman I have ever met. Bright and' glorious creature of 
 another sphere. She descended on this earth, and darkened 
 it when she passed away. It is no use striving. Mother, I 
 have as much courage as our steel-clad fathers ever had. I 
 have dared in battle and in deserts against majn and the 
 wild beast against the storm and the ocean against the 
 rude powers of Nature dangers as dread as ever pilgrim or 
 Crusader rejoiced to brave. But courage against that one 
 memory ! no, I have none ! " 
 
 " Harley, Harley, you break my heart ! " cried the 
 Countess, clasping her hands. 
 
 " It is astonishing," continued her son, so wrapped in 
 his own thoughts that he did not, perhaps, hear her outcry. 
 " Yea, verily, it is astonishing that, considering the thousands 
 of women I have seen and spoken with, I never see a face 
 like hers never hear a voice so sweet. And all this uni- 
 verse of life cannot afford me one look and one tone that 
 can restore me to man's privilege love. Well, well, well, 
 life has other things yet Poetry and Art live still still 
 smiles the heaven, and still wave the trees. Leave me to 
 happiness in my own way." 
 
 The Countess was about to reply, when the door was 
 thrown hastily open, and Lord Lansmere walked in. 
 
 The Earl was some years older than the Countess, but 
 his placid face showed less wear and tear a benevolent, 
 kindly face, without any evidence of commanding intellect,
 
 492 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 but with no lack of sense in its pleasant lines. His form not 
 tall, but upright, and with an air of consequence a little 
 pompous, but good-humoredly so. The pomposity of the 
 grand seigneur, who has lived much in provinces whose 
 will has been rarely disputed, and whose importance has 
 been so felt and acknowledged as to react insensibly on him- 
 self ; an excellent man ; but when you glanced toward the 
 high brow and dark eye of the Countess, you marvelled a 
 little how the two had come together, and, according to 
 common report, lived so happily in the union. 
 
 " Ho, ho ! my dear Harley," cried Lord Lansmere, rub- 
 bing his hands with an appearance of much satisfaction, " I 
 have just been paying a visit to the Duchess." 
 
 " What duchess, my dear father ? " 
 
 " Why, your mother's first-cousin, to be sure the 
 Duchess of Knaresborough, whom, to oblige me, you con- 
 descended to call upon ; and delighted I am to hear that 
 you admire Lady Mary 
 
 " She is very high-bred, and rather high-nosed," ans- 
 wered Harley. Then, observing that his mother looked 
 pained, and his father disconcerted, he added seriously, 
 " But handsome, certainly." 
 
 "Well, Harley," said the Earl, recovering himself, "the 
 Duchess, taking advantage of our connection to speak 
 freely, has intimated to me that Lady Mary has been no 
 less struck with yourself ; and, to come to the point, since 
 you allow that it is time you should think of marrying, I do 
 not know a more desirable alliance. What do you say, 
 Catherine ? " 
 
 " The Duke is of a family that ranks in history before 
 the Wars of the Roses," said Lady Lansmere, with an air 
 of deference to her husband ; " and there has never been 
 one scandal in its annals, nor one blot in its scutcheon. 
 But I am sure my dear Lord must think that the Duchess 
 should not have made the first overture even to a friend 
 and a kinsman ? " 
 
 "Why, we are old-fashioned people," said the Earl, 
 rather embarrassed, " and the Duchess is a woman of the 
 world." 
 
 " Let us hope," said the Countess, mildly, " that her 
 daughter is not." 
 
 " I would not marry Lady Mary, if all the rest of the 
 female sex were turned into apes," said Lord L' Estrange, 
 with deliberate fervor.
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 493 
 
 " Good heavens !" cried the Earl, "what extraordinary 
 language is this ? And pray why, sir ? " 
 
 HARLEY. I can't say there is no why in these cases. 
 But, my dear father, you are not keeping faith with me. 
 
 LORD LANSMERE. How ? 
 
 HARLEY. You and my Lady here entreat me to marry ; 
 I promise to do my best to obey you ; but on one condition 
 that I choose for myself, and take my time about it. 
 Agreed on both sides. Whereon, off goes your Lordship 
 actually before noon, at an hour when no lady, without a 
 shudder, could think of cold blonde and damp orange-flow- 
 ers off goes your Lordship, I say, and commits poor Lady 
 Mary and your unworthy son to a mutual admiration 
 which neither of us ever felt. Pardon me, my father, but 
 this is grave. Again let me claim your promise full choice 
 for myself, and no reference to the Wars of the Roses. 
 What war of the Roses like that between Modesty and Love 
 upon the cheek of the Virgin ! 
 
 LADY LANSMERE. Full choice for yourself, Harley 
 so be it. But we, too, named a condition did we not, 
 Lansmere ? 
 
 The EARL (puzzled). Eh did we ? Certainly we did. 
 
 HARLEY. What was it ? 
 
 LADY LANSMERE. The son of Lord Lansmere can only 
 marry the daughter of a gentleman. 
 
 The EARL. Of course of course. 
 
 The blood rushed over Harley's fair face, and then as 
 suddenly left it pale. 
 
 He walked away to the window ; his mother followed 
 him, and again laid her hand on his shoulder. 
 
 " You were cruel," said he, gently, and in a whisper, as 
 he winced under the touch of the hand. Then turning to 
 the Earl, who was gazing at him in blank surprise (it never 
 occurred to Lord Lansmere that there could be a doubt of 
 his son's marrying beneath the rank modestly stated by the 
 Countess) Harley stretched forth his hand, and said in 
 his soft winning tone, "You have ever been most gracious 
 to me, and most forbearing ; it is but just that I should 
 sacrifice the habits of an egotist, to gratify a wish which 
 you so warmly entertain. I agree with you, too, that our 
 race should not close in me Noblesse oblige. But you know 
 I was ever romantic ; and I must love where I marry or, 
 if not love, I must feel that my wife is worthy of all the 
 love I could once have bestowed. Now, as to the vague
 
 494 My NOVEL; OR, 
 
 word 'gentleman,' that my mother employs a word that 
 means so differently on different lips, I confess that I have 
 a prejudice against young ladies brought up in the ' excel- 
 lent foppery of the world/ as the daughters of gentlemen 
 of our rank mostly are ; I crave, therefore, the most liberal 
 interpretation cf this word 'gentleman.' And so long as 
 there be nothing mean or sordid in the birth, habits, and 
 education of the father of this bride to be, I trust you will 
 both agree to demand nothing more neither titles nor 
 pedigree." 
 
 "Titles no, assuredly," said Lady Lansmere ; they do 
 not make gentlemen." 
 
 "Certainly not," said the Earl; "many of our best 
 families are untitled." 
 
 "Titles no," repeated Lady Lansmere; "but ances- 
 torsyes." 
 
 " Ah, my mother," said Harley, with his most sad and 
 quiet smile, "it is fated that we shall never agree. The 
 first of our race is ever the one we are most proud of ; and, 
 pray, what ancestors had he ? Beauty, virtue, modesty, in- 
 tellect -if these are not nobility enough for a man, he is a 
 slave to the dead." 
 
 With these words, Harley took up his hat, and made 
 toward the door. 
 
 " You said yourself, ' Noblesse oblige,' " said the Countess, 
 following him to the threshold ; " we have nothing more to 
 add." 
 
 Harley slightly shrugged his shoulders, kissed his 
 mother's hand, whistled to Nero, who started up from a 
 doze by the window, and went his way. 
 
 " Does he really go abroad next week ?" said the Earl. 
 
 " So he says." 
 
 "I am afraid there is no chance for Lady Mary," 
 resumed Lord Lansmere, with a slight but melancholy 
 smile. 
 
 " She has not intellect enough to charm him. She is 
 not worthy of Harley," said the proud mother. 
 
 " Between you and me," rejoined the Earl, rather timidly, 
 "I don't see what good his intellect does him. He could 
 not be more unsettled and useless if he were the merest 
 dunce in the three kingdoms. And so ambitious as he was 
 when a boy ! Katherine, I sometimes fancy that you know 
 what changed him." 
 
 " I ! Nay, my dear Lord, it is a common change enough
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 495 
 
 with the young, when of such fortunes ; who find, when 
 they enter life, that there is really little left for them to 
 strive for. Had Harley been a poor man's son, it might 
 have been different." 
 
 "I was born to the same fortunes as Harley," said the 
 Earl, shrewcjly ; " and yet I flatter myself I am of some use 
 to Old England." 
 
 The Countess seized upon the occasion, complimented 
 her Lord, and turned the subject. 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 HARLEY spent his day in his usual desultory, lounging 
 manner dined in his quiet corner at his favorite club 
 Nero, not admitted into the club, patiently waited for him 
 outside the door. The dinner over, dog and man, equally 
 indifferent to the crowd, sauntered down that thoroughfare 
 which, to the few who can comprehend the Poetry of Lon- 
 don, has associations of glory and of woe sublime as any 
 that the ruins of the dead elder world can furnish thorough- 
 fare that traverses what was once the courtyard of White- 
 hall, having to its left the site of the palace that lodged the 
 royalty of Scotland gains, through a narrow strait, that old 
 isle of Thorney, in which Edward the Confessor received 
 the ominous visit of the Conqueror and, widening once 
 more by the Abbey and the Hall of Westminster, then loses 
 itself, like all memories of earthly grandeur, amidst humble 
 passages and mean defiles. 
 
 Thus thought Harley L'Estrange ever less amidst the 
 actual world around him, than the images invoked by his 
 own solitary soul as he gained the bridge, and saw the dull, 
 lifeless craft sleeping on the " Silent Way," once loud and 
 glittering with the gilded barks of the antique Seignorie of 
 England. 
 
 It was on that bridge that Audley Egerton had appointed 
 to meet L'Estrange, at an hour when he calculated he could 
 best steal a respite from debate. For Harley, with his 
 fastidious dislike to all the resorts of his equals, had declined 
 to seek his friend in the crowded regions of Bellamy's. 
 
 Harley's eye, as he passed along the bridge, was attracted 
 by a still form, seated on the stones in one of the nooks,
 
 496 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 with its face covered by its hands. " If I were a sculptor," 
 said he to himself, " I should remember that image whenever 
 I wished to convey the idea of Despondency 7 " He lifted his 
 looks and saw, a little before him, in the midst of the cause- 
 way, the firm erect figure of Audley Egerton. The moon- 
 light was full on the bronzed countenance of the strong 
 public man with its lines of thought and care, and its vig- 
 orous but cold expression of intense self-control. 
 
 "And looking yonder," continued Harley's soliloquy, " I 
 should remember that form, when I wished to hew out from 
 the granite the idea of Endurance" 
 
 " So you are come, and punctually," said Egerton, link- 
 ing his arm in Harley's. 
 
 HARLEY. Punctually, of course, for I respect your time, 
 and I will not detain you long. I presume you will speak 
 to-night ? 
 
 EGERTON. I have spoken. 
 
 HARLEY (with interest). And well, I hope ? 
 
 EGERTON. With effect, I suppose, for I have been loudly 
 cheered, which does not always happen to me. 
 
 HARLEY. And that gave you pleasure ? 
 
 EGERTON (after a moment's thought). No, not the 
 least. 
 
 HARLEY. What, then, attaches you so much to this life 
 constant drudgery, constant warfare the more pleasur- 
 able faculties dormant, all the harsher ones aroused, if even 
 its rewards (and I take the best of those to be applause) do 
 not please you ? 
 
 EGERTON. What ? Custom. 
 
 HARLEY. Martyr ! 
 
 EGERTON. You say it. But turn to yourself ; you ha.ve 
 decided, then, to leave England next week ? 
 
 HARLEY (moodily). Yes. This life in a capital, where 
 all are so active, myself so objectless, preys on me like a 
 low fever. Nothing here amuses me, nothing interests, 
 nothing comforts and consoles. But I am resolved, before 
 it be too late, to make one great struggle out of the Past, 
 and into the natural world of men. In a word, I have re- 
 solved to marry. 
 
 EGERTON. Whom ? 
 
 HARLEY (seriously). Upon my life, my dear fellow, you 
 are a great philosopher. You have hit the exact question. 
 You see I cannot marry a dream ; and where, out of dreams, 
 shall I find this " whom ? "
 
 VARIE7IES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 497 
 
 EGERTON. You do not search for her. 
 
 HARLEY. Do we ever search for love ? Does it not flash 
 upon us when we least expect it ? Is it not like the inspira- 
 tion to the muse ? What poet sits down and says, " I will 
 write a poem ?" What man looks out and says, " I will fall 
 in love ? " No ! Happiness, as the great German tells us, 
 "falls suddenly from the bosom of the gods ; " so does love. 
 
 EGERTON. You remember the old line in Horace : " The 
 tide flows away while the boor sits on the margin and waits 
 for the ford." 
 
 HARLEY. An idea which incidentally dropped from you 
 some weeks ago, and which I had before half-meditated, 
 has since haunted me. If I could but find some child with 
 sweet dispositions and fair intellect not yet formed, and 
 train her up, according to my ideal. I am still young 
 enough to wait a few years. And meanwhile I shall have 
 gained what I so sadly want an object in life. 
 
 EGERTON. You are ever the child of romance. But 
 what 
 
 Here the Minister was interrupted by a messenger from 
 the House of Commons, whom Audley had instructed to 
 seek him on the bridge should his presence be required 
 " Sir, the Opposition are taking advantage of the thinness 
 
 of the House to call for a division. Mr. is put up to 
 
 speak for time, but they won't hear him." 
 
 Egerton turned hastily to Lord L'Estrange "You see, 
 you must excuse me now. To-morrow I must go to Wind- 
 sor for two days ; but -we shall meet on my return." 
 
 " It does not matter," answered Harley ; " I stand out 
 of the pale of your advice, O practical man of sense. And 
 if," added Harley, with affectionate and mournful sweetness 
 " if I weary you with complaints which you cannot un- 
 derstand, it is only because of old schoolboy habits. I can 
 have no trouble that I do not confide to you." 
 
 Egerton's hand trembled as it pressed his friend's ; and, 
 without a word, he hurried away abruptly. Harley re- 
 mained motionless for some seconds, in deep and quiet 
 reverie ; then he called to his dog, and turned back toward 
 Westminster. 
 
 He passed the nook in which had sate the still figure of 
 Despondency. But the figure had now risen, and was lean- 
 ing against the balustrade. The dog, who preceded his 
 master, passed by the solitary form, and sniffed it sus- 
 piciously.
 
 498 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 " Nero, sir, come here," said Harley. 
 
 "Nero," that was the name by which Helen had said 
 that her father's friend had called his dog. And the sound 
 startled Leonard as he leant, sick at heart, against the stone. 
 He lifted his head and looked wistfully, eagerly into Harley 's 
 face. Those eyes, bright, clear, yet so strangely deep and 
 absent, which Helen had described, met his own, and 
 chained them. For L'Estrange halted also ; the boy's 
 countenance was not unfamiliar to him. He returned the 
 inquiring look fixed on his own, and recognized the student 
 by the book-stall. 
 
 " The dog is quite harmless, sir," said L'Estrange, with 
 a smile. 
 
 " And you call him, 'Nero ? ' " said Leonard, still gazing 
 on the stranger. 
 
 Harley mistook the drift of the question. 
 
 " Nero, sir ; but he is free from the sanguinary pro- 
 pensities of his Roman namesake." Harley was about to 
 pass on, when Leonard said, falteringly, 
 
 " Pardon me, but can it be possible that you are one 
 whom I have sought in vain, on behalf of the child of 
 Captain Digby ?" 
 
 Harley stopped short. " Digby ! " he exclaimed, " where 
 is he ? He should have found me easily. I gave him an 
 address." 
 
 " Ah, Heaven be thanked ! " cried Leonard. " Helen is 
 saved she will not die," and he burst into tears. 
 
 A very few moments, and a very few words sufficed to 
 explain to Harley the state of his old fellow-soldier's orphan. 
 And Harley himself soon stood in the young sufferer's 
 room, supporting her burning temples on his breast, and 
 whispering into ears that heard him as in a happy dream, 
 "Comfort, comfort ; your father yet lives in me." 
 
 And then Helen, raising her eyes, said, " But Leonard is 
 my brother more than brother and he needs a father's 
 care more than I do." 
 
 " Hush, hush, Helen. I need no one nothing now ! " 
 cried Leonard, and his tears gushed over the little hand 
 that clasped his own.
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE, 499 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 HARLEY L'ESTRANGE was a man whom all things that 
 belong to the romantic and poetic side of our human life 
 deeply impressed. When he came to learn the ties between 
 these two Children of Nature, standing side by side, alone 
 amidst the storms of fate, his heart was more deeply moved 
 than it had been for many years. In those dreary attics, 
 overshadowed by the smoke and reek of the humble suburb 
 the workday world in its harshest and tritest forms below 
 and around them he recognized that divine poem which 
 comes out from all union between the mind and the heart. 
 Here, on the rough deal table (the ink scarcely dry), lay the 
 writings of the young wrestler for fame and bread ; there, 
 on the other side the partition, on that mean pallet, lay the 
 boy's sole comforter the all that warmed his heart with liv- 
 ing mortal affection. On one side the wall, the world of 
 imagination ; on the other, this world of grief and of love. 
 And in both, a spirit equally sublime unselfish Devotion 
 " the something afar from the sphere of our sorrow." 
 
 He looked round the room into which he had followed 
 Leonard, on quitting Helen's bedside. He noted the MSS. 
 on the table, and, pointing to them, said gently, " And these 
 are the labors by which you supported the soldier's orphan ? 
 soldier yourself in a hard battle ! " 
 
 "The battle was lost I could not support her," re- 
 plied Leonard, mournfully. 
 
 " But you did not desert her. When Pandora's box was 
 opened, they say Hope lingered last " 
 
 " False, false," said Leonard ; " a heathen's notion. 
 There are deities that linger behind Hope Gratitude, 
 Love, and Duty." 
 
 " Yours is no common nature," exclaimed Harley, ad- 
 miringly, " but I must sound it more deeply hereafter ; at 
 present I hasten for the physician ; I shall return with 
 him. We must move that poor child from this low close 
 air as soon as possible. Meanwhile, let me qualify your 
 rejection of the old fable. Wherever Gratitude, Love, and 
 Duty remain to man, believe me that Hope is there too, 
 though she may be often invisible, hidden behind the 
 sheltering wings of the nobler deities."
 
 500 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 Harley said this with that wondrous smile of his, which 
 cast a brightness over the whole room and went away. 
 
 Leonard stole softly toward the grimy window ; and 
 looking up toward the stars that shone pale over the roof- 
 tops, he murmured, " O thou, the All-seeing and All-merci- 
 ful ! how it comforts me now to think that, though my 
 dreams of knowledge may have sometimes obscured the 
 Heavens, I never doubted that Thou wert there ! as lumin- 
 ous and everlasting, though behind the cloud ! " So, for a 
 few minutes, he prayed silently then passed into Helen's 
 room, and sat beside her motionless, for she slept. She 
 woke just as Harley returned with a physician ; and then 
 Leonard, returning to his own room, saw amongst his 
 papers the letter he had written to Mr. Dale, and muttering, 
 " I need not disgrace my calling I need not be the men- 
 dicant now " held the letter to the flame of the candle. 
 And while he said this, and as the burning tinder dropped 
 on the floor, the sharp hunger, unfelt during his late anx- 
 ious emotions, gnawed at his entrails. Still, even hunger 
 could not reach that noble pride which had yielded to a 
 sentiment nobler than itself and he smiled, as he repeated, 
 " No mendicant ! the life that I was sworn to guard is 
 saved. I can rise against Fate the front of Man once 
 more." 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 A FEW days afterward, and Helen, removed to a pure 
 air, and under the advice of the first physicians, was out of 
 all danger. 
 
 It was a pretty detached cottage, with its windows look- 
 ing over the wild heaths of Norwood, to which Harley rode 
 daily to watch the convalescence of his young charge ; an 
 object in life was already found. As she grew better and 
 stronger, he coaxed her easily into talking, and listened to 
 her with pleased surprise. The heart so infantine, and 
 the sense so womanly, struck him much by its rare con- 
 trast and combination. Leonard, whom he had insisted 
 on placing also in the cottage, had stayed there willingly 
 till Helen's recovery was beyond question. Then he came 
 to Lord L' Estrange, as the latter was about one day to 
 leave the cottage, and said, quietly, " Now, my Lord, that
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 501 
 
 Helen is safe, and now that she will need me no more, I 
 can no longer be a pensioner on your bounty. I return to 
 London." 
 
 " You are my visitor, not my pensioner, foolish boy," 
 said Harley, who had already noticed the pride which 
 spoke in that farewell ; "come into the garden and let us 
 talk." 
 
 Harley seated himself on a bench on the little lawn ; 
 Nero crouched at his feet ; Leonard stood beside him. 
 
 " So," said Lord L'Estrange, " you would return to 
 London ? What to do ? " 
 
 " Fulfil my fate." 
 
 "And that?" 
 
 " I cannot guess. Fate is the Isis whose veil no mortal 
 can ever raise." 
 
 "You should be born for great things," said Harley, 
 abruptly. " I am sure that you write well. I have seen 
 that you study with passion. Better than writing and bet- 
 ter than study, you have a noble heart, and the proud desire 
 of independence. Let me see your MSS., or any copies of 
 what you have already printed. Do not hesitate I ask but 
 to be a reader. I don't pretend to be a patron ; it is a word 
 I hate." 
 
 Leonard's eyes sparkled through their sudden moisture. 
 He brought out his portfolio, placed it on the bench be- 
 side Harley, and then went softly to the further part of the 
 garden. Nero looked after him, and then rose and followed 
 him slowly. The boy seated himself on the turf and Nero 
 rested his dull head on the loud heart of the poet. 
 
 Harley took up the various papers before him, and read 
 them through leisurely. Certainly he was no critic. He 
 was not accustomed to analyze what pleased or displeased 
 him ; but his perceptions were quick, and his taste exquis- 
 ite. As he read, his countenance, always so genuinely ex- 
 pressive, exhibited now doubt and now admiration. He 
 was soon struck by the contrast, in the boy's writings, be- 
 tween the pieces that sported with fancy, and those that 
 grappled with thought. In the first, the young poet seemed 
 so unconscious of his own individuality. His imagination, 
 afar and aloft from the scenes of his suffering, ran riot 
 amidst a paradise of happy golden creations. But in the 
 last, the THINKER stood out alone and mournful, question- 
 ing, in troubled sorrow, the hard world on which he gazed. 
 All in the thought was unsettled, tumultuous ; all in the
 
 502 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 fancy serene and peaceful. The genius seemed divided into 
 twain shapes ; the one bathing its wings amidst the starry 
 dews of heaven ; the other wandering " melancholy, slow," 
 amidst desolate and boundless sands. Harley gently laid 
 down the paper, and mused a little while. Then he rose 
 and walked to Leonard, gazing on his countenance as he 
 neared the boy, with a new and a deeper interest. 
 
 " I have read your papers/' he said, " and recognize in 
 them two men, belonging to two worlds, essentially distinct." 
 
 Leonard started, and murmured, "True, true ! " 
 
 " I apprehend," resumed Harley, " that one of these 
 men must either destroy the other, or that the two must 
 become fused and harmonized into a single existence. 
 Get your hat, mount my groom's horse, and come with me 
 to London ; we will converse by the way. Look you, 
 I believe you and I agree in this, that the first object 
 of every nobler spirit is independence. It is toward this 
 independence that I alone presume to assist you ; and 
 this is a service which the proudest man can receive with- 
 out a blush." 
 
 Leonard lifted his eyes toward Harley's, and those 
 eyes swam with grateful tears ; but his heart was too full to 
 answer. 
 
 "I am not one of those," said Harley, when they were 
 on the road, "who think that because a young man writes 
 poetry he is fit for nothing else, and that he must be a 
 poet or a pauper. I have said that in you there seem to 
 me to be two men, the man of the Actual world, the man 
 of the Ideal. To each of these men I can offer a separate 
 career. The first is perhaps the more tempting. It is 
 the interest of the state to draw into its service all the 
 talent and industry it can obtain ; and under his native 
 state every citizen of a free country should be proud to 
 take service. I have a friend who is a minister, and who is 
 known to encourage talent Audley Egerton. I have but 
 to say to him, ' There is a young man who will well repay 
 to the government whatever the government bestows on 
 him ;' and you will rise to-morrow independent in means, 
 and with fair occasions to attain to fortune and distinction. 
 This is one offer what say you to it ? " 
 
 Leonard thought bitterly of his interview with Audley 
 Egerton, and the minister's proffered crown-piece. He 
 shook his head, and replied 
 
 " Oh, my Lord, how have I deserved such kindness ?
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 503 
 
 Do with me what you will ; but if I have the option, I 
 would rather follow my own calling. This is not the 
 ambition which inflames me." 
 
 " Hear, then, the other offer. I have a friend with 
 whom I am less intimate than Egerton, and who has 
 nothing in his gift to bestow. I speak of a man of letters 
 Henry Norreys of whom you have doubtless heard, 
 who, I should say, conceived an interest in you when he 
 observed you reading at the book-stall. I have often heard 
 him say, ' that literature as a profession is misunderstood, 
 and that rightly followed, with the same pains and the 
 same prudence which are brought to bear on other pro- 
 fessions, a competence at least can be always ultimately 
 obtained.' But the way may be long and tedious and 
 it leads to no power but over thought ; it rarely attains 
 to wealth ; and, though reputation may be certain, Fame, 
 such as poets dream of, is the lot of few. What say you to 
 this course ? " 
 
 "My Lord, I decide," said Leonard, firmly; and then, 
 his young face lighting up with enthusiasm, he exclaimed, 
 "Yes, if, as you say, there be two men within me, I feel 
 that were I condemned wholly to the mechanical and 
 practical world, one would indeed destroy the other. And 
 the conqueror would be the ruder and the coarser. Let 
 me pursue those ideas that, though they have but flitted 
 across me, vague and formless have ever soared toward the 
 sunlight. No matter whether or not they lead to fortune or 
 to fame, at least they will lead me upward ! Knowledge for 
 itself I desire what care I if it be not power ! " 
 
 " Enough," said Harley, with a pleased smile at his 
 young companion's outburst. " As you decide so shall it 
 be settled. And now permit me, if not impertinent, to ask 
 you a few questions. Your name is Leonard Fair field ? " 
 
 The boy blushed deeply, and bowed his head as if in 
 assent. 
 
 " Helen says you are self-taught ; for the rest she refers 
 me to you ; thinking, perhaps, that I should esteem you 
 less rather than yet more highly if she said you were, as 
 I presume to conjecture, of humble birth." 
 
 " My birth," said Leonard, slowly, " is very very 
 humble." 
 
 " The name of Fairfield is not unknown to me. There 
 was one of that name who married into a family in Lans- 
 mere married an Avenel," continued Harley, and his
 
 504 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 voice quivered. "You change countenance. Oh, could 
 your mother's name have been Avenel ? " 
 
 "Yes," said Leonard, between his set teeth. Harley 
 laid his hand on the boy's shoulder. "Then, indeed, I 
 have a claim on you then, indeed, we are friends. I 
 have a right to serve any of that family." 
 
 Leonard looked at him in surprise. 
 
 "For," continued Harley, recovering himself, "they 
 always served my family ; and my recollections of Lans- 
 mere, though boyish, are indelible." He spurred on his 
 horse as the words closed and again there was a long 
 pause ; but from that time Harley always spoke to Leonard 
 in a soft voice, and often gazed on him with earnest 
 and kindly eyes. 
 
 They reached a house in a central though not fashion- 
 able street. A man-servant of a singularly grave and 
 awful aspect opened the door a man who had lived all 
 his life with authors. Poor fellow, he was indeed pre- 
 maturely old ! The care on his lip and the pomp on his 
 brow no mortal's pen can describe ! 
 
 " Is Mr. Norreys at home ? " asked Harley. 
 
 " He is at home to his friends, my Lord," answered 
 the man, majestically ; and he stalked across the hall 
 with the step of a Dangeau ushering some Montmorenci 
 into the presence of Louis le Grand. 
 
 "Stay show this gentleman into another room. I 
 will go first into the library ; wait for me, Leonard." 
 The man nodded, and conducted Leonard into the dining- 
 room. Then pausing before the door of the library, and 
 listening an instant, as if fearful to disturb some mood 
 of inspiration, opened it very softly. To his ineffable dis- 
 gust, Harley pushed before, and entered abruptly. It 
 was a large room, lined with books from the floor to the 
 ceiling. Books were on all the tables books were on all 
 the chairs. Harley seated himself on a folio of Raleigh's 
 History of the World, and cried 
 
 " I have brought you a treasure ! " 
 
 " What is it ? " said Norreys, good-humoredly, looking 
 up from his desk. 
 
 " A mind ! " 
 
 " A mind ! " echoed Norreys, vaguely. "Your own ? " 
 
 " Pooh I have none I have only a heart and a fancy. 
 Listen. You remember the boy we saw reading at the book- 
 stall. I have caught him for you, and you shall train him
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 505 
 
 into a man. I have the warmest interest in his future for 
 I know some of his family and one of that family was very 
 dear to me. As for money, he has not a shilling, and not a 
 shilling would he accept gratis from you or me either. But 
 he comes with bold heart to work and work you must find 
 him." Harley then rapidly told his friend of the two offers 
 he had made to Leonard and Leonard's choice. 
 
 "This promises very well ; for letters a man must have 
 a strong vocation as he should have for law I will do all 
 that you wish." 
 
 Harley rose with alertness shook Norreys cordially by 
 the hand hurried out of the room, and returned with 
 Leonard. 
 
 Mr. Norreys eyed the young man with attention. He was 
 naturally rather severe than cordial in hismannerto strangers 
 contrasting in this, as in most things, the poor vagabond 
 Burley. But hewasagood judge of the human countenance, 
 and he liked Leonard's. After a pause he held out his hand. 
 
 " Sir," said he, " Lord L'Estrange tells me that you wish 
 to enter literature as a calling, and no doubt to study it as 
 an art. I may help you in this, and you meanwhile can 
 help me. I want an amanuensis I offer you that place. 
 The salary will be proportioned to the services you will 
 render me. I have a room in my house at your disposal. 
 When I first came up to London, I made the same choice 
 that I hear you have done. I have no cause, even in a 
 worldly point of view, to repent my choice. It gave me an 
 income larger than my wants. I trace my success to these 
 maxims, which are applicable to all professions ist, Never 
 to trust to genius for what can be obtained by labor ; 2dly, 
 Never to profess to teach what we have not studied to un- 
 derstand ; 3rdly, Never to engage our word to what we do 
 not our best to execute. 
 
 " With these rules, literature provided a man does not 
 mistake his vocation for it, and will, under good advice, go 
 through preliminary discipline of natural powers, which all 
 vocations require is as good a calling as any other. With- 
 out them, a shoeblack's is infinitely better." 
 
 " Possibly enough," muttered Harley ; "but there have 
 been great writers who observed none of your maxims." 
 
 " Great writers, probably, but very unenviable men. 
 My Lord, my Lord, don't corrupt the pupil you bring to 
 me." Harley smiled and took his departure, and left Gen- 
 ius at school with Common Sense and Experience. 
 22
 
 5 o6 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 WHILE Leonard Fairfield had been obscurely wrestling 
 against poverty, neglect, hunger, and dread temptation, 
 bright had been the opening day, and smooth the upward 
 path, of Randal Leslie. Certainly no young man, able and 
 ambitious, could enter life under fairer auspices ; the con- 
 nection and avowed favorite of a popular and energetic 
 statesman, the brilliant writer of a political work, that had 
 lifted him at once into a station of his own received and 
 courted in those highest circles, to which neither rank nor 
 fortune alone suffices for a familiar passport the circles 
 above fashion itself the circles of POWER with every facil- 
 ity of augmenting information, and learning the world be- 
 times through the talk of its acknowledged masters, 
 Randal had but to move straight onward, and success was 
 sure. But his tortuous spirit delighted in scheme and in- 
 trigue for their own sake. In scheme and intrigue he saw 
 shorter paths to fortune, if not to fame. His besetting sin 
 was also his besetting weakness. He did not aspire he 
 coveted. Though in a far higher social position than Frank 
 Hazeldean, despite the worldly prospects of his old school- 
 fellow, he coveted the very things that kept Frank Hazel- 
 dean below him coveted his idle gaities, his careless 
 pleasures, his very waste of youth. Thus, also, Randal 
 less aspired to Audley Egerton's repute than he coveted 
 Audley Egerton's wealth and pomp, his princely expendi- 
 ture, and his Castle Rackrent in Grosvenor Square. It was 
 the misfortune of his birth to be so near to both these for- 
 tunes near to that of Leslie, as the future head of that 
 fallen house, near even to that of Hazeldean, since, as we 
 have seen before, if the Squire had DO son, Randal's 
 descent from the Hazeldeans suggested himself as the one 
 on whom these broad lands should devolve. Most young 
 men, brought into intimate contact with Audley Egerton, 
 would have felt for that personage a certain loyal and ad- 
 miring, if not very affectionate respect. For there was 
 something grand in Egerton something that commands 
 and fascinates the young. His determined courage, his 
 energetic will, his almost regal liberality, contrasting a
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 507 
 
 simplicity in personal tastes and habits that was almost 
 austere his rare and seemingly unconscious power of 
 charming even the women most wearied of homage, and 
 persuading even the men most obdurate to counsel all 
 served to invest the practical man with those spells which 
 are usually confined to the ideal one. But, indeed, Audley 
 Egerton was an ideal the ideal of the Practical. Not the 
 mere vulgar, plodding, red-tape machine of petty business, 
 but the man of strong sense, inspired by inflexible energy, 
 and guided to definite earthly objects. In a dissolute and 
 corrupt form of government, under a decrepit monarchy, 
 or a vitiated republic, Audley Egerton might have been a 
 most dangerous citizen ; for his ambition was so resolute, 
 and his sight to its ends w r as so clear. But there is some- 
 thing in public life in England which compels the really 
 ambitious man to honor, unless his eyes are jaundiced and 
 oblique, like Randal Leslie's. It is so necessary in England 
 to be a gentleman. And thus Egerton was emphaticallv 
 considered a gentleman. Without the least pride in other 
 matters, with little apparent sensitiveness, touch him on the 
 point of gentleman, and no one so sensitive and so proud. As 
 Randal saw more of him, and watched his moods with the 
 lynx-eyes of the household spy, he could perceive that this 
 hard mechanical man was subject to fits of melancholy, 
 even of gloom ; and though they did not last long, there 
 was even in his habitual coldness an evidence of something 
 compressed, latent, painful, lying deep within his memory. 
 This would have interested the kindly feelings of a grateful 
 heart. But Randal detected and watched it only as a clue 
 to some secret it might profit him to gain. For Randal Les- 
 lie hated Egerton ; and hated him the more because, with 
 all his book-knowledge and his conceit in his own talents, 
 he could not despise his patron because he had not yet 
 succeeded in making his patron the mere tool or stepping- 
 stone because he thought that Egerton's keen eye saw 
 through his wily heart, even while, as if in profound dis- 
 dain, the minister helped the protege". But this last suspi- 
 cion was unsound. Egerton had not detected Leslie's 
 corrupt and treacherous nature. He might have other 
 reasons for keeping him at a certain distance, but he in- 
 quired too little into Randal's feelings toward himself to 
 question the attachment, or doubt the sincerity, of one who 
 owed to him so much. But that which more than all embit- 
 tered Randal's feelings toward Egerton, was the careful
 
 So8 Ml' NOVEL; OK, 
 
 and deliberate frankness with which the latter had, more 
 than once, repeated and enforced the odious announcement, 
 that Randal had nothing to expect from the minister's 
 WILL ; nothing to expect from that wealth which glared in 
 the hungry eyes of the pauper heir to the Leslies of Rood. 
 To whom, then, could Egerton mean to devise his fortune ? 
 To whom but Frank Hazeldean ? Yet Audley took so little 
 notice of his nephew seemed so indifferent to him, that 
 that supposition, however natural, was exposed to doubt. 
 The astuteness of Randal was perplexed. Meanwhile, 
 however, the less he himself could rely upon Egerton for 
 fortune, the more he revolved the possible chances of oust- 
 ing Frank from the inheritance of Hazeldean in part, at 
 least, if not wholly. To one less scheming, crafty, and re- 
 morseless than Randal Leslie, such a project would have 
 seemed the wildest delusion. But there was something 
 fearful in the manner in which this young man sought to 
 turn knowledge into power, and make the study of all 
 weakness in others subservient to his own ends. He wormed 
 himself thoroughly into Frank's confidence. He. learned, 
 through Frank, all the Squire's peculiarities of thought and 
 temper, and pondered over each word in the father's letters, 
 which the son gradually got into the habit of showing to 
 the perfidious eyes of his friend. Randal saw that the 
 Squire had two characteristics, which are very common 
 amongst proprietors, and which might be invoked as an- 
 tagonists to his warm fatherly love. First, the Squire was 
 as fond of his estate as if it were a living thing, and part of 
 his own flesh and blood ; and in his lecture to Frank upon 
 the sin of extravagance, the Squire always let out this 
 foible: "What was to become of the estate if it fell into 
 the hands of a spendthrift? No man should make ducks 
 and drakes of Hazeldean ; let Frank beware of that" etc. 
 Secondly, the Squire was not only fond of his lands, but he 
 was jealous of them that jealousy which even the tender- 
 est fathers sometimes entertain toward their natural heirs. 
 He could not bear the notion that Frank should count on 
 his death ; and he seldom closed an admonitory letter with- 
 out repeating the information that Hazeldean was not 
 entailed ; that it was his to do with as he pleased through 
 life and in death. Indirect menace of this nature rather 
 wounded and galled than intimidated Frank ; for the young 
 man was extremely generous and high-spirited by nature, 
 and was always more disposed to some indiscretion after
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 509 
 
 such warnings to his self-interest, as if to show that those 
 were the last kinds of appeals likely to influence him. By 
 the help of such insights into the character of father and 
 son, Randal thought he saw gleams of daylight illuminat- 
 ing his own chance to the lands of Hazeldean. Meanwhile 
 it appeared to him obvious that, come what might of it, his 
 own interests could not lose, and might most probably gain, 
 by whatever could alienate the Squire from his natural 
 heir. Accordingly, though with consummate tact, he in- 
 stigated Frank toward the very excesses most calculated 
 to irritate the Squire, all the while appearing rather to give 
 the counter advice, and never sharing in any of the follies 
 to which he conducted his thoughtless friend. In this he 
 worked chiefly through others, introducing Frank to every 
 acquaintance most dangerous to youth, either from the wit 
 that laughs at prudence, or the spurious magnificence that 
 subsists so handsomely upon bills endorsed by friends of 
 " great expectations." 
 
 The minister and his protege were seated at breakfast, 
 the first reading the newspaper, the last glancing over his 
 letters ; for Randal had arrived at the dignity of receiving 
 many letters ay, and notes too, three-cornered, and fan- 
 tastically embossed. Egerton uttered an exclamation, and 
 laid down the newspaper. Randal looked up from his cor- 
 respondence. The minister had sunk into one of his absent 
 reveries. 
 
 After a long silence, observing that Egerton did not re- 
 turn to the newspaper, Randal said, " Ehem sir, I have a 
 note from Frank Hazeldean, who wants much to see me ; 
 his father has arrived in town unexpectedly." 
 
 "What brings him here ?" asked Egerton, still abstractedly. 
 
 " Why, it seems that he has heard some vague reports of 
 poor Frank's extravagance, and Frank is rather afraid, or 
 ashamed, to meet him." 
 
 " Ay a very great fault extravagance in the young ! 
 destroys independence ; ruins or enslaves the future. Great 
 fault very ! And what does youth- want that it should be 
 extravagant ? Has it not everything in itself merely because 
 it is ? Youth is youth what needs it more ? " 
 
 Egerton rose as he said this, and retired to his writing- 
 table, and in his turn opened his correspondence. Randal 
 took up the newspaper, and endeavored, but in vain, to con- 
 jecture what had excited the minister's exclamation, and 
 the reverie that succeeded it.
 
 5io MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 Egerton suddenly and sharply turned round in his chair 
 " If you have done with the Times, have the goodness to 
 place it here." 
 
 Randal had just obeyed, when a knock at the street-door 
 was heard, and presently Lord L'Estrange came into the 
 room, with somewhat a quicker step, and somewhat a gayer 
 mien than usual. 
 
 Audley's hand, as if mechanically, fell upon the news- 
 paper fell upon that part of the columns devoted to births, 
 deaths and marriges. Randal stood by, and noted ; then, 
 bowing to L'Estrange, left the room. 
 
 " Audley," said L'Estrange, " I have had an adventure 
 since I saw you an adventure that re-opened the past, and 
 may influence my future." 
 
 " How ? " 
 
 " In the first place, I have met with a relation of of 
 the Avenels." 
 
 " Indeed ! Whom Richard Avenel ? " 
 
 " Richard Richard who is he ? Oh, I remember ; the 
 wild lad who went off to America ; but that was when I was 
 a mere child." 
 
 " That Richard Avenel is now a rich, thriving trader, 
 and his marriage is in this newspaper married to an Honor- 
 able Mrs. M'Catchley. Well in this country who should 
 plume himself on birth ? " 
 
 " You did not say so always, Egerton," replied Harley, 
 with a tone of mournful reproach. 
 
 "And I say so now, pertinently to a Mrs. M'Catchley, 
 not to the heir of the L'Estranges. But no more of these 
 these Avenels." 
 
 " Yes, more of them. I tell you I have met a relation of 
 theirs a nephew of of " 
 
 " Richard Avenel's ? " interrupted Egerton ; and then 
 added, in the slow, deliberate, argumentative tone in which 
 he was wont to speak in public, " Richard Avenel, the trader! 
 I saw him once a presuming and intolerable man ! " 
 
 " The nephew has not those sins. He is full of promise, 
 of modesty, yet of pride. And his countenance oh, Eger- 
 ton, he has her eyes." 
 
 Egerton made no answer, and Harley resumed 
 
 " I had thought of placing him under your care. I knew 
 you would provide for him." 
 
 "I will. Bring him hither," cried Egerton, eagerly. 
 " All that I can do to prove my regard for a wish of yours."
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 511 
 
 Harley pressed his friend's hand warmly. 
 
 " I thank you from my heart ; the Audley of my boy- 
 hood speaks now. But the young man has decided other- 
 wise ; and I do not blame him. Nay, I rejoice that he 
 chooses a career in which, if he find hardship, he may es- 
 cape dependence." 
 
 " And that career is " 
 
 "Letters." 
 
 " Letters literature ! " exclaimed the statesman. " Beg- 
 gary ! No, no, Harley, this is your absurd romance." 
 
 " It will not be beggary, and it is not my romance ; it is 
 the boy's. Leave him alone ; he is my care and my charge 
 henceforth. He is of her blood, and 1 said that he had her 
 eyes." 
 
 " But you are going abroad ; let me know where he is ; 
 I will watch over him." 
 
 "And unsettle a right ambition for a wrong one? No 
 you shall know nothing of him till he can proclaim him- 
 self. I think that day will come." 
 
 Audley mused a moment, and then said, " Well, perhaps 
 you are right. After all, as you say, independence is a 
 great blessing, and my ambition has not rendered myself 
 the better or the happier." 
 
 " Yet, my poor Audley, you ask me to be ambitious." 
 
 " I only wish you to be consoled," cried Egerton, with 
 passion. 
 
 " I will try to be so ; and by the help of a milder remedy 
 than yours. I said that my adventure might influence my 
 future ; it brought me acquainted not only with the young 
 man I speak of, but the most winning, affectionate child 
 a girl." 
 
 " Is this child an Avenel too ? " 
 
 " No, she is of gentle blood a soldier's daughter ; the 
 daughter of that Captain Digby on whose behalf I was a 
 petitioner to your patronage. He is dead, and in dying my 
 name was on his lips. He meant me, doubtless, to be the 
 guardian to his orphan. I shall be so. I have at last an 
 object in life." 
 
 " But can you seriously mean to take this child with you 
 abroad ? " 
 
 "Seriously, I do." 
 
 " And lodge her in your own house ? ' 
 
 " For a year or so, while she is yet a child. Then, as 
 she approaches youth, I shall place her elsewhere."
 
 512 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 11 You may grow to love her. Is it clear that she will 
 love you ? not mistake gratitude for love ? It is -a very 
 hazardous experiment." 
 
 " So was William the Norman's still he was William 
 the Conqueror. Thou biddest me move on from the Past, 
 and be consoled, yet thou wouldst make me as inapt to 
 progress, as the mule in Slawkenbergius's tale, with tl y 
 cursed interlocutions, ' Stumbling, by St. Nicholas, every 
 step. Why, at this rate, we shall be all night in getting 
 into ' Happiness! Listen," continued Harley, setting off, 
 full pelt, into one of his wild, whimsical humors. " One of 
 the sons of the prophets in Israel, felling wood near the 
 River Jordan, his hatchet forsook the helve, and fell to the 
 bottom of the river ; so he prayed to have it again (it was 
 but a small request, mark you) ; and having a strong faith, 
 he did not throw the hatchet after the helve, but the helve 
 after the hatchet. Presently, two great miracles were seen. 
 Up springs the hatchet from the bottom of the water, and 
 fixes itself to its old acquaintance, the helve. Now, had he 
 wished to coach it up to heaven in a fiery chariot, like 
 Elias, be as rich as Job, strong as Samson, and beautiful as 
 Absalom, would he have obtained the wish, do you think ? 
 In truth, my friend, I question it very much." 
 
 " I can't comprehend what you mean. Sad stuff you 
 are talking." 
 
 " I cannot help that ; Rabelais is to be blamed for it. 
 I am quoting him, and it is to be found in his Prologue to 
 the Chapters on the Moderation of Wishes. Kn&iiproposoi 
 ' moderate wishes in point of hatchet,' I want you to under- 
 stand that I ask but little from Heaven. I fling but the 
 helve after the hatchet that has sunk into the silent stream. 
 I want the other half of the weapon that is buried fathom 
 deep, and for want of which the thick woods darken round 
 me by the Sacred River, and I can catch not a glimpse of 
 the stars." 
 
 " In plain English," said Audley Egerton, "you want " 
 he stopped short, puzzled. 
 
 " I want my purpose and my will, and my old character, 
 and the nature God gave me. I want the half of my soul 
 which has fallen from me. I want such love as may replace 
 to me the vanished affections. Reason not I throw the 
 helve after the hatchet."
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LiFE. 513 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 RANDAL LESLIE, on leaving Audley, repaired to Frank's 
 lodgings, and after being closeted with the young Guards- 
 man an hour or so, took his way to Limner's hotel, and 
 asked for Mr. Hazeldean. He was shown into the coffee- 
 room, while the waiter went up-stairs with his card, to see 
 if the Squire was within, and disengaged. The Times news- 
 paper lay sprawling on one of the tables, and Randal, lean- 
 ing over it, looked with attention into the column contain- 
 ing births, deaths, and marriages. But in that long and 
 miscellaneous li?t, he could not conjecture the name which 
 had so excited Mr. Egerton's interest. 
 
 " Vexatious ! " he muttered ; " there is no knowledge 
 which has power more useful than that of the secrets of 
 men." 
 
 He turned as the waiter entered and said that Mr. 
 Hazeldean would be glad to see him. 
 
 As Randal entered the drawing-room, the Squire, 
 shaking hands with him, looked toward the door as if ex- 
 pecting some one else, and his honest face assumed a blank 
 expression of disappointment when the door closed, and he 
 found that Randal was unaccompanied. 
 
 " Well," said he, bluntly, " I thought your old school- 
 fellow, Frank, might have been with you." 
 
 " Have not you seen him yet, sir i " 
 
 " No, I came to town this morning ; travelled outside 
 the mail ; sent to his barracks, but the young gentleman 
 does not sleep there has an apartment of his own ; he 
 never told me that. We are a plain family, the Hazeldeans 
 young sir ; and I hate being kept in the dark, by my own 
 son, too." 
 
 Randal made no answer, but looked sorrowful. The 
 Squire, who had never before seen his kinsman, had a vague 
 idea that it was not polite to entertain a stranger, though a 
 connection to himself, with his family troubles, and so re- 
 sumed good-naturedly 
 
 " I am very glad to make your acquaintance at last, Mr. 
 Leslie. You know, I hope, that you have good Hazeldean 
 blood in your veins J "
 
 5 H MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 RANDAL (smiling). I am not likely to forget that ; it is 
 the boast of our pedigree. 
 
 SQUIRE (heartily). Shake hands again on it, my boy. 
 You don't want a friend, since my grandee of a half-brother 
 has taken you up ; but if ever you should, Hazeldean is not 
 very far from Rood. Can't get on with your father at all, 
 my lad more's the pity, for I think I could have given him 
 a hint or two as to the improvement of his property. If he 
 would plant those ugly commons larch and fir soon come 
 into profit, sir ; and there are some lowlands about Rood 
 that would take mighty kindly to draining. 
 
 RANDAL. My poor father lives a life so retired, and you 
 cannot wonder at it. Fallen trees lie still, and so do fallen 
 families. 
 
 SQUIRE. Fallen families can get up again, which fallen 
 trees can't. 
 
 RANDAL. Ah, sir, it often takes the energy of genera- 
 tions to repair the thriftlessness and extravagance of a sin- 
 gle owner. 
 
 SQUIRE (his brow lowering). That's very true. Frank 
 is d d extravagant ; treats me very coolly, too not com- 
 ing ; near three o'clock. By the bye, I suppose he told 
 you where I was, otherwise how did you find me out ? 
 
 RANDAL (reluctantly). Sir, he did ; and to speak frank- 
 ly, I am not surprised that he has not yet appeared. 
 
 SQUIRE. Eh ! 
 
 RANDAL. We have grown very intimate. 
 
 SQUIRE. So he writes me word and I am glad of it. 
 Our member, Sir John, tells me you are a very clever fellow, 
 and a very steady one. And Frank says that he wishes he 
 had your prudence, if he can't have your talents. He has 
 a good heart, Frank [added the father, reluctantly]. But 
 zounds, sir, you say you are not surprised he has not come 
 to welcome his own father ! 
 
 " My dear sir," said Randal, " you wrote word to Frank 
 that you had heard from Sir John and others of his goings-on, 
 and that you were not satisfied with his replies to your letters." 
 
 " Well." 
 
 " And then you suddenly come up to town." 
 
 "Well." 
 
 " Well. And Frank is ashamed to meet you. For, as 
 you say, he has been extravagant, and he has exceeded his 
 allowance ; and knowing my respect for you, and my great 
 affection for himself, he has asked me to prepare you to re-
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 515 
 
 ceive his confession and forgive him. I know I am taking 
 a great liberty. I have no right to interfere between father 
 and son ; but pray pray think I mean for the best." 
 
 " Humph ! " said the Squire, recovering himself very 
 slowly, and showing evident pain, " I knew already that 
 Frank had spent more than he ought ; but I think he should 
 not have employed a third person to prepare me to forgive 
 him. (Excuse me no offence.) And if he wanted a third 
 person, was not there his own mother? What the devil! 
 [firing up] am I a tyrant a bashaw that my own son is 
 afraid to speak to me ? Gad, I'll give it to him ! " 
 
 " Pardon me, sir," said Randal, assuming at once that 
 air of authority which superior intellect so well carries off 
 and excuses, " but I strongly advise you not to express any 
 anger at Frank's confidence in me. At present I have in- 
 fluence over him. Whatever you may think of his extrava- 
 gance, I have saved him from many an indiscretion, and 
 many a debt a young man will listen to one of his own 
 age so much more readily than even to the kindest friend of 
 graver years. Indeed, sir, I speak for your sake as well as 
 for Frank's. Let me keep this influence over him ; and 
 don't reproach him for the confidence he placed in me. Nay, 
 let him rather think that I have softened any displeasure 
 you might otherwise have felt." 
 
 There seemed so much good sense in what Randal said, 
 and the kindness of it seemed so disinterested, that the 
 Squire's native shrewdness was deceived. 
 
 "You are a fine young fellow," said he, "and I am very 
 much obliged to you. Well, I suppose there is no putting 
 old heads upon young shoulders ; and I promise you I'll 
 not say an angry word to Frank. I dare say, poor boy, he 
 is very much afflicted, and I long to shake hands with him. 
 So, set his mind at ease." 
 
 "Ah, sir," said Randal, with much apparent emotion, 
 " your son may well love you ; and it seems to be a hard 
 matter for so kind a heart as yours to preserve the proper 
 firmness with him." 
 
 "Oh, I can be firm enough," quoth the Squire "es- 
 pecially when I don't see him handsome dog that he is ; 
 very like his mother don't you think so ? " 
 
 " I never saw his mother, sir." 
 
 " Gad ! Not seen my Harry ? No more you have ; you 
 must come and pay us a visit. I suppose my half-brother 
 will let you come ?" ,
 
 516 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 " To be sure, sir. Will you not call on him while you 
 are in town ? " 
 
 " Not I. He would think I expected to get something 
 from the Government. Tell him the ministers must go on 
 a little better, if they want my vote for their member. But 
 go. I see you are impatient to tell Frank that all's forgot 
 and forgiven. Come and dine with him here at six, and 
 let him bring his bills in his pocket. Oh, I shan't scold 
 him." 
 
 "Why, as to that," said Randal, smiling, " I think (for- 
 give me still) that you should not take it too easily ; just as I 
 think that you had better not blame him for his very natural 
 and praiseworthy shame in approaching you, so I think, 
 also, that you should do nothing that would tend to diminish 
 that shame it is such a check on him. And therefore, if 
 you can contrive to affect to be angry with him for his 
 extravagance, it will do good." 
 
 " You speak like a book, and I'll try my best." 
 
 " If you threaten, for instance, to take him out of the 
 army, and settle him in the country, it would have a very 
 good effect." 
 
 "What! would he think it so great a punishment to 
 come home and live with his parents ? " 
 
 " I don't say that ; but he is naturally so fond of Lon- 
 don. At his age, and with his large inheritance, that is 
 natural." 
 
 " Inheritance ! " said the Squire, moodily " inheritance ! 
 he is not thinking of that, I trust. Zounds, sir, I have as 
 good a life as his own. Inheritance ! to be sure the Casino 
 property is entailed on him ; but as for the rest, sir, I am 
 no tenant for life. I could leave the Hazeldean lands to 
 my ploughman, if I chose it. Inheritance, indeed ! " 
 
 " My dear sir, I did not mean to imply that Frank would 
 entertain the unnatural and monstrous idea of calculating 
 on your death ; and all we have to do is to get. him to sow 
 his wild oats as soon as possible marry, and settle down 
 into the country. For it would be a thousand pities if his 
 own habits and tastes grew permanent a bad thing for the 
 Hazeldean property, that ! And," added Randal, laughing, 
 " I feel an interest in the old place, since my grandmother 
 comes of the stock. So just force yourself to seem angry, 
 and grumble a little when you pay the bills." 
 
 " Ah, ah, trust me," said the Squire, doggedly, and with 
 a very altered air. " I am much obliged to you for these
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 517 
 
 hints, my young kinsman." And his stout hand trembled 
 a little as he extended it to Randal. 
 
 Leaving Limner's, Randal hastened to Frank's rooms 
 in St. James's Street. " My dear fellow," said he, when he 
 entered, "it is very fortunate that I persuaded you to let 
 me break matters to your father. You might well say he 
 was rather passionate ; but I have contrived to soothe him. 
 You need not fear that he will not pay your debts. " 
 
 "I never feared that," said Frank, changing color, "I 
 only feared his anger. But, indeed, I fear his kindness 
 still more. What a reckless hound I have been ! How- 
 ever, it shall be a lesson to me. And my debts once paid, 
 I will turn as economical as yourself." 
 
 " Quite right, Frank. And, indeed, I am a little afraid 
 that, when your father knows the total, he may execute a 
 threat that would be very unpleasant to you." 
 
 " What's that ? " 
 
 " Make you sell out, and give up London." 
 
 " The devil ! " exclaimed Frank, with fervent emphasis ; 
 " that would be treating me like a child." 
 
 "Why, it would make you seem rather ridiculous to 
 your set, which is not a very rural one. And you, who like 
 London so much, and are so much the fashion." 
 
 " Don't talk of it," cried Frank, walking to and fro the 
 room in great disorder. 
 
 " Perhaps, on the whole, it might be well not to say all 
 you owe, at once. If you named half the sum, your father 
 would let you off with a lecture ; and really I tremble at 
 the effect of the total." 
 
 " But how shall I pay the other half ?" 
 
 " Oh, you must save from your allowance ; it is a very 
 liberal one ; and the tradesmen are not pressing." 
 
 " No but the cursed bill-brokers " 
 
 " Always renew to a young man of your expectations. 
 And if I get into an office, I can always help you, my dear 
 Frank." 
 
 " Ah, Randal, I am not so bad as to take advantage of 
 your friendship," said Frank, warmly. " But it seems to 
 me mean, after all, and a sort of a lie, indeed, disguising 
 the real state of my affairs. I should not have listened to 
 the idea from any one else. But you are such a sensible, 
 kind, honorable fellow." 
 
 " After epithets so nattering, I shrink from the respon- 
 sibility of advice. But apart from your own interests, I
 
 SiS My NOVEL; OR, 
 
 should be glad to save your father the pain he would feel 
 at knowing the whole extent of the scrape you have got 
 into. And if it entailed on you the necessity to lay by 
 and give up Hazard, and not be security for other men 
 why, it would be the best thing that could happen. Really, 
 too, it seems hard upon Mr. Hazeldean, that he should be 
 the only sufferer, and quite just that you sbxmld bear half 
 your own burdens." 
 
 "So it is, Randal ; that did not strike me before. I will 
 take your counsel ; and now I will go at once to Limner's. 
 My dear father ! I hope he is looking well ? " 
 
 " Oh, very. Such a contrast to the sallow Londoners ! 
 But I think you had better not go till dinner. He has 
 asked me to meet you at six. I will call for you a little 
 before, and we can go together. This will prevent a great 
 deal of gne and constraint. Good-bye till then. Ha! by 
 the way, I think if I were you, I would not take the matter 
 too seriously and penitentially. You see, the best of fathers 
 like to keep their sons under their thumb, as the saying is. 
 And if you w T ant at your age to preserve your indepen- 
 dence, and not be hurried off and buried in the country, 
 like a school-boy in disgrace, a little manliness of bearing 
 would not be amiss. You can think over it." 
 
 The dinner at Limner's went off very differently from 
 what it ought to have done. Randal's words had sunk 
 deep, and rankled sorely in the Squire's mind ; and that 
 impression imparted a certain coldness to his manner which 
 belied the hearty, forgiving, generous impulse with which 
 he had come up to London, and which even Randal had not 
 yet altogether whispered away. On the other hand, Frank, 
 embarrassed both by the sense of disingenuousness, and a 
 desire "not to take the thing too seriously," seemed to the 
 Squire ungracious and thankless. 
 
 After dinner the Squire began to hum and haw, and 
 Frank to color up and shrink. Both felt discomposed by 
 the presence of a third person ; till, with an art and address 
 worthy of a better cause, Randal himself broke the ice, and 
 so contrived to remove the restraint he had before imposed, 
 that at length each was heartily glad to have matters made 
 clear and brief by his dexterity and tact. 
 
 Frank's debts were not, in reality, large ; and when he 
 named the half of them looking down in shame the 
 Squire, agreeably surprised, was about to express himself 
 with a liberal heartiness that would have opened his son's
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 519 
 
 excellent heart at once to him. But a warning look from 
 Randal checked the impulse ; and the Squire thought it 
 right, as he had promised, to affect an anger he did not feel, 
 and let fall the unlucky threat, " that it was all very well 
 once in a way to exceed his allowance ; but if Frank did not, 
 in future, show more sense than to be led away by a set of 
 London sharks and coxcombs, he must cut the army, come 
 home, and take to farming." 
 
 Frank imprudently exclaimed, " Oh, sir, I have no taste 
 for farming. And after London, at my age, the country 
 would be so horribly dull." 
 
 " Aha ! " said the squire, very grimly and he thrust 
 back into his pocket-book some extra bank-notes which his 
 fingers had itched to add to those he had already counted 
 out. " The country is terribly dull, is it ? Money goes 
 there not upon follies and vices, but upon employing honest 
 laborers, and increasing the wealth of the nation. It does 
 not please you to spend money in that way : it is a pity you 
 should ever be plagued with such duties." 
 
 " My dear father 
 
 " Hold your tongue, you puppy. Oh, I dare say, if you 
 were in my shoes, you would cut down the oaks, and mort- 
 gage the property sell it, for what I know all go on a cast 
 of the dice ! Aha, sir very well, very well the country is 
 horribly dull, is it ? Pray stay in town." 
 
 " My dear Mr. Hazeldean," said Randal, blandly, and as 
 if with the wish to turn off into a joke what threatened to 
 be serious, " you must not interpret a hasty expression so 
 literally. Why would you make Frank as bad as Lord 
 
 A , who wrote word to his steward to cut down more 
 
 timber ; and when the steward replied, ' There are only 
 three sign-posts left on the whole estate,' wrote back, ' They've 
 done growing at all events down with them ! ' You ought 
 to know Lord A , sir ; so witty ; and Frank's particu- 
 lar friend." 
 
 " Your particular friend, Master Frank ? Pretty friends ! " 
 and the Squire buttoned up the pocket to which he had 
 transferred his note-book, with a determined air. 
 
 " But I'm his friend, too," said Randal kindly ; " and I 
 preach to him properly, I can tell you." Then, as if deli- 
 cately anxious to change the subject, he began to ask ques- 
 tions upon crops, and the experiment of bone manure. He 
 spoke earnestly and with gusto, yet with the deference of 
 one listening to a great practical authority. Randal had
 
 520 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 spent the afternoon in cramming the subject from agricul- 
 tural journals and Parliamentary reports ; and like all prac- 
 tised readers, had really learned in a few hours more than 
 many a man, unaccustomed to study, could gain from books 
 in a year. The Squire was surprised and pleased at the 
 young scholar's information and taste for such subjects. 
 
 " But, to be sure," quoth he, with an angry look at poor 
 Frank, " you have good Hazeldean blood in you, and know 
 a bean from a turnip." 
 
 " Why, sir," said Randal ingenuously, " I am training 
 myself for public life ; and what is a public man worth if 
 he do not study the agriculture of his country ?" 
 
 " Right what is he worth ? Put that question, with my 
 compliments, to my half-brother. What stuff he did talk, 
 the other night, on the malt tax, to be sure ! " 
 
 " Mr. Egerton has had so many other things to think of, 
 that we must excuse his want of information upon one topic, 
 however important. With his strong sense he must acquire 
 that information, sooner or later; for he is fond of power; 
 and, sir, knowledge is power ! " 
 
 " Very true ; very fine saying," quoth the poor Squire, 
 unsuspiciously, as Randal's eye rested on Mr. Hazeldean's 
 open face, and then glanced toward Frank, who looked sad 
 and bored. 
 
 "Yes," repeated Randal, " knowledge is power ;" and he 
 shook his head wisely, as he passed the bottle to his host. 
 
 Still, when the Squire, who meant to return to the Hall 
 next morning, took leave of Frank, his heart warmed to his 
 son ; and still more for Frank's dejected looks. It was not 
 Randal's policy to push estrangement too far at first, and in 
 his own presence. 
 
 "Speak to poor Frank kindly now, sir do;" whis- 
 pered he, observing the Squire's watery eyes, as he moved 
 to the window. 
 
 The Squire rejoiced to obey, thrust out his hand to his 
 son " My dear boy," said he, "there, don't fret pshaw ! 
 it was but a trifle after all. Think no more of it." 
 
 Frank took the hand, and suddenly threw his arm round 
 his father's broad shoulder. 
 
 " Oh, sir, you are too good too good." His voice 
 trembled so, that Randal took alarm, passed by him, and 
 touched him meaningly. 
 
 The Squire pressed his son to his heart heart so large, 
 that it seemed to fill the whole width under his broadcloth.
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 521 
 
 " My dear Frank," said he, half blubbering, "it is not 
 the money ; but, you see, it so vexes your poor mother ; 
 you must be' careful in future ; and, zounds, boy, it will be 
 all yours one day ; only don't calculate on it ; I could not 
 bear that I could not, indeed." 
 
 " Calculate ! " cried Frank. " Oh, sir, can you think it ? " 
 
 " I am so delighted that I had some slight hand in your 
 complete reconciliation with Mr. Hazeldean," said Randal, 
 as the young men walked from the hotel. " I saw that you 
 were disheartened, and I told him to speak to you kindly." 
 
 " Did you ? Ah ! : I am sorry he needed telling." 
 
 " I know his -character so well already," said Randal, 
 " that I flatter myself I can always keep things between you 
 as they ought to be. What an excellent man ! " 
 
 " The best man in the world," cried Frank, heartily ; 
 and then, as his accents drooped, " yet I have deceived him. 
 I have a great mind to go back " 
 
 " And tell him to give you twice as much money as you 
 had asked for. He would think you had only seemed so 
 affectionate in order to take him in. No, no, Frank save 
 lay by economize ; and then tell him that you have paid 
 half your own debts. Something high-minded in that." 
 
 " So there is. Your heart is as good as your head. 
 Good-night." 
 
 " Are you going home so early ? Have you no engage- 
 ments?" 
 
 " None that I shall keep." 
 
 "Good-night, then." 
 
 They parted, and Randal walked into one of the fash- 
 ionable clubs. He neared a table, where three or four 
 young men (younger sons, who lived in the most splendid 
 style, heaven knew how) were still over their wine. 
 
 Leslie had little in common with these gentlemen, but 
 he forced his nature to be agreeable to them, in conse- 
 quence of a very excellent piece of worldly advice given to 
 him by Audley Egerton. " Never let the dandies call you a 
 prig," said the statesman. "Many a clever fellow fails 
 through life because the silly fellows, whom half a word 
 well spoken could make his claqueurs, turn him into ridicule. 
 Whatever you are, avoid the fault of most reading men ; in 
 a word, don't be a prig ! " 
 
 " I have just left Hazeldean," said Randal ; "what a good 
 fellow he is ! "
 
 522 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 " Capital ! " said the Honorable George Borrowell. 
 "Where is he?" 
 
 "Why, he is gone to his rooms. He has had a little 
 scene with his father, a thorough, rough, country squire. 
 It would be an act of charity if you would go and keep him 
 company, or take him with you to some place a little more 
 lively than his own lodgings." 
 
 "What! the old gentleman has been teasing him! a 
 horrid shame ! Why, Frank is not extravagant, and he will 
 be very rich eh ? " 
 
 "An immense property," said Randal, "and not a mort- 
 gage on it ; an only son," he added, turning away. 
 
 Among these young gentlemen there was a kindly and 
 most benevolent whisper, and presently they all rose, and 
 walked away toward Frank's lodgings. 
 
 "The wedge is in the tree," said Randal to himself, 
 "and there is a gap already between the bark and the 
 wood." 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 HARLEY L'ESTRANGE is seated beside Helen at the 
 lattice-window in the cottage at Norwood. The bloom of 
 reviving health is on the child's face, and she is listening 
 with a smile, for Harley is speaking of Leonard with praise, 
 and of Leonard's future with hope. " And thus," he con- 
 tinued, "secure from his former trials, happy in his occupa- 
 tion, and pursuing the career he has chosen, we must be 
 content, my dear child, to leave him." 
 
 " Leave him ! " exclaimed Helen, and the rose on her 
 cheek faded. 
 
 Harley was not displeased to see her emotion. He 
 would have been disappointed in her heart if it had been 
 less susceptible to affection. 
 
 "It is hard on you, Helen," said he, "to be separated 
 from one who has been to you as a brother. Do not hate 
 me for doing so. But I consider myself your guardian, and 
 your home as yet must be mine. We are going from this 
 land of cloud and mist, going as into the world of summer. 
 Well, that does not content you. You weep, my child ; 
 you mourn your own friend, but do not forget your father's. 
 I am alone, and often sad, Helen ; will you not comfort
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 523 
 
 me ? You press my hand, but you must learn to smile on 
 me also. You are born to be the Comforter. Comforters 
 are not egotists ; they are always cheerful when they con- 
 sole." 
 
 The voice of Harley was so sweet, and his words went 
 so home to the child's heart, that she looked up and smiled 
 in his face as he kissed her ingenuous brow. But then she 
 thought of Leonard, and felt so solitary so bereft that 
 tears burst forth again. Before these were dried, Leonard 
 himself entered, and, obeying an irresistible impulse, she 
 sprang to his arms, and leaning her head on his shoulder, 
 sobbed out, "I am going from you, brother do not grieve 
 do not miss me." 
 
 Harley was much moved ; he folded his arms, and con- 
 templated them both silently and his own eyes were 
 moist. "This heart," thought he, " will- be worth the win- 
 ning ! " 
 
 He drew aside Leonard, and whispered, " Soothe, but en- 
 courage and support her. I leave you together ; come to 
 me in the garden later." 
 
 It was nearly an hour before Leonard joined Harley. 
 
 " She was not weeping when you left her ? " asked L'Es- 
 trange. 
 
 " No ; she has more fortitude than we might suppose. 
 Heaven knows how that fortitude has supported mine. I 
 have promised to write to her often." 
 
 Harley took two strides across the lawn, and then, com- 
 ing back to Leonard, said, " Keep your promise, and write 
 often for the first year. I would then ask you to let the 
 correspondence drop gradually." 
 
 " Drop ! Ah ! my lord ! " 
 
 " Look you, my young friend, I wish to lead this fair 
 mind wholly from the sorrows of the Past. I wish Helen* to 
 enter, not abruptly, but step by step, into a new life. You 
 love each other now as do two children as brother and 
 sister. But later, if encouraged, would the love be the same ? 
 And is it not better for both of you, that youth should open 
 upon the world with youth's natural affections free and un- 
 forestalled ?" 
 
 " True ! And she is so above me," said Leonard, mourn- 
 fully. 
 
 " No one is above him who succeeds in your ambition, 
 Leonard. It is not that, believe me." 
 
 Leonard shook his head.
 
 524 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 " Perhaps," said Harley, with a smile, " I rather feel 
 that you are above me. For what vantage-ground is so 
 high as youth ? Perhaps I may become jealous of you. It 
 is well that she should learn to like one who is to be hence- 
 forth her guardian and protector. Yet, how can she like 
 me as she ought, if her heart is to be full of you ? " 
 
 The boy bowed his head ; and Harley hastened to change 
 the subject, and speak of letters and of glory. His words 
 were eloquent and his voice kindling : for he had been an 
 enthusiast for fame in his boyhood ; and in Leonard's, his 
 own seemed to him to revive. But the poet's heart gave 
 back no echo suddenly it seemed void and desolate. Yet 
 when Leonard walked back by the moonlight, he muttered 
 to himself, " Strange strange so mere a child ; this can- 
 not be love ! Still what else to love is there left to me ? " 
 
 And so he paused upon the bridge where he had so often 
 stood with Helen, and on which he had found the protector 
 that had given to her a home- to himself a career. And 
 life seemed very long, and fame but a dreary phantom. 
 Courage, still, Leonard ! These are the sorrows of the heart 
 that teach thee more than all the precepts of sage and critic. 
 
 Another day, and Helen had left the shores of England, 
 with her fanciful and dreaming guardian. Years will pass 
 before our tale reopens. Life in all the forms we have seen 
 it travels on. And the Squire farms and hunts ; and the 
 Parson preaches and chides and soothes. And Riccabocca 
 reads his Machiavelli, and sighs and smiles as he moralizes 
 on Men and States. And Violante's dark eyes grow deeper 
 and more spiritual in their lustre ; and her beauty takes 
 thought from solitary dreams. And Mr. Richard Avenel 
 has his house in London, and the Honorable Mrs. Avenel 
 her opera-box ; and hard and dire is their struggle into 
 fashion, and hotly does the new man, scorning the aristoc- 
 racy, pant to become aristocrat. And Audley Egerton goes 
 from the office to the Parliament, and drudges, and debates, 
 and helps to govern the empire on which the sun never 
 sets. Poor Sun, how tired he must be but not more tired 
 than the Government ! And Randal Leslie has an excel- 
 lent place in the bureau of a minister, and is looking to 
 the time when he shall resign it to come into Parliament, 
 and on that large arena turn knowledge into power. And 
 meanwhile, he is much where he was with Audley Egerton ; 
 but he has established intimacy with the Squire, and visited 
 Hazeldeau twice, and examined the house and the map of
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE, 525 
 
 the property, and very nearly fallen a second time into the 
 Ha-ha, and the Squire believes that Randal Leslie alone can 
 keep Frank out of mischief, and has spoken rough words 
 to his Harry about Frank's continued extravagance : and 
 Frank does continue to" pursue pleasure, and is very miser- 
 able, and horribly in debt. And Madame di Negra has gone 
 from London to Paris, and taken a tour into Switzerland, 
 and come back to London again, and has grown very inti- 
 mate with Randal Leslie ; and Randal has introduced Frank 
 to her ; and Frank thinks her the loveliest woman in the 
 world, and grossly slandered by certain evil tongues. And 
 the brother of Madame di Negra is expected in England at 
 last ; and what with his repute for beauty and for wealth, 
 people anticipate a sensation. And Leonard, and Harley, 
 and Helen ? Patience they will all reappear.
 
 526 MY NOVEL; OA\ 
 
 BOOK EIGHTH. 
 
 INITIAL CHAPTER. 
 
 THE ABUSE OF INTELLECT. 
 
 THERE is at present so vehement a flourish of trumpets, 
 and so prodigious a roll of the drum, whenever we are 
 called upon to throw up our hats, and cry " Huzza" to the 
 "March of Enlightenment," that, out of that very spirit of 
 contradiction natural to all rational animals, one is tempted 
 to stop one's ears, and say, " Gently, gently ; LIGHT is noise- 
 less ; how comes 'Enlightenment' to make such a clatter? 
 Meanwhile, if it be not impertinent, pray, where is Enlight- 
 enment marching to ?" Ask that question of any six of the 
 loudest bawlers in the procession, and I'll wager tenpence 
 to California that you get six very unsatisfactory answers. 
 One respectable gentleman, who, to our great astonishment, 
 insists upon calling himself "a slave," but has a remarkably 
 free way of expressing his opinions, will reply " Enlighten- 
 ment is marching toward the seven points of the Charter." 
 Another, with his hair a la jeitne France, who has taken a 
 fancy to his friend's wife, and is rather embarrassed with 
 his own, asserts that Enlightenment is proceeding toward 
 the Rights of Women, the reign of Social Love, and the 
 annihilation of Tyrannical Prejudice. A third, who has the 
 air of a man well to do in the middle class, more modest in 
 his hopes, because he neither wishes to have his head broken 
 by his errand-boy, nor his wife carried off to an Agapemone 
 by his apprentice, does not take Enlightenment a step farther 
 than a siege on Debrett, and a cannonade on the Budget. 
 Illiberal man ! the march that he swells will soon trample 
 him under foot. No one fares so ill in a crowd as the man 
 who is wedged in the middle. A fourth, looking wild and
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 527 
 
 dreamy, as if he had come out of the cave of Trophonins, 
 and who is a mesmerizer and a mystic, thinks Enlighten- 
 ment is in full career toward the good old days of alche- 
 mists and necromancers. A fifth, whom one might take 
 for a Quaker, asserts that the march of Enlightenment is a 
 crusade for universal philanthropy, vegetable diet, and the 
 perpetuation of peace by means of speeches, which certainly 
 do produce a very contrary effect from the Philippics of 
 Demosthenes! The sixth (good fellow without a rag on 
 his back) does not care a straw where the march goes. He 
 can't be worse off than he is ; and it is quite immaterial to 
 him whether he goes to the dog-star above, or the bottom- 
 less pit below. I say nothing, however, against the march, 
 while we take it all together. Whatever happens, one is in 
 good company ; and though I am somewhat indolent by 
 nature, and would rather stay at home with Locke and 
 Burke (dull dogs though they were), than have my thoughts 
 set off helter-skelter with those cursed trumpets and drums, 
 blown and dub-a-dubbed by fellows whom I vow to heaven 
 I would not trust with a five-pound note still, if I must 
 march, I must ; and so deuce take the hindmost. But when 
 it comes to individual marchers upon their own account 
 privateers and condottieri of Enlightenment who have filled 
 their pockets with lucifer-matches, and have a sublime con- 
 tempt for their neighbors' barns and hay-ricks, I don't see 
 why I should throw myself into the seventh heaven of ad- 
 miration and ecstasy. 
 
 If those who are eternally rhapsodizing on the celestial 
 blessings that are to follow Enlightenment, Universal Knowl- 
 edge, and so forth, would just take their eyes out of their 
 pockets, and look about them, I would respectfully inquire 
 if they have never met any very knowing and enlightened 
 gentleman whose acquaintance is by no mea'ns desirable. 
 If not, they are monstrous lucky. Every man must judge 
 by his own experience ; and the worst rogues I have ever 
 encountered were amazingly well-informed clever fellows! 
 From dunderheads and dunces we can protect ourselves, 
 but from your sharp-witted gentleman, all enlightenment and 
 no prejudice, we have but to cry, " Heaven defend us ! " It 
 is true, that the rogue (let him be ever so enlightened) 
 usually comes to no good himself (though not before he has 
 done harm enough to his neighbors). But that only shows 
 that the world wants something else in those it rewards, be- 
 sides intelligence/<?r se and in the abstract ; and is much too
 
 528 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 old a world to allow any Jack Horner to pick out its plums 
 for his own personal gratification. Hence a man of very 
 moderate intelligence, who believes in God, suffers his 
 heart to beat with human sympathies, and keeps his eyes off 
 your strong-box, will perhaps gain a vast deal more power 
 than knowledge ever gives to a rogue. 
 
 Wherefore, though I anticipate an outcry against me on 
 the part of the blockheads, who, strange to say, are the 
 most credulous idolaters of enlightenment, and, if knowledge 
 were power, would rot on a dunghill ; yet, nevertheless, I 
 think all really enlightened men will agree with me, that 
 when one falls in with detached sharp-shooters from the gen- 
 eral March of Enlightenment, it is no reason that we should 
 make ourselves a target, because Enlightenment has fur- 
 nished them with a gun. It has, doubtless, been already 
 remarked by the judicious reader, that of the numerous 
 characters introduced into this work, the larger portion be- 
 long to that species which we call the INTELLECTUAL that 
 through them are analyzed and developed human intellect, 
 in various forms and directions. So that this History, 
 rightly considered, is a kind of humble familiar Epic, or, if 
 you prefer it, a long Serio-Comedy, upon the Varieties of 
 English Life in this our Century, set in movement by the 
 intelligences most prevalent. And where more ordinary and 
 less refined types of the species round and complete the 
 survey of our passing generation, they will often suggest, 
 by contrast, the deficiencies which mere intellectual culture 
 leaves in the human being. Certainly, I have no spite 
 against intellect and enlightenment. Heaven forbid I should 
 be such a Goth ! I am only the advocate for common sense 
 and fair play. I don't think an able man necessarily an 
 angel ; but I think if his heart match his head, and both 
 proceed in the Great March under the divine Oriflammc, 
 he goes as near to the angel as humanity will permit : if not, 
 if he has but a penn'orth of heart to a pound of brains, I 
 say, "Bon jour, man ange ! I see not the starry upward 
 wings, but the grovelling cloven-hoof." I'd rather be of- 
 fuscated by the Squire of Hazeldean, than enlightened by 
 Randal Leslie. Every man to his taste. But intellect itself 
 (not in the philosophical, but the ordinary sense of the term) 
 is rarely, if ever, one completed harmonious agency ; it is 
 not one faculty, but a compound of many, some of which 
 are often at war with each other, and mar the concord of 
 the whole. Few of us but have some predominant faculty,
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 529 
 
 in itself a strength ; but which, usurping unseasonably 
 dominion over the rest, shares the lot of all tyranny, how- 
 ever brilliant, and leaves the empire weak against disaffec- 
 tion within, and invasion from without. Hence, intellect 
 may be perverted in a man of evil disposition, and some- 
 times merely wasted in a man of excellent impulses, for want 
 of the necessary discipline, or of a strong ruling motive. I 
 doubt if there be one person in the world, who has obtained 
 a high reputation for talent, who has not met somebody 
 much cleverer than himself, which said somebody has never 
 obtained any reputation at all ! Men like Audley Egerton 
 are constantly seen in the great positions of life ; while men 
 like Harley L Estrange, who could have beaten them hollow 
 in anything equally striven for by both, float away down 
 the stream, and, unless some sudden stimulant arouse their 
 dreamy energies, vanish out of sight into silent graves. If 
 Hamlet and Polonius were living now, Polonius would 
 have a much better chance of being a Cabinet Minister, 
 though Hamlet would unquestionably be a much more 
 intellectual character. What would become of Hamlet ? 
 Heaven knows ! Dr. Arnold said, from his experience of a 
 school, that the difference between one man and another 
 was not mere ability it was energy. There is a great deal 
 of truth in that saying. 
 
 Submitting these hints to the judgment and penetration 
 of the sagacious, I enter on the fresh division of this work, 
 and see already Randal Leslie gnawing his lips on the back- 
 ground. The German poet observes, that the Cow of Isis 
 is to some the divine symbol of knowledge, to others but 
 the milch cow, only regarded for the pounds of butter 
 she will yield. O tendency of our age, to look on Isis as 
 the milch cow ! O prostitution of the grandest desires to 
 the basest uses ! Gaze on the goddess, Randal Leslie, and 
 get ready thy churn and thy scales. Let us see what the 
 butter will fetch in the market. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 A NEW Reign has commenced. There has been a gen- 
 eral election ; the unpopularity of the Administration has 
 been apparent at the hustings. Audley Egerton, hitherto 
 
 23
 
 530 MY NOVEL; OA', 
 
 returned by vast majorities, lias barely escaped defeat 
 thanks to a majority of five. The expenses of his election 
 are said to have been prodigious. " But who can stand 
 against such wealth as Egerton's no doubt backed, too, by 
 the Treasury purse ? " said the defeated candidate. It is 
 toward the close of October ; London is already full ; Par- 
 liament will meet in less than a fortnight. 
 
 In one of the principal apartments of that hotel in which 
 foreigners may discover what is meant by English comfort, 
 and the price which foreigners must pay for it, there sat 
 two persons side by side, engaged in close conversation. 
 The one was a female, in whose pale clear complexion and 
 raven hair in whose eyes, vivid with a power of expression 
 rarely bestowed on the beauties of the north, we recognize 
 Beatrice, Marchesa di Negra. Undeniably handsome as 
 was the Italian lady, her companion, though a man, and far 
 advanced into middle age, was yet more remarkable for 
 personal advantages. There was a strong family likeness 
 between the two ; but there was also a striking contrast in 
 air, manner, and all that stamps on the physiognomy the 
 idiosyncrasies of character. There was something of grav- 
 ity, of earnestness and passion, in Beatrice's countenance 
 when carefully examined ; her smile at times might be false, 
 but it was rarely ironical, never cynical. Her gestures, 
 though graceful, were unrestrained and frequent. You 
 could see she was a daughter of the south. Her compan- 
 ion, on the contrary, preserved on the fair, smooth face, to 
 which years had given scarcely a line or wrinkle, something 
 that might have passed, at first glance, for the levity and 
 thoughtlessness of a gay and youthful nature ; but the smile, 
 though exquisitely polished, took at times the derision of a 
 sneer. In his manners he was as composed and as free from 
 gesture as an Englishman. His hair was of that red brown 
 with which the Italian painters produce such marvellous 
 effects of color ; and, if here and there a silver thread 
 gleamed through the locks, it was lost at once amidst their 
 luxuriance. His eyes were light, and his complexion, 
 though without much color, was singularly transparent. 
 His beauty, indeed, would have been rather womanly than 
 masculine, but for the height and sinewy spareness of a 
 frame in which muscular strength was rather adorned than 
 concealed by an admirable elegance of proportion. You 
 would never have guessed this man to be an Italian ; more 
 likely you would have supposed him a Parisian. He con-
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 531 
 
 versed in French, his dress was of French fashion, his mode 
 of thought seemed French. Not that he was like the 
 Frenchman of the present day an animal either rude or 
 reserved ; but your ideal of the Marquis of the old regime 
 the roue oi the Regency. 
 
 Italian, however, he was, and of a race renowned in 
 Italian history. But, as if ashamed of his country and his 
 birth, he affected to be a citizen of the world. Heaven help 
 the world if it hold only such citizens ! 
 
 " But, Giulio," said Beatrice di Negra, speaking in Italian, 
 " even granting that you discover this girl, can you suppose 
 that her father will ever consent to your alliance ? Surely 
 you know too well the nature of your kinsman ?" 
 
 " Tu te trompes, ma sceur" replied Giulio Franzini, Count 
 di Peschiera, in French, as usual " tu tetrompes ; I knew it 
 before he had gone through exile and penury. How can I 
 know it now ? But comfort yourself, my too anxious Bea- 
 trice ; I shall not care for his consent till I've made sure of 
 his daughter's.'' 
 
 " But how win that in despite of the father ? " 
 
 " Eh, mordieu ! '' interrupted the Count, with true French 
 gaiety; "what would become of all the comedies ever 
 written, if marriages were not made in despite of the father ? 
 Look you," he resumed, with a very slight compression of 
 his lip, and a still slighter movement in his chair " look 
 you, this is no question of ifs and buts ! it is a question of 
 must and shall, a question of existence to you and to me. 
 When Danton was condemned to the guillotine, he said, 
 flinging a pellet of bread at the nose of his respectable 
 judge, ' Mon individu sera bientut dans I e nranf,' My patri- 
 mony is there already ! I am loaded with debts. I see be- 
 fore me, on the one side, ruin or suicide ; on the other side, 
 wedlock and wealth." 
 
 <; But from those vast possessions which you have been 
 permitted to enjoy so long, have you really saved nothing 
 against the time when they might be reclaimed at your 
 hands ?" 
 
 " My sister," replied the Count, " do I look like a man 
 who saved ? Besides, when the Austrian Emperor, unwill- 
 ing to raze from his Lombard domains a name and a house 
 so illustrious as our kinsman's, and desirous while punish- 
 ing that kinsman's rebellion, to reward my adherence, for- 
 bore the peremptory confiscation of those vast possessions, 
 at which my mouth waters while we speak, but, annexing
 
 532 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 them to the crown during pleasure, allowed me, as the next 
 male kin, to retain the revenues of one-half tor the same 
 very indefinite period, had I not every reason to suppose 
 that, before long, I could so influence his Imperial Majesty, 
 or his minister, as to obtain a degree that might transfer the 
 whole, unconditionally and absolutely, to myself ? And 
 methinks 1 should have done so, but for this accursed, in- 
 termeddling English Milord, who has never ceased to be- 
 siege the court or the minister with alleged extenuations of 
 our cousin's rebellion, and proof-less assertions that I shared 
 it in order to entangle my kinsman, and betrayed it in order 
 to profit by his spoils. So that, at last, in return for all my 
 services and in answer to all my claims, I received from the 
 minister himself this cold reply: 'Count of Peschiera, 
 your aid was important, and your reward has been large. 
 That reward it would not be for your honor to extend, and 
 jiistify the ill opinion of your Italian countrymen by for- 
 mally appropriating to yourself all that was forfeited by the 
 treason you denounced. A name so noble as yours should 
 be dearer to you than fortune itself.' " 
 
 " Ah, Giulio," cried Beatrice, her face lighting up, 
 changed in its whole character, "those were words that 
 might make the demon that tempts to avarice fly from your 
 breast in shame." 
 
 The Count opened his eyes in great amaze ; then he 
 glanced round the room, and said, quietly, 
 
 " Nobody else hears you, my dear Beatrice ; talk com- 
 mon sense. Heroics sound well in mixed society ; but 
 there is nothing less suited to the tone of a family conver- 
 sation." 
 
 Madame di Negra bent down her head abashed, and 
 that sudden change in the expression of her countenance 
 which had seemed to betray susceptibility to generous emo- 
 tion, faded as suddenly away. 
 
 " But still," she said, coldly, " you enjoy one-half of those 
 ample revenues, why talk, then, of suicide and ruin?" 
 
 " I enjoy them at the pleasure of the crown ; and what 
 if it be the pleasure of the crown to recall our cousin, and 
 reinstate him in his possessions ?" 
 
 " There is a probability, then, of that pardon ? When 
 you first employed me in your researches, you only thought 
 there was a possibility." 
 
 "There is a great probability of it, and therefore I am 
 here. I learned some little time since that the question of
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 533 
 
 such recall had been suggested by the Emperor, and dis- 
 cussed in council. The danger to the State which might 
 arise from our cousin's wealth, his alleged abilities (abili- 
 ties ! bah !) and his popular name, deferred any decision on 
 the point ; and, indeed, the difficulty of dealing with myself 
 must have embarrassed the minister. But it is a mere ques- 
 tion of time. He cannot long remain excluded from the 
 general amnesty already extended to the other refugees. 
 The person who gave me this information is high in power, 
 and friendly to myself ; and he added a piece of advice, on 
 which I acted. ' It was intimated,' said he, ' by one of the 
 partisans of your kinsman, that the exile could give a host- 
 age for his loyalty in the person of his daughter and heiress ; 
 that she had arrived at marriageable age ; that if she were 
 to wed, with the Emperor's consent, some one whose attach- 
 ment to the Austrian crown was unquestionable, there would 
 be a guarantee both for the faith of the father, and for the 
 transmission of so important a heritage to safe and loyal 
 hands. Why not,' continued my friend, ' apply to the Em- 
 peror for his consent to that alliance for yourself ? you, on 
 whom he can depend ; you who, if the daughter should 
 die, would be the legal heir to those lands?' On that hint 
 I spoke." 
 
 " You saw the Emperor ? " 
 
 '*' And after combating the unjust prepossessions against 
 me, I stated that, so far from my cousin having any fair 
 cause of resentment against me, when all was duly explained 
 to him, I did not doubt that he would willingly give me the 
 hand of his child." 
 
 " You did ! " cried the Marchesa, amazed. 
 
 " And," continued the Count, imperturbably, as he 
 smoothed, with careless hand, the snowy plaits of his shirt- 
 front, " and that I should thus have the happiness of be- 
 coming myself the guarantee of my kinsman's loyalty, the 
 agent for the restoration of his honors, while, in the eyes 
 of the envious and malignant, I should clear up my own 
 name from all suspicion that I had wronged him." 
 
 " And the Emperor consented ? " 
 
 " Pardieu, my dear sister ; what else could his majesty 
 do ? My proposition smoothed every obstacle, and recon- 
 ciled policy with mercy. It remains, therefore, only to find 
 out what has hitherto baffled all our researches, the retreat 
 of our dear kinsfolk, and to make myself a welcome lover 
 to the demoiselle. There is some disparity of years, I ow,n;
 
 534 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 but unless your sex and my glass flatter me over-much 
 I am still a match for many a gallant of five-and-twentv." 
 
 The Count said this with so charming a smile, and 
 looked so pre-eminently handsome, that he carried off the 
 coxcombry of the words as gracefully as if they had been 
 spoken by some dazzling hero of the grand old comedy of 
 Parisian life. 
 
 Then interlacing his fingers, and lightly leaning his 
 hands, thus clasped, upon his sister's shoulder, he looked 
 into her face, and said slowly "And now, my sister, for 
 some gentle but deserved reproach. Have you not sadly 
 failed me in the task I imposed on your regard for my in- 
 terests ? Is it not some years since you first came to Eng- 
 land on the mission of discovering these worthy relations 
 of ours ? Did I not entreat you to seduce into your toils 
 the man whom I knew to be my enemy, and who was in- 
 dubitably acquainted with our cousin's retreat a secret he 
 has hitherto locked within his bosom ? Did you not tell 
 me, that though he was then in England, you could find no 
 occasion even to meet him, but that you had obtained the 
 friendship of the statesman to whom I had directed your 
 attention, as his most intimate associate ? And yet you, 
 whose charms are usually so irresistible, learn nothing from 
 the statesman, as you see nothing of Milord. Nay, baffled 
 and misled, you actually suppose that the quarry has taken 
 refuge in France. You go thither you pretend to search 
 the capital the provinces, Switzerland, que sais-je all in 
 vain, though-^/W de gcntilhomme your police costs me 
 dearly you return to England the same chase, and the 
 same result. Palsambleu, ma steur, I do too much credit to 
 your talents not to question your zeal. In a word, have you 
 been in earnest or have you not had some womanly pleas- 
 ure in amusing yourself and abusing my trust ? " 
 
 "Giulio," answered Beatrice, sadly, "you know the in- 
 fluence you have exercised over my character and my fate. 
 Your reproaches are not just. I made such inquiries as 
 were in my power, and I have now cause to believe that I 
 know one who is possessed of this secret, and can guide us 
 to it." 
 
 " Ah, you do ! " exclaimed the Count. Beatrice did not 
 heed the exclamation, and hurried on. 
 
 " But grant that my heart shrunk from the task you 
 imposed on me, would it not have been natural ? When I 
 firs t t came to England, you informed me that your object in
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 535 
 
 discovering the exiles was one which I could honestly aid. 
 You naturally wished first to know if the daughter lived ; 
 if not, you were the heir. If she did, you assured me you 
 desired to effect, through my mediation, some liberal com- 
 promise with Alphonso, by which you would have sought 
 to obtain his restoration, provided he would leave you for 
 life in possesssion of the grant you hold from the crown. 
 While these were your objects, I did my best, ineffectual as 
 it was, to obtain the information required." 
 
 "And what made me lose so important, though so in- 
 effectual an ally ? " asked the Count, still smiling ; but a 
 gleam that belied the smile shot from his eye. 
 
 "What ! when you bade me receive and co-operate with 
 the miserable spies the false Italians whom you sent over, 
 and seek to entangle this poor exile, when found, in some 
 rash correspondence to be revealed to the court; when 
 you sought to seduce the daughter of the Count of Pes- 
 chiera, the descendant of those who had ruled in Italy, 
 into the informer, the corrupter, and the traitress ! No, 
 Giulio then I recoiled ; and then, fearful of your own 
 sway over me, I retreated into France. I have answered 
 you frankly." 
 
 The Count removed his hands from the shoulder on 
 which they had reclined so cordially. 
 
 "And this," said he, "is your wisdom, and this your 
 gratitude. You, whose fortunes are bound up in mine 
 you, who subsist on my bounty you, who " 
 
 " Hold," cried the Marchesa, rising, and with a burst of 
 emotion, as if stung to the utmost, and breaking into revolt 
 from the tyranny of years "hold gratitude! bounty! 
 Brother, brother what, indeed, do I owe to you ? The 
 shame and the misery of a life. While yet a child, you con- 
 demned me to marry against my will against my heart 
 against my pr?yers and laughed at my tears when I knelt 
 to you for mercv. I was pure then, Giulio pure and inno- 
 cent as the flowers in my virgin crown. And now now " 
 
 Beatrice stopped abruptly, and clasped her hands before 
 her face. 
 
 "Now you upbraid me," said the Count, unruffled by 
 her sudden passion, "because I gave you in marriage to a 
 man young and noble ?" 
 
 " Old in vices, and mean of soul ! The marriage I for- 
 gave you. You had the right, according to the customs of 
 our country, to dispose of my hand. But I forgave you
 
 536 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 not the consolations that you whispered in the ear of a 
 wretched and insulted wife." 
 
 " Pardon me the remark," replied the Count, with a 
 courtly bend of his head, " but those consolations were also 
 conformable to the customs of our country, and I was not 
 aware till now that you had wholly disdained them. And," 
 continued the Count, " you were not so long a wife that 
 the gall of the chain should smart still. You were soon 
 left a widow free, childless, young, beautiful. 
 
 "And penniless." 
 
 " True, Di Negra was a gambler, and very unlucky ; no 
 fault of mine. I could neither keep the cards from his 
 hands, nor advise him how to play them." 
 
 "And my own portion ? Oh Giulio, I knew but. at his 
 death why you had condemned me to that renegade 
 Genoese. He owed you money, and against honor, and I 
 believe against law, you had accepted my fortune in dis- 
 charge of the debt." 
 
 " He had no other way to discharge it a debt of honor 
 must be paid old stories these. What matters ? Since 
 then my purse has been open to you." 
 
 " Yes, not as your sister, but your instrument your 
 spy ! Yes, your purse has been open with a niggard 
 hand." 
 
 " Un peu de conscience, ma chcre, you are so extravagant. 
 But come, be plain. What would you ? " 
 
 " I would be free from you." 
 
 " That is, you would form some second marriage with 
 one of those rich island lords. Ma foi, I respect your am- 
 bition." 
 
 " It is not so high. I aim but to escape from slavery 
 to be placed beyond dishonorable temptation. I desire," 
 cried Beatrice, with increased emotion "I desire to re- 
 enter the life of woman." 
 
 "Eno'I" said the Count, with a visible impatience; 
 " is there anything in the attainment of your object that 
 should render you indifferent to mine ? You desire to marry, 
 if I comprehend you right. And to marry, as becomes 
 you, you should bring to your husband not debts, but a 
 dowry. Be it so. I will restore the portion that ! saved 
 from the spendthrift clutch of the Genoese the moment 
 that it is mine to bestow the moment that I am husband 
 to my kinsman's heiress. And now, Beatrice, you imply 
 that my former notions revolted your conscience ; my
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 537 
 
 present plan should content it : for by this marriage shall 
 our kinsman regain his country, and repossess, at least, half 
 his lands. And if I am not an excellent husband to the 
 demoiselle, it will be her own fault. I have sown my wild 
 oats. Je suis ban prince, when I have things a little my own, 
 way. It is my hope and my intention, and certainly it will' 
 be my interest, to become digne epoux et irreproachable pere\ 
 de famille. I speak lightly 'tis my way. I mean seriously, j 
 The little girl will be very happy with me, and I shall suc-j 
 ceed in soothing all resentment her father may retain. Willj 
 you aid me then yes or no ? Aid me, and you shall indeed' 
 be free. The magician will release the fair spirit he has 
 bound to his will. Aid me not, ma chere, and mark, I do not 
 threaten I do but warn aid me not ; grant that I become 
 a beggar, and ask yourself what is to become of you still 
 young, still beautiful, and still penniless ? Nay, worse than 
 penniless; you have done me the honor" (and here the 
 Count, looking on the table, drew a letter from a portfolio 
 emblazoned with his arms and coronet), " you have done 
 me the honor to consult me as to your debts." 
 
 " You will restore my fortune ? " said the Marchesa, ir- 
 resolutely and averting her head from an odious schedule 
 of figures. 
 
 "When my own, with your aid, is secured." 
 " But do you not overrate the value of my aid ? " 
 " Possibly," said the Count, with a caressing suavity 
 and he kissed his sister's forehead. " Possibly ; but, by my 
 honor, I wish to repair to you any wrong, real or supposed, 
 I may have done you in past times. I wish to find again my 
 own dear sister. I may overvalue your aid, but not the 
 affection from which it comes. Let us be friends, cara 
 Beatrice mia," added the Count, for the first time employing 
 Italian words. 
 
 The Marchesa laid her head on his shoulder and her 
 tears flowed softly. Evidently this man had great influence 
 over her and evidently, whatever her cause for complaint, 
 her affection for him was still sisterly and strong. A nature 
 with fine flashes of generosity, spirit, honor, and passion, 
 was hers but uncultured, unguided spoilt by the worst 
 social examples easily led into wrong not always aware 
 where the wrong was letting affections good or bad whis- 
 per away her conscience or blind her reason. Such women 
 are often far more dangerous when induced to wrong, than 
 those who are thoroughly -abandoned such women are the 
 
 23*
 
 538 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 ,'iccomplices men like the Count of Peschiera most desire 
 to obtain. 
 
 " Ah, Giulio," said Beatrice, after a pause, and looking 
 up at him through her tears, "when you speak to me thus, 
 you know you can do with me what you will. Fatherless 
 and motherless, whom had my childhood to love and obey 
 but you ? " 
 
 " Dear Beatrice," murmured the Count tenderly and 
 he again kissed her forehead. "So," he continued, more 
 carelessly "so the reconciliation is effected, and our in- 
 terests and our hearts re-allied. Now, alas ! to descend to 
 business. You say that you know some one whom you 
 believe to be acquainted with the lurking-place of my 
 father-in-law that is to be ! " 
 
 " I think so. You remind me that I have an appoint- 
 ment with him this day : it is near the hour I must leave 
 you." 
 
 "To learn the secret ? Quick quick. I have no fear of 
 your success, if it is by his heart that you lead him ! " 
 
 "You mistake ; on his heart I have no hold. But he has 
 a friend who loves me, and honorably, and whose cause he 
 pleads. I think here that I have some means to control or 
 persuade him. If not ah, he is of a character that per- 
 plexes me in all but his worldly ambition ; and how can we 
 foreigners influence him through that?" 
 
 " Is he poor, or is he extravagant ? " 
 
 "Not extravagant, and not positively poor, but de- 
 pendent." 
 
 " Then we have him," said the Count, composedly. " If 
 his assistance be worth buying, we can bid high for it. Sur 
 mon dmc, I never yet knew money fail with any man who was 
 both worldly and dependent. I put him and myself in 
 your hands." 
 
 Thus saying, the Count opened the door, and conducted 
 his sister with formal politeness to her carriage. He then 
 returned, reseated himself, and mused in silence. As he did 
 so, the muscles of his countenance relaxed. The levity of 
 the Frenchman fled from his visage, and in his eye, as it 
 gazed abstractedly into space, there was that steady depth 
 so remarkable in the old portraits of Florentine diplomatist 
 or Venetian Oligarch. Thus seen, there was in that face, 
 despite all its beauty, something that would have awed back 
 even the fond gaze of love ; something hard, collected, 
 inscrutable, remorseless. But this change' of countenance
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 539 
 
 did not last long. Evidently thought, though intense for 
 the moment, was not habitual to the man. Evidently he 
 had lived the life which takes all things lightly so he rose 
 with a look of fatigue, shook and stretched himself, as if to 
 cast off, or grow out of, an unwelcome and irksome mood. 
 An hour afterward, the Count of Peschiera was charming 
 all eyes, and pleasing all ears, in the saloon of a high-born 
 beauty, whose acquaintance he had made at Vienna, and 
 whose charms, according to that old and never-truth speak- 
 ing oracle, Polite Scandal, were now said to have attracted 
 to London the brilliant foreigner. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE Marchesa regained her house, which was in Curzon 
 Street, and withdrew to her own room, to readjust her dress, 
 and remove from her countenance all trace of the tears she 
 had shed. 
 
 Half an hour afterward she was seated in her drawing- 
 room, composed and calm ; nor, seeing her then, could you 
 have guessed that she was capable of so much emotion and 
 so much weakness. In that stately exterior, in that quiet 
 attitude, in that elaborate and finished,elegance which comes 
 alike from the arts of the toilet and the conventional repose 
 of rank, you could see but the woman of the world and the 
 great lady. 
 
 A knock at the door was heard, and in a few moments 
 there entered a visitor, with the easy familiarity of intimate 
 acquaintance a young man, but with none of the bloom of 
 youth. His hair, fine as a woman's, was thin and scanty, 
 but it fell low over the forehead, and concealed that noblest 
 of our human features. " A gentleman," says Apuleitis, 
 "ought to wear his whole mind on his forehead."* The 
 young visitor would never have committed so frank an im- 
 prudence. His cheek was pale, and in his step and his 
 movements there was a languor that spoke of fatigued 
 nerves or delicate health. But the light of the eye and the 
 tone of the voice were those of a mental temperament con- 
 trolling the bodily vigorous and energetic. For the rest, 
 his general appearance was distinguished by a refinement 
 
 * " Hominem libcrum et magnificum Jcbcre, si qucat, in primori fronte, aninium gestarc."
 
 540 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 alike intellectual and social. Once seen, you would not 
 easily forget him. And the reader, no doubt, already rec- 
 ognizes Randal Leslie. His salutation, as I before said, 
 was that of intimate familiarity : yet it was given and replied 
 to with that unreserved openness which denotes the absence 
 of a more tender sentiment. 
 
 Seating himself by the Marchesa's side, Randal began 
 first to converse on the fashionable topics and gossip of the 
 day ; but it was observable that, while he extracted from 
 her the curent anecdote and scandal of the great world, 
 neither anecdote nor scandal did he communicate in return. 
 Randal Leslie had already learned the art not to commit 
 himself, nor to have quoted against him one ill-natured re- 
 mark upon the eminent. Nothing more injures the man 
 who would rise beyond the fame of the salons, than to be 
 considered backbiter and gossip ; "yet it is always useful," 
 thought Randal Leslie, "to know the foibles the small 
 social and private springs by which the great are moved. 
 Critical occasions may arise in which such knowledge may 
 be power." And hence, perhaps (besides a more private 
 motive, soon to be perceived), Randal did not consider his 
 time thrown away in cultivating Madame di Negra's friend- 
 ship. For, despite much that was whispered against her, 
 she had succeeded in dispelling the coldness with which she 
 had at first been received in the London circles. Her beauty, 
 her grace, and her high birth, had raised her into fashion ; 
 and the homage of men of the first station, while it perhaps 
 injured her reputation as woman, added to her celebrity as 
 line lady. So much do we cold English, prudes though 
 we be, forgive to the foreigner what we avenge on the 
 native. 
 
 Sliding at last from these general topics into very well- 
 bred and elegant personal compliment, and reciting various 
 eulogies, which Lord this and the Duke of that had passed 
 on the Marchesa's charms, Randal laid his hand on hers, 
 with the license of admitted friendship, and said 
 
 " But since you have deigned to confide in me, since when 
 (happily for me, and with a generosity of which no coquette 
 could have been capable) you, in good time, repressed into 
 friendship feelings that-might else have ripened into those 
 you are formed to inspire and disdain to return, you told 
 me with your charming smile, 'Let no one speak to me of 
 love who does not offer me his hand, and with it the means 
 to supply tastes that I fear are terribly extravagant ; ' since
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 541 
 
 thus you allowed me to divine your natural objects, and 
 upon that understanding our intimacy has been founded, 
 you will pardon me for saying that the admiration you 
 excite amongst these grands seigneurs \ have named only 
 serves to defeat your own purpose, and scare away admirers 
 less brilliant, but more in earnest. Most of these gentlemen 
 are unfortunately married ; and they who are not belong to 
 those members of our aristocracy who, in marriage, seek more 
 than beauty and wit namely, connections to strengthen 
 their political station, or wealth to redeem a mortgage and 
 sustain a title." 
 
 " My dear Mr. Leslie," replied the Marchesa and a cer- 
 tain sadness might be detected in the tone of the voice and 
 the droop of the eye " I have lived long enough in the real 
 world to appreciate the baseness and the falsehood of most 
 of those sentiments which take the noblest names. I see 
 through the hearts of the admirers you parade before me, 
 and know that not one of them would shelter with his ermine 
 the woman to whom he talks of his heart. Ah," continued 
 Beatrice, with a softness of which she was unconscious, but 
 which might have been extremely dangerous to youth less 
 steeled and self-guarded than was Randal Leslie's "Ah, I 
 am less ambitious than you suppose. I have dreamed of a 
 friend, a companion, a protector, with feelings still fresh, 
 undebased by the low round of vulgar dissipation and mean 
 pleasures of a heart so new, that it might restore my own 
 to what it was in its happy spring. I have seen in your 
 country some marriages, the mere contemplation of which 
 has filled my eyes with delicious tears. I have learned in 
 England to know the value of home. And with such a 
 heart as I describe, and such a home, I could forget that 
 I ever knew a less pure ambition." 
 
 "This language does not surprise me," said Randal; 
 " yet it does not harmonize with your former answer to me." 
 
 "To you," repeated Beatrice, smiling, and regaining her 
 lighter manner : " to you true. But I never had the vanity 
 to think that your affection for me could bear the sacrifices 
 it would cost you in marriage ; that you, with your ambition, 
 could bound your dreams of happiness to home. And 
 then, too," said she, raising her head, and with a certain 
 grave pride in her air "and then, I could not have con- 
 sented to share rny fate with one whom my poverty would 
 cripple. I could not listen to my heart, if it had beat for a 
 lover without fortune, for to him I could then have brought
 
 542 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 but a burden, and betrayed him into a union with poverty 
 and debt. Now, it may be different. Now I may have the 
 dowry that befits rny birth. And now I may be free to 
 choose according to my heart as woman, not according to 
 my necessities, as one poor, harassed, and despairing." 
 
 "Ah," said Randal, interested, and drawing still closerto- 
 ward his fair companion " ah, I congratulate you sincerely ; 
 you have cause, then, to think that you shall be rich ? " 
 
 The Marchesa paused before she answered, and during 
 that pause Randal relaxed the web of the scheme which he 
 had been secretly weaving, and rapidly considered whether, 
 if Beatrice di Negra would indeed be rich, she might answer 
 to himself as a wife ; and in what way, if so, he had best 
 change his tone from that of friendship into that of love. 
 While thus reflecting, Beatrice answered 
 
 " Not rich for an Englishwoman ; for an Italian, yes. 
 My fortune should be half a million " 
 
 " Half a million ! " cried Randal, and with difficulty he 
 restrained himself from falling at her feet in adoration. 
 
 " Of francs ! " continued the Marchesa. 
 
 " Francs ! Ah," said Randal, with a long-drawn- breath, 
 and recovering from his sudden enthusiasm, " about twenty 
 thousand pounds? eight hundred a year at four per cent. 
 A very handsome portion certainly (Genteel poverty ! he 
 murmured to himself. What an escape I have had ! but I 
 see I see. This will smooth all difficulties in the way of 
 my better and earlier project. I see) a very handsome 
 portion," he repeated aloud " not for a grand seigneur, in- 
 deed, but still for a gentleman of birth and expectations 
 worthy of your choice, if ambition be not your first object. 
 Ah, while you spoke with such endearing eloquence of feel- 
 ings that were fresh, of a heart that was new, of the happy 
 English home, you might guess that my thoughts ran to my 
 friend who loves you so devotedly, and who so realizes your 
 ideal. Proverbially, with us, happy marriages and happy 
 homes are found not in the gay circles of London fashion, 
 but at the hearths of our rural nobility our untitled coun- 
 try gentlemen. And who, amongst all your adorers, can 
 offer you a lot so really enviable as the one whom, I see 
 by your blush, you already guess that I refer to ? " 
 
 " Did I blush ? " said the Marchesa, with a silvery laugh. 
 "Nay, I think that your zeal for your friend misled you. 
 But I will own frankly, I have been touched by his honest 
 ingenuous love so evident, yet rather looked than spoken.
 
 VARlETfES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 543 
 
 I have contrasted the love that honors me with the suitors 
 that seek to degrade ; more I cannot say. For though I 
 grant that your friend is handsome, high-spirited, and gen- 
 erous, still he is not what " 
 
 "You mistake, believe me," interrupted Randal. "You 
 shall not finish your sentence. He is 'till that you do not 
 yet suppose him ; for his shyness, and his very love, his 
 very respect for your superiority, do not allow his mind and 
 his nature to appear to advantage. You, it is true, have a 
 taste for letters and poetry rare among your countrywomen. 
 He has not at present few men have. But what Cimon 
 would not be refined by so fair an Iphigenia? Such frivol- 
 ities as he now shows belong but to youth and inexperience 
 of life. Happy the brother who could see his sister the wife 
 of Frank Hazeldean." 
 
 The Marchesa leant her cheek on her hand in silence. 
 To her, marriage was more than it usually seems to dream- 
 ing maiden or to disconsolate widow. So had the strong 
 desire to escape from the control of her unprincipled and 
 remorseless brother grown a part of her very soul so had 
 whatever was best and highest in her very mixed and com- 
 plex character been galled and outraged by her friendless 
 and exposed position, the equivocal worship rendered to her 
 beauty, the various debasements to which pecuniary em- 
 barrassments had subjected her (not without design on the 
 part of the Count, who, though grasping, was not miserly, 
 and who by precarious and seemingly capricious gifts at 
 one time, and refusals of all aid at another, had involved 
 her in debt in order to retain his hold on her) so utterly 
 painful and humiliating to a woman of her pride and her 
 birth was the station that she held in the world that in 
 marriage she saw liberty, life, honor, self-redemption ; and 
 these thoughts, while they compelled her to co-operate with 
 the schemes, by which the Count, on securing to himself a 
 bride, was to bestow on herself a dower, also disposed her 
 now to receive with favor Randal Leslie's pleadings on be- 
 half of his friend. 
 
 The advocate saw that he had made an impression, and 
 with the marvellous skill which his knowledge of those 
 natures that engaged his study bestowed on his intelli- 
 gence, he continued to improve his cause by such repre- 
 sentations as were likely to be most effective. With what 
 admirable tact he avoided panegyric of Frank as the 
 mere individual, and drew him rather as the type, the
 
 544 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 ideal of what a woman in Beatrice's position might de- 
 sire, in the safety, peace, and honor of a home, in the 
 trust, and constancy, and honest confiding love of its 
 partner ! He did not paint an elysium, he described a 
 haven ; he did not glowingly delineate a hero of romance 
 he soberly portrayed that Representative of the Re- 
 spectable and the Real which a woman turne to when 
 romance begins to seem to her but delusion. Verily, if 
 you could have looked into the heart of the person he 
 addressed, and heard him speak, you would have cried 
 admiringly, " Knowledge is power ; and this man, if as 
 able on a larger field of action, should play no mean part 
 in the history of his time." 
 
 Slowly Beatrice roused herself from the reveries which 
 crept over her as he spoke slowly, and with a deep sigh, 
 and said 
 
 " Well, well, grant all you say ; at least before I can 
 listen to so honorable a love, I must be relieved from the 
 base and sordid pressure that weighs on me. I cannot 
 say to the man wbo woos me, 'Will you pay the debts oi 
 the daughter of Franzini, and the widow of di Negra ? ' ' 
 
 "Nay, your debts, surely, make so slight a portion of 
 your dowry." 
 
 "But the dowry has to be secured ;" and here, turning 
 the tables upon her companion, as the apt proverb ex- 
 presses it, Madame di Negra extended her hand to *Ran- 
 dal, and said in the most winning accents, "You are, 
 then, truly and sincerely my friend?" 
 'Can you doubt it ? " 
 
 'I prove that I do not, for I ask your assistance." 
 
 'Mine? How?" 
 
 'Listen : my brother has arrived in London " 
 
 ' I see that arrival announced in the papers." 
 'And he comes, empowered by the consent of the 
 Emperor, to ask the hand of a relation and countrywoman 
 of his; an alliance that will heal long family dissensions, 
 and add to his own fortunes those of an heiress. My 
 brother, like myself, has been extravagant. The dowry 
 which by law he still owes me it would distress him to 
 pay till this marriage be assured." 
 
 " I understand," said Randal. " But how can I aid this 
 marriage ? " 
 
 " By assisting us to discover the bride. She, with her 
 father, sought refuge and concealment in England."
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 545 
 
 " The father had, then, taken part in some political 
 disaffections, and was proscribed ? " 
 
 " Exactly ; and so well has he concealed himself, that 
 he has baffled all our efforts to discover his retreat. My 
 brother can obtain him his pardon in cementing this 
 alliance " 
 
 " Proceed." 
 
 " Ah, Randal, Randal, is this the frankness of friend- 
 ship ? You know that I have before sought to obtain 
 the secret of our relation's retreat sought in vain to 
 obtain it from Mr. Egerton, who assuredly knows it " 
 
 " But who communicates no secrets to living man," 
 said Randal, almost bitterly ; " who, close and compact as 
 iron, is as little malleable to me as to you." 
 
 " Pardon me. I know you so well that I believe you 
 could attain to any secret you sought earnestly to acquire. 
 Nay, more, I believe that you know already that secret 
 which I ask you to share with me." 
 
 " What on earth makes you think so ? " 
 
 " When, some weeks ago, you asked me to describe the 
 personal appearance and manners of the exile, which I 
 did partly from the recollections of my childhood, partly 
 from the description given to me by others, I could not 
 but notice your countenance, and remark its change ; in 
 spite," said the Marchesa, smiling, and watching Randal 
 while she spoke "in spite of your habitual self-com- 
 mand. And when I pressed you to own that you had 
 actually seen some one who tallied with that description, 
 your denial did not deceive me. Still more, when return- 
 ing recently of your own accord, to the subject, you 
 questioned me so shrewdly as to my motives in seeking 
 the clue to our refugees, and I did not then answer you 
 satisfactorily, I could detect " 
 
 " Ha, ha! " interrupted Randal, with the low soft laugh 
 by which occasionally he infringed upon Lord Chester- 
 field's recommendations to shun a merriment so natural as 
 to be ill-bred " Ha, ha, you have the fault of all observers 
 too minute and refined. But even granting that I may 
 have seen some Italian exiles (which is likely enough), 
 what could be more natural than my seeking to compare 
 your description with their appearance ; and granting that 
 I might suspect some one amongst them to be the man you 
 search for, what more natural, also, than that I should 
 desire to know if you meant him harm or good in dis-
 
 546 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 covering his ' wherabout ? ' For ill," added Randal, with 
 an air of prudery " ill would it become me to betray, even 
 to friendship, the retreat of one who would hide from 
 persecution ; and even if I did so for honor itself is a 
 weak safeguard against your fascinations such indiscre- 
 tion might be fatal to my future career." 
 
 "How?" 
 
 " Do you not say that Egerton knows the secret, yet 
 will not communicate? and is he .a man who would ever 
 forgive in me an imprudence that committed himself? 
 My dear friend, 1 will tell you more. When Audley 
 Egerton first noticed my growing intimacy with you, he 
 said, with his usual dryness of counsel, ' Randal, I do not 
 ask you to discontinue acquaintance with Madame di 
 Negra for an acquaintance with women like her forms the 
 manners, and refines the intellect ; but charming women are 
 dangerous, and Madame di Negra is a charming woman." 
 
 The Marchesa's face flushed. Randal resumed : "'Your 
 fair acquaintance (I am still quoting Egerton) 'seeks to 
 discover the home of a countryman of hers. She suspects 
 that I know it. She may try to learn it through you. Ac- 
 cident may possibly give you the information she requires. 
 Beware how you betray it. By one such weakness I should 
 judge of your general character. He from whom a Avoman 
 can extract a secret will never be fit for public life.' 
 Therefore, my dear Marchesa, even supposing I possess 
 this secret, you would be no true friend of mine to ask me 
 to reveal what would imperil all my prospects. For, as yet," 
 added Randal, with a gloomy shade on his brow "as yet I 
 do not stand alone and erect I lean ; I am dependent." 
 
 "There may be a Avay," replied Madame di Negra, per- 
 sisting, "to communicate this intelligence, without the 
 possibility of Mr. Egerton's tracing our discovery to your- 
 self ; and, though I will not press you farther, I add this 
 You urge me to accept your friend's hand ; you seem in- 
 terested in the success of his suit, and you plead it with 
 a warmth that shows how much you regard what you sup- 
 pose is his happiness ; I will never accept his hand till I can 
 do so without a blush for my penury till my dowry is 
 secured, and that can only be by my brother's union with 
 the exile's daughter. For your friend's sake, therefore, 
 think well how you can aid me in the first step to that al- 
 liance. The young lady once discovered, and my brother 
 has no fear for the success of his suit."
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 547 
 
 " And you would marry Frank if the dower was 
 secured ? " 
 
 " Your arguments in his favor seem irresistible," re- 
 plied Beatrice, looking down. 
 
 A flash went from Randal's eyes, and he mused a few 
 moments. 
 
 Then slowly rising and drawing on his gloves, he said 
 
 " Well, at least you so far reconcile my honor toward 
 aiding your research, that you now inform me you mean no 
 ill to the exile." 
 
 "111! the restoration to fortune, honors, his native land." 
 
 " And you so far enlist my heart on your side, that you 
 inspire me with the hope to contribute to the happiness of 
 two friends whom I dearly love. I will therefore diligently 
 try to ascertain if, among the refugees I have met with, 
 lurk those whom you seek ; and if so, I will thought- 
 fully consider how to give you the clue. Meanwhile, not 
 one incautious word to Egerton." 
 > " Trust me I am a woman of the world." 
 
 Randal now had gained the door. He paused and re- 
 newed carelessly 
 
 " This young lady must be ^heiress to great wealth, to 
 induce a man of your brother's rank to take so much pains 
 to discover her." 
 
 " Her wealth will be vast," replied the Marchesa ; " and 
 if anything from wealth or influence in a foreign state 
 could be permitted to prove my brother's gratitude " 
 
 "Ah, fie!" interrupted Randal; and. approaching 
 Madame di Negra, he lifted her hand to his lips, and said, 
 gallantly 
 
 "This is reward enough to your preux chevalier" 
 
 With those words he took his leave. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 WITH his hands behind him, and his head drooping on 
 his breast slow, stealthy, noiseless, Randal Leslie glided 
 along the streets on leaving the Italian's house. Across 
 the scheme he had before revolved, there glanced another 
 yet more glittering, for its gain might be more sure and 
 immediate. If the exile's daughter were heiress to such
 
 548 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 wealth, might he himself hope ? He stopped short even 
 
 in his own soliloquy, and his breath came quick. Now, in 
 his last visit to Hazeldean he had come in contact with 
 Riccabocca, and been struck by the beauty of Violante. A 
 vague suspicion had crossed him that these might be the 
 persons of whom the Marchesa was in search, and the sus- 
 picion had been confirmed by Beatrice's description of the 
 refugee she desired to discover. But as he had not then 
 learned the reason for her inquiries, nor conceived the pos- 
 sibility that he could have any personal interest in ascer- 
 taining the truth, he had only classed the secret in question 
 among those the farther research into which might be left 
 to time and occasion. Certainly, the reader will not do the 
 unscrupulous intellect of Randal Leslie the injustice to 
 suppose that he was deterred from confiding to his fair 
 friend all that he knew of Riccabocca, by the refinement of 
 honor to. which he had so chivalrously alluded. He had 
 correctly stated Audley Egerton's warning against any in- 
 discreet confidence, though he had forborne to mention, a 
 more recent and direct renewal of the same caution. His 
 first visit to Hazeldean had been paid without consulting 
 Egerton. He had been passing some days at his father's 
 house, and had gone over thence to the Squire's. On his 
 return to London, he had, however, mentioned this visit to 
 Audley, who had seemed annoyed, and even displeased at 
 it, though Randal knew sufficient of Egerton's character to 
 guess that such feelings could scarce be occasioned merely 
 by his estrangement from his half-brother. This dissatis- 
 faction had, therefore, puzzled the young man. But as it 
 was necessary to his views to establish intimacy with the 
 Squire, he did not yield the point with his customary 
 deference to his patron's whims. Accordingly, he observed, 
 that he should be very sorry to do anything displeasing to 
 his benefactor, but that his father had been naturally an- 
 xious that he should not appear positively to slight the 
 friendlv overtures of Mr. Hazeldean. 
 
 ' Why naturally ? " asked Egerton. 
 
 " Because you know that Mr. Hazeldean is a relation of 
 mine that my grandmother was a Hazeldean." 
 
 "Ah!" said Egerton, who, as it has been before said, 
 knew little and cared less about the Hazeldean pedigree, 
 " I was either not aware of that circumstance, or had for- 
 gotten it. And your father thinks that the Squire may 
 leave you a legacy ? "
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 549 
 
 " Oh, sir, my father is not so mercenary such an idea 
 never entered his head. But the Squire himself has indeed 
 said ' Why, if anything happened to Frank, you would be 
 next heir to my lands, and therefore we ought to know each 
 other.' But " 
 
 " Enough," interrupted Egerton. " I am the last man 
 to pretend to the right of standing between you and a 
 single chance of fortune, or of aid to it. And whom did 
 you meet at Hazeldean ? " 
 
 " There was no one there, sir ! not even Frank." 
 
 " Hum. Is the Squire not on good terms with his par- 
 son ? Any quarrel about tithes ? " 
 
 " Oh, no quarrel. I forg;ot Mr. Dale ; I saw him pretty 
 often. He admires and praises you very much, sir." 
 
 " Me and why? What did he say of me ? " 
 
 " That your heart was as sound as your head ; that he 
 had once seen you about some old parishioners of his ; and 
 that he had been much impressed with the depth of feeling 
 he could not have anticipated in a man of the world, and a 
 statesman." 
 
 " Oh, that was all ; some affair when I was member for 
 Lansmere ?" 
 
 " I suppose so." 
 
 Here the conversation had broken off ; but the next 
 time Randal was led to visit the Squire, he had formally 
 asked Egerton's consent, who, after a moment's hesitation, 
 had as formally replied, " I have no objection." 
 
 On returning from his visit, Randal mentioned that he 
 had seen Riccabocca ; and Egerton, a little startled at first, 
 said, composedly, " Doubtless one of the political refugees ; 
 take care not to set Madame di Negra on his track. Re- 
 member, she is suspected of being a spy of the Austrian 
 government." 
 
 " Rely on me. sir," said Randal ; " but I should think this 
 poor doctor can scarcely be the person she seeks to discover." 
 
 "That is no affair of ours," answered Egerton ; " we are 
 English gentlemen, and make not a step toward the secrets 
 of another." 
 
 Now, when Randal revolved this rather ambiguous an- 
 swer, and recalled the uneasiness with which Egerton had 
 first heard of his visit to Hazeldean, he thought that he was 
 indeed near the secret which Egerton desired to conceal 
 from him and from all viz., the incognito of the Italian 
 whom Lord L'Estrange had taken under his protection.
 
 550 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 " My cards," said Randal to himself, as with a deep- 
 drawn sigh he resumed his soliloquy, "are become difficult 
 to play. On the one hand, to entangle Frank into mar- 
 riage with this foreigner, the Squire could never forgive 
 him. On the other hand, if she will not marry him with- 
 out the dowry and that depends on her brother's wed- 
 ding this countrywoman and that countrywoman be, as 
 I surmise, Violante and Violante be this heiress, and to be 
 Avon by me ! Tush, tush. Such delicate scruples in a 
 woman so placed and so constituted as Beatrice di Negra 
 must be easily talked away. Nay, the loss itself of this al- 
 liance to her brother, the loss of her own dowry the very 
 pressure of poverty and debt, would compel her into the 
 sole escape left to her option. I will then follow up the old 
 plan ; I will go down to llazeldean, and see if there be any 
 substance in the new one ; and then to reconcile both. 
 Aha the House of Leslie shall rise yet from its ruin 
 and " 
 
 Here he was startled from his reverie by a friendly slap 
 on the shoulder, and an exclamation " Why, Randal, you 
 are more absent than when you used to steal away from the 
 cricket-ground, muttering Greek verses, at Eton." 
 
 ''My dear Frank," said Randal, "you you are so 
 brusque, and I was just thinking of you." 
 
 "Were you ? And kindly, then, I am sure," said Frank 
 Hazeldean, his honest handsome face lighted up with the 
 unsuspecting genial trust of friendship ; " and heaven 
 knows," he added, with a sadder voice, and a graver ex- 
 pression on his eye and lip, " heaven knows I want all 
 the kindness you can give me ! " 
 
 " I thought," said Randal, " that your father's last sup- 
 ply, of which I was fortunate enough to be the bearer, 
 would clear off your more pressing debts. I don't pretend 
 to preach, but really I must say, once more, you should not 
 be so extravagant." 
 
 FRANK (seriously). I have done my best to reform. I 
 have sold off my horses, and I have not touched dice nor 
 cards these six months ; I would not even put into the 
 raffle for the last Derby." This last was said with the air 
 of a man who doubted the possibility of obtaining belief to 
 some assertion of preternatural abstinence and virtue. 
 
 RANDAL. Is it possible ? But with such self-conquest, 
 how is it that you cannot contrive to live within the bounds 
 of a very liberal allowance ?
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 551 
 
 FRANK (despondingly). Why, when a man once gets 
 his head under water, it is so hard to float back again on 
 the surface. You see, I attribute all my embarrassments 
 to that first concealment of my debts from my father, when 
 they could have been so easily met, and when he came up 
 to town so kindly." 
 
 " I am sorry, then, that I gave you that advice." 
 
 " Oh, you meant it so kindly, I don't reproach you ; it 
 was all my own fault." 
 
 " Why, indeed, I did urge you to pay off that moiety of 
 your debts left unpaid, with your allowance. Had you 
 done so, all had been well." 
 
 "Yes ; but poor Borrowel got into such a scrape at 
 Goodwood I could not resist him ; a debt of honor that 
 must be paid ; so when I signed another bill for him, he 
 could not pay it, poor fellow ! Really*he would have shot 
 himself, if I had not renewed it. And now it is swelled to 
 such an amount with that cursed interest, that he never can 
 pay it ; and one bill, of course, begets another and to be 
 renewed every three months ; 'tis the devil and all ! So lit- 
 tle as I ever got for all I have borrowed," added Frank, with 
 a kind of rueful amaze. " Not ^1500 ready money ; and 
 the interest would cost me almost as much yearly if I had 
 it." 
 
 "Only ^1500!" 
 
 "Well besides seven large chests of the worst cigars 
 you ever smoked, three pipes of wine that no one would 
 drink ; and a great bear that had been imported from Green- 
 land for the sake of its grease." 
 
 " That should, at least, have saved you a bill with your 
 hair-dresser." 
 
 "I paid his bill with it," said Frank, " and very good- 
 natured he was to take the monster off my hands it had 
 already hugged two soldiers and one groom into the shape 
 of a flounder. I tell you what," resumed Frank, after a 
 short pause, "I have a great mind even now to tell my 
 father honestly all my embarrassments." 
 
 RANDAL (solemnly). Hum ! 
 
 FRANK. What ? don't you think it would be the best 
 way ? I never can save enough never can pay off what I 
 owe ; and it rolls like a snowball. 
 
 RANDAL. Judging by the Squire's talk, I think that with 
 the first sight of your affairs you would forfeit his favor for 
 ever; and your mother would be so shocked, especially
 
 552 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 after supposing that the sum I brought you so lately suf- 
 ficed to pay off every claim on you. If you had not assured 
 her of that, it might be different ; but she who so hates an 
 untruth, and who said to the Squire, " Frank says this will 
 clear him ; and with all his faults, Frank never yet told 
 a lie ! " 
 
 " Oh, my dear mother ! I fancy I hear her ! " cried Frank, 
 with deep emotion. " But I did not tell a lie, Randal ; I 
 did not say that that sum would clear me." 
 
 "You empowered and begged me to say so," replied 
 Randal, with grave coldness ; "and don't blame me if I be- 
 lieved you." 
 
 " No, no ! I only said it would clear me for the mo- 
 ment.' 
 
 " I misunderstood you, then, sadly ; and such mistakes 
 involve my own honor. Pardon me, Frank ; don't ask my 
 aid in future. You see, with the best intentions, I only 
 compromise myself." 
 
 " If you forsake me, I may as well go and throw myself 
 into the river," said Frank, in a tone of despair; "and 
 sooner or later, my father must know my necessities. Trie 
 Jews threaten to go to him already ; and the longer the 
 delay, the more terrible the explanation." 
 
 " I don't see why your father should ever learn the state 
 of your affairs ; and it seems to me that you could pay off 
 these usurers, and get rid of these bills, by raising money 
 on comparatively easy terms." 
 
 " How ?" cried Frank, eagerly. 
 
 " Why, the Casino property is entailed on you, and you 
 might obtain a sum upon that, not to be paid till the prop- 
 erty becomes yours." 
 
 " At my poor father's death ? Oh, no no ! I cannot 
 bear the idea of this cold-blooded calculation on a father's 
 death. I know it is not uncommon ; I know other fellows 
 who have done it, but they never had parents so kind as 
 mine ; and even in them it shocked and revolted me. The 
 contemplating a father's death, and profiting by the con- 
 templation, it seems a kind of parricide ; it is not natural, 
 Randal. Besides, don't you remember what the Governor 
 said he actually wept while he said it ' Never calculate 
 on my death ; I could not bear that.' Oh, Randal, don't 
 speak of it !" 
 
 " I respect your sentiments ; but still, all the post-obits 
 you could raise could not shorten Mr. Hazeldean's life by
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 553 
 
 a day. However, dismiss that idea ; we must think of some 
 other device. Ha, Frank ! you are a handsome fellow, and 
 your expectations are great why don't you marry some 
 woman with money ? " 
 
 " Pooh ! " exclaimed Frank, coloring. " You know, Ran- 
 dal, that there is but one woman in the world I can even 
 think of ; and I love her so devotedly, that, though I was as 
 gay as most men before, I really feel as if the rest of her 
 sex had lost every charm. I was passing through the street 
 now merely to look up at her windows." 
 
 "You speak of Madame di Negra ? I have just left her. 
 Certainly she is two or three years older than you ; but if 
 you can get over that misfortune, why not marry her?" 
 
 " Marry her ! " cried Frank, in amaze, and all his color 
 fled from his cheeks. "Marry her ! are you serious?" 
 
 " Why not ? " 
 
 " But even if she, who is so accomplished, so admired 
 even if she would accept me, she is, you know, poorer than 
 myself. She has told me so frankly. That woman has such 
 a noble heart! and and my father would never consent, 
 nor my mother either. I know they would not." 
 
 " Because she is a foreigner ? " 
 
 "Yes partly." 
 
 " Yet the Squire suffered his cousin to marry a foreigner." 
 
 "That was different. He, had no control over Jemima; 
 and a daughter-in-law is so different ; and my father is so 
 English in his notions ; and Madame di Negra, you see, is 
 altogether so foreign. Her very graces would be against 
 her in his eyes." 
 
 " I think you do both your parents injustice. A for- 
 eigner of low birth an actress or singer, for instance of 
 course would be highly objectionable ; but a woman like 
 Madame di Negra, of such high birth and connections 
 
 Frank shook his head. " I don't think the Governor 
 would care a straw about her connections, if she were a 
 king's daughter. He considers all foreigners pretty much 
 alike. And then, you know " (Frank's voice sank into a 
 whisper) " you know that one of the very reasons why she 
 is so dear to me, would be an insuperable objection to the 
 old-fashioned folks at home." 
 
 "I don't understand you, Frank." 
 
 "I love her the more," said young Hazeldean, raising 
 his front with a noble pride, that seemed to speak of his 
 descent from a race of cavaliers and gentlemen " I love
 
 554 MY NOVL; OR, 
 
 her the more because the world has slandered her name 
 because I believe her to be pure and wronged. But 
 would they at the Hall they who do not see with a lover's 
 eyes they who have all the stubborn English notions about 
 the indecorum and license of Continental manners, and will 
 so readily credit the worst ? Oh, no I love, I cannot help 
 it but I have no hope." 
 
 " It is very possible that you may be right," exclaimed 
 Randal, as if struck and half convinced by his companion's 
 argument " very possible ; and certainly I think that the 
 homely folks at the Hall would fret and fume at first, if they 
 heard you were married to Madame di Negra. Yet still, 
 when your father learned that you had done so, not from 
 passion alone, but to save him from all pecuniary sacrifice 
 to clear yourself of debt to -" 
 
 " What do you mean ?" exclaimed Frank, impatiently. 
 
 " I have reason to know that Madame di Negra will have 
 as large a portion as your father could reasonably expect 
 you to receive with any English wife. And when this is 
 properly stated to the Squire, and the high position and 
 rank of your wife fully established and brought home to him 
 for I must think that these would tell, despite your ex- 
 aggerated notions of his prejudices and then, when he 
 really sees Madame di Negra, and can judge of her beauty 
 and rare gifts, upon my word, I think, Frank, that there 
 would be no cause for fear. After all, too, you are his only 
 son. He will have no option but to forgive you ; and I 
 know how anxiously both your parents wish to see you set- 
 tled in life." 
 
 Frank's whole countenance became illuminated. " There 
 is no one Avho understands the Squire like you, certainly," 
 said he, with lively joy. " He has the highest opinion of 
 your judgment. And you really believe you could smooth 
 matters ? " 
 
 " I believe so ; but I should be sorry to induce you to. 
 run any risk ; and if, on cool consideration, you think that 
 risk is incurred, I strongly advise you to avoid all occasion 
 of seeing the poor Marchesa. Ah, you wince ; but I say it 
 for her sake as well as your own. First, you must be aware, 
 that unless you have serious thoughts of marriage, your at- 
 tentions can but add to the very rumors that, equally ground- 
 less, you so feelingly resent ; and, secondly, because I don't 
 think any man has a right to win the affections of a woman 
 especially a woman who seems to me likely to love with
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 555 
 
 her whole heart and soul merely to gratify his own van- 
 ity." 
 
 " Vanity ! Good heavens ! can you think so poorly of 
 me ? But as to the Marchesa's affections," continued Frank, 
 with a faltering voice, " do you really and honestly believe 
 that they are to be won by me ?" 
 
 " I fear lest they may be half won already," said Randal, 
 with a smile and a shake of the head ; "but she is too 
 proud to let you see any effect you may produce on her, 
 especially when, as I take it for granted, you have never 
 hinted at the hope of obtaining her hand." 
 
 " I never till now conceived such a hope. My dear Ran- 
 dal, all my cares have vanished I tread upon air I have a 
 great mind to call on her at, once." ' ;'""' 
 
 " Stay, stay," said Randal. " Let me give you a caution. 
 I have just informed you that Madame di Negra will have, 
 what you suspected not before, a fortune suitable to her 
 birth. Any abrupt change in your manner at present 
 might induce her to believe that you were influenced by 
 that intelligence." 
 
 "Ah !" exclaimed Frank, stopping short, as if wounded 
 to the quick. " And I feel guilty feel as if I was influ- 
 enced by that intelligence. So I am, too, when I reflect," 
 he continued, with a naivett that was half pathetic ; " but I 
 hope she will not be very rich if so, I'll not call." 
 
 " Make your mind easy, it is but a portion of some 
 twenty or thirty thousand pounds, that would just suffice 
 to discharge all your debts, clear away all obstacles to your 
 union, and in return for which you would secure a more 
 than adequate jointure and settlement on the Casino prop- 
 erty. Now I am on that head, I will be yet more commu- 
 nicative. Madame di Negra has a noble heart, as you say, 
 and told me herself, that until her brother on his arrival 
 had assured her of this dowry, she would never have con- 
 sented to marry you never crippled with her own embar- 
 rassments the man she loves. Ah ! with what delight she 
 will hail the thought of assisting you to win back your 
 father's heart ! But be guarded, meanwhile. And now, 
 Frank, what say you would it not be well if I ran down 
 to Hazeldean to sound your parents ? It is rather incon- 
 venient to me, to be sure, to leave town just at present ; but 
 I would do more than that to render you a smaller service. 
 Yes, I'll go to Rood Hall to-morrow, and thence to Hazel- 
 dean, J am sure your father will press me to stay, and I
 
 556 MY NOVEL; UR t 
 
 shall have ample opportunities to judge of the manner in 
 which he would be likely to regard your marriage with 
 Madame di Negra supposing always it were properly put 
 to him. We can then act accordingly." 
 
 " My dear, dear Randal, how can I thank you ? If ever 
 a poor fellow like me can serve you in return but that's 
 impossible." 
 
 " Why, certainly, I will never ask you to be security to 
 a bill of mine," said Randal, laughing. " I practise the 
 economy I preach." 
 
 " Ah ! " said Frank, with a groan, " that is because your 
 mind is cultivated you have so many resources ; and all 
 my faults have come from idleness. If I had had anything 
 to do on a rainy day, I should never have got into these 
 scrapes." 
 
 " Oh ! you will have enough to do some day managing 
 your property. We who have no property must find one 
 in knowledge. Adieu, my dear Frank I must go home 
 now. By the way, you have never, by chance, spoken of 
 the Riccaboccas to Madame di Negra ? " 
 
 "The Riccaboccas? No. That's well thought of. It 
 may interest her to know that a relation of mine has mar- 
 ried her countryman. Very odd that I never did mention 
 it ; but to say truth, I really do talk so little to her ; she is 
 so superior, and I feel positively shy with her." 
 
 " Do me the favor, Frank," said Randal, \vaiting patient- 
 ly till this reply ended for he was devising all the time 
 what reason to give for his request " never to allude to the 
 Riccaboccas, either to her or to her brother to whom you 
 are sure to be presented." 
 
 "Why not allude to them?" 
 
 Randal hesitated a moment. His invention was still 
 at fault, and, for a wonder, he thought it the best policy .to 
 go pretty near the truth. 
 
 " Why I will tell you. The Marchesa conceals nothing 
 from her brother, and he is one of the few Italians who are 
 in high favor with the Austrian court." 
 
 "Well ! " 
 
 "And I suspect that poor Dr. Riccabocca fled his coun- 
 try from some mad experiment at revolution, and is still 
 hiding from the Austrian police." 
 
 " But they can't hurt him here," said Frank, with an 
 Englishman's dogged inborn conviction of' the sanctity 
 of his native island. " I should like to see an Austrian
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 557 
 
 pretend to dictate to us whom to receive and whom to re- 
 ject." 
 
 "Hum that's true and constitutional, no doubt; but 
 Riccabocca may have excellent reasons and, to speak 
 plainly, I know he has (perhaps as affecting the safety of 
 friends in Italy) for preserving his incognito, and we 
 are bound to respect those reasons without inquiring fur- 
 ther." 
 
 "Still I cannot think so meanly of Madame di Negra," 
 persisted Frank (shrewd here, though credulous elsewhere, 
 and both, from his sense of honor), ''as to suppose that she 
 would descend to be a spy, and injure a poor countryman 
 of her own, who trusts to the same hospitality she receives 
 herself at our English hands. Oh ! if I thought that I could 
 not love her ! " added Frank, with energy. 
 
 " Certainly you are right. But see in what a false 
 position you would place both her brother and herself. If 
 they knew Riccabocca's secret, and proclaimed it to the 
 Austrian government, as you say, it would be cruel and 
 mean ; but, if they knew it and concealed, it might involve 
 them both in the most serious consequences. You know 
 the Austrian policy is proverbially so jealous and tyran- 
 nical ! " 
 
 " Well, the newspapers say so, certainly." 
 
 " And, in short, your discretion can do no harm, and 
 your indiscretion may. Therefore, give me your word, 
 Frank. I can't stay to argue now." 
 
 " I'll not allude to the Riccaboccas, upon my honor," 
 answered Frank ; "still, I am sure that they would be as safe 
 with the Marchesa as with " 
 
 " I rely on your honor," interrupted Randal hastily, and 
 hurried off. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 TOWARD the evening of the following day, Randal Les- 
 lie walked slowly from a village in the main road (about 
 two miles from Rood Hall), at which he had got out of the 
 coach. He passed through meads and corn-fields, and by 
 the skirts of woods which had formerly belonged to his an- 
 cestors, but had been long since alienated. He was alone 
 amidst the haunts of his boyhood, the scenes in which he
 
 558 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 had first invoked the grand Spirit of Knowledge, to bid the 
 Celestial Still One minister to the commands of an earthly 
 and turbulent ambition. He paused often in his path, es- 
 pecially when the undulations of the ground gave a glimpse 
 of the gray church-tower, or the gloomy firs that rose above 
 the desolate wastes of Rood. 
 
 "Here," thought Randal, with a softening eye "here, 
 how often, comparing the fertility of the lands passed away 
 from the inheritance of my fathers, with the forlorn wilds 
 tiiut are left to their mouldering hall here, how often have 
 I said to myself 'I will rebuild the fortunes of my house.' 
 And straightway Toil lost its aspect of drudge, and grew 
 kingly, and books became as living armies to serve my 
 thoughts. Again again O thou haughty Past, brace and 
 strengthen me in my battle with the Future." His pale lips 
 writhed as he soliloquized, for his conscience spoke to him 
 while he thus addressed his will, and its voice was heard 
 more audibly in the quiet of the rural landscape, than 
 amidst the turmoil and din of that armed and sleepless 
 camp which we call a city. 
 
 Doubtless, though Ambition have objects more vast and 
 beneficent than the restoration of a name, that in itself is 
 high and chivalrous, and appeals to a strong interest in the 
 human heart. But all emotions, and ail ends, of a nobler 
 character, had seemed to filter themselves free from every 
 golden grain in passing through the mechanism of Randal's 
 intellect, and came forth at last into egotism clear and un- 
 alloyed. Nevertheless, it is a strange truth that, to a man 
 of cultivated mind, however perverted and vicious, there 
 are vouchsafed gleams of brighter sentiments, irregular per- 
 ceptions of moral beauty, denied to the brutal unreasoning 
 wickedness of uneducated villany which perhaps ultim- 
 ately serve as his punishment according to the old thought 
 of the satirist, that there is no greater curse than to per- 
 ceive virtue yet adopt vice. And as the solitary schemer 
 walked slowly on, and his childhood innocent at least in 
 deed came distinct before him through the halo of bygone 
 dreams dreams far purer than those from which he now 
 rose each morning to the active world of Man a profound 
 melancholy crept over him, and suddenly he exclaimed 
 aloud, " Then I aspired to be renowned and great now, 
 how is it that, so advanced in my career, all that seemed 
 lofty in the end has vanished from me, and the only means 
 that I contemplate are those which my childhood would
 
 VARIETIES Iff ENGLISH LIFE. 559.. 
 
 have called poor and vile ? Ah ! is it that I then read but 
 books, and now my knowledge has passed onward, and 
 men contaminate more than books ? But," he continued, 
 in a lower voice, as if arguing with himself, "if power is 
 only so to be won and of what use is knowledge if it be 
 not power does not success in life justify all things ? 
 And who prizes the wise man if he fails ? " He continued 
 his way, but still the soft tranquillity around rebuked him, 
 and still his reason was dissatisfied, as well as his con- 
 science. There are times when Nature, like a bath of 
 youth, seems to restore to the jaded soul its freshness 
 times from which some men have emerged, as if reborn. 
 The crises of life are very silent. Suddenly the scene 
 opened on Randal Leslie's eyes. The bare desert common 
 the dilapidated church the old house, partially seen in 
 the dank dreary hollow, into which it seemed to Randal to 
 have sunken deeper and lowlier than when he saw it last. 
 And on the common were some young men playing at 
 hockey. That old-fashioned game, now very uncommon in 
 England, except at schools, was still preserved in the prim- 
 itive vicinity of Rood by the young yeomen and farmers. 
 Randal stood by the stile and looked on, for among the 
 players he recognized his brother Oliver. Presently the 
 ball was struck toward Oliver, and the group instantly 
 gathered round that young gentleman and snatched him 
 from Randal's eye ; but the elder brother heard a displeas- 
 ing din, a derisive laughter. Oliver had shrunk from the 
 danger of the thick clubbed sticks that plied around him, 
 and received some strokes across the legs, for his voice 
 rose whining, and was drowned by shouts of, ' Go to 
 your mammy. That's Noll Leslie all over. Butter- 
 shins." 
 
 Randal's sallow face became scarlet. " The jest of boors 
 a Leslie ! " he muttered, and ground his teeth. He sprang 
 over the stile, and walked erect and haughtily across the 
 ground. The players cried out indignantly. Randal raised 
 his hat, and they recognized him, and stopped the game. 
 For him at least a certain respect was felt. Oliver turned 
 round quickly, and ran up to him. Randal caught his arm 
 firmly, and without saying a word to the rest, drew him 
 away toward the house. Oliver cast a regretful, lingering 
 look behind him, rubbed his shins, and then stole a timid 
 glance toward Randal's severe and moody countenance. 
 
 " You are not angry that I was playing at hockey with
 
 560 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 our neighbors?" said he, deprecatingly, observing that 
 Randal would not break the silence. 
 
 "No," replied the elder brother; "but, in associating 
 with his inferiors, a gentleman still knows how to maintain 
 his dignity. There is no harm in playing with inferiors, but 
 it is necessary to a gentleman to play so that he is not the 
 laughing-stock of clowns." 
 
 Oliver hung his head, and made no answer. They came 
 into the slovenly precincts of the court, and the pigs stared 
 at them from the palings, as their progenitors had stared, 
 years before, at Frank Hazeldean. 
 
 Mr. Leslie, senior, in a shabby straw hat, was engaged 
 in feeding the chickens before the threshold, and he per- 
 formed even that occupation with a maundering, lack-a- 
 daisical slothfulness, dropping down the grains almost one 
 by one from his inert dreamy fingers. 
 
 Randal's sister, her hair still and for ever hanging about 
 her ears, was seated on a rush-bottom chair, reading a tat- 
 tered novel ; and from the parlor window was heard the 
 querulous voice of Mrs. Leslie, in high fidget and complaint. 
 
 Somehow or other, as the young heir to all this helpless 
 poverty stood in the court-yard, with his sharp, refined, in- 
 telligent features, and his strange elegance of dress and 
 aspect, one better comprehended how, left solely to the egot- 
 ism of his knowledge and his ambition, in such a family, 
 and without any of the sweet nameless lessons of Home, he 
 had grown up into such close arid secret solitude of soul 
 how the mind had taken so little nutriment from the heart, 
 and how that affection and respect which the warm circle of 
 the hearth usually calls forth had passed with him to the 
 graves of dead fathers, growing, as it were, bloodless and 
 ghoul-like amidst the charnels on which they fed. 
 
 " Ha, Randal, boy," said Mr. Leslie, looking up lazily, 
 " how d'ye do ? who could have expected you ? My dear 
 my dear," he cried, in a broken voice, and as if in helpless 
 dismay, "here's Randal, and he'll be wanting dinner, or 
 supper, or something." But, in the meanwhile, Randal's 
 sister Juliet had sprung up, and thrown her arms round her 
 brother's neck, and he had drawn her aside -caressingly, for 
 Randal's strongest human affection was for this sister. 
 
 " You are growingvery pretty, Juliet," said he, smoothing 
 back her hair ; " why do yourself such injustice ? why not 
 pay more attention to your appearance, as I have so often 
 begged you to do ? "
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 561 
 
 " I did not expect you, dear Randal ; you always come 
 so suddenly, and catch us en dish-a-bill." 
 
 11 Dish-a-bill ! " echoed Randal, with a groan. " Dis-ha- 
 bille ! you ought never to be so caught ! " 
 
 " No one else does so catch us nobody else ever comes. 
 Heigho ! " and the young lady sighed very heartily. 
 
 " Patience, patience ; my day is coming, and then yours, 
 my sister," replied Randal, with genuine pity, as he gazed 
 upon what a little care could have trained into so fair a 
 ilower, and what now looked so like a weed. 
 
 Here Mrs. Leslie, in a state of intense excitement hav- 
 ing rushed through the parlor, leaving a fragment of her 
 gown between the yawning brass of the never-mended 
 Brummagem work-table tore across the hall whirled out 
 of the door, scattering the chickens to the right and left, 
 and clutched hold of Randal in her motherly embrace. 
 " La, how you do shake my nerves," she cried, after giving 
 him a most hasty and uncomfortable kiss. "And you are 
 hungry, too, and nothing in the house but cold mutton ! 
 Jenny, Jenny ! I say, Jenny ! Juliet, have you seen Jenny ? 
 Where's Jenny? Out with the odd man, I'll be bound." 
 
 "I am not hungry, mother," said Randal; "I wish for 
 nothing but tea." Juliet, scrambling up her hair, darted 
 into the house to prepare the tea, and also to "tidy herself." 
 She dearly loved her fine brother, but she was greatly in 
 awe of him. 
 
 Randal seated himself on the broken pales. " Take 
 care they don't come down," said Mr. Leslie, with some 
 anxiety. 
 
 " Oh, sir, I am very light ; nothing comes down with 
 me." 
 
 The pigs stared up, and grunted in amaze at the stranger. 
 
 "Mother, " said the young man, detaining Mrs. Leslie, 
 who wanted to set off in chase of Jenny " mother, you 
 should not let Qliver associate with those village boors. It 
 is time to think of a profession for him." 
 
 " Oh, he eats us out of house and home such an ap- 
 petite ! But as to a profession what is he fit for? He will 
 never be a scholar." 
 
 Randal nodded a moody assent ; for, indeed, Oliver had 
 been sent to Cambridge, and supported there out of Ran- 
 dal's income from his official pay ; and Oliver had been 
 plucked for his Little Go. 
 
 "There is the army," said the elder brother '"a gentle- 
 24*
 
 562 MY NOVEL; OK, 
 
 man's calling. How handsome Juliet ought to be but I 
 left money for masters and she pronounces French like a 
 chambermaid." 
 
 " Yet she is fond of her book, too. She's always read- 
 ing, and good for nothing else." 
 
 " Reading ! those trashy novels ! " 
 
 " So like you you always come to scold, and make 
 things unpleasant," said Mrs. Leslie, peevishly. "You are 
 grown too fine for us ; and I am sure we suffer affronts 
 enough from others, not to want a little respect from our 
 own children." 
 
 "I did not mean to affront you," said Randal, sadly. 
 " Pardon me ; but who else has done so ?" 
 
 Then Mrs. Leslie went into a minute and most irritating 
 catalogue of all the mortifications and insults she had 
 received ; the grievances of a petty provincial family, with 
 much pretension and small power ; of all people, indeed, 
 without the disposition to please without the ability to 
 serve who exaggerate every offence, and are thankful for 
 no kindness. Farmer Jones had insolently refused to send 
 his wagon twenty miles for coals. Mr. Giles, the butcher, 
 requesting the payment of his bill, had stated that the 
 custom at Rood was too small for him to allow credit. 
 Squire Thornhill, who was the present owner of the fairest 
 slice of the old Leslie domains, had taken the liberty to ask 
 permission to shoot over Mr. Leslie's land, since Mr. Leslie 
 did not preserve. Lady Spratt (new people from the city, 
 who hired a neighboring country-seat) had taken a dis- 
 charged servant of Mrs. Leslie's without applying for the 
 character. The Lord-Lieutenant had given a ball, and had 
 not invited the Leslies. Mr. Leslie's tenants had voted 
 against their landlord's wish at the recent election. More 
 than all, Squire Hazeldean and his Harry had called at 
 Rood ; and though Mrs. Leslie had screamed out to Jenny, 
 "Not at home," she had been seen at the window, and the 
 Squire had actually forced his way in, and caught the whole 
 family " in a state not fit to be seen." That was a trifle ; 
 but the Squire had presumed to instruct Mr. Leslie how to 
 manage his property, and Mrs. Hazeldean had actually told 
 Juliet to hold up her head, and tie up her hair, "as if we 
 were her cottagers !" said Mrs. Leslie, with the pride of a 
 Montfydget. 
 
 All these, and various other annoyances, though Randal 
 was too sensible not to perceive their insignificance, still
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 563 
 
 galled and mortified the listening heir of Rood. They 
 showed, at least, even to the well-meant officiousness of the 
 Hazeldeans, the small account in which the fallen family 
 was held. As he sat still on the moss-grown pales, gloomy 
 and taciturn, his mother standing beside him, with her cap 
 awry, Mr. Leslie shamblingly sauntered up and said, in a 
 pensive, dolorous whine 
 
 " I wish we had a good sum of money, Randal boy ! " 
 
 To do Mr. Leslie justice, he seldom gave vent to any 
 wish that savored of avarice. His mind must be singularly 
 aroused, to wander out of its normal limits of sluggish dull 
 content. 
 
 So Randal looked at him in surprise, and said, " Do 
 you, sir ? why ? " 
 
 "The manors of Rood and Dulmansberry, and all the 
 lands therein, which my great-grandfather sold away, are 
 to be sold again when Squire Thornhill's eldest son comes 
 of age, to cut off the entail. Sir John Spratt talks of buy- 
 ing them. I should like to have them back again ! 'Tis a 
 shame to see the Leslie estates hawked about, and bought 
 by Spratts and people. I wish I had a great great sum of 
 ready money." 
 
 The poor gentleman extended his helpless fingers as he 
 spoke, and fell into a dejected reverie. 
 
 Randal sprang from the paling, a movement which 
 frightened the contemplative pigs, and set them off squall- 
 ing and scampering. "When does young Thornhill come 
 of age ? " 
 
 " He was nineteen last August. I know it, because the 
 day he was born I picked up my fossil of the sea-horse, just 
 by Dulmansberry church, when the joy-bells were ringing. 
 My fossil sea-horse! It will be an heirloom, Randal 
 
 "Two years nearly two years yet ah, all!" said 
 Randal ; and his sister now appearing, to announce that 
 tea was ready, he threw his arm round her neck and kissed 
 her. Juliet had arranged her hair and trimmed up her 
 dress. She looked very pretty, and she had now the air of 
 a gentlewoman something of Randal's own refinement in 
 her slender proportions and well-shaped head. 
 
 " Be patient, patient still, my dear sister," whispered 
 Randal, "and keep your heart whole for two years longer." 
 
 The young man was gay and good-humored over his 
 simple meal, while his family grouped round him. When 
 it was over, Mr. Leslie lighted his pipe, and called for his
 
 564 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 brandy-and-water. Mrs. Leslie began to question about 
 London and Court, and the new King and the new Queen, 
 and Mr. Audley Egerton, and hoped Mr. Egerton would 
 leave Randal all his money, and that Randal would marry 
 a rich woman, and that the King would make him a prime- 
 minister one of these days ; and then she should like to see 
 if Farmer Jones would refuse to send his wagon for coals ! 
 And every now and then, as the word " riches " or " money " 
 caught Mr. Leslie's ears, he shook his head, drew his pipe 
 from his mouth, "A Spratt should not have what belonged 
 to my great -great-grandfather. If I had a good sum of 
 ready money! the old family estates!" Oliver and Juliet 
 sat silent, and on their good behavior ; and Randal, indulg- 
 ing his own reveries, dreamily heard the words' "money," 
 "Spratt," %< great-great-grandfather," ''rich wife," "family 
 estates ;" and they sounded to him vague and afar off, like 
 whispers from the world of romance and legend weird 
 prophecies of things to be. 
 
 Such was the hearth which warmed the viper that nest- 
 led and gnawed at the heart of Randal, poisoning all the 
 aspirations that youth should have rendered pure, ambition 
 lofty, and knowledge beneficent and divine. 
 
 -.uT 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 WHEN the rest of the household were in deep sleep, 
 Randal stood long at his open window, looking over the 
 dreary, comfortless scene the moon gleaming from skies 
 half-autumnal, half-wintry, upon squalid decay, through the 
 ragged fissures of the firs ; and when he lay down to rest 
 his sleep was feverish, and troubled by turbulent dreams. 
 
 However he was up early, and with an unwonted color 
 in his cheeks, which his sister ascribed to the country air. 
 After breakfast he took his way toward Hazeldean, mounted 
 xipon a tolerable horse, which he borrowed of a neighbor- 
 ing farmer who occasionally hunted. Before noon the gar- 
 den and terrace of the Casino came in sight. He reined 
 in his horse, and by the little fountain at which Leonard 
 had been wont to eat his radishes and con his book, he saw 
 Riccabocca seated under the shade of the red umbrella. 
 And by the Italian's side stood a form that a Greek of old
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 565 
 
 might have deemed the Naiad of the Fount ; for in its 
 youthful beauty there was something so full of poetry 
 something at once so sweet and so stately that it spoke to 
 the imagination while it charmed the sense. 
 
 Randal dismounted, tied his horse to the gate, and, walk- 
 ing down a trellised alley, came suddenly to the spot. His 
 dark shadow fell over the clear mirror of the fountain just 
 as Riccabocca had said, " All here is so secure from evil ! 
 the waves of the fountain are never troubled like those of 
 the river!" and Violante had answered in her soft native 
 tongue, and lifting her dark spiritual eyes " But the foun- 
 tain would be but a lifeless pool, oh, my father, if the spray 
 did not mount toward the skies ! " 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 RANDAL advanced " I fear, Signor Riccabocca, that I 
 am guilty of some want of ceremony." 
 
 " To dispense with ceremony is the most delicate mode 
 of conferring a compliment," replied the urbane Italian, as 
 he recovered from his first surprise at Randal's sudden ad- 
 dress, and extended his hand. 
 
 Violante bowed her graceful head to the young man's 
 respectful salutation. " I am oh my way to Hazeldean," 
 resumed Randal, "and, seeing you in the garden, could not 
 resist this intrusion." 
 
 RICCABOCCA. You come from London ? Stirring times 
 for you English, but I do not ask you the news. No news 
 can affect us. 
 
 RANDAL (softly). Perhaps, yes. 
 
 RICCABOCCA (startled). How ? 
 
 VIOLANTE. Surely he speaks of Italy, and news from 
 that country affects you still, my father. 
 
 RICCABOCCA. Nay, nay, nothing affects me like this 
 country ; its east winds might affect a pyramid ! Draw your 
 mantle round you, child, and go in ; the air has suddenly 
 grown chill. 
 
 Violante smiled on her father, glanced uneasily toward 
 Randal's grave brow, and went slowly toward the house. 
 
 Riccabocca, after waiting some moments in silence, as if 
 expecting Randal to speak, said with affected carelessness,
 
 566 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 " So you think that you have news that might affect me ? 
 Corfto di Bacco ! I am curious to learn what ! " 
 
 " I may be mistaken that depends on your answer to 
 one question. Do you know the Count of Peschiera ? " 
 
 Riccabocca winced, and turned pale. He could not 
 baffle the watchful eye of the questioner. 
 
 " Enough," said Randal ; " I see that I am right. Believe 
 in my sincerity. I speak but to warn and to serve you. The 
 Count seeks to discover the retreat of a countryman and 
 kinsman of his own. " 
 
 " And for what end ? " cried Riccabocca, thrown off his 
 guard, and his breast dilated, his crest rose, and his eye 
 flashed ; valor and defiance broke from habitual caution 
 and self-control. " But pooh ! " he added, striving to re- 
 gain his ordinary and half-ironical calm, " it matters not to' 
 me. I grant, sir, that I know the Count di Peschiera ; but 
 what has Dr. Riccabocca to do with the kinsman of so 
 grand a personage ? " 
 
 " Dr. Riccabocca nothing. But " here Randal put 
 his lip close to the Italian's ear, and whispered a brief sen- 
 tence. Then retreating a step, but laying his hand on the 
 exile's shoulder, he added " Need I say that your secret is 
 safe with me ? " 
 
 Riccabocca made no answer. His eyes rested on the 
 ground musingly. 
 
 Randal continued "And I shall esteem it the highest 
 honor you can bestow on me, to be permitted to assist you 
 in forestalling danger." 
 
 RICCABOCCA (slowly). Sir, I thank you ; you have my 
 secret, and I feel assured it is safe, for I speak to an English 
 gentleman. There may be family reasons why I should 
 avoid the Count di Peschiera ; and, indeed, he is safest from 
 shoals who steers clearest of his relations. 
 
 The poor Italian regained his caustic smile as he uttered 
 that wise villanous Italian maxim. 
 
 RANDAL. I know little of the Count of Peschiera save 
 from the current talk of the world. He is said to hold the 
 estate of a kinsman who took part in a conspiracy against 
 the Austrian power. 
 
 RtcCABOCCA. It is true. Let that content him; what 
 more does he desire ? You spoke of forestalling danger ; 
 what danger ? I am on the soil of England, and protected 
 by its laws. 
 
 RANDAL. Allow me to inquire if, had the kinsman no
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 567 
 
 child, the Count di Peschiera would be legitimate and nat- 
 ural heir to the estates he holds ? 
 
 RICCABOCCA. He would What then ? 
 
 RANDAL. Does that thought suggest no danger to the 
 child of the kinsman ? "''-' 
 
 Riccabocca recoiled, and gasped forth, " The child ! You 
 do not mean to imply that this man, infamous though he be, 
 can contemplate the crime of an assassin ? " 
 
 Randal paused, perplexed. His ground was delicate. 
 He knew not what causes of resentment the exile entertained 
 against the Count. He knew not whether Riccabocca would 
 not assent to an alliance that might restore him to his 
 country and he resolved to feel his way with precaution. 
 
 " I did not," said he, smiling gravely, " mean to insinuate 
 so horrible a charge against a man whom I have never seen. 
 He seeks you that is all I know. I imagine, from his gen- 
 eral character, that in this search he consults his interests. 
 Perhaps all matters might be conciliated by an interview ! " 
 
 " An interview ! " exclaimed Riccabocca ; " there is but 
 one way we should meet foot to foot, and hand to hand." 
 
 Is it so ? Then you would not listen to the Count if he 
 proposed some amicable compromise if, for instance, he 
 was a candidate for the hand of your daughter ?" 
 
 The poor Italian, so wise and so subtle in his talk, was 
 as rash and blind when it came to action, as if he had been 
 born in Ireland, and nourished on potatoes and Repeal. 
 He bared his whole soul to the merciless eye of Randal. 
 
 " My daughter ! " he exclaimed. " Sir, your very ques- 
 tion is an insult." 
 
 Randal's way became clear at once. " Forgive me," he 
 said, mildly ; " I will tell you frankly all that I know. I am 
 acquainted with the Count's sister. I have some little in- 
 fluence over her. It was she who informed me that the 
 Count had come here, bent upon discovering your refuge, 
 and resolved to wed your daughter. This is the danger of 
 which I spoke. And when I asked your permission to aid 
 in forestalling it, I only intended to suggest that it might 
 be wise to find some securer home, and that I, if permitted 
 to know that home, and to visit you, could apprise you from 
 time to time of the Count's plans and movements." 
 
 " Sir, I thank you sincerely," said Riccabocca, with 
 emotion ; "but am I not safe here ?" 
 
 " I doubt it. Many people have visited the Squire in 
 the shooting season, who will have heard of you perhaps
 
 5 6S MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 seen you, and who are likely to meet the Count in London. 
 And Frank Hazeldean, too, who knows the Count's sis- 
 ter 
 
 "True, true," interrupted Riccabocca. "I see, I see. 
 I will consider. I will reflect. Meanwhile you are going 
 to Hazeldean. Do not say a word to the Squire. He 
 knows not the secret 3'ou have discovered." 
 
 With those words Riccabocca turned slightly away, and 
 Randal took the hint to depart. 
 
 " At all times command and rely on me," said the young 
 traitor, and he regained the pale to which he had fastened 
 his horse. 
 
 As he remounted, he cast his eyes toward the place where 
 he had left Riccabocca. The Italian was still standing 
 there. Presently the form of Jackeymo was seen emerging 
 from the shrubs. Riccabocca turned hastily round, recog- 
 nized his servant, uttered an exclamation loud enough to 
 reach Randal's ear, and then, catching Jackeymo by the arm, 
 disappeared with him amidst the deep recesses of the gar- 
 den. 
 
 " It will be indeed in my favor," thought Randal, as he 
 rode on, " if I can get them into the neighborhood of Lon- 
 don an occasion there to woo, and if expedient, to win 
 the heiress." 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 " BY the Lord Harry ! " cried the Squire, as he stood 
 with his wife in the park, on a visit of inspection to some 
 first-rate South-downs just added to his stock " By the 
 Lord, if that is not Randal Leslie trying to get into the park 
 at the back gate ! Hollo, Randal ! you must come round by 
 the lodge, my boy," said he. "You see this gate is locked 
 to keep out trespassers." 
 
 " A pity," said Randal. " I like short cuts, and you have 
 shut up a very short one." 
 
 " So the trespassers said," quoth the Squire ; "but Stirn 
 insisted on it ; valuable man, Stirn. But ride round to the 
 lodge. Put up your horse, and you'll join us before we can 
 get to the house." 
 
 Randal nodded and smiled, and rode briskly on. 
 
 The Squire rejoined his Harry.
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 569 
 
 "Ah, William," said she, anxiously, "though certainly 
 Randal Leslie means well, I always dread his visits." 
 
 ' So do I, in one sense," quoth the Squire, "for he always 
 carries away a bank-note for Frank." 
 
 " I hope he is really Frank's friend," said Mrs. Hazeldean. 
 
 " Who's else can he be ? Not his own, poor fellow, for 
 he will never accept a shilling' from me, though his grand- 
 mother was as good a Hazeldean as I am. But, zounds, I 
 like his pride, and his economy too. As for Frank " 
 
 "Hush, William !" cried Mrs. Hazeldean, arid put her 
 fair hand before the Squire's mouth. The Squire was 
 softened, and kissed the fair hand gallantly perhaps he 
 kissed the lips too ; at all events, the worthy pair were 
 walking lovingly arm-in-arm when Randal joined them. 
 
 He did not affect to perceive a certain coldness in the 
 manner of Mrs. Hazeldean, but began immediately to talk 
 to her about Frank ; praise that young gentleman's appear- 
 ance ; expatiate on his health, "his popularity, and his good 
 gifts, personal and mental and this with so much warmth, 
 that any dim and undeveloped suspicions Mrs. Hazeldean 
 might have formed soon melted away. 
 
 Randal continued to make himself thus agreeable until 
 the Squire, persuaded that his young kinsman was a first- 
 rate agriculturist, insisted upon carrying him off to the 
 home farm ; and Harry turned toward the house 1 - to order 
 Randal's room to be got ready; "For," said Randal, 
 "knowing that you will excuse my morning dress, I venture 
 to invite myself to dine and sleep at the Hall." 
 
 On approaching the farm-buildings, Randal was seized 
 with the terror of an impostor ; for, despite all the theor- 
 etical learning on Bucolics and Georgics with which he had 
 dazzled the Squire, poor Frank, so despised, would have 
 beat him hollow when it came to the judging of the points 
 of an ox, or the show of a crop. 
 
 " Ha, ha ! " cried the Squire, chuckling. " I long to see 
 how you'll astonish Stirn. Why, you'll guess in a moment 
 where we put the top-dressing ; and when you have come 
 to handle my short-horns, I dare swear you'll know to a 
 pound how much oil-cake has gone into their sides." 
 
 " Oh, you do me too much honor indeed you do. I 
 only know the general principles of agriculture ; the details 
 are eminently interesting, but I have not had the oppor- 
 tunity to acquire them." 
 
 " Stuff ! " cried the Squire. " How can a man know gen-
 
 570 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 eral principles unless he has first studied the details ? You 
 are too modest, my boy. Ho ! there's Stirn looking out for 
 us !" 
 
 Randal saw the grim visage of Stirn peering out of a 
 cattle-shed, and felt undone. He made a desperate rush 
 toward changing the Squire's humor. 
 
 "Well, sir, perhaps Frank may soon gratify your wish, 
 and turn farmer himself." 
 
 " Eh !" quoth the Squire, stopping short "what now?" 
 
 " Suppose he were to marry ? " 
 
 " I'd give him the two best farms on the property rent 
 free. Ha, ha ! Has he seen the girl yet ? I'd leave him 
 free to choose ; sir, I chose for myself every man should. 
 Not but Miss Sticktorights is an heiress, and, I hear, a very 
 decent girl, and that would join the two properties, and put 
 an end to that lawsuit about the right of way, which began 
 in the reign of King Charles the Second, and is likely other- 
 wise to last till the day of judgment. But never mind her ; 
 let Frank choose to please himself." 
 
 " I'll not fail to tell him so, sir. I did fear you might 
 have some prejudices. But here we are at the farm-yard." 
 
 " Burn the farm-yard ! How can I think of farm-yards 
 when you talk of Frank's marriage ? Come on this way. 
 What were you saying about prejudices ?" 
 
 " Why, you might wish him to marry an Englishwoman, 
 for instance." 
 
 " English ! Good heavens, sir, does he mean to marry a 
 Hindoo ?" 
 
 " Nay, I don't know that he means to marry at all ; I 
 am only surmising ; but if he did fall in love with a 
 foreigner " 
 
 " A foreigner ! Ah, then Harry was The Squire 
 stopped short. 
 
 "Who might, perhaps," observed Randal not truly if 
 he referred to Madame di Negra "who might, perhaps, 
 speak very little English ? " 
 : " Lord ha' mercy ! " 
 
 "And a Roman Catholic " 
 
 " Worshipping idols, and roasting people who don't wor- 
 ship them." 
 
 " Signor Riccabocca is not so bad as that." 
 
 " Rickeybockey ! Well, if it was his daughter ! But not 
 speak English ! and not go to the parish church ! By George, 
 if Frank thought of such a thing, I'd cut him off with a
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 571 
 
 shilling. Don't talk to me, sir ; I would. I'm a mild man, 
 and an easy man ; but when I say a thing, I say it, Mr. Leslie. 
 Oh, but it is a jest you are laughing at me. There's no such 
 painted good-for-nothing creature in Frank's eye eh ? " 
 
 " Indeed, sir, if ever I find there is, I will give you notice 
 in time. At present, I was only trying to ascertain what 
 you wished for a daughter-in-law. You said you had no 
 prejudice." 
 
 ' No more I have not a bit of it." 
 
 ' You don't like a foreigner and a Catholic ? " 
 ' Who the devil would ? " 
 ' But if she had rank and title ? " 
 
 'Rank and title ! Bubble and squeak ! No, not half so 
 good as bubble and squeak. English beef and good cab- 
 bage. But foreign rank and title ! foreign cabbage and 
 beef ! foreign bubble and foreign squeak !" And the Squire 
 made a wry face, and spat forth his disgust and indignation, 
 
 "You must have an Englishwoman ?" 
 
 " Of course." 
 
 " Money ? " 
 
 " Don't care, provided she is a tidy, sensible, active lass, 
 with a good character for her dower." 
 
 "Character ah, that is indispensable?" 
 
 " I should think so, indeed. A Mrs. Hazeldean of 
 Hazeldean You frighten me. He's not going to run off 
 with a divorced woman, or a " 
 
 The Squire stopped, and looked so red in the face that 
 Randal feared he might be seized with apoplexy before 
 Frank's crimes had made him alter his will. 
 
 Therefore he hastened to relieve Mr. Hazeldean's mind, 
 and assured him that he had only been talking at random ; 
 that Frank was in the habit, indeed, of seeing foreign ladies 
 occasionally, as all persons in the London world were ; but 
 that he was sure Frank would never marry without the full 
 consent and approval of his parents. He ended by repeat- 
 ing his assurance, that he would warn the Squire if ever it 
 became necessary. Still, however, he left Mr. Hazeldean so 
 disturbed and uneasy that that gentleman forgot all about 
 the farm, and went moodily on in the opposite direction, 
 re-entering the park at its farther extremity. As soon as 
 they approached the house, the Squire hastened to shut him- 
 self with his wife in full paternal consultation ; and Randal, 
 seated upon a bench on the terrace, revolved the mischief 
 he had done, and its chances of success.
 
 572 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 While thus seated, and thus thinking, a footstep ap- 
 proached cautiously, and in a low voice said, in broken Eng- 
 lish, " Sare, sare, let me speak vid you." 
 
 Randal turned in surprise, and beheld a swarthy satur- 
 nine face, with grizzled hair and marked features. He re- 
 cognized the figure that had joined Riccaboccain the Italian's 
 garden. 
 
 "Speak-a you Italian ?" resumed Jackeymo. 
 
 Randal, who had made himself an excellent linguist, 
 nodded assent ; and Jackeymo, rejoiced, begged him to with- 
 draw into a more private part of the grounds. 
 
 Randal obeyed, and the two gained the shade of a stately 
 chestnut avenue. 
 
 " Sir," then said Jackeymo, speaking in his native tongue, 
 and expressing himself with a certain simple pathos, " I am 
 but a paor man ; my name is Giacomo. You have heard 
 of me ; servant to the Signore whom you saw to-day only 
 a servant ; but he honors me with his confidence. We have 
 known danger together, and of all his friends and follow- 
 ers, I alone came with him to the stranger's land." 
 
 "Good faithful fellow," said Randal, examining the 
 man's face, " say on. Your master confides in you ? He 
 has confided that which I told him this day ? " 
 
 "He did. Ah, sir! the Padrone was too proud to ask 
 you to explain more too proud to show fear of another. 
 But he does fear he ought to fear he shall fear" (con- 
 tinued Jackeymo, working himself up to passion), "for the 
 Padrone has a daughter, and his enemy is a villain. Oh, 
 sir, tell me all that you did not tell to the Padrone. You 
 hinted that this man might wish to marry the Signora. 
 Marry her ! I could cut his throat at the altar ! " 
 
 " Indeed," said Randal ; "I believe that such is his ob- 
 ject." 
 
 " But why ? He is rich she is penniless ; no, not quite 
 that, for we have saved but penniless, compared to him." 
 
 " My good friend, I know not yet his motives, but I can 
 easily learn them. If, however, this Count be your master's 
 enemy, it is surely well to guard against him, whatever his 
 designs ; and, to do so, you should move into London or its 
 neighborhood. I fear that, while we speak, the Count may 
 get upon his track." 
 
 "He had better not come here! "cried the servant, 
 menacingly, and putting his hand where the knife was not, 
 
 " Beware of your own anger, Giacomo. One act of vio-
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 573 
 
 lence, and you would be transported from England, and 
 your master would lose a friend." 
 
 Jackeymo seemed struck by this caution. 
 
 " And if the Padrone were to meet him, do you think 
 the Padrone would meekly say, ' Come sta sa Signoria ? ' The 
 Padrone would strike him dead ! " 
 
 " Hush hush ! You speak of what in England is called 
 murder, and is punished by the gallows. If you really love 
 your master, for Heaven's sake get him from this place 
 get him from all chance of such passion and peril. I go to 
 town to-morrow ; I will find him a house that shall be safe 
 from all spies all discovery. And there, too, my friend, I 
 can do what I cannot at this distance watch over him, 
 and keep watch also on his enemy." 
 
 Jackeymo seized Randal's hand, and lifted it toward his 
 lip ; then, as if struck by a sudden suspicion, dropped the 
 hand, and said bluntly, " Signore, I think you have seen the 
 Padrone twice. Why do you take this interest in him ?" 
 
 '' Is it so uncommon to take interest even in a stranger 
 who is menaced by some peril ? " 
 
 Jackeymo, who believed little in general philanthropy, 
 shook his head sceptically. 
 
 "Besides," continued Randal, suddenly bethinking him- 
 self of a more plausible reason "besides, I am a friend and 
 connection of Mr. Egerton ; and Mr. Egerton's most inti- 
 mate friend is Lord L'Estrange ; and I have heard that 
 Lord L'Estrange 
 
 "The good Lord ! Oh, now I understand," interrupted 
 Jackeymo, and his brow cleared. Ah, if he were in England ! 
 But you will let us know when he comes ?" 
 
 " Certainly. Now, tell me, Giacomo, is this Count really 
 unprincipled and dangerous ? Remember, I know him not 
 personally." 
 
 " He has neither heart nor conscience." 
 
 "That defect makes him dangerous to men; perhaps 
 not less to women. Could it be possible, if he obtained any 
 interview with the Signora, that he could win her affec- 
 tions ? " 
 
 Jackeymo crossed himself rapidly and made no answer. 
 
 " I have heard that he is still very handsome." 
 
 Jackeymo groaned. 
 
 Randal resumed " Enough ; persuade the Padrone to 
 come to town." 
 
 " But if the Count is in town ?"
 
 574 ' 1/r -VOt'EL; OK, 
 
 " That makes no difference ; the safest place is always 
 the largest city. Evei-ywhere else, a foreigner is in himself 
 an object of attention and curiosity." 
 
 "True." 
 
 " Let your master, then, come to London, or rather, into 
 its neighborhood. He can reside in one of the suburbs 
 most remote from the Count's haunts. In two days I will 
 have found him a lodging and write to him. You trust to 
 me now ? " 
 
 "I do indeed I do, excellency. Ah, if the Signorina 
 were married, we would not care !" 
 
 " Married ? But she looks so high ! " 
 
 ''Alas ! not now not here ! " 
 
 Randal sighed heavily. Jackeymo's eyes sparkled. He 
 thought he had detected a new motive for Randal's interest 
 a motive to an Italian the most natural, the most laudable 
 of all. 
 
 " Find the house, Signore write to the Padrone. He 
 shall come. I'll talk to him. I can manage him. Holy 
 San Giacomo, bestir thyself now 'tis long since I troubled 
 thee ! " 
 
 Jackeymo strode off through the fading trees, smiling 
 and muttering as he went. 
 
 The first dinner-bell rang, and on entering the drawing- 
 room, Randal found Parson Dale and his wife, who had 
 been invited in haste to meet the unexpected visitor. 
 
 The preliminary greetings over, Mr. Dale took the op- 
 portunity afforded by the Squire's absence to inquire after 
 the health of Mr. Egerton. 
 
 " He is always well," said Randal. " I believe he is 
 made of iron." 
 
 " His heart is of gold," said the Parson. 
 
 "Ah," said Randal, inquisitively, "you told me you had 
 come in contact with him once, respecting, I think, some of 
 -your old parishioners at Lansmere ?" 
 
 The Parson nodded, and there was a moment's silence. 
 
 " Do you remember your battle by the Stocks, Mr. Les- 
 lie ?" said Mr. Dale, with a good-humored laugh. 
 
 " Indeed, yes. By the way, now you speak of it, I met 
 my old opponent in London the first year I went up to it." 
 
 "You did ! where ?" 
 
 "At a literary scamp's a cleverish man called Burley." 
 
 " Burley ! I have seen some burlesque verses in Greek 
 by a Mr. Burley."
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 575 
 
 " No doubt, the same person. He has disappeared 
 gone to the dogs, I dare say. Burlesque Greek is not a 
 knowledge very much in power at present." 
 
 " Well, but Leonard Fairfield ? you have seen him since? " 
 
 " No." 
 
 " Nor heard of him ? " 
 
 "No! have you ?" 
 
 " Strange to say, not for a long time. But I have reason 
 to believe that he must be doing well." 
 
 "You surprise me ! Why?" 
 
 ''Because, two years ago he sent for his mother. She 
 went to him." 
 
 "Is that all?" 
 
 " It is enough ; for he would not have sent for her if he 
 could not maintain her." 
 
 Here the Hazeldeans entered, arm-in-arm, and the fat 
 butler announced dinner. 
 
 The Squire was unusually taciturn Mrs. Hazeldean 
 thoughtful Mrs. Dale languid and headachy. The Parson, 
 who seldom enjoyed the luxury of converse with a scholar, 
 save when he quarrelled with Dr. Riccabocca, was animated 
 by Randal's repute for ability, into a great desire for 
 argument. 
 
 "A glass of wine, Mr. Leslie. You were saying, before 
 dinner, that burlesque Greek is not a knowledge very 
 much in power at present. Pray, sir, what knowledge is in 
 power ? " 
 
 RANDAL (laconically). Practical knowledge. 
 
 PARSON. What of ? 
 
 RANDAL. Men. 
 
 PARSON (candidly). Well, I suppose that is the most 
 available sort of knowledge, in a worldly point of view. 
 How does one learn it ? Do books help ? 
 
 RANDAL. According as they are read, they help or 
 injure. 
 
 PARSON. How should they be read in order to help ? 
 
 RANDAL. Read specially to apply to purposes that lead 
 to power. 
 
 PARSON (very much struck with Randal's pithy and Spar- 
 tan logic). Upon my word, sir, you express yourself very 
 well. I must own that I began these questions in the hope 
 of differing from you ; for I like an argument. 
 
 "That he does," growled the Squire ; '-the most contra- 
 dictory creature ! "
 
 576 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 PARSON. Argument is the salt of talk. But now I am 
 afraid I must agree with you, which I was not at all pre- 
 pared for. 
 
 Randal bowed and answered "No two men of our edu- 
 cation can dispute upon the application of knowledge." 
 
 PARSON (pricking up his ears). Eh? what to? 
 
 RANDAL. Power, of course. 
 
 PARSON (overjoyed). Power ! the vulgarest application 
 of it, or the loftiest ? But you mean the loftiest ? 
 
 RANDAL (in his turn interested and interrogative). What 
 do you call the loftiest, and what the vulgarest ? 
 
 PARSON. The vulgarest, self-interest; the loftiest, benefi- 
 cence. 
 
 Randal suppressed the half-disdainful smile that rose to 
 his lip. 
 
 "You speak, sir, as a clergyman should do. I admire 
 your sentiment, and adopt it ;but I fear that the knowledge 
 which aims only at beneficence very rarely in this world 
 gets any power at all." 
 
 SQUIRE (seriously). That's true ; I never get my own 
 way when I want to do a kindness, and Stirn always gets 
 his when he insists on something diabolically brutal and 
 harsh. 
 
 PARSON. Pray, Mr. Leslie, what does intellectual power 
 refined to the utmost, but entirely stripped'of beneficence, 
 most resemble ? 
 
 RANDAL. Resemble? I can hardly say. Some very 
 great men almost any very great man who has baffled 
 all his foes, and attained all his ends. 
 
 PARSON. I doubt if any man has ever become very 
 great who has not meant to be beneficent, though he might 
 err in the means. Caesar was naturally beneficent, and so 
 was Alexander. But intellectual power refined to the ut- 
 most, and wholly void of beneficence, resembles only one 
 being, and that, sir, is the Principle of Evil. 
 
 RANDAL (startled). Do you mean the Devil ? 
 
 PARSON. Yes, sir the Devil ; and even he, ?ir, did not 
 succeed ! Even he, sir, is what your great men would call 
 a most decided failure. 
 
 MRS. DALE. My dear my dear ! 
 
 PARSON. Our religion proves it, my love ; he was an 
 angel, and he fell. 
 
 There was a solemn pause. Randal was more impressed 
 than he liked to own to himself. By this time the dinner
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 577 
 
 was over, and the servants had retired. Harry glanced at 
 Carry. Carry smoothed her gown and rose. The gentle- 
 men remained over their wine ; and the Parson, satisfied 
 with what he deemed a clencher upon his favorite subject 
 of discussion, changed the subject to lighter topics, till, 
 happening to fall upon tithes, the Squire struck in, and by 
 dint of loudness of voice, and truculence of brow, fairly 
 overwhelmed both his guests, and proved to his own satis- 
 faction that tithes were an unjust and unchristianlike usur- 
 pation on the part of the Church generally, and a most 
 especial and iniquitous infliction upon the Hazeldean estates 
 in particular. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 ON entering the drawing-room, Randal found the two 
 ladies seated close together, in a position much more ap- 
 propriate to the familiarity of their school-days, than to 
 the politeness of the friendship now existing between them. 
 Mrs. Hazeldean's hand hung affectionately over Carry's 
 shoulder, and both those fair English faces were bent over 
 the same book. It was pretty to see these sober matrons, 
 so different from each other in character and aspect, thus 
 unconsciously restored to the intimacy of happy maiden 
 youth by the golden link of some Magician from the still 
 land of Truth or Fancy brought together in heart, as each 
 eye rested on the same thought ; closer and closer, as sym- 
 pathy, lost in the actual world, grew out of that world 
 which unites in one bond of feeling the readers of some 
 gentle book. 
 
 "And what work interests you so much?" asked Ran- 
 dal, pausing by the table. 
 
 " One you have read, of course," replied Mrs. Dale, put- 
 ting a book-mark embroidered by herself into the page, 
 and handing the volume to Randal. " It has made a great 
 sensation, I believe." 
 
 Randal glanced at the title of the work. " True," said 
 he, " I have heard much of it in London, but I have not 
 yet had time to read it." 
 
 MRS. DALE. I can lend it to you, if you like to look 
 over it to-night, and you can leave it for me with Mrs. 
 Hazeldean. 
 
 25
 
 S?8 MY NOVEL ; OR, 
 
 PARSON (approaching). Oh ! that book ! yes, you must 
 read it. I do not know a work more instructive. 
 
 RANDAL. Instructive ! Certainly, I will read it then. 
 But I thought it was a mere work of amusement of fancy. 
 It seems so, as I look over it. 
 
 PARSON. So is the Vicar of Wakcfield ; yet what book 
 more instructive ? 
 
 RANDAL. I should not have said that of the Vicar of 
 Wakefield. A pretty book enough, though the story is most 
 improbable. But how is it instructive ? 
 
 PARSON. By its results ; it leaves us happier and better. 
 What can any instruction do more ? Some works instruct 
 through the head, some through the heart. The last reach 
 the widest circle, and often produce the most genial influ- 
 ence on the character. This book belongs to the last. You 
 will grant my proposition when you have read it. 
 
 Randal smiled, and took the volume. 
 
 MRS. DALE. Is the author known yet ? 
 
 RANDAL. I have heard it ascribed to many writers, but 
 I believe no one has claimed it. 
 
 PARSON. I think it must have been written by my old 
 college-friend, Professor Moss, the naturalist its descrip- 
 tions of scenery are so accurate. 
 
 MRS. DALE. La, Charles, dear! thatsnuffy, tiresome, prosy 
 professor ! How can you talk such nonsense ? I am sure the 
 author must be young, there is so much freshnessof feeling. 
 
 MRS. HAZELDEAN (positively). Yes, certai'nly young. 
 
 PARSON (no less positively). I should say just the con- 
 trary. Its tone is too serene, and its style too simple, for a 
 young man. Besides, I don't know any young man who 
 would send me his book, and this book has been sent me 
 very handsomely bound too, you see. Depend upon it, 
 Moss is the man quite his turn of mind. 
 
 MRS. DALE. You are too provoking, Charles, dear ! 
 Mr. Moss is so remarkably plain, too. 
 
 RANDAL. Must an author be handsome ? 
 
 PARSON. Ha ! ha ! Answer that if you can, Carry. 
 
 Carry remained mute and disdainful. 
 
 SQUIRE (with great naivete). Well, I don't think there's 
 much in the book, whoever wrote it ; for I've read it my- 
 self, and understand every word of it. 
 
 MRS. DALE. I don't see why you should suppose it was 
 written by a man at all. For my part, I think it must be 
 a woman.
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 579 
 
 MRS. HAZELDEAN. Yes, there's a passage about maternal 
 affection, which only a woman could have written. 
 
 PARSON. Pooh ! pooh ! I should like to see a woman 
 who could have written that description of an August 
 evening before a thunder-storm ; every wild-flower in the 
 hedge-row exactly the flowers of August every sign in 
 the air exactly those of the month. Bless you ! a woman 
 would have filled the hedge with violets and cowslips. 
 Nobody else but my friend Moss could have written that 
 description. 
 
 SQUIRE. I don't know ; there's a simile about the waste 
 of corn-seed in hand-sowing, which makes me think he must 
 be a farmer. 
 
 MRS. DALE (scornfully). A farmer ! In hobnailed shoes, 
 I suppose ! I say it is a woman ! 
 
 MRS. HAZELDEAN. A WOMAN, and a MOTHER! 
 
 PARSON. A middle-aged man, and a naturalist. 
 
 SQUIRE. No, no, Parson certainly a young man ; for 
 that love-scene puts me in mind of my own young days, 
 when I would have given my ears to tell Harry how hand- 
 some I thought her ; and all I could say was, " Fine weather 
 for the crops, miss." Yes, a young man and a farmer. I 
 should not wonder if he had held the plough himself. 
 
 RANDAL (who had been turning over the pages). This 
 sketch of Night in London comes from a man who has lived 
 the life of cities and looked at wealth with the eyes of pov- 
 erty. Not bad ! I will read the book. 
 
 " Strange," said the parson, smiling, " that this little work 
 should so have entered into our minds, suggested to all of 
 us different ideas, yet equally charmed all given a new and 
 fresh current to our dull country life animated us as with 
 the sight of a world in our breasts we had never seen before, 
 save in dreams ; a little work like this, by a man we don't 
 know, and never may ! Well, that knowledge is power, and 
 a noble one ! " 
 
 "A sort of power, certainly, sir," said Randal, candidly ; 
 and that night, when Randal retired to his own room, he 
 suspended his schemes and projects, and read, as he rarely 
 did, without an object to gain by the reading. 
 
 The work surprised him by the pleasure it gave. Its 
 charm lay in the writer's calm enjoyment of the beautiful. 
 It seemed like sqme happy soul sunning itself in the light of 
 its own thoughts. Its power was so tranquil and even, that 
 n was only a critic who. could perceive how much force and
 
 580 MY NOVEL; OK, 
 
 vigor were necessary to sustain the wing that floated aloft 
 with so imperceptible an effort. There was no one faculty 
 predominating tyrannically over the others ; all seemed pro- 
 portioned in the felicitous symmetry of a nature rounded, in- 
 tegral, and complete. And when the work was closed, it 
 left behind it a tender warmth, that played round the heart 
 of the reader, and vivified feelings which seemed unknown 
 before. Randal laid down the book softly ; and for five 
 minutes the ignoble and base purposes to which his own 
 knowledge was applied, stood before him, naked and un- 
 masked. 
 
 "Tut ! " said he, wrenching himself violently away from 
 the benign influence, "it was not to sympathize with Hec- 
 tor, but to conquer with Achilles, that Alexander of Mace- 
 don kept Homer under his pillow. Such should be the true 
 use of books to him who has the practical world to subdue ; 
 let parsons and women construe it otherwise, as they may ! " 
 
 And the Principle of Evil descended again upon the in- 
 tellect, from which the guide of Beneficence was gone. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 RANDAL rose at the sound of the first breakfast-bell, and 
 on the staircase met Mrs. Hazeldean. He gave her back 
 the book ; and as he was about to speak, she beckoned to 
 him to follow her into a little morning-room appropriated 
 to herself. No boudoir of white and gold, with pictures by 
 Watteau, but lined with large walnut-tree presses, that held 
 the old heir-loom linen, strewed with lavender stores for 
 the housekeeper, and medicines for the poor. 
 
 Seating herself on a large chair in this sanctum, Mrs. 
 Hazeldean looked formidably at home. 
 
 " Pray," said the lady, coming at once to the point, with 
 her usual straightforward candor, " what is all this you have 
 been saying to my husband as to the possibility of Frank's 
 marrying a foreigner ? " 
 
 RANDAL. Would you be as averse to such a notion as 
 Mr. Hazeldean is ? 
 
 MRS. HAZELDEAN. You ask me a question, instead of 
 answering mine. 
 
 Randal was greatly put out in his fence by these rude
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 581 
 
 thrusts. For indeed he had a double purpose to serve first, 
 thoroughly to know if Frank's marriage with a woman like 
 Madame di Negra would irritate the Squire sufficiently to 
 endanger the son's inheritance ; and, secondly, to prevent 
 Mr. and Mrs. Hazeldean believing seriously that such a mar- 
 riage was to be apprehended, lest they should prematurely 
 address Frank on the subject, and frustrate the marriage 
 itself. Yet, withal, he must so express himself, that he 
 could not be afterward accused by the parents of disguis- 
 ing matters. In his talk to the Squire the preceding day, 
 he had gone a little too far farther than he would have 
 done but for his desire of escaping the cattle-shed and short- 
 horns. While he mused, Mrs. Hazeldean observed him 
 with her honest sensible eyes, and finally exclaimed 
 
 " Out with it, Mr. Leslie ! " 
 
 " Out with what, my dear madam ? The Squire has sadly 
 exaggerated the importance of what was said mainly in jest. 
 But I will own to you plainly, that Frank has appeared to 
 rne a little smitten with a certain fair Italian." 
 
 "Italian!" cried Mrs. Hazeldean. " Well, I said so 
 from the first. Italian ! that's all, is it ? " and she smiled. 
 
 Randal was more and more perplexed. The pupil of his 
 eye contracted, as it does when we retreat into ourselves, 
 and think, watch, and keep guard. 
 
 " And perhaps," resumed Mrs. Hazeldean, with a very 
 sunny expression of countenance, "you have noticed this 
 in Frank since he was here ? " 
 
 " It is true," murmured Randal; "but I think his heart 
 or his fancy was touched even before." 
 
 "Very natural," said Mrs. Hazeldean; "how could he 
 help it ? such a beautiful creature ! Well, I must not ask 
 you to tell Frank's secrets ; but I guess the object of attrac- 
 tion ; and though she will have no fortune to speak of and 
 it is not such a match as he might form still she is so 
 amiable, and has been so well brought up, and is so little 
 like one's general notions of a Roman Catholic, that I think 
 I could persuade Hazeldean into giving his consent." 
 
 "Ah," said Randal, drawing a long breath, and begin- 
 ning with his practised acuteness to detect Mrs. Hazel- 
 dean's error, " I am very much relieved and rejoiced to hear 
 this; and I may venture to give Frank some hope, if I find 
 him disheartened and desponding, poor fellow ! " 
 
 "I think you may," replied Mrs. Hazeldean, laughing 
 pleasantly. " But you should not have frightened poor
 
 5-S2 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 William so, hinting that the lady knew very little English. 
 She has an accent, to be sure ; but she speaks our tongue 
 very prettily. I always forget that she's not English born ! 
 Ha, ha, poor William ! " 
 
 RANDAL. Ha, ha ! 
 
 MRS. HAZELDEAN. We had once thought of another 
 match for Frank a girl of good English family. 
 
 RANDAL. Miss Sticktorights ? 
 
 MRS. HAZELDEAN. No ; that's an old whim of Hazel- 
 dean's. But I doubt if the Sticktorights would ever merge 
 their property in ours. Bless you, it would be all off, the 
 moment they came to settlements, and had to give up the 
 right of way. We thought of a very different match ; but 
 there's no dictating to young hearts, Mr. Leslie. 
 
 RANDAL. Indeed, no, Mrs. Hazeldean. But since we 
 now understand each other so well, excuse me if I suggest 
 that you had better leave things to themselves, and not write 
 to Frank on the subject. Young hearts, you know, are often 
 stimulated by apparent difficulties, and grow cool when the 
 obstacle vanishes. 
 
 MRS. HAZELDEAN. Very possibly; it was not so with 
 Hazeldean and me. But I shall not write to Frank on the 
 subject, for a different reason though I would consent to 
 the match, and so would William ; yet we both would rather, 
 after all, that Frank married an Englishwoman, and a 
 Protestant. We will not, therefore, do anything to en- 
 courage the idea. But if Frank's happiness becomes really 
 at stake, then we will step in. In short, we would neither 
 encourage nor oppose. You understand? 
 
 " Perfectly." 
 
 "And in the meanwhile, it is quite right that Frank 
 should see the world, and try to distract his mind, or at 
 least to know it. And I dare say it has been some thought 
 of that kind which has prevented his coming here." 
 
 Randal, dreading a farther and plainer e'claircissement, 
 now rose, and saying " Pardon me, but I must hurry over 
 breakfast, and be back in time to catch the coach " offered 
 his arm to his hostess, and led her into the breakfast-parlor. 
 Devouring his meal, as if in great haste, he then mounted 
 his horse, and, taking cordial leave of his entertainers, 
 trotted briskly away. 
 
 All things favored his project even chance had be- 
 friended him in Mrs. Hazeldean's mistake. She had, not 
 unnaturally, supposed Violante to have captivated Frank
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 583 
 
 on his last visit to the Hall. Thus, while Randal had certi- 
 fied his own mind that nothing could more exasperate the 
 Squire than an alliance with Madame di Negra, he could 
 yet assure Frank that Mrs. Hazeldean was all on his side. 
 And when the error was discovered, Mrs. Hazeldean would 
 only have to blame herself for it. Still more successful had 
 his diplomacy proved with the Riccaboccas ; he had ascer- 
 tained the secret he had come to discover ; he should in- 
 duce the Italian to remove to the neighborhood of London ; 
 and if Violante were the great heiress he suspected her to 
 prove, whom else of her own age would she see but him ? 
 And the old Leslie domains, to be sold in two years a por- 
 tion of the dowry might purchase them ! Flushed by the 
 triumph of his craft, all former vacillations of conscience 
 ceased. In high and fervent spirits he passed the Casino, 
 the garden of which was solitary and deserted, reached his 
 home, and, telling Oliver to be studious, and Juliet to be 
 patient, walked thence to meet the coach and regain the 
 capital. 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 VIOLANTE was seated in her own little room, and looking 
 from the window on the terrace that stretched below. The 
 day was warm for the time of year. The orange-trees had 
 been removed under shelter for the approach of winter ; 
 but where they had stood sat Mrs. Riccabocca at work. In 
 the belvidere, Riccabocca himself was conversing with his 
 favorite servant. But the casements and the door of the 
 belvidere were open ; and where they sat, both wife and 
 daughter could see the Padrone leaning against the wall, 
 with his arms folded, and his eyes fixed on the floor; while 
 Jackeymo, with one finger on his master's arm, was talking 
 to him with visible earnestness. And the daughter from 
 the window, and the wife from her work, directed tender 
 anxious eyes toward the still thoughtful form so dear to 
 both. For the last day or two, Riccabocca had been peculiarly 
 abstracted, even to gloom. Each felt there was something 
 stirring at his heart neither, as yet, knew what. 
 
 Violante's room silently revealed the nature of the edu- 
 cation by which her character had been formed. Save a 
 sketch-book, which lay open on a desk at hand, and which
 
 584 MY NOVEL ; OR, 
 
 showed talent exquisitely taught (for in this Riccabocca had 
 been her teacher), there was nothing that spoke of the ordi- 
 nary female accomplishments. No piano stood open, no 
 harp occupied yon nook, which seemed made for one ; no 
 broidery-frame, nor implements of work, betrayed the usual 
 and graceful resources of a girl ; but ranged on shelves 
 against the wall were the best writers in English, Italian, 
 and French ; and these betokened an extent of reading, that 
 he who wishes for a companion to his mind in the sweet 
 commune of woman, which softens and refines all it gives 
 and takes in interchange, will never condemn as masculine. 
 You had but to look into Violante's face to see how noble 
 was the intelligence that brought soul to those lovely 
 features. Nothing hard, nothing dry and stern, was there. 
 Even as you detected knowledge, it was lost in the gentle- 
 ness of grace. In fact, whatever she gained in the graver 
 kinds of information, became transmuted, through her heart 
 and her fancy, into spiritual golden stores. Give her some 
 tedious and arid history, her imagination seized upon beauties 
 other readers had passed by and, like the eye of the artist, 
 detected everywhere the Picturesque. Something in her 
 mind seemed to reject all that was mean and commonplace, 
 and to bring out all that was rare and elevated in whatever 
 it received. Living so apart from all companions of her 
 age, she scarcely belonged to the Present time. She dwelt 
 in the Past, as Sabrina in her crystal well. Images of 
 chivalry of the Beautiful and the Heroic such as, in read- 
 ing the silvery line of Tasso, rise before us, softening force 
 and valor into love and song haunted the reveries of the 
 fair Italian maid. 
 
 Teil us not that the Past, examined by cold Philosophy, 
 was no better and no loftier than the Present ; it is not thus 
 seen by pure and generous eyes. Let the Past perish, when 
 it ceases to reflect on its magic mirror the beautiful Romance 
 which is its noblest Reality, though perchance but the sha- 
 dow of Delusion. 
 
 Yet Violante was not merely the dreamer. In her, life 
 was so puissant and rich, that action seemed necessary to 
 its glorious development action, but still in the woman's 
 sphere action to bless, and to refine, and to exalt all around 
 her, and to pour whatever else of ambition was left unsatis- 
 fied into sympathy with the aspirations of man. Despite 
 her father's fears of the bleak air of England, in that air she 
 had strengthened the delicate health of her childhood. Her
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 585 
 
 clastic step her eyes full of sweetness and light her bloom, 
 at once soft and luxuriant all spoke of the vital powers fit 
 to sustain a mind of such exquisite mould, and the emotions 
 of a heart that, once aroused, could ennoble the passions of 
 the South with the purity and devotion of the North. 
 
 Solitude makes some natures more timid, some more 
 bold. Violante was fearless. When she spoke, her eyes 
 frankly met your own ; and she was so ignorant of evil, that 
 as yet she seemed nearly unacquainted with shame. From 
 this courage, combined with affluence of idea, came a de- 
 lightful flow of happy converse. Though possessing so 
 imperfectly the accomplishments ordinarily taught to young 
 women, and which may be cultured to the utmost, and yet 
 leave the thoughts so barren, and the talk so vapid she had 
 that accomplishment which most pleases the taste, and 
 commands the love, of the man of talent, especially if his 
 talent be not so actively employed as to make him desire 
 only relaxation where he seeks companionship the accom- 
 plishment of facility in intellectual interchange the charm 
 that clothes-in musical words beautiful womanly ideas. 
 
 " I hear him sigh at this distance," said Violante, softly, 
 as she still watched her father ; " and methinks this is a 
 new grief ; and not for his country. He spoke twice 
 yesterday of that dear English friend, and wished that he 
 were here." 
 
 As she said this, unconsciously the virgin blushed, her 
 hand drooped on her knee, and she fell herself into thought 
 as profound as her father's, but less gloomy. From her 
 arrival in England, Violante had been taught a grateful 
 interest in the name of Harley L'Estrange. Her father, 
 preserving a silence that seemed disdain of all his old Italian 
 intimates, had been pleased to converse with open heart of 
 the Englishman who had saved where countrymen had be- 
 trayed. He spoke of the soldier, then in the full bloom of 
 youth, who, unconsoled by fame, had nursed the memory 
 of some hidden sorroAV amidst the pine-trees that cast their 
 shadow over the sunny Italian lake ; how Riccabocca, then 
 honored and happy, had courted from his seclusion the 
 English Signore, then the mourner and the voluntary exile ; 
 how they had grown friends amidst the landscapes in which 
 her eyes had opened to the day ; how Harley had vainly 
 warned him from the rash schemes in which he had sought 
 to reconstruct in an hour the ruins of weary ages; how. 
 when abandoned, deserted, proscribed, pursued, he had fled 
 
 25*
 
 586 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 for life the infant Violante clasped to his bosom the 
 English soldier had given him refuge, baffled the pursuers, 
 armed his servants, accompanied the fugitive at night 
 toward the defile in the Apennines, and, when the emis- 
 saries of a perfidious enemy, hot in the chase, came near, 
 had said, " You have your child to save ! Fly on ! Another 
 league, and 1 you are beyond the borders. We will delay the 
 foes with parley ; they will not harm us." And not till escape 
 was gained did the father know that the English friend 
 had delayed the foe, not by parley, but by the sword, hold- 
 ing the pass against numbers, with a breast as dauntless as 
 Bayard's on the glorious bridge. 
 
 And since then, the same Englishman had never ceased 
 to vindicate his name, to urge his cause ; and if hope yet 
 remained of restoration to land and honors, it Avas in that 
 untiring zeal. 
 
 Hence, naturally and insensibly, this secluded and mus- 
 ing girl had associated all that she read in tales of romance 
 and chivalry with the image of the brave and loyal stranger. 
 He it was who animated her dreams of the Past^and seemed 
 born to be, in the destined hour, the deliverer of" the Future. 
 Around this image grouped all the charms that the fancy of 
 virgin woman can raise from the enchanted lore of old 
 Heroic Fable. Once in her early girlhood, her father (to 
 satisfy her curiosity, eager for general description) had 
 drawn from memory a sketch of the features of the English- 
 man drawn Harley as he was in that first youth, flattered 
 and idealized, no doubt, by art, and by partial gratitude 
 but still resembling him as he was then ; while the deep 
 mournfulness of recent sorrow yet shadowed and concen- 
 trated all the varying expressions of his countenance ; and 
 to look on him was to say "So sad, yet so young!" 
 Never did Violante pause to remember that the same years 
 which ripened herself from infancy into woman, were pass- 
 ing less gently over that smooth cheek and dreamy brow 
 that the world might be altering the nature as time the 
 aspect. To her the hero of the Ideal remained immortal in 
 bloom and youth. Bright illusion, common to us all, where 
 Poetry once hallows the human form ! Who ever thinks of 
 Petrarch as the old time-worn man ? Who does not see him 
 as when he first gazed on Laura? 
 
 " Ogni altra cosa. ogni pensier va fore ; 
 E fol ivi con voi rimansi Amore ! "
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 587 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 AND Violante, thus absorbed in reverie, forgot to keep 
 watch on the belvidere. And the belvidere was not 
 deserted. The wife, who had no other ideal to distract her 
 thoughts, saw Riccabocca pass into the house. 
 
 The exile entered his daughter's room, and she started 
 to feel his hand upon her locks and his kiss upon her brow. 
 
 " My child ! " cried Riccabocca, seating himself, " I 
 have resolved to leave for a time this retreat, and to seek 
 the neighborhood of London." 
 
 " Ah, dear father, that, then, was your thought ! But 
 what can be your reason ? Do not turn away ; you know 
 how carefully I have obeyed your command, and kept your 
 secret. Ah, you will confide in me." 
 
 "I do, indeed," returned Riccabocca, with emotion. 
 " I leave this place, in the fear lest my enemies discover 
 me. I shall say to others that you are of an age to require 
 teachers, not to be obtained here. But I should like none 
 to know where we go." 
 
 The Italian said these last words through his teeth, and 
 hanging his head. He said them in shame. 
 
 " My mother " (so Violante always called Jemima) 
 "my mother you have spoken to her ? " 
 
 " Not yet. There is the difficulty." 
 
 " No difficulty, for she loves you so well," replied 
 Violante, with soft reproach. " Ah, why not also confide 
 in her ? Who so true ? so good ? " 
 
 " Good I grant it," exclaimed Riccabocca. " What 
 then ? ' Da cattiva Donna guardati, ed alia buona non fidar 
 nienle ' (from the bad woman, guard thyself ; to the good 
 woman trust nothing). And if you must trust," added the 
 abominable man, " trust her with anything but a secret ! " 
 
 " Fie," said Violante, with arch reproach, for she knew 
 her father's humors too well to interpret his horrible senti- 
 ments literally " fie on your consistency, Padre carissimo. 
 Do you not trust your secret to me ? " 
 
 " You ! A kitten is not a cat, and a girl is not a woman. 
 Besides, the secret was already known to you, and I had no 
 choice. Peace, Jemima will stay here for the present. See
 
 588 MY NOVEL; Off, 
 
 to what you wish to take with you ; we shall leave to- 
 night." 
 
 Not waiting for an answer, Riccabocca hurried away, 
 and with firm step strode the terrace, and approached his 
 wife. 
 
 " Anima mia" said the pupil of Machiavelli, disguising 
 in the tenderest words the cruellest intentions for one of 
 his most cherished Italian proverbs was to the effect, that 
 there is no getting on with a mule or a woman unless you 
 coax them. "Anima mia, soul of my being, you have already 
 seen that Violante mopes herself to death here." 
 
 " She, poor child ! Oh no ! " 
 
 " She does, core of my heart she does and is as ignor- 
 ant of music as I am of tent-stitch." 
 
 " She sings beautifully." 
 
 " Just as birds do, against all the rules, and in defiance 
 of gamut. Therefore, to come to the point, O treasure of 
 my soul ! I am going to take her with me for a short time, 
 perhaps to Cheltenham or Brighton. We shall see." 
 
 "All places with you are the same to me, Alphonso. 
 When shall we go ?" 
 
 " We shall go to-night ; but terrible as it is to part from 
 you you " 
 
 " Ah ! " interrupted his wife, and covered her face with 
 her hands. 
 
 Riccabocca, the wiliest and most relentless of men in 
 his maxims, melted into absolute uxorial imbecility at the 
 sight of that mute distress. He put his arm round his 
 wife's waist, with genuine affection, and without a single 
 proverb at his heart " Can'sstma, do not grieve so ; we 
 shall be back soon, and travelling is expensive ; rolling 
 stones gather no moss, and there is so much to see to at 
 home." 
 
 Mrs. Riccabocca gently escaped from her husband's 
 arm. She withdrew her hands from her face and brushed 
 away the tears that stood in her eyes. 
 
 " Alphonso," she said touchingly, "hear me ! What 
 you think good, that shall ever be good to me. But do not 
 think that I grieve solely because of our parting. No ; I 
 grieve to think that, despite all these years in which I have 
 been the partner of your hearth, and slept on your breast 
 all these years in which I have had no thought but, how- 
 ever humbly, to do my duty to you and yours, and could 
 have wished that you had read my heart, and seen there but
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 589 
 
 yourself and your child I grieve to think that you still 
 deem me as unworthy your trust as when you stood by my 
 side at the altar." 
 
 "Trust !" repeated Riccabocca, startled and conscience- 
 stricken ; " why do you say ' trust ? ' In what have I dis- 
 trusted you ? I am sure," he continued, with the artful 
 volubility of guilt, " that I never doubted your fidelity 
 hook-nosed, long-visaged foreigner though I be ; never 
 pryed into your letters ; never inquired into your solitary 
 walks ; never heeded your flirtations with that good-look- 
 ing Parson Dale ; never kept the money ; and never looked 
 into the account-books ! " Mrs. Riccabocca refused even a 
 smile of contempt at these revolting evasions ; nay, she 
 seemed scarcely to hear them. 
 
 "Can you think," she resumed, pressing her hand on 
 her heart to still its struggles for relief in sobs " can you 
 think that I could have watched, and thought, and taxed 
 my poor mind so constantly, to conjecture what might best 
 soothe or please you, and not seen, long since, that you 
 have secrets known to your daughter your servant not to 
 me ? Fear not the secrets cannot be evil, or you would 
 not tell them to your innocent child. Besides, do I not 
 know your nature ? and do I not love you because I know 
 it? it is for something connected with those secrets that 
 you leave your home. You think that I should be incau- 
 tious imprudent. You will not take me with you. Be it 
 so. I go to prepare for your departure. Forgive me if I 
 have displeased you, husband." 
 
 Mrs. Riccabocca turned away ; but a soft hand touched 
 the Italian's arm. " O father, can you resist this ? Trust 
 her ! trust her ! I am a woman like her ! I answer for her 
 woman's faith. Be yourself ever nobler than all others, 
 my own father." 
 
 " Diavolo ! Never one door shuts but another opens," 
 groaned Riccabocca. " Are you a fool, child ? Don't you 
 see that it was for your sake only I feared and would be 
 cautious ? " 
 
 " For mine ! O then do not make me deem myself 
 mean, and the cause of meanness. For mine ! Am I not 
 your daughter the descendant of men who never feared ?" 
 
 Violante looked sublime while she spoke ; and as she 
 ended she led her father gently on toward the door, which 
 his wife had now gained. 
 
 "Jemima wife mine! pardon, pardon," cried the
 
 590 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 Italian, whose heart had been yearning to repay such ten- 
 derness and devotion, -"come back to my breast it has 
 been long closed it shall be open to you now and for 
 ever." 
 
 In another moment the wife was in her right place on 
 her husband's bosom ; and Violante, beautiful peace-maker, 
 stood smiling awhile at both, and then lifted her eyes grate- 
 fully to Heaven, and stole away. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 ON Randal's return to town, he heard mixed and contra- 
 dictory rumors in the streets, and at the clubs, of the prob- 
 able downfall of the government at the approaching session 
 of Parliament. These rumors had sprung up suddenly, as 
 if in an hour. True that, for some time, the sagacious had 
 shaken their heads and said " Ministers could not last." 
 True, that certain changes in policy, a year or two before, 
 had divided the party on which the government depended, 
 and strengthened that which opposed it. But still the more 
 important members of that government had been so long 
 identified with official station, and there seemed so little 
 power in the Opposition to form a cabinet of names fami- 
 liar to official ears, that the general public had anticipated, 
 at most, a few partial changes. Rumor now went far be- 
 yond this. Randal, whose whole prospects at present were 
 but reflections from the greatness of his patron, was alarmed. 
 He sought Egerton, but the minister was impenetrable, and 
 seemed calm, confident, and imperturbed. Somewhat re- 
 lieved, Randal then set himself to work to find a safe home 
 for Riccabocca ; for the greater need to succeed in obtain- 
 ing fortune there, if he failed in getting it through Eger- 
 ton. He found a quiet house, detached and secluded, in 
 the neighborhood, of Norwood. No vicinity more secure 
 from espionage and remark. He wrote to Riccabocca, and 
 communicated the address, adding fresh assurances of his 
 own power to be of use. The next morning he was seated 
 in his office, thinking very little of the details, that he mas- 
 tered, however, with mechanical precision, when the minis- 
 ter who presided over that department of the public service, 
 sent for him into his private room, and begged him to take
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 591 
 
 a letter to Egerton, with whom he wished to consult rela- 
 tive to a very important point to be decided in the Cabinet 
 that day. " I want you to take it," said the minister smil- 
 ing (the minister was a frank homely man), " because you 
 are in Mr. Egerton's confidence, and he may give you some 
 verbal message besides a written reply. Egerton is often 
 over cautious and brief in the litera scripta." 
 
 Randal went first to Egerton's neighboring office Eger- 
 ton had not been there that day. He then took a cabriolet 
 and drove to Grosvenor Square. A quiet-looking chariot 
 was at the door, Mr. Egerton was at home ; but the servant 
 said, " Dr. F. is with him, sir ; and perhaps he may not like 
 to be disturbed." 
 
 " What is your master ill ? " 
 
 " Not that I know of, sir. He never says he is ill. But 
 he has looked poorly the last day or two." 
 
 Randal hesitated a moment ; but his commission might 
 be important, and Egerton was a man who so held the max- 
 im, that health and all else must give way to business, that 
 he resolved to enter ; and unannounced and unceremoni- 
 ously, as was his \vont, he opened the door of the library. 
 He started as he did so. Audley Egerton was leaning back 
 on the sofa, and the doctor, on his knees before him, 
 was applying the stethoscope to his breast. Egerton's 
 eyes were partially closed as the door opened. But at the 
 noise he sprang up, nearly oversetting the doctor. " Who's 
 that? how dare you! "he exclaimed, in a voice of great 
 anger. Then recognizing Randal, he changed color, bit 
 his lip, and muttered dryly, " I beg pardon for my abrupt- 
 ness ; what do you want, Mr. Leslie?" 
 
 "This letter from Lord -; I was told to deliver it 
 immediately into your own hands. I beg pardon " 
 
 "There is no cause," said Egerton, coldly. " I have had 
 a slight attack of bronchitis ; and as Parliament meets so 
 soon, I must take advice from my doctor, if I would be 
 heard by the reporters. Lay the letter on the table, and be 
 kind enough to wait for my reply." 
 
 Randal withdrew. He had never seen a physician in 
 that house before, and it seemed surprising that Egerton 
 should even take a medical opinion upon a slight attack. 
 While waiting in the ante-room there was a knock at the 
 street door, and presently a gentleman, exceedingly well 
 dressed, was shown in, and honored Randal with an easy 
 and half-familiar bow. Randal remembered to have met
 
 592 My NOVEL; OR, 
 
 this personage at dinner, and at the house of a young noble- 
 man of high fashion, but had not been introduced to him, 
 and did not even know him by name. The visitor was 
 better informed. 
 
 "Our friend Egerton is busy, I hear, Mr. Leslie," said 
 he, arranging the camelia in his button-hole. 
 
 " Our friend Egerton ! " It must be a very great man 
 to say, "Our friend Egerton." 
 
 " He will not be engaged long, I dare say," returned 
 Randal, glancing his shrewd inquiring eye over the stranger's 
 person. 
 
 " I trust not ; my time is almost as precious as his own. 
 I was not so fortunate as to be presented to you when we 
 met at Lord Spendquick's. Good fellow, Spendquick ; and 
 decidedly clever." 
 
 Lord Spendquick was usually esteemed a gentleman with- 
 out three ideas. 
 
 Randal smiled. 
 
 In the meanwhile the visitor had taken out a card from 
 an embossed morocco case, and now presented it to Randal, 
 who read thereon, " Baron Levy, No. , Bruton St." 
 
 The name was not unknown to Randal. It was a name 
 too often on the lips of men of fashion not to have reached 
 the ears of an habitue of good society. 
 
 Mr. Levy had been a solicitor by profession. He had of 
 late years relinquished his ostensible calling ; and not long 
 since, in consequence of some services toward the negotia- 
 tion of a loan, had been created a baron by one of the Ger- 
 man kings. The wealth of Mr. Levy was said to be only 
 equalled by his good-nature to all who were in want of a 
 temporary loan, and with sound expectations of repaying it 
 some day or other. 
 
 You seldom saw a finer-looking man than Baron Levy 
 about the same age as Egerton, but looking younger ; so 
 well preserved such magnificent black whiskers such 
 superb teeth ! Despite his name and his dark complexion, 
 he did not, however, resemble a Jew at least externally ; 
 and, in fact, he was not a Jew on the father's side, but the 
 natural son of a rich English grand seigneur, by a Hebrew 
 lady of distinction in the opera. After his birth, this lady 
 had married a German trader of her own persuasion, and 
 her husband had been prevailed upon, for the convenience 
 of all parties, to adopt his wife's son, and accord to him his 
 own Hebrew name. Mr. Levy, senior, was soon left a
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 593 
 
 widower, and then the real father, though never actually 
 owning the boy, had shown him great attention had him 
 frequently at his house initiated him betimes into his own 
 high-born society, for which the boy showed great taste. 
 But when my Lord died, and left but a moderate legacy to 
 the younger Levy, who was then about eighteen, that am- 
 biguous person was articled to an attorney by his putative 
 sire, who shortly afterward returned to his native land, and 
 was buried at Prague, where his tombstone may yet be seen. 
 Young Levy, however, contrived to do very well without 
 him. His real birth was generally known, and rather advan- 
 tageous to him in a social point of view. His legacy en- 
 abled him to become a partner where he had been a clerk, 
 and his practice became great amongst the fashionable 
 classes of society. Indeed he was so useful, so pleasant, so 
 much a man of the world, that he grew intimate with his 
 clients chiefly young men of rank ; was on good terms with 
 both Jew and Christian ; and being neither one nor the 
 other, resembled (to use Sheridan's incomparable simile) the 
 blank page between the Old and the New Testament. 
 
 Vulgar, some might call Mr. Levy, from his assurance, 
 but it was not the vulgarity of a man accustomed to low and 
 coarse society rather the mauvais ton of a person not sure 
 of his own position, but who has resolved to swagger into 
 the best one he can get. When it is remembered that he 
 had made his way in the world, and gleaned together an 
 immense fortune, it is needless to add that he was as sharp 
 as a needle, and as hard as a flint. No man had had more 
 friends, and no man had stuck by them more firmly so long 
 as there was a pound in their pockets ! 
 
 Something of this character had Randal heard of the 
 Baron, and he now gazed, first at his card, and then at him, 
 with admiration. 
 
 " I met a friend of yours at Borrowell's the other day," 
 resumed the Baron " Young Hazeldean. Careful fellow 
 quite a man of the world." 
 
 As this was the last praise poor Frank deserved, Randal 
 again smiled. 
 
 The Baron then went on " I hear, Mr. Leslie, that you 
 have much influence over this same Hazeldean. His affairs 
 are in a sad state. I should be very happy to be of use to 
 him, as a relation of my friend Egerton's ; but he under- 
 stands business so well, that he despises my advice." 
 
 " I am sure you do him injustice."
 
 594 MY NOVEL; Off, 
 
 "Injustice! I honor his caution. I say to every man, 
 ' Don't come to me I can get you money on much easier 
 terms than any one else ; and what's the result ! You come 
 so often that you ruin yourself ; whereas a regular usurer 
 without conscience frightens you. " Cent, per cent," ' you 
 say; "oh, I must pull in."' If you have influence over 
 your friend, tell him to stick to his bill-brokers, and have 
 nothing to do with Baron Levy." 
 
 Here the minister's bell rang, and Randal, looking 
 through the window, saw Dr. F. walking to his carriage, 
 which had made way for Baron Levy's splendid cabriolet 
 a cabriolet in the most perfect taste Baron's coronet on the 
 dark brown panels horse black, with such action ! harness 
 just relieved with plating. The servant now entered, and 
 requested Randal to step in ; and addressing the Baron, as- 
 sured him that he would not be detained a minute. 
 
 "Leslie," said the minister, sealing a note, "take this 
 
 back to Lord , and say that I shall be with him in 
 
 an hour." 
 
 "No other message ? he seemed to expect one." 
 
 " I dare say he did. Well, my letter is official, my mes- 
 sage is not ; beg him to see Mr. before we meet he will 
 
 understand all rests upon that interview." 
 
 Egerton then, extending the letter, resumed gravely 
 " Of course, you will not mention to any one that Dr. F. 
 was with me ; the health of public men is not to be sus- 
 pected. Hum were you in your own room or the ante- 
 room ? " 
 
 " The ante-room, sir." 
 
 Egerton's brow contracted slightly. " And Mr. Levy 
 was there, eh ? " 
 
 " Yes the Baron." 
 
 " Baron ! true. Come to plague me about the Mexican 
 loan, I suppose. I will keep you no longer." 
 
 Randal, much meditating, left the house, and re-entered 
 ,his hack cab. The Baron was admitted to the statesman's 
 presence.
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 595 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 EGERTON had thrown himself at full length on the sofa, 
 a position exceedingly rare with him ; and about his whole 
 air and manner, as Levy entered, there was something singu- 
 larly different from that stateliness of port common to the 
 austere legislator. The very tone of his voice was different. 
 It was as if the statesman the man of business had van- 
 ished ; it was rather the man of fashion and the idler, who, 
 nodding languidly to his visitor, said, " Levy, what money 
 can I have for a year ? " 
 
 "The estate will bear very little more. My dear fellow, 
 that last election was the very devil. You cannot .go on 
 thus much longer." 
 
 " My dear fellow ! " Baron Levy hailed Audley Eger- 
 ton as " my dear fellow." And Audley Egerton, perhaps, 
 saw nothing strange in the words, though his lip curled. 
 
 " I shall not want to go on thus much longer," answered 
 Egerton, as the curl on his lip changed to a gloomy smile. 
 " The estate must, meanwhile, bear ^5000 more." 
 
 " A hard pull on it. You had really better sell." 
 
 " 1 cannot afford to sell at present. I cannot afford men 
 to say ' Audley Egerton is done up his property is for 
 sale.' " 
 
 " It is very sad when one thinks what a rich man you 
 have been and may be yet ! " 
 
 "Be yet ! How?" 
 
 Baron Levy glanced toward the thick mahogany doors 
 thick and impervious as should be the doors of statesmen. 
 " Why, you know that, with three words from you, I could 
 produce an effect upon the stocks of three nations, that 
 might give us each a hundred thousand pounds. We would 
 go shares." 
 
 " Levy," said Egerton, coldly, though a deep blush over- 
 spread his face, " you are a scoundrel ; that is your lookout. 
 I interfere with no man's tastes and conscience. I don't in- 
 tend to be a scoundrel myself. I have told you that long 
 ago." 
 
 The usurer's brows darkened, but he dispelled the 
 cloud with an easy laugh.
 
 j$q6 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 "Well," said he, "you are neither wise nor complimen- 
 tary, but you shall have the money. But yet, would it not 
 be better," added Levy, with emphasis, " to borrow it with- 
 out interest, of your friend L'Estrange ? " 
 
 Egerton started as if stung. 
 
 "You mean to taunt me, sir!" he exclaimed, passion- 
 ately. " I accept pecuniary 'favors from Lord L'Estrange ! 
 I ! " 
 
 " Tut, my dear Egerton, I dare say my Lord would not 
 think so ill now of that act in your life which " 
 
 " Hold ! " exclaimed Egerton, writhing. " Hold ! " 
 
 He stopped and paced the room, muttering in broken 
 sentences, " To blush before this man ! Chastisement, 
 chastisement !" 
 
 Levy gazed on him with hard and sinister eyes. The 
 minister turned abruptly. 
 
 " Look you, Levy," said he, with forced composure 
 " you hate me why, I know not." 
 
 " Hate you ! How have I shown hatred ? Would you 
 ever have lived in this palace, and ruled this country as 
 one of the most influential of its ministers, but for my man- 
 agement my whispers to the wealthy Miss Leslie ? Come, 
 but for me what would you have been perhaps a beggar ?" 
 
 " What shall I be now, if I live ? And this fortune 
 which my marriage brought to me it has passed for the 
 main part into your hands. Be patient, you will have it all 
 ere long. But there is one man in the world who has loved 
 me from a boy, and woe to you if ever he learn that he 
 has a right to despise me ! " 
 
 " Egerton, my good fellow," said Levy, with great com- 
 posure, " you need not threaten me, for what interest can I 
 possibly have in tale-telling to Lord L'Estrange ? Again, 
 dismiss from your mind the absurd thought that I hate you. 
 True, you snub me in private, you cut me in public, you 
 refuse to come to my dinners, you'll not ask me to your 
 own ; still there is no man I like better, nor would more 
 willingly serve. When do you want the ^5000 ?" 
 
 " Perhaps in one month, perhaps not for three or four. 
 Let it be ready when required." 
 
 " Enough ; depend on it. Have you any other com- 
 mands ? " 
 
 " None." 
 
 " I will take my leave, then. By-the-bye, what do you 
 suppose the Hazeldean rental is worth net ? "
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 597 
 
 " I don't know, nor care. You have no designs upon 
 that too ? " 
 
 " Well, I like keeping up family connections. Mr. 
 Frank seems a liberal young gentleman. " 
 
 Before Egerton could answer, the Baron had glided to 
 the door, and, nodding pleasantly, vanished with that nod. 
 
 Egerton remained standing on his solitary hearth. A 
 drear, single man's room it was, from wall to wall, despite 
 its fretted ceilings and official pomp of Bramah escritoires 
 and red boxes. Drear and cheerless no trace of woman's 
 habitation no vestige of intruding, happy children. There 
 stood the austere man alone. And then, with a deep sigh, 
 he muttered, " Thank Heaven, not for long it will not last 
 long." 
 
 Repeating those words, he mechanically locked up his 
 papers, and pressed his hand to his heart for an instant, as 
 if a spasm had shot through it. 
 
 "So I must shun all emotion !" said he, shaking his 
 head gently. 
 
 In five minutes more, Audley Egerton was in the streets, 
 his mien erect, and his step firm as ever. 
 
 "That man is made of bronze," said a leader of the 
 Opposition to a friend, as they rode past the minister; 
 " what would I not give for his nerves ! "
 
 595 AM' NOVEL; OR, 
 
 BOOK NINTH. 
 
 INITIAL CHAPTER. 
 
 ON PUBLIC LIFE. 
 
 Now that I am fairly in the heart of my story, these pre- 
 liminary chapters must shrink into comparatively small di- 
 mensions, and not encroach upon the space required by the 
 various personages whose acquaintance I have picked up 
 here and there, and who are now all crowding upon me like 
 poor relations to whom one has unadvisedly given a general 
 invitation, and who descend upon one simultaneously about 
 Christmas time. Where they are to be stowed, and what is 
 to become of them all, Heaven knows ; in the meanwhile, 
 the reader will have already observed that the Caxton Fam- 
 ily themselves are turned out of their own rooms, sent 
 a-packing, in order to make way for the new comers. 
 
 But to proceed. Note the heading to the present chap- 
 ter, "on PUBLIC LIFE," a thesis pertinent to this portion of 
 my narrative, and if somewhat trite in itself, the greater 
 is the stimulus to suggest thereon some original hints for 
 reflection. 
 
 Were you ever in public life, my dear reader ? I don't 
 mean, by that question, to ask whether you were ever Lord 
 Chancellor, Prime Minister, Leader of the Opposition, or 
 even a member of the House of Commons. An author 
 hopes to find readers far beyond that very egregious but 
 very limited segment of the Great Circle. Were you ever 
 a busy man in your vestry, active in a municipal corpora- 
 tion, one of a committee for furthering the interests of an 
 enlightened candidate for your native burgh, town, or 
 shire ? in a word, did you ever resign your private com- 
 forts as men in order to share the public troubles of man- 
 kind ? If ever you have so far departed from the Lucretian 
 philosophy, just look back was it life at all that you lived ?
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 599 
 
 were you an individual distinct existence a passenger in 
 the railway ? or were you merely an indistinct portion of 
 that common flame which heated the boiler and generated 
 the steam that set off the monster train ? very hot, very 
 active, very useful, no doubt ; but all your identity fused in 
 flame and all your forces vanishing in gas. 
 
 And do you think the people in the railway carriages 
 care for you ? do you think that the gentleman in the 
 worsted wrapper is saying to his neighbor with the striped 
 rug on his comfortable knees, " How grateful we ought to 
 bs for that fiery particle which is cracking and hissing 
 under the boiler ! It helps us on a fraction of an inch from 
 Vauxhall to Putney ! " Not a bit of it. Ten to one but he 
 is saying " Not sixteen miles an hour ! What the deuce 
 is the matter with the stoker?" 
 
 Look at our friend, Audley Egerton. You have just had 
 a glimpse of the real being that struggles under the huge 
 copper ; you have heard the hollow sound of the rich man's 
 coffers under the tap of Baron Levy's friendly knuckle 
 heard the strong man's heart give out its dull warning sound 
 
 to the scientific ear of Dr. F . And away once more 
 
 vanishes the separate existence, lost again in the flame that 
 heats the boiler, and the smoke that curls into air from the 
 grimy furnace. 
 
 Look to it, O Public Man, whoever thou art, and what- 
 soever thy degree see if thou canst not compound matters, 
 so as to keep a little nook apart for thy private life ; that 
 is, for thyself ! Let the great Popkins Question not absorb 
 wholly the individual soul of thee, as Smith or Johnson. 
 Don't so entirely consume thyself under that insatiable 
 boiler, that when thy poor little monad rushes out from 
 the sooty furnace, and arrives at the stars, thou mayest find 
 no vocation for thee there, and feel as if thou hadst nothing 
 to do amidst the still splendors of the Infinite. I don't 
 deny to thee the uses of " Public Life ; " I grant that it is 
 much to have helped to carry that great Popkins Question ; 
 but Private Life, my friend, is the life of thy private soul ; 
 and there may be matters concerned with that which, on 
 consideration, thou mayest allow, cannot be wholly mixed 
 up with the great Popkins Question and were not finally 
 settled when thou didst exclaim " I have not lived in vain 
 the Popkins Question is carried at last!" Oh, immortal 
 soul, for one quarter of an hour per diem de-Popkinise 
 thine immortality!
 
 600 MY NOVEL; OK, 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 IT had not been without much persuasion on the part of 
 Jackeymo, that Riccabocca had consented to settle himself 
 in the house which Randal had recommended to him. Not 
 that the exile conceived any suspicion of the young man 
 beyond that which he might have shared with Jackeymo, viz., 
 that Randal's interest in the father was increased by a very 
 natural and excusable admiration of the daughter. But the 
 Italian had the pride common to misfortune he did not 
 like to be indebted to others, and he shrank from the pity 
 of those to whom it was known that he had held a higher 
 station in his own land. These scruples gave way to the 
 strength of his affection for his daughter and his dread of 
 his foe. Good men, however able and brave, who have 
 suffered from the wicked, are apt to form exaggerated no- 
 tions of the power that has prevailed against them. Jackey- 
 mo had conceived a superstitious terror of Peschiera ; and 
 Riccabocca, though by no means addicted to superstition, 
 still had a certain creep of the flesh whenever he thought 
 of his foe. 
 
 But Riccabocca than whom no man was more physi- 
 cally brave, and no man in some respects more morally 
 timid feared the Count less as a foe than as a gallant. He 
 remembered his kinsman's surpassing beauty the power 
 he had obtained over women. He knew him versed in 
 every art that corrupts, and wholly void of the conscience 
 that deters. And Riccabocca had unhappily nursed him- 
 self into so poor an estimate of the female character, that 
 even the pure and lofty nature of Violante did not seem to 
 him a sufficient safeguard against the craft and determina- 
 tion of a practised and remorseless intriguer. But of all 
 the precautions he could take, none appeared more likely 
 to conduce to safety, than his establishing a friendly com- 
 munication with one who professed to be able to get at all 
 the Count's plans and movements, and who could apprise 
 Riccabocca at once should his retreat be discovered. 
 " Forewarned is forearmed," said he to himself, in one of 
 the proverbs common to all nations. However, as with his 
 usual sagacity, he came to reflect upon the alarming intel-
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 6oi 
 
 ligence conveyed to him by Randal, viz., that the Count 
 sought his daughter's hand, he divined that there was some 
 strong personal interest under such ambition ; and what 
 could be that interest save the probability of Riccabocca's 
 ultimate admission to the Imperial grace, and the Count's 
 desire to assure himself of the heritage to an estate that he 
 might be permitted to retain no more ? Riccabocca was 
 not indeed aware of the condition (not according to usual 
 customs in Austria) on which the Count held the forfeited 
 domains. He knew not that they had been granted merely 
 on pleasure ; but he was too well aware of Peschiera's na- 
 ture to suppose that he would woo a bride without a dower, 
 or be moved by remorse in any overture of reconciliation. 
 He felt assured too and this increased all his fears that 
 Peschiera would never venture to seek an interview with 
 himself ; all the Count's designs on Violante would be dark, 
 secret, and clandestine. He was perplexed and tormented 
 by the doubt, whether or not to express openly to Violante 
 his apprehensions of the nature of the danger to be appre- 
 hended. He had told her vaguely that it was for her sake 
 that he desired secrecy and concealment. But that might 
 mean anything ; what danger to himself would not menace 
 her? Yet to say more was so contrary to a man of his 
 Italian notions and Machiavellian maxims ! To say to a 
 young girl, " There is a man come over to England on pur- 
 pose to woo and win you. For Heaven's sake take care of 
 him ; he is diabolically handsome ; he never fails where he 
 sets his heart." " Cospetto ! " cried the Doctor, aloud, as 
 these admonitions shaped themselves to speech in the 
 camera-obscura of his brain ; "such a warning would have 
 undone a Cornelia while she was yet an innocent spinster." 
 No, he resolved to say nothing to Violante of the Count's 
 intention, only to keep guard, and make himself and Jackey- 
 mo all eyes and all ears. 
 
 The house Randal had selected pleased Riccabocca at 
 first glance. It stood alone, upon a little eminence ; its 
 upper windows commanded the high road. It had been a 
 school, and was surrounded by high walls, which contained 
 a garden and lawn sufficiently large for exercise. The 
 garden doors were thick, fortified by strong bolts, and had a 
 little wicket lattice, shut and opened at pleasure, from which 
 Jackeymo could inspect all visitors before he permitted 
 them to enter. 
 
 An old family servant from the neighborhood was cau- 
 26
 
 602 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 tiously hired ; Riccabocca renounced his Italian name, and 
 abjured his origin. He spoke English sufficiently well to 
 think he could pass as an Englishman. He called himself 
 Mr. Richmouth (a liberal translation of Riccabocca). He 
 bought a blunderbuss, two pairs of pistols, and a huge 
 house-dog. Thus provided for, he allowed Jackeymo to 
 write a line to Randal and communicate his arrival. 
 
 Randal lost no time in calling. With his usual adapta- 
 bility, and his power of dissimulation, he contrived easily 
 to please Mrs. Riccabocca, and to increase the good opinion 
 the exile was disposed to form of him. He engaged Vio- 
 lante in conversation on Italy and its poets. He promised 
 to bring her books. He began, though more distantly than 
 he could have desired for her sweet stateliness awed him 
 the preliminaries of courtship. He established himself 
 at once as a familiar guest, riding down daily in the dusk 
 of evening after the toils of office, and retiring at night. In 
 four or five days he thought he had made great progress 
 with all. Riccabocca watched him narrowly, and grew ab- 
 sorbed in thought after every visit. At length one night, 
 when he and Mrs. Riccabocca were alone in the drawing- 
 room, Violante having retired to rest, he thus spoke as he 
 filled his pipe : 
 
 " Happy is the man who has no children ! Thrice 
 happy he who has no girls ! " 
 
 'My dear Alphonso ! " said the wife, looking up from 
 the wrist-band to which she was attaching a neat mother- 
 o'-pearl button. She said no more ; it was the sharpest 
 rebuke she was in the custom of administering to her 
 husband's cynical and odious observations. Riccabocca 
 lighted his pipe with a thread-paper, gave three great 
 puffs, and resumed, 
 
 " One blunderbuss, four pistols, and a house-dog called 
 Pompey, who would have made mincemeat of Julius 
 Csesar ! " 
 
 " He certainly eats a great deal, does Pompey ! " said 
 Mrs. Riccabocca, simply. " But if he relieves your 
 mind ! " 
 
 " He does not relieve it in the least, ma'am," groaned 
 Riccabocca ; " and that is the point I was coming to. 
 This is a most harassing life, and a most undignified life. 
 And I who have only asked from Heaven dignity and 
 repose ! But, if Violante were once married, I should 
 want neither blunderbuss, pistol, nor Pompey. And it is
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 603 
 
 that which would relieve my mind, cara mia. Pompey 
 only relieves my larder ! " 
 
 Now Riccabocca had been more communicative to Je- 
 mima than he had been to Violante. Having once trusted 
 her with one secret, he had every motive to trust her with 
 another ; and he had accordingly spoken out his fears of 
 the Count di Peschiera. Therefore she answered, laying 
 down the work, and taking her husband's hand tenderly 
 
 " Indeed, my love, since you dread so much (though I 
 own that I must think unreasonably) this wicked, danger- 
 ous man, it would be the happiest thing in the world to see 
 dear Violante well married ; because, you see, if she is 
 married to one person she cannot be married to another ; 
 and all fear of this Count, as you say, would be at an end." 
 
 " You cannot express yourself better. It is a great 
 comfort to unbosom one's-self to a wife, after all ! " quoth 
 Riccabocca. 
 
 "But," said the wife, after a grateful kiss "but, where 
 and how can we find a husband suitable to the rank of 
 your daughter ? " 
 
 " There there there," cried Riccabocca, pushing back 
 his chair to the farther end of the room " that comes of 
 unbosoming one's-self ! Out flies one's secret ; it is open- 
 ing the lid of Pandora's box ; one is betrayed, ruined, 
 undone ! " 
 
 ''Why, there's not a soul that can hear us!" said 
 Mrs. Riccabocca, soothingly. 
 
 " That's chance, ma'am ! If you once contract the habit 
 of blabbing out a secret when nobody's by, how on earth 
 can you resist it when you have the pleasurable excitement 
 of telling it to all the world ? Vanity, vanity woman's 
 vanity ! Woman never could withstand rank never ! " 
 The doctor went on railing for a quarter e of an hour, and 
 was very reluctantly appeased by Mrs. Riccabocca's re- 
 peated and tearful assurances, that she would never even 
 whisper to herself that her husband had ever held any 
 other rank than that of Doctor. Riccabocca, with a 
 dubious shake of the head, renewed 
 
 " I have done with all pomp and pretension. Besides, 
 the young man is a born gentleman ; lie seems in good 
 circumstances ; he has energy and latent ambition ; he is 
 akin to L'Estrange's intimate friend ; he seems attached 
 to Violante. I don't think it probable that we could do 
 better. Nay, if Peschiera fears that I shall be restored
 
 604 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 to my country, and I learn the wherefore, and the ground 
 to take, through this young man why, gratitude is the 
 first virtue of the noble ! " 
 
 "You speak, then, of Mr. Leslie?" 
 
 " To be sure of whom else ?" 
 
 Mrs. Riccabocca leaned her cheek on her hand thought- 
 fully. " Now you have told me that, I will observe him 
 with different eyes." 
 
 " Anima mia, I don't see how the difference of your eyes 
 will alter the object they look upon ! " grumbled Ricca- 
 bocca, shaking the ashes out of his pipe. 
 
 " The object alters when we see it in a different point 
 of view ! " replied Jemima, modestly. " This thread does 
 very well when I look at it in order to sew on a button, 
 but I should say it would never do to tie up Pompey in his 
 kennel." 
 
 " Reasoning by illustration, upon my soul ! " ejaculated 
 Riccabocca, amazed. 
 
 "And," continued Jemima, "when I am to regard one 
 who is to constitute the happiness of that dear child, and 
 for life, can I regard him as I would the pleasant guest 
 of an evening ? Ah, trust me, Alphonso ; I don't pre- 
 tend to be wise like you ; but when a woman considers 
 what a man is likely to prove to woman his sincerity his 
 honor his heart oh, trust me, she is wiser than the 
 wisest man ! " 
 
 Riccabocca continued to gaze on Jemima with un- 
 affected admiration and surprise. And, certainly, to use 
 his phrase, since he had unbosomed himself to his better 
 half since he had confided in her, consulted with her, her 
 sense had seemed to quicken, her whole mind to expand. 
 
 " My dear," said the sage, " I vow and declare that 
 Machiavelli was a fool to you. And I have been as dull as 
 the chair I sit upon, to deny myself so many years the 
 
 comfort and counsel of such a but, corpo di Bacco ! 
 
 forget all about rank ; and so now to bed. One must 
 not holloa till one's out of the wood," muttered the un- 
 grateful, suspicious villain, as he lighted the chamber- 
 candle.
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 605 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 RICCABOCCA could not confine himself to the precincts 
 within the walls to which he condemned Violante. Re- 
 suming his spectacles, and wrapped in his cloak, he occa- 
 sionally sallied forth upon a kind of out-watch or recon- 
 noitring expedition, restricting himself, however, to the 
 immediate neighborhood, and never going quite out of 
 sight of his house. His favorite walk was to the summit of 
 a hillock overgrown with stunted brushwood. Here he 
 would sit himself musingly, often till the hoofs of Randal's 
 horse rang on the winding road, as the sun set over fading 
 herbage, red and vaporous, in autumnal skies. Just below 
 the hillock, and not two hundred yards from his own 
 house, was the only other habitation in view a charming, 
 thoroughly English cottage, though somewhat imitated 
 from the Swiss, with gable-ends, thatched roof, and 
 pretty projecting casements, opening through creepers 
 and climbing roses. From his height he commanded the 
 gardens of this cottage, and his eye of artist was pleased, 
 from the first sight, with the beauty which some exquisite 
 taste had given to the ground. Even in that cheerless 
 season of the year, the garden wore a summer smile ; the 
 evergreens were so bright and various, and the few flowers 
 still left, so hardy and so healthful. Facing the south, a 
 colonnade, or covered gallery, of rustic wood-work had 
 been formed, and creeping plants, lately set, were already 
 beginning to clothe its columns. Opposite to this colon- 
 nade there was a fountain, which reminded Riccabocca 
 of his own at the deserted Casino. It was indeed singu- 
 larly like it ; the same circular shape, the same girdle of 
 flowers around it. But the jet from it varied every day 
 fantastic and multiform, like the sports of a Naiad, 
 sometimes shooting up like a tree, sometimes shaped as a 
 convolvulus, sometimes tossing from its silver spray a 
 flower of vermilion, or a fruit of gold, as if at play with 
 its toy, like a happy child. And near the fountain was a 
 large aviary, large enough to enclose a tree. The Italian 
 could just eaten a gleam of rich color from the wings of 
 the birds, as they glanced to and fro within the network,
 
 606 My NOVEL; OR, 
 
 and could hear their songs, contrasting the silence of the 
 freer populace of air, whom the coming winter had already 
 stilled. 
 
 Riccabocca's eye, so alive to all aspects of beauty, 
 luxuriated in the view of this garden. Its pleasantness had 
 a charm that stole him from his anxious fear and melan- 
 choly memories. 
 
 He never saw but two forms within the demesnes, and 
 he could not distinguish their features. One was a woman, 
 who seemed to him of staid manner and homely appear- 
 ance ; she was seen but rarely. The other a man, often 
 pacing to and fro the colonnade, with frequent pauses be- 
 fore the playful fountain, or the birds that sang louder as 
 he approached. This latter form would then disappear 
 within a room, the glass door of which was at the extreme 
 end of the colonnade ; and if the door were left open, 
 Riccabocca could catch a glimpse of the figure bending 
 over a table covered with books. 
 
 Always, however, before the sun set, the man would 
 step forth more briskly, and occupy himself with the gar- 
 den, often working at it with good heart, as if at a task of 
 delight ; and then, too, the woman would come out, and 
 stand by, as if talking to her companion. Riccabocca's 
 curiosity grew aroused. He bade Jemima inquire of the 
 old maid-servant who lived at the cottage, and heard that 
 its owner was a Mr. Oran a quiet gentleman, and fond of 
 his book. 
 
 While Riccabocca thus amused himself, Randal had not 
 been prevented, either by his official cares or his schemes 
 on Violante's heart and fortune, from furthering the project 
 that was to unite Frank Hazeldean and Beatrice di Negra. 
 Indeed, as to the first, a ray of hope was sufficient to fire 
 the ardent and unsuspecting lover. And Randal's artful 
 misrepresentation of his conference with Mrs. Hazeldean, 
 removed all fear of parental displeasure from a mind always 
 too disposed to give itself up to the temptation of the mo- 
 ment. Beatrice, though her feelings for Frank were not 
 those of love, became more and more influenced by Ran- 
 dal's arguments and representations, the more especially as 
 her brother grew morose, and even menacing, as days 
 slipped on, and she could give no clue to the retreat of 
 those whom he sought for. Her debts, too, were really 
 urgent. As Randal's profound knowledge of human in- 
 firmity had shrewdly conjectured, the scruples of honor and
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 607 
 
 pride, that had made her declare she would not bring to a 
 husband her own encumbrances, began to yield to the 
 pressure of necessity. She listened already, with but faint 
 objections, when Randal urged her not to wait for the un- 
 certain discovery that was to secure her dowry, but by a 
 private marriage with Frank escape at once into freedom 
 and security. While, though he had first held out to young 
 Hazeldean the inducement of Beatrice's dowry as a reason 
 of self-justification in the eyes of the Squire, it was still 
 easier to drop that inducement, which had always rather 
 damped than fired the high spirit and generous heart of 
 the poor Guardsman. And Randal could conscientiously 
 say, that when he had asked the Squire if he expected for- 
 tune with Frank's bride, the Squire had replied, " I don't 
 care." Thus encouraged by his friend and his own heart,' 
 and the softening manner of a woman who might have 
 charmed many a colder, and fooled many a wiser man, 
 Frank rapidly yielded to the snares held out for his perdi- 
 tion. And though, as yet, he honestly shrank from propos- 
 ing to Beatrice or himself a marriage without the consent, 
 and even the knowledge, of his parents, yet Randal was 
 quite content to leave a nature, however good, so thoroughly 
 impulsive and undisciplined, to the influences of the first 
 strong passion it had ever known. Meanwhile, it was so 
 easy to dissuade Frank from even giving a hint to the folks 
 at home. "For," said the wily and able traitor, "though 
 we may be sure of Mrs. Hazeldean's consent, and her power 
 over your father, when the step is once taken, yet we can- 
 not count for certain on the Squire, he is so choleric and 
 hasty. He might hurry to town, see Madame di Negra, 
 blurt out some passionate, rude expressions which would 
 wake her resentment, and cause her instant rejection ; and 
 it might be too late if he repented afterward, as he would 
 be sure to do." 
 
 Meanwhile, Randal Leslie gave a dinner at the Claren- 
 don Hotel (an extravagance most contrary to his habits) 
 and invited Frank, Mr. Borrowell, and Baron Levy. 
 
 But this house-spider, which glided with so much ease 
 after its flies, through webs so numerous and mazy, had yet 
 to amuse Madame di Negra with assurances that the fugi- 
 tives sought for would sooner or later be discovered. 
 Though Randal baffled and eluded her suspicion that he 
 was already acquainted with the exiles (" the persons he had 
 thought of were," he said, " quite different from her descrip-
 
 608 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 tion ; " and he even presented to her an old singing-master, 
 and a sallow-faced daughter, as the Italians who had caused 
 his mistake), it was necessary for Beatrice to prove the sin- 
 cerity of the aid she had promised to her brother, and to 
 introduce Randal to the Count. It was no less desirable to 
 Randal to know, and even win the confidence of, this man 
 his rival. 
 
 The two met at Madame di Negra's house. There is 
 something very strange, and almost mesmerical, in the rap- 
 port between two evil natures. Bring two honest men to- 
 gether, and it is ten to one if they recognize each other as 
 honest ; differences in temper, manner, even politics, may 
 make each misjudge the other. But bring together two 
 men, unprincipled and perverted men who, if born in a 
 cellar, wpuld have been food for the hulks or gallows and 
 they understand each other by instant sympathy. The eyes 
 of Franzini, Count di Peschiera, and Randal Leslie no sooner 
 met, than a gleam of intelligence shot from both. They 
 talked on indifferent subjects weather, gossip, politics 
 what not. They bowed and they smiled ; but, all the while, 
 each was watching, plumbing the other's heart, each meas- 
 uring his strength with his companion ; each inly saying, 
 " This is a very remarkable rascal ; am I a match for him ? " 
 It was at dinner they met ; and following the English fashion, 
 Madame di Negra left them alone with their wine. 
 
 Then, for the first time, Count di Peschiera cautiously 
 and adroitly made a covered push toward the object of 
 the meeting. 
 
 " You have never been abroad, my dear sir ? You must 
 contrive to visit me at Vienna. I grant the splendor of your 
 London world ; but, honestly speaking, it wants the freedom 
 of ours a freedom which unites gaiety with polish. For 
 as your society is mixed, there are pretension and effort 
 with those who have no right to be in it, and artificial con- 
 descension and chilling arrogance with those who have to 
 keep their inferiors at a certain distance. With us, all be- 
 ing of fixed rank and acknowledged birth, familiarity is at 
 once established. Hence," added the Count, with his French 
 lively smile" hence there is no place like Vienna for a 
 young man no place like Vienna for bonnes fortunes." 
 
 "Those make the paradise of the idle," replied Randal, 
 " but the purgatory of the busy. I confess frankly to you, my 
 dear Count, that I have as little of the leisure which becomes 
 the aspirer to bonnes fortunes as I have the personal graces
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 609 
 
 which obtain them without an effort ; " and he inclined his 
 head as in compliment. 
 
 " So," thought the Count, " woman is not his weak side. 
 What is?" 
 
 " Morbleu ! my dear Mr. Leslie had I thought as you do 
 some years since, I had saved myself from many a trouble. 
 After all, Ambition is the best mistress to woo ; for with 
 her there is always the hope, and never the possession." 
 
 "Ambition, Count," replied Randal, still guarding him- 
 self in dry sententiousness, " is the luxury of the rich, and 
 the necessity of the poor." 
 
 "Aha," thought the Count, "it comes as I anticipated 
 from the first comes to the bribe." He passed the wine to 
 Randal, filling his own glass, and draining it carelessly ; 
 " Sur mon dme, man cher," said the Count, luxury is ever 
 pleasanter than necessity ; and I am resolved at least to 
 give ambition a trial -je vais me refugier dans le sein du bonheur 
 domestique a married life and a settled home. Peste ! If it 
 were not for ambition, one would die of ennui. Apropos, 
 my dear sir, I have to thank you for promising my sister 
 your aid in finding a near and dear kinsman of mine, who 
 has taken refuge in your country, and hides himself even 
 from me." 
 
 " I should be most happy to assist in your search. As 
 yet, however, I have only to regret that all my good wishes 
 are fruitless. I should have thought, however, that a man 
 of such rank had been easily found, even through the med- 
 ium of your own ambassador." 
 
 " Our own ambassador is no very warm friend of mine ; 
 and the rank would be no clue, for it is clear that my kins- 
 man has never assumed it since he quitted his country." 
 
 " He quitted it, I understand, not exactly from choice," 
 said Randal, smiling. " Pardon my freedom and curiosity, 
 but will you explain to me a little more than I learn from 
 English rumor (which never accurately reports upon for- 
 eign matters still more notorious), how a person who had so 
 much to lose, and so little to win, by revolution, C 4 Otild put 
 himself into the same crazy boat with a crew of hare-brained 
 adventurers and visionary professors ? " 
 
 " Professors ! " repeated the Count ; " I think you have 
 hit on the very answer to your question ; not but what men 
 of high birth \\ f ere as mad as the canaille. I am the more 
 willing to gratify your curiosity, since it will perhaps serve to 
 guide your kind search in my favor. You must know, then,
 
 610 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 that my kinsman was not born the heir to the rank he ob- 
 tained. He was but a distant relation to the head of the 
 house which he afterward represented. Brought up in an 
 Italian university, he was distinguished for his learning and 
 his eccentricities. There too, I suppose, brooding over old 
 wives' tales about freedom, and so forth, he contracted his 
 carbonaro, chimerical notions for the independence of Italy. 
 Suddenly, by three deaths, he was elevated, while yet young, 
 to a station and honors which might have satisfied any man 
 in his senses. Que diablc ! what could the independence of 
 Italy do for him! He and I were cousins ; we had played 
 together as boys ; but our lives had been separated till his 
 succession to rank brought us necessarily together. We 
 became exceedingly intimate. And you may judge how I 
 loved him," said the Count, averting his eyes slightly from 
 Randal's quiet, watchful gaze, " when I add that I forgave 
 him for enjoying a heritage that, but for him, had been 
 mine." 
 
 " Ah, you were next heir ? " 
 
 " And it is a hard trial to be very near a great fortune, 
 and yet just to miss it." 
 
 " True," cried Randal, almost impetuously. The Count 
 now raised his eyes, and again the two men looked into each 
 other's souls. 
 
 " Harder still, perhaps," resumed the Count, after a short 
 pause " harder still might it have been to some men to for- 
 give the rival as well as the heir." 
 
 "Rival! how?" 
 
 " A lady, who had been destined by her parents to my- 
 self, though we had never, I own, been formally betrothed, 
 became the wife of my kinsman." 
 
 " Did he know of your pretensions? " 
 
 " I do him the justice to say he did not. He saw and fell 
 in love with the young lady I speak of. Her parents were 
 dazzled. Her father sent for me. He apologized he ex- 
 plained ; he set before me, mildly enough, certain youthful 
 imprudences or errors of my own, as an excuse for his 
 change of mind ; and he asked me not only to resign all 
 hope of his daughter, but to conceal from her new suitor 
 that I had ever ventured to hope." 
 
 " And you consented ? " 
 
 " I consented." 
 
 " That was generous. You must, indeed, have been much 
 attached to your kinsman. As a lover, I cannot comprehend
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 6u 
 
 it ; perhaps, my dear Count, you may enable me to under- 
 stand it better as a man of the world." 
 
 "Well," said the Count, with his most rout air, " I sup- 
 pose we are both men of the world." 
 
 " Both ! certainly," replied Randal, just in the tone which 
 Peachum might have used in courting the confidence of 
 Lockit. 
 
 " As a man of the world, then, I own," said the Count, 
 playing with the rings on his fingers, " that if I could not 
 marry the lady myself (and that seemed to me clear), it was 
 very natural that I should wish to see her married to my 
 wealthy kinsman." 
 
 " Very natural ; it might bring your wealthy kinsman 
 and yourself still closer together." 
 
 " This is really a very clever fellow ! " thought the Count, 
 but he made no direct reply. 
 
 ".En-fin, to cut short a long story, my cousin afterward 
 got entangled in attempts, the failure of which is histori- 
 cally known. His projects were detected himself de- 
 nounced. He fled, and the Emperor, in sequestering his 
 estates, was pleased, with rare and singular clemency, to 
 permit me, as his nearest kinsman, to enjoy the revenues of 
 half those estates during the royal pleasure ; nor was the 
 other half formally confiscated. It was, no doubt, his Ma- 
 jesty's desire not to extinguish a great Italian name ; and if 
 my cousin and his child died in exile, why, of that name, I, 
 a loyal subject of Austria I, Franzini, Count di Peschiera, 
 would become the representative. Such, in a similar case, 
 has been sometimes the Russian policy toward Polish in- 
 surgents." 
 
 " I comprehend perfectly ; and I can also conceive that 
 you, in profiting so largely, though so justly, by the fall of 
 your kinsman, may have been exposed to much unpopular- 
 ity even to painful suspicion.*' 
 
 " Entre nous, mon cher, I care not a stiver for popularity ; 
 and as to suspicion, who is he that can escape from the cal- 
 umny of the envious ? But, unquestionably, it would be 
 most desirable to unite the divided members of our house ; 
 and this union I can now effect, by the consent of the Em- 
 peror to my marriage with my kinsman's daughter. You 
 see, therefore, why I have so great an interest in this re- 
 search ? " 
 
 " By the marriage-articles you could, no doubt, secure 
 the retention of the half you hold ; and if you survive your
 
 612 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 kinsman, you would enjoy the whole. A most desirable 
 marriage ; and, if made, I suppose that would suffice to ob- 
 tain your cousin's amnesty and grace ? " 
 
 "You say it." 
 
 " But even without such marriage, since the Emperor's 
 clemency has been extended to so many of the proscribed, 
 it is, perhaps, probable that your cousin might be restored ? " 
 
 " It once seemed to me possible," said the Count, reluc- 
 tantly ; " but since I have been in England, I think not. 
 The recent revolution in France, the democratic spirit rising 
 in Europe, tend to throw back the cause of a proscribed 
 rebel. England swarms with revolutionists ; my cousin's 
 residence in this country is in itself suspicious. The suspi- 
 cion is increased by his strange seclusion. There are many 
 Italians here who would aver that they had met with him, 
 and that he was still engaged in revolutionary projects." 
 
 " Aver untruly ? " 
 
 " Ma foi it comes to the same thing ; les absents out tou- 
 jours tort. I speak to a man of the world. No ; without 
 some such guarantee for his faith as his daughter's marriage 
 with myself would give, his recall is improbable. By the 
 heaven above us, it shall be impossible ! " The Count rose 
 as he said this rose as if the mask of simulation had fairly 
 fallen from the visage of crime rose tall and towering, a 
 very image of masculine power and strength, beside the 
 slight, bended form, and sickly face of the intellectual 
 schemer. And had you seen them thus confronted and con- 
 trasted, you would have felt that if ever the time should 
 come when the interest of the one would compel him openly 
 to denounce or boldly to expose the other, the odds were 
 that the brilliant and audacious reprobate would master the 
 weaker nerve but superior wit of the furtive traitor. Ran- 
 dal was startled ; but rising also, he said, carelessly 
 
 " What if this guarantee can no longer be given ? what 
 if, in despair of return, and in resignation to his altered for- 
 tunes, your cousin has already married his daughter to some 
 English suitor ? " 
 
 "Ah, that would indeed be, next to my own marriage 
 with her, the most fortunate thing that could happen to my- 
 self." 
 
 " How ? I don't understand ! " 
 
 "Why, if my cousin has so abjured his birthright, and 
 forsworn his rank if this heritage, which is so dangerous 
 from its grandeur, pass, in case of his pardon, to some ob-
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 613 
 
 scure Englishman a foreigner a native of a country that 
 is the very refuge of levellers and Carbonari mort tfe ma 
 vie ! do you think that such would not annihilate all chance 
 of my cousin's restoration, and be an excuse even in the 
 eyes of Italy for formally conferring the sequestrated es- 
 tates on an Italian ? No ; unless, indeed, the girl were to 
 marry an Englishman of such name and birth and connec- 
 tion as would in themselves be a guarantee (and how in 
 poverty is this likely ?), I should go back to Vienna with a 
 light heart, if I could say, ' My kinswoman is an English- 
 man's wife shall her children be the heirs to a house so 
 renowned for its lineage, and so formidable for its wealth ? ' 
 Parbleu ! if my cousin were but an adventurer, or merely a 
 professor, he had been pardoned long ago. The great en- 
 joy the honor not to be pardoned easily." 
 
 Randal fell into deep but brief thought. The Count ob- 
 served him, not face to face, but by the reflection of an 
 opposite mirror. " This man knows something ; this man 
 is deliberating ; this man can help me," thought the 
 Count. 
 
 But Randal said nothing to confirm these hypotheses. 
 Recovering from his abstraction, he expressed courteously 
 his satisfaction at the Count's prospects, either way. " And 
 since, after all," he added, "you mean so well to your cousin, 
 it occurs to me that you might discover him by a very sim- 
 ple English process." 
 
 "How?" 
 
 " Advertise that, if he will come to some place appointed, 
 he will hear of something to his advantage." 
 
 The Count shook his head. " He would suspect me, 
 and not come." 
 
 " But he was intimate with you. He joined an insur- 
 rection ; you were more prudent. You did not injure him, 
 though you may have benefited yourself. Why should he 
 shun you?" 
 
 " The conspirators forgive none who do not conspire ; 
 besides, to speak frankly, he thought I injured him." 
 
 "Could you not conciliate him through his wife whom 
 you resigned to him ? " 
 
 "She is dead died before he left the country." 
 
 "Oh, that is unlucky! Still I think an advertisement 
 might do good. Allow me to reflect on that subject. Shall 
 we now join Madame la Marquise ? " 
 
 On re-entering the drawing-room, the gentlemen found
 
 614 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 Beatrice in full dress, seated by the fire, and reading so in- 
 tently that she did not remark them enter. 
 
 ''What so interests you, ma sceur? the last novel by 
 Balzac, no doubt ? " 
 
 Beatrice started, and looking up, showed eyes that were 
 full of tears. " Oh, no ! no picture of miserable, vicious 
 Parisian life. This is beautiful ; there is soul here." 
 
 Randal took up the book which the Marchesa laid down ; 
 it was the same which had charmed the circle at Hazeldean 
 charmed the innocent and fresh-hearted charmed now 
 the wearied and tempted votaress of the world. 
 
 "Hum," murmured Randal; "the Parson was right. 
 This is power a sort of a power." 
 
 " How I should like to know the author ! Who can he 
 be can you guess ?" 
 
 " Not I. Some old pedant in spectacles." 
 
 " I think not I am sure not. Here beats a heart I have 
 ever sighed to find, and never found." 
 
 " Oh, la naive enfant ! " cried the Count ; " comme son ima- 
 gination s'e'gare en reves enchante's. And to think that, while 
 you talk like an Arcadian, you are dressed like a princess." 
 
 "Ah, I forgot the Austrian ambassador's. I shall not 
 go to-night. This book unfits me for the artificial world." 
 
 " Just as you will, my sister. I shall go. I dislike the 
 man, and he me ; but ceremonies before men ! " 
 
 "You are going to the Austrian embassy ?" said Ran- 
 dal ; "I, too, shall be there. We shall meet." And he took 
 his leave. 
 
 " I like your young friend prodigiously," said the Count, 
 yawning. " I am sure that he knows of the lost birds, and 
 will stand to them like a pointer, if I can but make it his 
 interest to do so. We shall see." 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 RANDAL arrived at the ambassador's before the Count, 
 and contrived to mix with the young noblemen attached to 
 the embassy, and to whom he was known. Standing among 
 these was a young Austrian, on his travels, of very, high 
 birth, and with an air of noble grace that suited the ideal 
 of the old German chivalry. Randal was presented to him,
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 615 
 
 and, after some talk on general topics, observed, " By the 
 way, Prince, there is now in London a countryman of yours, 
 with whom you are, doubtless, familiarly acquainted the 
 Count di Peschiera." 
 
 " He is no countryman of mine. He is an Italian. I 
 know him but by sight and by name," said the Prince, 
 stiffly. 
 
 " He is of very ancient birth, I believe." 
 
 " Unquestionably. His ancestors were gentlemen." 
 
 "And very rich." 
 
 "Indeed! I have understood the contrary. He enjoys, 
 it is true, a large revenue." 
 
 A young attach^ less discreet than the Prince, here ob- 
 served, "Oh, Peschiera! poor fellow, he is too fond of 
 play to be rich." 
 
 "And there is some chance that the kinsman whose 
 revenue he holds may obtain his pardon, and re-enter into 
 possession of his fortunes so I hear, at least," said Randal, 
 artfully. 
 
 " I shall be glad if it be true," said the Prince, with de- 
 cision ; "and I speak the common sentiment at Vienna. 
 That kinsman had a noble spirit, and was, I believe, equally 
 duped and betrayed. Pardon me, sir; but we Austrians are 
 not so bad as we are painted. Have you ever met in Eng- 
 land the kinsman you speak of ? " 
 
 " Never, though he is supposed to reside here ; and the 
 Count tells me that he has a daughter." 
 
 "The Count ha! I heard something of a scheme a 
 wager of that that Count's ; a daughter ! Poor girl ! I 
 hope she will escape his pursuit ; for, no doubt, he pursues 
 her." 
 
 " Possibly she may already have married an English- 
 man." 
 
 " I trust not," said the Prince, seriously ; "that might at 
 present be a serious obstacle to her father's return." 
 
 " You think so ? " 
 
 " There can be no doubt of it," interposed the attache\i\\\\ 
 a grand and positive air ; " unless, indeed, the Englishman 
 were of a rank equal to her own." 
 
 Here there was a slight, well-bred murmur and buzz at 
 the door ; for the Count di Peschiera himself was announced; 
 and as he entered, his presence was so striking, and his 
 beauty so dazzling, that whatever there might be to the 
 prejudice of his character, it seemed instantly effaced or
 
 616 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 forgotten in that irresistible admiration which it is the pre- 
 rogative of personal attributes alone to create. 
 
 The Prince, with a slight curve of his lip at the groups 
 that collected round the Count, turned to Randal, and said, 
 " Can you tell me if a distinguished countryman of yours is 
 in England Lord L'Estrange ? " 
 
 " No Prince he is not. You know him ? " 
 
 "Well." 
 
 " He is acquainted with the Count's kinsman ; and per- 
 haps from him you have learned to think so highly of that 
 kinsman ? " 
 
 The Prince bowed, and answered as he moved away, 
 " When one man of high honor vouches for another, he 
 commands the belief of all." 
 
 *' Certainly," soliloquized Randal, "I must not be pre- 
 cipitate. I was very near falling into a terrible trap. If I 
 were to marry the girl, and only, by so doing, settle away 
 her inheritance on Peschiera ! How hard it is to be suf- 
 ficiently cautious in this world ! " 
 
 While thus meditating, a member of Parliament tapped 
 him on the shoulder. 
 
 " Melancholy, Leslie ! I lay a wager I guess your 
 thoughts." 
 
 " Guess," answered Randal. 
 
 " You were thinking of the place you are so soon to 
 lose." 
 
 "Soon to lose ! " 
 
 "Why, if ministers go out, you could hardly keep it, I 
 suppose." 
 
 This ominous and horrid member of Parliament, Squire 
 Hazeldean's favorite county member, Sir John, was one of 
 those legislators especially odious to officials an indepen- 
 dent " large-acred " member, who would no more take office 
 himself than he would cut down the oaks in his park, and 
 who had no bowels of human feeling for those who had op- 
 posite tastes and less magnificent means. 
 
 "Hem!" said Randal, rather surlily. "In the first 
 place, Sir John, ministers are not going out." 
 
 " Oh, yes, they will go. You know I vote with them 
 generally, and would willingly keep them in ; but they are 
 men of honor and spirit ; and if they can't carry their 
 measures, they must resign ; otherwise, by Jove, I would 
 turn round and vote them out myself ! " 
 
 "I have no doubt you would, Sir John ; you are quite
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 617 
 
 capable of it ; that rests with you and your constituents. 
 But even if ministers did go out, I am but a poor subaltern 
 in a public office. I am no minister why should I go out 
 too ? " 
 
 " Why ? Hang it, Leslie, you are laughing at me. A 
 young fellow like you could never be mean enough to stay 
 in, under the very men who drove out your friend Egerton ! " 
 
 " It is not usual for those in the public offices to retire 
 with every change of government." 
 
 " Certainly not ; but always those who are the relations 
 of a retiring minister always those who have been regarded 
 as politicians, a.nd who mean to enter Parliament, as of 
 course you will do at the next election. But you know that 
 as well as I do you who are so decided a politician the 
 writer of that admirable pamphlet ! I should not like to tell 
 my friend Hazeldean, who has a sincere interest in you, that 
 you ever doubted on a question of honor as plain as your 
 A, B, C." 
 
 " Indeed, Sir John," said Randal, recovering his suavity, 
 while he only breathed a dire anathema on his county mem- 
 ber, "I atn so new to these things, that what you say never 
 struck me before. No doubt you must be right ; at all 
 events I cannot have a better guide and adviser than Mr. 
 Egerton himself." 
 
 SIR JOHN. No, certainly perfect gentleman, Egerton ! 
 I wish we could make it up with him and Hazeldean. 
 
 RANDAL (sighing). Ah, I wish we could! 
 
 SIR JOHN. And some chance of it now ; for the time is 
 coming when all true men of the old school must stick to- 
 gether. 
 
 RANDAL. Wisely, admirably said, my dear Sir John. 
 But, pardon me, I must pay my respects to the ambassador. 
 
 Randal escaped, and passing on, saw the ambassador 
 himself in the next room, conferring in a corner with Aud- 
 ley Egerton. The ambassador seemed very grave Egerton 
 calm and impenetrable, as usual. Presently the Count 
 passed by, and the ambassador bowed to him very stiffly. 
 
 As Randal, some time later, was searching for his cloak 
 below, Audley Egerton unexpectedly joined him. 
 
 " Ah, Leslie," said the minister, with more kindness than 
 usual, "if you don't think the night air too cold for you, 
 let us walk home together. I have sent away the carriage." 
 
 This condescension in his patron was so singular, that it 
 quite startled Randal, and gave him a presetftiment of some
 
 618 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 evil. When they were in the street, Egerton, after a pause, 
 began 
 
 " My dear Mr. Leslie, it was my hope and belief that I 
 had provided for you at least a competence ; and that I might 
 open to you, later, a career yet more brilliant. Hush ! I 
 don't doubt your gratitude ; let me proceed. There is a 
 possible chance, after certain decisions that the Government 
 have come to, that we may be beaten in the House of Com- 
 mons, and of course resign. I tell you this beforehand, for 
 I wish you to have time to consider what, in that case, 
 would be your best course. My power of serving you may 
 then probably be over. It would, no doubt (seeing our 
 close connection, and my views with regard to your future 
 being so well known) no doubt, be expected that you 
 should give up the place you hold, and follow my fortunes 
 for good or ill. But as I have no personal enemies with the 
 opposite party and as I have sufficient position in the 
 world to uphold and sanction your choice, whatever it may 
 be, if you think it more prudent to retain your place, tell 
 me so openly, and I think I can contrive that you may do it 
 without loss of character and credit. In that case, confine 
 your ambition merely to rising gradually in your office, 
 without mixing in politics. If, on the other hand, you 
 should prefer to take your chance of my return to office, 
 and so resign your present place ; and, furthermore, should 
 commit yourself to a policy that may then be not only in 
 opposition, but unpopular, I will do my best to introduce 
 you into parliamentary life. I cannot say that I advise the 
 latter." 
 
 Randal felt as a man feels after a severe fall he was 
 literally stunned. At length he faltered out 
 
 " Can you think, sir, that I should ever desert your for- 
 tunes your party your cause ? " 
 
 " My dear Leslie," replied the minister, " you are too 
 young to have committed yourself to any men or to any 
 party, except, indeed, in that unlucky pamphlet. This must 
 not be an affair of sentiment, but of sense and reflection. 
 Let us say no more on the point now ; but by considering 
 the pros and the cons, you can better judge what to do, 
 should the time for option suddenly arrive." 
 
 " But I hope that time may not come." 
 
 " I hope so too, and most sincerely," said the minister, 
 with deliberate and genuine emphasis. 
 
 " What comd be so bad for the country ? " ejaculated
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 619 
 
 Randal. " It does not seem to me possible, in the nature 
 of things, that you and your party should ever go out ! 
 
 " And when we are once out, there will be plenty of 
 wiseacres to say it is out of the nature ' of things that we 
 should ever come in again. Here we are at the door." 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 RANDAL passed a sleepless night ; but, indeed, he was 
 one of those persons who neither need, nor are accustomed 
 to, much sleep. However, toward morning, when dreams 
 are said to be prophetic, he fell into a most delightful 
 slumber a slumber peopled by visions fitted to lure on, 
 through labyrinths of law, predestined chancellors, or wreck 
 upon the rocks of glory the inebriate souls of youthful en- 
 signs dreams from which Rood Hall emerged crowned 
 with the towers of Belvoir or Raby, and looking over sub- 
 ject lands and manors wrestled from the nefarious usurpa- 
 tion of Thornhills and Hazeldeans dreams in which Audley 
 Egerton's gold and power rooms in Downing Street, and 
 saloons in Grosvenor Square had passed away to the smil- 
 ing dreamer, as the empire of Chaldsea passed to Darius the 
 Median. Why visions so belying the gloomy and anxious 
 thoughts that preceded them should visit the pillow of 
 Randal Leslie, surpasses my philosophy to conjecture. He 
 yielded, however, passively to their spell, and was startled 
 to hear the clock strike eleven as he descended the stairs to 
 breakfast. He was vexed at the lateness of the hour, for 
 he had meant to have taken advantage of the unwonted 
 softness of Egerton, and drawn therefrom some promises 
 or proffers to cheer the prospects which the minister had so 
 chillingly expanded before him the preceding night ; and it 
 was only at breakfast that he usually found the opportunity 
 of private conference with his busy patron. But Audley 
 Egerton would be sure to have sallied forth and so he had 
 only Randal was surprised to hear that he had gone out 
 in his carriage, instead of on foot, as was his habit. Randal 
 soon despatched his solitary meal, and with a new and sud- 
 den affection for his office, thitherward bent his way. As 
 he passed through Piccadilly, he heard behind a voice that
 
 620 MY NOVEL; OA\ 
 
 had lately become familiar to him, and turning round, saw 
 Baron Levy walking side by side, though not arm-in-arm, 
 with a gentleman almost as smart as himself, but with a 
 jauntier step and a brisker air a step that, like Diomed's 
 as described by Shakspeare 
 
 " Rises on the toe ; that spirit of his 
 In aspiration lifts him from the earth." 
 
 Indeed, one may judge of the spirits and disposition of a 
 man by his ordinary gait and mien in walking. He who 
 habitually pursues abstract thought, looks down on the 
 ground. He who is accustomed to sudden impulses, or is 
 trying to seize upon some necessary recollection, looks up 
 with a kind of jerk. He who is a steady, cautious, merely 
 practical man, walks on deliberately, his eyes straight before 
 him ; and even in his most musing moods, observes things 
 around sufficiently to avoid a porter's knot or a butcher's 
 tray. But the man with strong ganglions of pushing, 
 lively temperament, who, though practical, is yet speculative 
 the man who is emulous and active, and ever trying to rise 
 in life sanguine, alert, bold walks with a spring looks 
 rather above the heads of his felloAv-passengers but with a 
 quick, easy turn of his own, which is lightly set on his 
 shoulders ; his mouth is a little open his eye is bright, 
 rather restless, but penetrative his port has something of 
 defiance his form is erect, but without stiffness. Such 
 was the appearance of the Baron's companion. And as 
 Randal turned round at Levy's voice, the Baron said to his 
 companion, " A young man in the first circles you should 
 book him for your fair lady's parties. How d'ye do, Mr. 
 Leslie ? Let me introduce you to Mr. Richard Avenel." 
 Then, as he hooked his arm into Randal's, he whispered, 
 "Man of first-rate talent monstrous rich has two or three 
 parliamentary seats in his pocket wife gives parties her 
 foible." 
 
 "Proud to make your acquaintance, sir." said Mr. Av- 
 enel, lifting his hat. "Fine day." 
 
 " Rather cold too," said Leslie, who, like all thin per- 
 sons with weak digestions, was chilly by temperament ; be- 
 sides, he had enough on his mind to chill his body. 
 
 "So much the healthier braces the nerves," said Mr. 
 Avenel ; " but you young fellows relax the system by hot 
 rooms and late hours. Fond of dancing, of course, sir ? "
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 621 
 
 Then, without waiting for Randal's negative, Mr. Richard 
 continued rapidly, " Mrs. Avenel has a soirte dansante on 
 Thursday shall be very happy to see you in Eaton Square. 
 Stop, I have a card;" and he drew out a dozen large in- 
 vitation cards, from which he selected one, and presented it 
 to Randal. The Baron pressed that young gentleman's 
 arm, and Randal replied courteously that it would give 
 him great pleasure to be introduced to Mrs. Avenel. Then, 
 as he was not desirous to be seen under the wing of Baron 
 Levy, like a pigeon under that of a hawk, he gently extri- 
 cated himself, and pleading great haste, walked quickly on 
 toward his office. 
 
 "That young man will make a figure some day," said 
 the Baron. " I don't know any one of his age with so few 
 prejudices. He is a connection by marriage to Audley Eger- 
 ton, who " 
 
 " Audley Egerton ! " exclaimed Mr. Avenel ; " a d d 
 
 haughty, aristocratic, disagreeable, ungrateful fellow : " 
 
 "Why, what do you know of him ?" 
 
 " He owed his first seat in Parliament to the votes of 
 two near relations of mine, and when I called upon him 
 some time ago, in his office, he absolutely ordered me out of 
 the room. Hang his impertinence ; if ever I can pay him 
 off, I guess I shan't fail for want of good will ! " 
 
 " Ordered you out of the room ? That's not like Eger- 
 ton, who is so civil, if formal at least to most men. You 
 must have offended him in his weak point." 
 
 "A man whom the public pays so handsomely should 
 have no weak point. What is Egerton's ? " 
 
 " Oh, he values himself on being a thorough gentleman 
 a man of the nicest honor," said Levy, with a sneer. " You 
 must have ruffled his plumes there. How was it ?" 
 
 " I forget," answered Mr. Avenel, who was far too well 
 versed in the London scale of human dignities since his 
 marriage, not to look back with a blush at his desire of 
 knighthood. " No use bothering our heads now about the 
 plumes of an arrogant popinjay. To return to the subject 
 we were discussing. You must be sure to let me have this 
 money next week." 
 
 "Rely on it." 
 
 " And you'll not let my bills get into the market ; keep 
 them under lock and key." 
 
 "So we agreed." 
 
 " It is but a temporary difficulty royal mourning, such
 
 622 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 nonsense panic in trade, lest these precious ministers go 
 out. I shall soon float over the troubled waters." 
 
 " By the help of a paper boat," said the Baron, laugh- 
 ing ; and the two gentlemen shook hands and parted. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 MEANWHILE Audley Egerton's carriage had deposited 
 him at the door of Lord Lansmere's house, at Knights- 
 bridge. He asked for the Countess, and was shown into 
 the drawing-room, which was deserted. Egerton was paler 
 than usual ; and as the door opened, he wiped the un- 
 wonted moisture from his forehead, and there was a quiver 
 on his firm lip. The Countess too, on entering, showed an 
 emotion almost equally unusual to her self-control. She 
 pressed Audley's hand in silence, and seating herself by 
 his side, seemed to collect her thoughts. At length she 
 said 
 
 " It is rarely indeed that we meet, Mr. Egerton, in spite 
 of your intimacy with Lansmere and Harley. I go so 
 little into your world, and you will not voluntarily come to 
 me." 
 
 " Madam," replied Egerton, " I might evade your kind 
 reproach by stating that my hours are not at my disposal ; 
 but I answer you with plain truth, it must be painful to 
 both of us to meet." 
 
 The Countess colored and sighed, but did not dispute 
 the assertion. 
 
 Audley resumed. "And therefore I presume that, in 
 sending for me, you have something of moment to com- 
 municate ?" 
 
 " It relates to Harley," said the Countess, as if in apol- 
 ogy ; "and I would take your advice." 
 
 "To Harley !" Speak on, I beseech you." 
 
 " My son has probably told you that he has educated 
 and reared a young girl, with the intention to make her 
 Lady L'Estrange, and hereafter Countess of Lansmere." 
 
 " Harley has no secrets from me," said Egerton, mourn- 
 fully, 
 
 "This young lady has arrived in England is here in 
 this house."
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 623 
 
 "And Harley too?" 
 
 " No, she came over with Lady N and her daugh- 
 ters. Harley was to follow shortly, and I expect him daily. 
 Here is his letter. Oberve, he has never yet communicated 
 his intentions to this young person, now intrusted to my 
 care never spoken to her as a- lover." 
 
 Egerton took the letter and read it rapidly, though with 
 attention. 
 
 "True," said he, as he returned the letter : "and before 
 he does so, he wishes you to see Miss Digby and to judge 
 of her yourself wishes to know if you will approve and 
 sanction his choice." 
 
 "It is on this that I would consult you a girl without 
 rank ; the father, it is true, a gentleman, though almost 
 equivocally one, but the mother, I know not what. And 
 Harley, for whom I hoped an alliance with the first houses 
 in England ! " The Countess pressed her hands convulsively 
 together. ..-;,.. 
 
 EGERTON. He is no more a boy. His talents have been 
 wasted his life a wanderer's. He presents to you a chance 
 of resettling his mind, of re-arousing his native powers, of a 
 home beside your own. Lady Lansmere, you cannot hesitate ! 
 
 LADY LANSMERE. I do, I do ! After all that I have 
 hoped, after all that I did to prevent 
 
 EGERTON (interrupting her). You owe him now an atone- 
 ment ; that is in your power it is not in mine. 
 
 "The Countess again pressed Audley's hand, and the tears 
 gushed from her eyes. 
 
 " It shall be so. I consent I consent. I will silence, I 
 will crush back this proud heart. Alas ! it well-nigh broke 
 his own ! I am glad you speak thus. I like to think he 
 owes my consent to you. In that there is atonement for 
 both." 
 
 " You are too generous, madam," said Egerton, evidently 
 moved, though still, as ever, striving to repress emotion. 
 " And now may I see the young lady ? This conference 
 pains me ; you see even my strong nerves quiver ; and at 
 this time I have much to go through need all my strength 
 and firmness. 
 
 " I hear, indeed, that the Government will probably re- 
 tire. But it is with honor : it will be soon called back by 
 the voice of the nation." 
 
 " Let me see the future wife of Harley L' Estrange," said 
 Egerton, without heed of this consolatory exclamation..
 
 624 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 The Countess rose and left the room. In a few minutes 
 she returned with Helen Digby. 
 
 Helen was wondrously improved from the pale, delicate 
 child, with the soft smile and intelligent eyes, who had sate 
 by the side of Leonard in his garret. She was about the 
 middle height, still slight, but beautifully formed ; that ex- 
 quisite roundness of proportion which conveys so well the 
 idea of woman, in its undulating pliant grace formed to 
 embellish life, and soften away its rude angles formed to 
 embellish, not to protect. Her face might not have satisfied 
 the critical eye of an artist it was not without defects in 
 regularity ; but its expression was eminently gentle and 
 prepossessing ; and there were few who would not have ex- 
 claimed, "What a lovely countenance !" The mildness of 
 her brow was touched with melancholy her childhood had 
 left its traces on her youth. Her step was slow, and her 
 manner shy, subdued, and timid. 
 
 Audley gazed on her with earnestness as she approached 
 him ; and then coming forward, took her hand and kissed 
 it. 
 
 " I am your guardian's constant friend," said he, and he 
 drew her gently to a seat beside him, in the recess of a 
 Avindow. With a quick glance of his eye toward the Count- 
 ess, he seemed to imply the wish to converse with Helen 
 somewhat apart. So the Countess interpreted the glance ; 
 and though she remained in the room, she seated herself at 
 a distance, and bent over a book. 
 
 It was touching to see how the austere man of business 
 lent himself to draw forth the mind of this quiet, shrinking 
 girl ; and if you had listened, you would have comprehended 
 how he came to possess such social influence, and how well, 
 some time or other in the course of his life, he had learned 
 to adapt himself to women. 
 
 He spoke first of Harley L'Estrange spoke with tact 
 and delicacy. Helen at first answered by monosyllables, 
 and then, by degrees, with grateful and open affection. 
 Audley's brow grew shaded. He then spoke of Italy, and 
 though no man had less of the poet in his nature, yet, with 
 the dexterity of one long versed in the world, and who has 
 been accustomed to extract evidences from characters most 
 opposed to his own, he suggested such topics as might serve 
 to arouse poetry in others. Helen's replies betrayed a cul- 
 tivated taste, and a charming womanly mind ; but they be- 
 trayed, also, one accustomed to take its colorings from
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 625 
 
 another's to appreciate, admire, revere the Lofty and the 
 Beautiful, but humbly and meekly. There was no vivid 
 enthusiasm, no remark of striking originality, no flash of 
 the self-kindling, creative faculty. Lastly, Egerton turned 
 to England to the critical nature of the times to the 
 claims which the country possessed upon all who had the 
 ability to serve and guide its troubled destinies. He enlarged 
 warmly on Harley's natural talents, and rejoiced that he had 
 returned to England, perhaps to commence some great 
 career. Helen looked surprised, but her face caught no 
 correspondent glow from Audley's eloquence. He rose, and 
 an expression of disappointment passed over his grave, 
 handsome features, and as quickly vanished. 
 
 "Adieu! my dear Miss Digby ; I fear I have wearied 
 you, especially with my politics. Adieu, Lady Lansmere ; 
 no doubt I shall see Harley as soon as he returns." 
 
 Then he hastened from the room, gained his carriage, 
 and ordered the coachman to drive to Downing Street. He 
 drew down the blinds, and leant back. A certain languor 
 became visible in his face, and once or twice he mechanically 
 put his hand to his heart. 
 
 " She is good, amiable, docile will make an excellent 
 wife, no doubt," said he, murmuringly. " But does she love 
 Harley as he has dreamed of love ? No ! Has she the 
 power and energy to arouse his faculties, and restore to the 
 world the Harley of old ? No ! Meant by Heaven to be 
 the shadow of another's sun not herself the sun this child 
 is not the one who can atone for the Past and illume the 
 Future." 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THAT evening Harley L'Estrange arrived at his father's 
 house. The 'few years that had passed since we saw him 
 last had made no perceptible change in his appearance. 
 He still preserved his elastic youthfulness of form, and sin- 
 gular variety and play of countenance. He seemed unaffect- 
 edly rejoiced to greet his parents, and had something of 
 the gaiety and the tenderness of a boy returned from school. 
 His manner to Helen bespoke the chivalry that pervaded- 
 all the complexities and curves of his character. It was 
 affectionate, but respectful. Hers to him, subdued but 
 27
 
 626 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 innocently sweet and gently cordial. Harley was the chief 
 talker. The aspect of the times was so critical, that he 
 could not avoid questions on politics ; and, indeed, he 
 showed an interest in them which he had never evinced be- 
 fore. Lord Lansmere was delighted. 
 
 " Why, Harley, you love your country, after all ?" 
 
 " The moment she seems in danger yes ! " replied 
 the Patrician ; and the Sybarite seemed to rise into the 
 Athenian. 
 
 Then he asked with eagerness about his old friend, Aud- 
 ley ; and, his curiosity satisfied there, he inquired the last 
 literary news. He had heard much of a book lately pub- 
 lished. He named the one ascribed by Parson Dale to 
 Professor Moss : none of his listeners had read it. 
 
 Harley pished at this, and accused them all of indolence 
 and stupidity, in his own quaint, metaphorical style. Then 
 he said " And town gossip ?" 
 
 " We never hear it," said Lady Lansmere. 
 
 "There is a new plough much talked of at Boodle's," 
 said Lord Lansmere. 
 
 " God speed it. But is there not a new man much talked 
 of at White's?" 
 
 " I don't belong to White's." 
 
 " Nevertheless, you may have heard of him a foreigner, 
 a Count di Peschiera." 
 
 "Yes," said Lord Lansmere ; "he was pointed out to me 
 in the Park a handsome man for a foreigner ; wears his 
 hair properly cut ; looks gentlemanlike and English." 
 
 "Ah, ah ! He is here then ! " And Harley rubbed his 
 hands. 
 
 " Which road did you take ? did you pass the Simplon ? " 
 
 " No ; I came straight from Vienna." 
 
 Then, relating with lively vein his adventures by the 
 way, he continued to delight Lord Lansmere by his gaiety 
 till the time came to retire to rest. As soon as Harley was 
 in his own room, his mother joined him. 
 
 " Well," said he, " I need not ask if you like Miss Dig- 
 by. Who would not ?" 
 
 " Harley, my own son," said the mother, bursting into 
 tears, " be happy your own way ; only be happy, that is all 
 I ask." 
 
 Harley, much affected, replied gratefully and soothingly 
 to this fond injunction. And then gradually leading his 
 mother on to converse of Helen, asked abruptly " And of
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 627 
 
 the chance of our happiness her happiness as well as mine 
 what is your opinion ? Speak frankly." 
 
 "Of her happiness there can be no doubt," replied the 
 mother, proudly. " Of yours, how can you ask me ? Have 
 you not decided on that yourself ? " 
 
 " But still it cheers and encourages one in any experi- 
 ment, however well considered, to hear the approval of an- 
 other. Helen has certainly a most gentle temper." 
 
 " I should conjecture so. But her mind " 
 
 " Is very well stored." 
 
 " She speaks so little " 
 
 " Yes. I wonder why ? She's surely a woman ! " 
 
 " Pshaw ! " said the Countess, smiling in spite of herself. 
 " But tell me more of the process of your experiment. You 
 took her as a child, and resolved to train her according to 
 your own ideal. Was that easy ? " 
 
 " It seemed so. I desired to instil habits of truth : she 
 was already by nature truthful as the day ; a taste for nature 
 and all things natural that seemed inborn ; perceptions of 
 Art as the interpreter of Nature those were more difficult 
 to teach. I think they may come. You have heard her 
 play and sing ? " 
 
 " No." 
 
 " She will surprise you. She has less talent for draw- 
 ing ; still, all that teaching could do has been done in a 
 word, she is accomplished. Temper, heart, mind these are 
 all excellent." Harley stopped and suppressed a sigh. 
 " Certainly I ought to be very happy," said he ; and he be- 
 gan to wind up his watch. 
 
 " Of course she must love you ? " said the Countess, 
 after a pause. " How could she fail ? " 
 
 " Love me ! My dear mother, that is the very question 
 I shall have to ask." 
 
 " Ask ! Love is discovered by a glance ; it has no need 
 of asking." 
 
 " I have never discovered it, then, I assure you. The 
 fact is, that before her childhood was passed, I removed 
 her, as you may suppose, from my roof. She resided with 
 an Italian family, near my usual abode. I visited her often, 
 directed her studies, watched her improvement 
 
 "And fell in love with her?" 
 
 " Fall is such a very violent word. No ; I don't remem- 
 ber to have had a fall. It was all a smooth inclined plane 
 from the first step, until at last I said to myself, ' Harley
 
 628 MY NOVEL; OK, 
 
 L'Estrange, thy time has come. The bud has blossomed 
 into flower. Take it to thy breast.' And myself replied to 
 
 myself, meekly, ' So be it.' Then I found that Lady N , 
 
 with her daughters, was coming to England. I asked her 
 ladyship to take my ward to your house. I wrote to you, 
 and prayed your assent ; and, that granted, I knew you 
 would obtain my father's. I am here you give me the ap- 
 proval I sought for. I will speak to Helen to-morrow. 
 Perhaps, after all, she may reject me." 
 
 "Strange, strange you speak thus coldly, thus lightly ; 
 you, so capable of ardent love ! " 
 
 " Mother," said Harley, earnestly, "be satisfied ! / am ! 
 Love, as of old, I feel, alas ! too well, can visit me never more. 
 But gentle companionship, tender friendship, the relief 
 and the sunlight of woman's smile hereafter the voices of 
 children music that, striking on the hearts of both parents, 
 weakens the most lasting and the purest of all sympathies : 
 these are my hope. Is the hope so mean, my fond 
 mother ? " 
 
 Again the Countess wept, and her tears were not dried 
 when she left the room. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 OH ! Helen, fair Helen type of the quiet, serene, un- 
 noticed, deep-felt excellence of woman. Woman, less as 
 the ideal that a poet conjures from the air, than as the com- 
 panion of a poet on the earth ! Woman, who, with her clear 
 sunny vision of things actual, and the exquisite fibre of her 
 delicate sense, supplies the deficiencies of him whose foot 
 stumbles on the soil, because his eye is too intent upon the 
 stars ! Woman, the provident, the comforting angel whose 
 pinions are folded round the heart, guarding there a divine 
 spring unmarred by the winter of the world ! Helen, soft 
 Helen, is it indeed in thee that the wild and brilliant " lord 
 of wantonness and ease " is to find the regeneration of his 
 life the re-baptism of his soul? Of what avail thy meek 
 prudent household virtues to one whom Fortune screens 
 from rough trial ? whose sorrows lie remote from thy ken ? 
 whose spirit, erratic and perturbed, now rising, now fall- 
 ing, needs a vision more subtle than thine to pursue, and a
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 629 
 
 strength that can sustain the reason, when it droops, on the 
 wings of enthusiasm and passion ? 
 
 And thou, thyself, O Nature, shrinking and humble, that 
 needest to be courted forth from the shelter, and developed 
 under the calm and genial atmosphere of Holy, happy love 
 can such affection as Harley L" Estrange may proffer suffice 
 to thee ? Will not the blossoms, yet folded in the petal, 
 wither away beneath the shade that may protect them from 
 the storm, and yet shut them from the sun ? Thou who, 
 where thou givest love, seekest, though meekly, for love in 
 return, to be the soul's sweet necessity ; the life's household 
 partner to him who receives all thy faith and devotion 
 canst thou influence the sources of joy and of sorrow in the 
 heart that does not heave at thy name ? Hast thou the 
 charm and the force of the moon, that the tides of that 
 wayward sea shall ebb and flow at thy will ? Yet who shall 
 say who conjecture how near two hearts can become, when 
 no guilt lies between them, and time brings the ties all its 
 own ? Rarest of all things on earth is the union in which 
 both, by their contrasts, make harmonious their blending ; 
 each supplying the defects of the helpmate, and completing, 
 by fusion, one strong human soul ! Happiness enough, 
 where even Peace does but seldom preside, when each can 
 bring to the altar, if not the flame, still the incense. Where 
 man's thoughts are all noble and generous, woman's feelings 
 all gentle and pure, love may follow, if it does not precede ; 
 and if not, if the roses be missed from the garland, one 
 may sigh for the rose, but one is safe from the thorn. 
 
 The morning was mild, yet somewhat overcast by the 
 mist which announces coming winter in London, and Helen 
 walked musingly beneath the trees that surrounded the 
 garden of Lord Lansmere's house. Many leaves were yet 
 left on the boughs ; but they were sere and withered. And 
 the birds chirped at times ; but their note was mournful and 
 complaining. All within this house, until Harley 's arrival, 
 had been strange and saddening to Helen's timid and sub- 
 dued spirits. Lady Lansmere had received her kindly, but 
 with a certain restraint ; and the loftiness of manner, com- 
 mon to the Countess with all but Harley, had awed and 
 chilled the diffident orphan. Lady Lansmere's very interest 
 in Harley's choice her attempts to draw Helen out of her 
 reserve her watchful eyes whenever Helen shyly spoke, or 
 shyly moved, frightened the poor child, and made her un- 
 just to herself.
 
 630 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 The very servants, though staid, grave, and respectful, 
 as suited a dignified, old-fashioned household, painfully con- 
 trasted the bright welcoming smiles and free talk of Italian 
 domestics. Her recollections of the happy warm Conti- 
 nental manner, which so sets the bashful at their ease, 
 made the stately and cold precision of all around her doubly 
 awful and dispiriting. Lord Lansmere himself, who did not 
 as yet know the views of Harley, and little dreamed that he 
 was to anticipate a daughter-in-law in the ward, whom he 
 understood Harley, in a freak of generous romance, had 
 adopted, was familiar and courteous, as became a host. But 
 he looked upon Helen as a mere child, and naturally left 
 her to the Countess. The dim sense of her equivocal posi- 
 tion of her comparative humbleness of birth and fortunes, 
 oppressed and pained her ; and even her gratitude to Harley 
 was made burthensome by a sentiment of helplessness. The 
 grateful long to requite. And what could she ever do for 
 him ? 
 
 Thus musing, she wandered alone through the curving 
 walks ; and this sort of mock country landscape London 
 loud, and even visible, beyond the high gloomy walls, and 
 no escape from the windows of the square formal house 
 seemed a type of the prison bounds of Rank to one whose 
 soul yearns for simple loving Nature. 
 
 Helen's reverie was interrupted by Nero's joyous bark. 
 He had caught sight of her, and came bounding up, and 
 thrust his large head into her hand. As she stooped to 
 caress the dog, happy at his honest greeting, and tears that 
 had been long gathering to the lids fell silently on his face 
 (for I know nothing that more moves us to tears than the 
 hearty kindness of a dog, when something in human beings 
 has pained or chilled us), she heard behind the musical 
 voice of Harley. Hastily she dried or repressed her tears, 
 as her guardian came up, and drew her arm within his own. 
 
 a I had so little of your conversation last evening, my 
 dear ward, that I may well monopolize you now, even to the 
 privation of Nero. And so you are once more in your 
 native land ? " 
 
 Helen sighed softly. 
 
 "May I not hope that you return under fairer auspices 
 than those which your childhood knew ? " 
 
 Helen turned her eyes with ingenuous thankfulness to 
 her guardian, and the memory of all she owed to him rushed 
 upon her heart.
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 631 
 
 Harley renewed, and with earnest, though melancholy 
 sweetness " Helen, your eyes thank me ; but hear me be- 
 fore your words do. I deserve no thanks. I am about to 
 make to you a strange confession of egotism and selfish- 
 ness." 
 
 "You ! oh, impossible ! " 
 
 " Judge yourself, and then decide which of us shall have 
 cause to be grateful. Helen, when I was scarcely your age 
 a boy in years, but more, methinks, a man at heart, with 
 man's strong energies and sublime aspirings, than I have 
 ever since been I loved, and deeply " 
 
 He paused a moment, in evident struggle. Helen lis- 
 tened in mute surprise, but his emotion awakened her own ; 
 her tender woman's heart yearned to console. Uncon- 
 sciously her arm rested on his less lightly. 
 
 " Deeply and for sorrow. It is a long tale, that may be 
 told hereafter. The worldly would call my love a madness. 
 I did not reason on it then I cannot reason on it now. 
 Enough : death smote suddenly, terribly, and to me mys- 
 teriously, her whom I loved. The love lived on. Fortunate- 
 ly, perhaps for me, I had quick distraction, not to grief, but 
 to its inert indulgence. I was a soldier ; I joined our 
 armies. Men called me brave. Flattery ! I was a coward 
 before the thought of life. I sought death : like sleep it 
 does not come at our call. Peace ensued. As when the 
 winds fall, the sails droop so when excitement ceased, all 
 seemed to me flat and objectless. Heavy, heavy was my 
 heart. Perhaps grief had been less obstinate, but that I 
 feared I had cause for self-reproach. Since then I have 
 been a wanderer a self-made exile. My boyhood had been 
 ambitious all ambition ceased. Flames, when they reach 
 the core of the heart, spread, and leave all in ashes. Let 
 me be brief : I did not mean thus weakly to complain I to 
 whom Heaven has given so many blessings ! I felt, as it 
 were, separated from the common objects and joys of men. 
 I grew startled to see how, year by year, wayward humors 
 possessed me. I resolved again to attach myself to some 
 living heart it was my sole chance to rekindle my own. 
 But the one I had loved remained as my type of woman, 
 and she was different from all I saw. Therefore I said to 
 myself, ' I will rear from childhood some young fresh life, 
 to grow up into my ideal.' As this thought began to haunt 
 me, I chanced to discover you. Struck with the romance 
 of your early life, touched by your courage, charmed by
 
 632 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 your affectionate nature, I said to myself, ' Here is what I 
 seek.' Helen, in assuming the guardianship of your life, 
 in all the culture which I have sought to bestow on your 
 docile childhood, I repeat, that I have been but the egotist. 
 And now, when you have reached that age, when it becomes 
 me to speak, and you to listen now, when you are under 
 the sacred roof of my own mother now I ask you, can you 
 accept this heart, such as wasted years, and griefs too fond- 
 ly nursed, have left it? Can you be, at least, my comforter ? 
 Can you aid me to regard life as a duty, and recover those 
 aspirations which once soared from the paltry and misera- 
 ble confines of our frivolous daily being ? Helen, here I 
 ask you, can you be all this, and under the name of 
 Wife ? " 
 
 It would be in vain to describe the rapid, varying, in- 
 definable emotions that passed through the inexperienced 
 heart of the youthful listener, as Harley thus spoke. He 
 so moved all the springs of amaze, compassion, tender re- 
 spect, sympathy, child-like gratitude, that when he paused 
 and gently took her hand, she remained bewildered, speech- 
 less, overpowered. Harley smiled as he gazed upon her 
 blushing, downcast, expressive face. He conjectured at 
 once that the idea of such proposals had never crossed her 
 mind ; that she had never contemplated him in the char- 
 acter of wooer ; never even sounded her heart as to the 
 nature of such feelings as his image had aroused. 
 
 "My Helen," he resumed, with a calm pathos of voice, 
 " there is some disparity of vears between us, and perhaps 
 I may not hope henceforth for that love which youth gives 
 to the young. Permit me simply to ask, what you will 
 frankly answer ' Can you have seen in our quiet life abroad, 
 or under the roof of your Italian friends, any one you 
 prefer to me ? ' ' 
 
 "No, indeed, no !" murmured Helen. " How could I? 
 who is like you ? " Then, with a sudden effort for her 
 innate truthfulness took alarm, and her very affection for 
 Harley, child-like and reverent, made her tremble lest she 
 should deceive him she drew a little aside, and spoke 
 thus : 
 
 " Oh my dear guardian, noblest of all human beings, at 
 least in my eyes, forgive, forgive me, if I seem ungrateful, 
 hesitating ; but I cannot, cannot think of myself as worthy 
 of you. I never so lifted my eyes. Your rank, your posi- 
 tion "
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 633 
 
 " Why should they be eternally my curse ? Forget them, 
 and go on." 
 
 " It is not only they," said Helen, almost sobbing, 
 "though they are much ; but I your type, your ideal ! I ! 
 impossible! Oh, how can I ever be anything even of use, 
 of aid, of comfort, to one like you !" 
 
 " You can, Helen you can," cried Harley, charmed by 
 such ingenuous modesty. " May I not keep this hand ? " 
 
 And Helen left her hand in Harley's, and turned away 
 her face, fairly weeping. A stately step passed under the 
 wintry trees. 
 
 " My mother," said Harley L'Estrange, looking up, " I 
 present to you my future wife." 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 WITH a slow step and an abstracted air, Harley L'Es- 
 trange bent his way toward Egerton's house, after his event- 
 ful interview with Helen. He had just entered one of the 
 streets leading into Grosvenor Square, when a young man, 
 walking quickly from the opposite direction, came full 
 against him, and drawing back with a brief apology, recog- 
 nized him, and exclaimed, " What ! you in England, Lord 
 L'Estrange ! Accept my congratulations on your return. 
 But you seem scarcely to remember me." 
 
 " I beg your pardon, Mr. Leslie. I remember you now 
 by your smile ; but you are of an age in which it is permit- 
 ted me to say that you look older than when I saw you last." 
 
 "And yet, Lord L'Estrange, it seems to me that you 
 look younger." 
 
 Indeed, this reply was so far true that there appeared 
 less difference of years than before between Leslie and 
 L'Estrange ; for the wrinkles in the schemer's mind were 
 visible in his visage, while Harley's dreamy worship of 
 Truth and Beauty seemed to have preserved to the votary 
 the enduring youth of the divinities. 
 
 Harley received the compliment with a supreme indif- 
 ference, which might have been suitable to a Stoic, but 
 which seemed scarcely natural to a gentleman who had 
 just proposed to a lady many years younger than himself. 
 
 Leslie renewed " Perhaps you are on your way to 
 ' 27*
 
 634 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 Mr. Egerton's. If so, you will not find him at home ; he is 
 at his office." 
 
 "Thank you. Then to his office I must re-direct my 
 steps." 
 
 "I am going to him myself," said Randal, hesitatingly. 
 
 L'Estrange had no prepossessions in favor of Leslie, 
 from the little he had seen of that young gentleman ; but 
 Randal's remark was an appeal to his habitual urbanity, 
 and he replied, with well-bred readiness, " Let us be com- 
 panions so far." 
 
 Randal accepted the arm proffered to him ; and Lord 
 L'Estrange, as is usual with one long absent from his na- 
 tive land, bore part as a questioner in the dialogue that 
 ensued. 
 
 " Egerton is always the same man, I suppose too busy 
 for illness, and too firm for sorrow ? " 
 
 " If he ever feel either, he will never stoop to complain. 
 But, indeed, my dear lord, I should like much to know 
 what you think of his health." 
 
 " How ? You alarm me ! " 
 
 " Nay, I did not mean to do that ; and pray do not let 
 him know that I went so far. But I have fancied that he 
 looks a little worn and suffering." 
 
 " Poor Audley ! " said L'Estrange, in a tone of deep 
 affection. " I will sound him, and, be assured, without 
 naming you ; for I know well how little he likes to be sup- 
 posed capable of human infirmity. I am obliged to you 
 for your hint obliged to you for your interest in one so 
 dear to me." 
 
 And Harley's voice was more cordial to Randal than it 
 had ever been before. He then began to inquire what 
 Randal thought of the rumors that had reached himself as 
 to the probable defeat of the Government, and how far 
 Audley's spirits were affected by such risks. But Randal 
 here, seeing that Harley could communicate nothing, was 
 reserved and guarded. 
 
 " Loss of office could not, I think, affect a man like 
 Audley," observed Lord L'Estrange. "He would be as 
 great in opposition perhaps greater; and as to emolu- 
 ments " 
 
 "The emoluments are good," interposed Randal, with 
 a half-sigh. 
 
 "Good enough, I suppose, to pay him back about a 
 tenth of what his place costs our magnificent friend No, I
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 635 
 
 will say one thing for English statesmen, no man amongst 
 them ever yet was the richer for place." 
 
 "And Mr. Egerton's private fortune must be large, I 
 take for granted," said Randal, carelessly. 
 | " It ought to be, if he has time to look to it." 
 
 Here they passed the hotel in which lodged the Count 
 di Peschiera. 
 
 Randal stopped. " Will you excuse me for an instant ? 
 As we are passing this hotel, I will just leave my card 
 here." So saying he gave his card to a waiter lounging 
 by the door. "For the Count di Peschiera," said he 
 aloud. 
 
 L' Estrange started ; and as Randal again took his arm, 
 said " So that Italian lodges here ? and you know him ?" 
 
 " I know him but slightly, as one knows any foreigner 
 who makes a sensation." 
 
 " He makes a sensation ? " 
 
 " Naturally, for he is handsome, witty, and said to be 
 very rich that is, as long as he receives the revenues of 
 his exiled kinsman." 
 
 " I see you are well informed, Mr. Leslie. And what is 
 supposed to bring hither the Count di Peschiera?" 
 
 " I did hear something, which I did not quite under- 
 stand, about a bet of his that he would marry his kins- 
 man's daughter ; and so, I conclude, secure to himself 
 all the inheritance ; and that he is therefore here to dis- 
 cover the kinsman and win the heiress. But probably you 
 know the rights of the story, and can tell me what credit 
 to give to such gossip." 
 
 " I know this at least, that if he did lay such a wager, 
 I would advise you to take any odds against him that his 
 backers may give," said L'Estrange, dryly; and while his 
 lip quivered with anger, his eye gleamed with arch iron- 
 ical humor. 
 
 " You think, then, that this poor kinsman will not need 
 such an alliance in order to regain his estates ? " 
 
 "Yes ; for I never yet knew a rogue whom I could not 
 bet against, when he backed his own luck as a rogue 
 against Justice and Providence." 
 
 Randal winced, and felt as if an arrow had grazed his 
 heart ; but he soon recovered. 
 
 " And indeed there is another vague rumor that the 
 young lady in question is married already to some Eng- 
 lishman."
 
 636 MY NOVEL; Off, 
 
 This time it was Harleywho winced. " Good Heavens! 
 that cannot be true that would undo all ! An English- 
 man just at this moment ! But some Englishman of corre- 
 spondent rank, I trust, or at least one known for opinions 
 opposed to what an' Austrian would call Revolutionary 
 doctrines ? " 
 
 " I know nothing. But it was supposed, merely a pri- 
 vate gentleman of good family. Would not that suffice ? 
 Can the Austrian Court dictate a marriage to the daughter 
 as a condition for grace to the father?" 
 
 " No noi that ! " said Harley, greatly disturbed. "But 
 put yourself in the position of any minister to one of the 
 great European monarchies. Suppose a political insurgent, 
 formidable for station and wealth, had been proscribed, 
 much interest made on his behalf, a powerful party striving 
 against it, and just when the minister is disposed to relent, 
 he hears that the heiress to this wealth and this station is 
 married to the native of a country in which sentiments 
 friendly to the very opinions for which the insurgent was 
 proscribed are popularly entertained, and thus that the 
 fortune to be restored may be so employed as to disturb 
 the national security the existing order of things ; this, 
 too, at the very time when a popular revolution has just 
 occurred in France,* and its effects are felt most in the very 
 land of the exile ; suppose all this, and then say if any- 
 thing could be more untoward for the hopes of the banished 
 man, or furnish his adversaries with stronger arguments 
 against the restoration of his fortune ? But pshaw this 
 must be a chimera ! If true, I should have known of it." 
 
 " I quite agree with your lordship there can be no 
 truth in such a rumor. Some Englishman, hearing, per- 
 haps, of the probable pardon of the exile, may have counted 
 on an heiress, and spread the report in order to keep off 
 other candidates. By your account, if successful in his 
 suit, he might fail to find an heiress in the bride." 
 
 " No doubt of that. Whatever might be arranged, I 
 can't conceive that he would be allowed to get at the for- 
 tune, though it might be held in suspense for his children. 
 But, indeed, it so rarely happens that an Italian girl of high 
 name marries a foreigner, that we must dismiss this notion 
 with a smile at the long face of the hypothetical fortune- 
 hunter. Heaven help him, if he exist ! " 
 
 * As there have been so many revolutions in France, it may be convenient to suggest that, 
 according to the dates of this story, Harley no doubt alludes to that revolution which exiled 
 Charles X., and placed Louis Philippe on the throne.
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 637 
 
 " Amen," echoed Randal, devoutly. 
 
 " I hear that Peschiera's sister is returned to England. 
 Do you know her too ? " 
 
 "A little." 
 
 " My dear Mr. Leslie, pardon me if I take a liberty not 
 warranted by our acquaintance. Against the lady I say 
 nothing. Indeed, I have heard some things which appear 
 to entitle her to compassion and respect. But as to Pes- 
 chiera, all who prize honor suspect him to be a knave I 
 know him to be one. Now, I think that the longer we pre- 
 serve that abhorrence for knavery which is the generous 
 instinct of youth, why, the fairer will be our manhood, and 
 the more reverend our age. You agree with me ?" And 
 Harley suddenly turning, his eyes fell like a flood of light 
 upon Randal's pale and secret countenance. 
 
 " To be sure," murmured the schemer. 
 
 Harley, surveying him, mechanically recoiled, and with- 
 drew his arm. 
 
 Fortunately for Randal, who somehow or other felt 
 himself slipped into a false position, he scarce knew how 
 or why, he was here seized by the arm ; and a clear, open, 
 manly voice cried, " My dear fellow, how are you ? I see 
 you are engaged now ; but look into my rooms when you 
 can, in the course of the day." 
 
 And with a bow of excuse for his interruption, to Lord 
 L'Estrange, the speaker was then turning away, when Har- 
 ley said 
 
 " No, don't let me take you from your friend, Mr. Les- 
 lie. And you need not be in a hurry to see Egerton ; for 
 I shall claim the privilege of older friendship for the first 
 interview." 
 
 " It is Mr. Egerton's nephew, Frank Hazeldean." 
 
 " Pray, call him back, and present me to him. He has 
 a face that would have gone far to reconcile Timon to 
 Athens." 
 
 Randal obeyed, and after a few kindly words to Frank, 
 Harley insisted on leaving the two young men together, 
 and walked on to Downing Street with a brisker step.
 
 638 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 " THAT Lord L'Estrange seems a very good fellow." 
 
 " So-so an effeminate humorist says the most absurd 
 things, and fancies them wise. Never mind him. You 
 wanted to speak to me, Frank ? " 
 
 " Yes ; I am so obliged to you for introducing me to 
 Levy. I must tell you how handsomely he has behaved." 
 
 " Stop ; allow me to remind you that I did not introduce 
 you to Levy ; you had met him before at Borrowell's, if I 
 recollect right, and he dined with us at the Clarendon 
 that is all I had to do in bringing you together. Indeed I 
 rather cautioned you against him than not. Pray don't 
 think I introduced you to a man who, however pleasant and 
 perhaps honest, is still a money-lender. Your father would 
 be justly angry with me if I had done so." 
 
 " Oh, pooh ! you are prejudiced against poor Levy. 
 But just hear ; I was sitting very ruefully, thinking over 
 those cursed bills, and how the deuce I should renew them, 
 when Levy walked into my rooms ; and, after telling me of 
 his long friendship for my uncle Egerton and his admira- 
 tion for yourself, and (give me your hand, Randal) saying 
 how touched he felt by your kind sympathy in my troubles, 
 he opened his pocket-book, and showed me the bills safe 
 and sound in his own possession." 
 
 " How ? " 
 
 " He had bought them up. ' It must be so disagreeable 
 to me,' he said, ' to have them flying about the London 
 money-market, and those Jews would be sure sooner or later 
 to apply to my father. And now,' added Levy, ' I am in no 
 immediate hurry for the money, and we must put the inter- 
 est upon fairer terms.' In short, nothing could be more 
 liberal than his tone. And he says, 'he is thinking of a 
 way to relieve me altogether, and will call about it in a few 
 days, when his plan is matured.' After all, I must owe this 
 to you, Randal. I dare swear you put it into his head." 
 
 " O no, indeed ! On the contrary, I still say, ' Be cau- 
 tious in all your dealings with Levy.' I don't know, I'm 
 sure, what he means to propose. Have you heard from the 
 Hall lately ? "
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 639 
 
 "Yes to-day. Only think the Riccaboccas have dis- 
 appeared. My mother writes me word of it a very odd 
 letter. She seems to suspect that I know where they are, 
 and reproaches me for ' mystery ' quite enigmatical. But 
 there is one sentence in her letter see, here it is in the 
 postscript which seems to refer to Beatrice : ' I don't ask 
 you to tell me your secrets, Frank, but Randal will no doubt 
 have assured you that my first consideration will be for 
 your own happiness, in any matter in which your heart is 
 really engaged.' " 
 
 "Yes," said Randal, slowly; "no doubt this refers to 
 Beatrice ; but, as I told you, your mother will not interfere 
 one way or the other such interference would weaken her 
 influence with the Squire. Besides, as she said, she can't 
 wish you to marry a foreigner ; though once married, she 
 
 would But how do you stand now with the Marchesa ? 
 
 Has she consented to accept you ?" 
 
 " Not quite ; indeed, I have not actually proposed. Her 
 manner, though much softened, has not so far emboldened 
 me ; and, besides, before a positive declaration, I certainly 
 must go down to the Hall and speak at least to my 
 mother." 
 
 " You must judge for yourself, but don't do anything 
 rash : talk first to me. Here we are at my office. Good- 
 bye ; and and pray believe that, in whatever you do with 
 Levy, I have no hand in it." 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 TOWARD the evening, Randal was riding fast on the road 
 to Norwood. The arrival of Harley, and the conversa- 
 tion that had passed between that nobleman and Randal, 
 made the latter anxious to ascertain how far Riccabocca 
 was likely to learn L'Estrange's return to England, and to 
 meet with him. For he felt that, should the latter come to 
 know that Riccabocca, in his movements, had gone by Ran- 
 dal's advice, Harley would find that Randal had spoken to 
 him disingenuously ; and, on the other hand, Riccabocca, 
 placed under the friendly protection of Lord L'Estrange, 
 would no longer need Randal Leslie to defend him from the 
 machinations of Peschiera. To a reader happily unaccus-
 
 640 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 tomed to dive into the deep and mazy recesses of a schemer's 
 mind, it might seem that Randal's interest in retaining a 
 hold over the exile's confidence would terminate with the 
 assurances that had reached him, from more than one quar- 
 ter, that Violante might cease to be an heiress if she mar- 
 ried himself. " But perhaps," suggests some candid and 
 youthful conjectufer " perhaps Randal Leslie is in love 
 with this fair creature ? " Randal in love ! no ! He was 
 too absorbed by harder passions for that blissful folly. Nor, 
 ii he could have fallen in love, was Violante the one to at- 
 tract that sullen secret heart ; her instinctive nobleness, the 
 very stateliness of her beauty, womanlike though it was, 
 awed him. Men of that kind may love some soft slave 
 they cannot lift their eyes to a queen. They may look 
 down they cannot look up. But, on the one hand, Ran- 
 dal could not resign altogether the chance of securing a for- 
 tune that would realize his most dazzling dreams, upon the 
 mere assurance, however probable, which had so dismayed 
 him ; and, on the other hand, should he be compelled to 
 relinquish all idea of such alliance, though he did not con- 
 template the base perfidy of actually assisting Peschiera's 
 avowed designs, still, if Frank's marriage with Beatrice 
 should absolutely depend upon her brother's obtaining the 
 knowledge of Violante's retreat, and that marriage should 
 be as conducive to his interests as he thought he could 
 make it, why he did not then push his deductions farther, 
 even to himself, they seemed too black ; but he sighed 
 heavily, and that sigh foreboded how weak would be honor 
 and virtue against avarice and ambition. Therefore, on all 
 accounts, Riccabooca was one of those cards in a sequence, 
 which so calculating a player would not throw out of his 
 hand : it might serve for repique, at the worst, it might 
 score well in the game. Intimacy with the Italian was still 
 part and parcel in that knowledge which was the synonym 
 of power. 
 
 While the young man was thus meditating, on his road 
 to Norwood, Riccabocca and his Jemima were close con- 
 ferring in their drawing-room. And if you could have there 
 seen them, reader, you would have been seized with equal 
 surprise and curiosity ; for some extraordinary communica- 
 tion had certainly passed between them. Riccabocca was 
 evidently much agitated, and with emotions not familiar to 
 him. The tears stood in his eyes at the same time that a 
 smile, the reverse of cynical or sardonic, curved his lips ;
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 641 
 
 while his wife was leaning her head on his shoulder, her 
 hand clasped in his, and, by the expression of her face, you 
 might guess that he had paid her some very gratifying 
 compliment, of a nature more genuine and sincere than 
 those which characterized his habitual hollow and dissimu- 
 lating gallantry. But just at this moment Giacomo en- 
 tered, and Jemima, with her native English modesty, with- 
 drew in haste from Riccabocca's sheltering side. 
 
 " Padrone," said Giacomo, who, whatever his astonish- 
 ment at the connubial position he had disturbed, was much 
 too discreet to betray it "Padrone, I see the young Eng- 
 lishman riding toward the house, and I hope, when he 
 arrives, you will not forget the alarming information I gave 
 to you this morning." 
 
 " Ah ah ! " said Riccabocca, his face falling. 
 
 " If the Signorina were but married ! " 
 
 " My very thought my constant thought ! " exclaimed 
 Riccabocca. " And you really believe the young English- 
 man loves her ? " 
 
 " Why else should he come, excellency ? " asked Gia- 
 como, with great naivete. 
 
 " Very true ; why, indeed ?" said Riccabocca. " Jemima, 
 I cannot endure the terrors I suffer on that poor child's ac- 
 count. I will open myself frankly to Randal Leslie. And 
 now, too, that which might have been a serious consider- 
 ation, in case I return to Italy, will no longer stand in our 
 way, Jemima." 
 
 Jemima smiled faintly, and whispered something to Ric- 
 cabocca, to which he replied, 
 
 " Nonsense, ant ma mm. I know it will be have not a 
 doubt of it, I tell you it is as nine to four, according to the 
 nicest calculations. I will speak at once to Randal. He is 
 too young too timid to speak himself." 
 
 "Certainly," interposed Giacomo; "how could he dare 
 to speak, let him love ever so well ? " 
 
 Jemima shook her head. 
 
 " Oh, never fear," said Riccabocca, observing this ges- 
 ture ; " I will give him the trial. If he entertain but mercen- 
 ary views, I shall soon detect them. I know human nature 
 pretty well, I think, my love ; and, Giacomo, just get me 
 my Machiavelli ; that's right. Now leave me, my dear ; I 
 must reflect, and prepare myself." 
 
 When Randal entered the house, Giacomo, with a 
 smile of peculiar suavity, ushered him into the drawing-
 
 642 -MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 room. He found Riccabocca alone, and seated before the 
 fireplace, leaning his face on his hand, with the great folio 
 of Machiavelli lying open on the table. 
 
 The Italian received him as courteously as usual ; but 
 there was in his manner a certain serious and thoughtful 
 dignity, which was perhaps the more imposing, because but 
 rarely assumed. After a few preliminary observations, 
 Randal remarked that Frank Hazeldean had informed him 
 of the curiosity which the disappearance of the Riccaboccas 
 had excited at the Hall, and inquired carelessly if the Doc- 
 tor had left instructions as to the forwarding of any letters 
 that might be directed to him at the Casino. 
 
 " Letters," said Riccabocca, simply ; " I never receive 
 any ; or, at least, so rarely, that it was not worth while to 
 take an event so little to be expected into consideration. 
 No ; if any letters do reach the Casino, there they will 
 wait." 
 
 " Then I can see no possibility of indiscretion, no 
 chance of a clue to your address." 
 
 "Nor I either." 
 
 Satisfied so far, and knowing that it was not in Ricca- 
 bocca's habits to read the newspapers, by which he might 
 otherwise have learnt of L'Estrange's arrival in London, 
 Randal then proceeded to inquire, with much seeming in- 
 terest, into the health of Violante hoped it did not suffer 
 by confinement, etc. Riccabocca eyed him gravely while 
 he spoke, and then suddenly rising, that air of dignity to 
 which I have before referred became yet more striking. 
 
 ''My young friend," said he, "hear me attentively, and 
 answer me frankly. I know human nature " Here a 
 slight smile of proud complacency passed the sage's lips, 
 and his eye glanced toward his Machiavelli. " I know human 
 nature at least I have studied it," he renewed more ear- 
 nestly, and with less evident self-conceit ; " and I believe 
 that Avhen a perfect stranger to me exhibits an interest in 
 my affairs, which occasions him no small trouble an in- 
 terest (continued the wise man, laying his hand on Randal's 
 shoulder) which scarcely a son could exceed, he must be 
 under the influence of some strong personal motive." 
 
 "Oh, sir!" cried Randal, turning a shade more pale, 
 and with a faltering tone. Riccabocca surveyed him with 
 the tenderness of a superior being, and pursued his de- 
 ductive theories. 
 
 " In your case, what is that motive ? Not political ; for
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 643 
 
 I conclude you share the opinions of your government, and 
 those opinions have not favored mine. Not that of pecun- 
 iary or ambitious calculations ; for how can such calcula- 
 tions enlist you on behalf of a ruined exile ? What remains ? 
 Why, the motive which at your age is ever the most natural 
 and the strongest. I don't blame you. Machiavelli himself 
 allows that such a motive has swayed the wisest minds, and 
 overturned the most solid states. In a word, young man, 
 you are in love, and with my daughter Violante." 
 
 Randal was so startled by this direct and unexpected 
 charge upon his own masked batteries, that he did not even 
 attempt his defence. His head drooped on his breast, and 
 he remained speechless. 
 
 " I do not doubt," resumed the penetrating judge of human 
 nature, " that you would have been withheld, by the laudable 
 and generous scruples which characterize your happy age, 
 from voluntarily disclosing to me the state of your heart. 
 You might suppose that, proud of the position I once held, 
 or sanguine in the hope of regaining my inheritance, I 
 might be over-ambitious in my matrimonial views for 
 Violante ; or that you, anticipating my restoration to honors 
 and fortune, might seem actuated by the last motives which 
 influence love and youth ; and therefore, my dear young 
 friend, I have departed from the ordinary custom in Eng- 
 land, and adopted a very common one in my own country. 
 With us a suitor seldom presents himself till he is assured 
 of the consent of a father. I have only to say this if I am 
 right, and you love my daughter, my first object in life is to 
 see her safe and secure ; and, in a word you understand 
 me." 
 
 Now, mightily may it comfort and console us ordinary 
 mortals, who advance no pretence to superior wisdom and 
 ability, to see the huge mistake made by both these very 
 sagacious personages Dr. Riccabocca, \%aluing himself on 
 his profound acquaintance with character, and Randal Les- 
 lie, accustomed to grope into every hole and corner of 
 thought and action, wherefrom to extract that knowledge 
 which is power ! For whereas the sage, judging not only 
 by his own heart in youth, but by the general influences of 
 the master-passion on the young, had ascribed to Randal 
 sentiments wholly foreign to that able diplomatist's nature ; 
 so no sooner had Riccabocca brought his speech to a close, 
 than Randal, judging also by his own heart, and by the 
 general laws which influence men of the mature age and
 
 644 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 boasted worldly wisdom of the pupil of Machiavclli, 
 instantly decided that Riccabocca presumed upon his youth 
 and inexperience, and meant most nefariously to take him 
 in. 
 
 " The poor youth ! " thought Riccabocca, " how unpre- 
 pared he is for the happiness I give him ! " 
 
 "The cunning old Jesuit!" thought Randal; "he has 
 certainly learned, since we met last, that he has no chance 
 of regaining his patrimony, and so he wants to impose on 
 me the hand of a girl without a shilling. What other motive 
 can he possibly have ? Had his daughter the remotest 
 probability of becoming the greatest heiress in Italy, would 
 he dream of bestowing her on me in this off-hand way ? The 
 thing stands to reason." 
 
 Actuated by his resentment at the trap thus laid for him, 
 Randal was about to disclaim altogether the disinterested 
 and absurd affection laid to his charge, when it occurred to 
 him that, by so doing, he might mortally offend the Italian 
 since the cunning never forgive those who refuse to be 
 duped by them and it might still be conducive to his inter- 
 est to preserve intimate and familiar terms with Riccabocca ; 
 therefore, subduing his first impulse, he exclaimed 
 
 " O too generous man ! pardon me if I have so long been 
 unable to express my amaze, my gratitude ; but I cannot 
 no, I cannot, while your prospects remain thus uncertain, 
 avail myself of your of your inconsiderate magnanimity. 
 Your rare conduct can only redouble my own scruples, if 
 you, as I firmly hope and believe, are restored to your great 
 possessions you would naturally look so much higher than 
 me. Should these hopes fail, then, indeed, it may be dif- 
 ferent ; yet even then, what position, what fortune, have I 
 to offer to your daughter worthy of her?" 
 
 "You are well-born ! all gentlemen are equals," said 
 Riccabocca, with n sort of easy nobleness. "You have 
 youth, information, talent sources of certain wealth in this 
 happy country powerful connections ; and, in fine, if you 
 are satisfied with marrying for love, I shall be contented ; 
 if not, speak openly. As to the restoration to my posses- 
 sions, I can scarcely think that probable while my enemy 
 lives. And even in that case, since I saw you last, some- 
 thing has occurred (added Riccabocca, with a strange smile, 
 which seemed to Randal singularly sinister and malignant) 
 that may remove all difficulties. Meanwhile do not think 
 me so extravagantly magnanimous do not underrate the
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 645 
 
 satisfaction I must feel at knowing Violante safe from the 
 designs of Peschiera safe, and for ever, under a husband's 
 roof. I will tell you an Italian proverb it contains a truth 
 full of wisdom and terror : 
 
 ' Hai cinquanta amici ? non basta, Hai un neniico ? e troppo.' " * 
 
 " Something has occurred ! " echoed Randal, not heeding 
 the conclusion of this speech, and scarcely hearing the pro- 
 verb which the sage delivered in his most emphatic and 
 tragic tone. " Something has occurred ! My dear friend, 
 be plainer. What has occurred ? " Riccabocca remained 
 silent. " Something that induces you to bestow your 
 daughter on me ? " 
 
 Riccabocca nooded, and emitted a low chuckle. 
 
 " The very laugh of a fiend," muttered Randal. " Some- 
 thing that makes her not worth bestowing. He betrays him- 
 self. Cunning people always do." 
 
 " Pardon me," said the Italian at last, "if I don't answer 
 your question ; you will know later ; but, at present, this is 
 a family secret. And now I must turn to another and more 
 alarming cause for my frankness to you." Here Riccaboc- 
 ca's face changed, and assumed an expression of mingled 
 rage and fear. "You must know," he added, sinking his 
 voice, " that Giacomo has seen a strange person loitering 
 about the house, and looking up at the windows ; and he 
 has no doubt nor have I that this is some spy or emissary 
 of Peschiera's." 
 
 " Impossible ; how could he discover you ?" 
 
 " I know not ; but no one else has any interest in doing 
 so. The man kept at a distance, and Giacomo could not 
 see his face." 
 
 " It may be but a mere idler. Is this all ? " 
 
 " No ; the old woman who serves us said that she was 
 asked at a shop ' if we were not Italians ? ' >: 
 
 " And she answered ? " 
 
 " ' No ; ' but owned that * we had a foreign servant, 
 Giacomo.' " 
 
 *' I will see to this. Rely on it that if Peschiera has dis- 
 covered you, I will learn it. Nay, I will hasten from you 
 in order to commence inquiry." 
 
 " I cannot detain you. May I think that we have now 
 an interest in common ?" 
 
 * Have you fifty friends 1 it is not enough. Have you one enemy ? it is too much.
 
 646 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 " O indeed, yes ; but but your daughter ! how can I 
 dream that one so beautiful, so peerless, will confirm the 
 hope you have extended to me ? " 
 
 " The daughter of an Italian is brought up to consider 
 that it is a father's right to dispose of her hand." 
 
 " But the heart ? " 
 
 " Cospetto ! " said the Italian, true to his infamous notions 
 as to the sex, " the heart of a girl is like a convent the 
 holier the cloister the more charitable the door." 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 RANDAL had scarcely left the house before Mrs. Ricca- 
 bocca, who was affectionately anxious in all that concerned 
 Violante, rejoined her husband. 
 
 " I like the young man very well," said the sage "very 
 well, indeed. I find him just what I expected, from my 
 general knowledge of human nature ; for as love ordinarily 
 goes with youth, so modesty usually accompanies talent. 
 He is young, ergo he is in love ; he has talent, ergo he is 
 modest modest and ingenuous." 
 
 ''And you think not in any way swayed by interest in 
 his affections ?" 
 
 " Quite the contrary ; and to prove him the more, I have 
 not said a word as to the worldly advantages which, in any 
 case, would accrue to him from an alliance with my daugh- 
 ter. In any case ; for if I regain my country, her fortune 
 is assured ; and if not, I trust (said the poor exile, lifting 
 his brow with stately and becoming pride) that I am too 
 well aware of my child's dignity, as well as my own, to ask 
 any one to marry her to his own worldly injury." 
 
 " Eh ! I don't quite understand you, Alphonso. To be 
 sure, your dear life is insured for her marriage-portion ; 
 but 
 
 " Pazzie stuff !" said Riccabocca, petulantly; "her 
 marriage-portion would be as nothing to a young man of 
 Randal's birth and prospects. I think not of that. But 
 listen : I have never consented to profit by Harley L'Es- 
 trange's friendship for me ; my scruples would not extend 
 to my son-in-la\v. This noble friend has not only high 
 rank, but considerable influence influence with the Govern-
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 647 
 
 ment influence with Randal's patron who, between our- 
 selves, does not seem to push the young man as he might 
 do ; I judge by what Randal says. I should write there- 
 fore, before anything was settled, to L'Estrange, and I 
 should say to him simply, ' I never asked you to save me 
 from penury, but I do ask you to save a daughter of my 
 house from humiliation. I can give to her no dowry ; can 
 her husband owe to my friend that advance in an honorable 
 career that opening to energy and talent which is more 
 than a dowry to generous ambition ? ' ' 
 
 "Oh, it is in vain you would disguise your rank," cried 
 Jemima, with enthusiasm ; it speaks in all you utter, when 
 your passions are moved." 
 
 The Italian did not seem flattered by that eulogy. 
 " Pish," said he, " there you are ! rank again ! " 
 
 But Jemima was right. There was something about her 
 husband that was grandiose and princely, whenever he es- 
 caped from his accursed Machiavelli, and gave fair play to 
 his heart. 
 
 And he spent the next hour or so in thinking over all 
 that he could do for Randal, and devising for his intended 
 son in-law the agreeable surprises, which Randal was at 
 that very time racking his yet cleverer brains to disap- 
 point. 
 
 These plans conned sufficiently, Riccabocca shut up his 
 Machiavelli, and hunted out of his scanty collection of 
 books Buffon on Man, and various other psychological vol- 
 umes, in which he soon became deeply absorbed. Why 
 were these works the object of the sage's study ? Perhaps 
 he will let us know soon, for it is clearly a secret known to 
 his wife ; and though she has hitherto kept one secret, that 
 is precisely the reason why Riccabocca would not wish long 
 to overburthen her discretion with another. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 RANDAL reached home in time to dress for a late dinner 
 at Baron Levy's. 
 
 The Baron's style of living was of that character es- 
 pecially affected both by the most acknowledged exquisites 
 of that day, and, it must be owned, also by the most egregi-
 
 648 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 ous parvenus. For it is noticeable that it is your parvenu 
 who always comes nearest in fashion (so far as externals 
 are concerned) to your genuine exquisite. It is your par- 
 venu who is most particular as to the cut of his coat, and the 
 precision of his equipage, and the .minutiae of his menage. 
 Those between the parvenu and the exquisite, who know 
 their own consequence, and have something solid to rest 
 upon, are slow in following all the caprices of fashion, and 
 obtuse in observation as to those niceties which neither 
 give them another ancestor, nor add another thousand to 
 the account at their banker's ; as to the last, rather, indeed, 
 the contrary ! There was a decided elegance about the 
 Baron's house and his dinner. If he had been one of the 
 lawful kings of the dandies, you would have cried, "What 
 perfect taste ! " but such is human nature, that the dandies 
 who dined with him said to each other, " He pretend to 
 
 imitate D ! vulgar dog ! " There was little affectation 
 
 of your more showy opulence. The furniture in the rooms 
 was apparently simple, but, in truth, costly, from its luxu- 
 rious comfort the ornaments and china scattered about 
 the commodes were of curious rarity and great value ; and 
 the pictures on the walls were gems. At dinner, no plate 
 was admitted on the table. The Russian fashion, then un- 
 common, now more prevalent, was adopted fruit and 
 flowers in old Sevres dishes of priceless vertu, and in spark- 
 ling glass of Bohemian fabric. No livery servant was per- 
 mitted to wait ; behind each guest stood a gentleman 
 dressed so like the guest himself, in fine linen and simple 
 black, that guest and lacquey seemed stereotypes from one 
 plate. 
 
 The viands were exquisite ; the wine came from the 
 cellars of deceased archbishops and ambassadors. The 
 company was select ; the party did not exceed eight. Four 
 were the eldest sons of peers (from a baron to a duke) ; one 
 was a professed wit, never to be got without a month's no- 
 tice, and where a parvenu was host, a certainty of green 
 peas and peaches out of season ; the sixth, to Randal's as- 
 tonishment, was Mr. Richard Avenel ; himself and the 
 Baron made up the complement. 
 
 The eldest sons recognized each other with a meaning 
 smile ; the most juvenile of them, indeed (it was his first 
 year in London), had the grace to blush and look sheepish. 
 The others were more hardened ; but they all united in re- 
 garding with surprise both Randal and Dick Avenel. The
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 649 
 
 former was known to most of them personally, and to all, 
 by repute, as a grave, clever, promising young man, rather 
 prudent than lavish, and never suspected to have got into a 
 scrape. What the deuce did he do there ? Mr. Avenel 
 puzzled them yet more. A middle-aged man, said to be in 
 business, whom they had observed " about town " (for he 
 had a noticeable face and figure) that is, seen riding in the 
 Park, or lounging in the pit at the opera, but never set eyes 
 on at a recognized club, or in the coteries of their "set ;" a 
 man whose wife gave horrid third-rate parties, that took up 
 half a column in the Morning jP</with a list of "The Com- 
 pany Present," in which a sprinkling of dowagers fading 
 out of fashion, and a foreign title or two, made the dark- 
 ness of the obscurer names doubly dark. Why this man 
 should be asked to meet them, by Baron Levy, too a de- 
 cided tuft-hunter and would-be exclusive called all their 
 faculties into exercise. The wit, who, being the son of a 
 small tradesman, but in the very best society, gave himself 
 far greater airs than the young lords, impertinently solved 
 the mystery. " Depend on it," whispered he to Spendquick 
 " depend on it the man is the X. Y. of the Times, who of- 
 fers to lend any sum of money from ;io to half a million. 
 He's the man who has all your bills ; Levy is only his 
 jackal." 
 
 " 'Pon my soul," said Spendquick, rather alarmed, " if 
 that's the case, one may as well be civil to him." 
 
 " You, certainly," said the wit. " But I never have found 
 an X. Y. who would advance me the L. s. ; and therefore, I 
 shall not be more respectful to X. Y. than to any other un- 
 known quantity." 
 
 By degrees, as the wine circulated, the party grew gay 
 and sociable. Levy was really an entertaining fellow ; had 
 all the gossip of the town at his fingers' ends ; and possessed, 
 moreover, that pleasant art of saying ill-natured things of 
 the absent, which those present always enjoy. By degrees, 
 too, Mr. Richard Avenel came out ; and, as the whisper had 
 circulated round the table that he was X. Y., he was listened 
 to with a profound respect, which greatly elevated his 
 spirits. Nay, when the wit tried once to show him up or 
 mystify him, Dick answered with a bluff spirit, that, though 
 very coarse, was found so humorous by Lord Spendquick 
 and other gentlemen similarly situated in the money-market, 
 that they turned the laugh against the wit, and silenced him 
 for the rest of the night a circumstance which made the 
 28
 
 650 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 party go off much more pleasantly. After dinner, the con- 
 versation, quite that of single men, easy and df'bonnaire, 
 glanced from the turf, and the ballet, and the last scandal, 
 toward politics ; for the times were such that politics were 
 discussed everywhere, and three of the young lords were 
 county members. 
 
 Randal said little, but, as was his wont, listened atten- 
 tively ; and he was aghast to find how general was the be- 
 lief that the Government was doomed. Out of regard to 
 him, and with that delicacy of breeding which belongs to a 
 certain society, nothing personal to Egerton was said, ex- 
 cept by Avenel, who, however, on blurting out some rude 
 expressions respecting that minister, was instantly checked 
 by the Baron. 
 
 "Spare my friend, and Mr. Leslie's near connection," 
 said he, with a polite but grave- smile. 
 
 "Oh," said Avenel, "public men, whom we pay, are 
 public property aren't they, my lord?" appealing to Spend- 
 quick. 
 
 " Certainly," said Spendquick, with great spirit " pub- 
 lic property, or why should we pay them ? There must be 
 a very strong motive to induce us to do that ! I hate paying 
 people. In fact," he subjoined in an aside, " I never do." 
 
 ' However," resumed Mr. Avenel, graciously, " I don't 
 want to hurt your feelings, Mr. Leslie. As to the feelings 
 of our host, the Baron, I calculate that they have got toler- 
 ably tough by the exercise they have gone through." 
 
 " Nevertheless," said the Baron, joining in the laugh 
 which any lively saying by the supposed X. Y. was sure to 
 excite " nevertheless, * love me, love my dog,' love me, love 
 my Egerton." 
 
 Randal started, for his quick ear and subtle intelligence 
 caught something sinister and hostile in the tone with which 
 Levy uttered this equivocal comparison, and his eye darted 
 toward the Baron. But the Baron had bent down his face, 
 and was regaling himself upon an olive. 
 
 By-and-by the party rose from table. The four young 
 noblemen had their engagements elsewhere, and proposed 
 to separate without re-entering the drawing-room. As. in 
 Goethe's theory, monads which have affinities with each 
 other are irresistibly drawn together, so these gay children 
 of pleasure had, by a common impulse, on rising from table, 
 moved each to each, and formed a group round the fire- 
 place. Randal stood a little apart, musing ; the wit ex-
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE, 651 
 
 amined the pictures through his eye-glass ; and Mr. Avenel 
 drew the Baron toward the sideboard, and there held him 
 in whispered conference. This colloquy did not escape the 
 young gentlemen round the fire-place ; they glanced to- 
 ward each other. 
 
 " Settling the per-centage on renewal," said one, sotto 
 voce. 
 
 "X. Y. does not seem such a very bad fellow," said an- 
 other. 
 
 " He looks rich, and talks rich," said a third. 
 
 " A decided independent way of expressing his senti- 
 ments ; those moneyed men generally have." 
 
 " Good heavens ! "ejaculated Spendquick, who had been 
 keeping his eye anxiously fixed on the pair, " do look ; X. 
 Y. is actually taking out his pocket-book ; he is coming this 
 way. Depend on it he has got our bills mine is due to- 
 morrow ! " 
 
 "And mine too," said another, edging off. "Why, it is 
 a perfect guet-a pens." 
 
 Meanwhile, breaking away from the Baron, who ap- 
 peared anxious to detain him, and failing in that attempt, 
 turned aside, as if not to see Dick's movements a circum- 
 stance which did not escape the notice of the group, and 
 confirmed all their suspicions, Mr. Avenel, with a serious, 
 thoughtful face, and a slow step, approached the group. 
 Nor did the great Roman general more nervously " flutter 
 the dove-cotes in Corioli," than did the advance of the sup- 
 posed X. Y. agitate the bosoms of Lord Spendquick and 
 his sympathizing friends. Pocket-book in hand, and appar- 
 ently feeling for something formidable within its mystic re- 
 cesses, step by step came Dick Avenel toward the fireplace. 
 The group stood still, fascinated by horror. 
 
 " Hum," said Mr. Avenel, clearing his throat. 
 
 " I don't like that hum at all," muttered Spendquick. 
 
 " Proud to have made your acquaintance, gentlemen," 
 said Dick, bowing. 
 
 The gentlemen, thus addressed, bowed low in return. 
 
 " My friend the Baron thought this not exactly the time 
 to " Dick stopped a moment ; you might have knocked 
 down those four young gentlemen, though four -finer speci- 
 mens of humanity no aristocracy in Europe could produce 
 you might have knocked them down with a feather ! 
 " But," renewed Avenel, not finishing his sentence, " I have 
 made it a rule in life never to lose securing a good oppor-
 
 652 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 tunity ; in short, to make the most of the present moment. 
 And," added he, with a smile which froze the blood in Lord 
 Spendquick's veins, " the rule has made me a very warm 
 man ! Therefore, gentlemen, allow me to present you each 
 with one of these " every hand retreated behind the back 
 of its well-born owner when, to the inexpressible relief of 
 all, Dick concluded with " a little soiree dansante" and ex- 
 tended four cards of invitation. 
 
 " Most happy ! " exclaimed Spendquick. " I don't dance 
 
 in general ; but to oblige X I mean to have a better 
 
 acquaintance, sir, with you I would dance on the tight- 
 rope." 
 
 There was a good-humored, pleasant laugh at Spend- 
 quick's enthusiasm, and a general shaking of hands and 
 pocketing of the invitation cards. 
 
 " You don't look like a dancing man," said Avenel, 
 turning to the wit, who was plump and somewhat gouty 
 as wits who dine out five days in the week generally are ; 
 " but we shall have supper at one o'clock." 
 
 Infinitely offended and disgusted, the wit replied, dryly, 
 " that every hour of his time was engaged for the rest of the 
 season," and, with a stiff salutation to the Baron, took his 
 departure. The rest, in good spirits, hurried away to their 
 respective cabriolets ; and Leslie was following them into 
 the hall, when the Baron, catching hold of him, said, " Stay, 
 I want to talk to you." 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 THE Baron turned into his drawing-room, and Leslie fol- 
 lowed. 
 
 " Pleasant young men, those," said Levy, with a slight 
 sneer, as he threw himself into an easy-chair and stirred the 
 fire. " And not at all proud ; but, to be sure, they are 
 under great obligations to me. Yes ; they owe me a great 
 deal. Apropos, I have had a long talk with Frank Hazel- 
 dean fine young man remarkable capacities for business. 
 I can arrange his affairs for him. I find, on reference to 
 the Will Office, that you were quite right ; the Casino prop- 
 erty is entailed on Frank. He will have the fee-simple. 
 He can dispose of the reversion entirely. So that there 
 will be no difficulty in our arrangements."
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 653 
 
 " But I told you also that Frank had scruples about bor- 
 rowing on the event of his father's death." 
 
 " Ay you did so. Filial affection ! I never take that 
 into account in matters of business. Such little scruples, 
 though they are highly honorable to human nature, soon 
 vanish before the prospect of the King's Bench. And, too, 
 as you so judiciously remarked, our clever young friend is 
 in love with Madame di Negra." 
 
 " Did he tell you that ? "" 
 
 " No ; but Madame di Negra did ! " 
 
 " You know her ?" 
 
 " I know most people in good society, who now and then 
 require a friend in the management of their affairs. And 
 having made sure of the fact you stated, as to Hazeldean's 
 contingent property (excuse my prudence), I have accom- 
 modated Madame di Negra, and bought up her debts." 
 
 " You have ? You surprise me ! " 
 
 " The surprise will vanish on reflection. But you are 
 very new to the world yet, my dear Leslie. By the way, I 
 have had an interview with Peschiera " 
 
 "About his sister's debts?" 
 
 " Partly. A man of the nicest honor is Peschiera." 
 
 Aware of Levy's habit of praising people for the quali- 
 ties in which, according to the judgment of less penetrating 
 mortals, they were most deficient, Randal only smiled at this 
 eulogy, and waited for Levy to resume. But the Baron sat 
 silent and thoughtful for a minute or two, and then wholly 
 changed the subject. 
 
 " I think your father has some property in shire, 
 
 and you probably can give me a little information as to cer- 
 tain estates of a Mr. Thornhill, estates which, on examina- 
 tion of the title deeds, I find once, indeed, belonged to your 
 family." The Baron glanced at a very elegant memoran- 
 dum book. " The manors of Rood and Dulmansberrv, with 
 sundry farms thereon. Mr. Thornhill wants to sell them 
 an old client of mine, Thornhill. He has applied to me on 
 the matter. Do you think it an improvable property ? " 
 
 Randal listened with a livid cheek and a throbbing heart. 
 We have seen that, if there was one ambitious scheme in 
 his calculation which, though not absolutely generous and 
 heroic, still might win its way to a certain sympathy in the 
 undebased human mind, it was the hope to restore the fallen 
 fortunes of his ancient house, and repossess himself of the 
 long-alienated lands that surrounded the dismal wastes of
 
 654 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 the mouldering hall. And now to hear that those lands 
 were getting into the inexorable gripe of Levy tears of 
 bitterness stood in his eyes. 
 
 " Thornhill," continued Levy, who watched the young 
 man's countenance " Thornhill tells me that that part of 
 his property the old Leslie lands produces ^2000 a-year, 
 and that the rental could be raised. He would take ^50,000 
 for it ^20,000 down, and suffer the remaining ^30,000 to 
 lie on mortgage at four per cent. It seems a very good 
 purchase. What do you say ? " 
 
 " Don't ask me," said Randal, stung into rare honesty ; 
 " for I had hoped I might live to repossess myself of that 
 property." 
 
 " Ah ! indeed. It would be a very great addition to your 
 consequence in the world not from the mere size of the 
 estate, but from its hereditary associations. And if you 
 have any idea of the purchase believe me, I'll not stand in 
 your way." 
 
 " How can I have any idea of it ? " 
 
 " But I thought you said you had." 
 
 " I understood that these lands could not be sold till Mr. 
 Thornhill's son came of age, and joined in getting rid of the 
 entail." 
 
 "Yes, so Thornhill himself supposed, till, on examining 
 the title-deeds, I found he was under a mistake. These 
 lands are not comprised in the settlement made by old 
 Jasper Thornhill, which ties up the rest of the property. 
 The title will be perfect. Thornhill wants to settle the 
 matter at once losses on the turf, you understand ; an 
 immediate purchaser would get still better terms. A Sir 
 John Spratt would give the money but the addition of 
 these lands would make the Spratt property of more con- 
 sequence in the county than the Thornhill. So my client 
 would rather take a few thousands less from a man who 
 don't set up to be his rival. Balance of power in counties 
 as well as nations." 
 
 Randal was silent. 
 
 " Well," said Levy, with great kindness of manner, " I 
 see I pain you ; and though I .am what my very pleasant 
 guests would call a parvenu, I comprehend your natural 
 feelings as a gentleman of ancient birth. Parvenu! Ah! 
 is it not strange, Leslie, that no wealth, no fashion, no fame, 
 can wipe out that blot ? They call me n. parvenu, and borrow 
 my money. They call our friend the wit a parvenu, and
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 655 
 
 submit to all his insolence if they condescend to regard 
 his birth at all provided they can but get him to dinner. 
 They call the best debater in the Parliament of England a 
 parvenu, and will entreat him, some day or other, to be prime 
 minister, and ask him for stars and garters. A droll world, 
 and no wonder the parvenus want to upset it." 
 
 Randal had hitherto supposed that this notorious tuft- 
 hunter this dandy capitalist this money-lender, whose 
 whole fortune had been wrung from the wants and follies 
 of an aristocracy, was naturally a firm supporter of things 
 as they are how could things be better for men like Baron 
 Levy ? But the usurer's burst of democratic spleen did not 
 surprise his precocious and acute faculty of observation. 
 He had before remarked that it is the persons who fawn 
 most upon an aristocracy, and profit the most by the fawn- 
 ing, who are ever at heart its bitterest disparagers. Why is 
 this ? Because one full half of democratic opinion is made 
 up of envy ; and we can only envy what is brought before 
 our eyes, and what, while very near to us, is still unattain- 
 able. No man envies an archangel. 
 
 " But," said Levy, throwing himself back in his chair, 
 " a new order of things is commencing ; we shall see. 
 Leslie, it is lucky for you that you did not enter Parliament 
 under the Government ; it would be vour political ruin for 
 life." 
 
 " You think, then, that the ministry really cannot last ?" 
 
 " Of course I do ; and what is more, I think that a 
 ministry of the same principles cannot be restored. You 
 are a young man of talent and spirit ; your birth is nothing 
 compared to the rank of the reigning party ; it would tell, 
 to a certain degree, in a democratic one. I say, you should 
 be more civil to Avenel ; he could return you to Parliament 
 at the next election." 
 
 "The next election ! In six years ! We have just had 
 a general election." 
 
 " There will be another before this year, or half of it, or 
 perhaps a quarter of it, is out." 
 
 " What makes you think so ? " 
 
 " Leslie, let there be confidence between us ; we can 
 help each other. Shall we be friends ?" 
 
 " With all my heart. But though you may help me, how 
 can I help you ? " 
 
 "You have helped me already to Frank Hazeldean and 
 the Casino estate. All clever men can help me. Come,
 
 656 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 then, we are friends ; and what I say is secret. You ask me 
 why I think there will be a general election so soon ? I 
 will answer you frankly. Of all the public men I ever met 
 with, there is no one who has so clear a vision of things 
 immediately before him as Audley Egerton." 
 
 " He has that character. Not /<arr-seeing, but clear- 
 sighted to a certain limit." 
 
 " Exactly so. No one better, therefore, knows public 
 opinion, and its immediate ebb and flow." 
 
 " Granted." 
 
 " Egerton, then, counts on a general election within 
 three months ; and I have lent him the money for it." 
 
 " Lent him the money ! Egerton borrow money of you 
 the rich Audley Egerton ! " 
 
 "Rich !" repeated Levy in a tone impossible to describe, 
 and accompanying the word with that movement of the 
 middle finger and thumb, commonly called a "snap," which 
 indicates profound contempt. 
 
 He said no more. Randal sat stupefied. At length the 
 latter muttered, " But if Egerton is really not rich if he 
 lose office, and wthout the hope of return to it " 
 
 "If so, he is ruined !" said Levy, coldly; "and there- 
 fore, from regard to yo\i, and feeling an interest in your 
 future fate, I say Rest no hopes of fortune or career upon 
 Audley Egerton. Keep your place for the present, but be 
 prepared at the next election to stand upon popular prin- 
 ciples. Avenel shall return you to Parliament ; and the 
 rest is with luck and energy. And now, I'll not detain you 
 longer," said Levy, rising and ringing the bell. The ser- 
 vant entered. 
 
 ' Is my carriage here ?" 
 
 'Yes, Baron." 
 
 ' Can I set you down anywhere ? " 
 
 ' No, thank you, I prefer walking." 
 
 ' Adieu, then. And mind you remember the soirfa dan- 
 sante at Mrs. Avenel's." Randal mechanically shook the 
 hand extended to him, and went down the stairs. 
 
 The fresh frosty air aroused his intellectual faculties, 
 which Levy's ominous words had almost paralyzed. 
 
 And the first thing the clever schemer said to himself 
 was this " But what can be the man's motives in what he 
 said to me ? " 
 
 The next was " Egerton ruined ! What am I, then ? " 
 
 And the third was " And that fair remnant of the old
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 657 
 
 Leslie property ! ^20,000 down how to get the sum ? 
 Why should Levy have spoken to me of this ? " 
 
 And lastly, the soliloquy rounded back "The man's 
 motives ! His motives ! " 
 
 Meanwhile, the Baron threw himself into his chariot 
 the most comfortable easy chariot you can possibly con- 
 ceive single man's chariot perfect taste no married man 
 ever had such a chariot ; and in a few minutes he was at 
 
 's hotel, and in the presence of Giulio Franzini, Count 
 di Peschiera. 
 
 " Man cher" said the Baron, in very good French, and 
 in a tone of the most familiar equality with the descendant 
 of the princes and heroes of grand mediaeval Italy " Man 
 cher, give me one of your excellent cigars. I think I have 
 put all matters in train." 
 
 "You have found out " 
 
 " No ; not so fast yet," said the Baron, lighting the 
 cigar extended to him. " But you said that you should be 
 perfectly contented if it only cost you ^20,000 to marry 
 off your sister (to whom that sum is legally due), and to 
 marry yourself to the heiress." 
 
 "I did, indeed." 
 
 " Then I have no doubt I shall manage both objects for 
 that sum, if Randal Leslie really knows where the young 
 lady is, and can assist you. Most promising able man is 
 Randal Leslie but innocent as a babe just born." 
 
 "Ha, ha! Innocent? Qtte diable ! " 
 
 " Innocent as this cigar, man cher strong certainly, but 
 smoked very easily. Soyez tranquille / " 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 WHO has not seen, who not admired, that noble picture 
 by Daniel Maclise, which refreshes the immortal name of 
 my ancestor Caxton ! For myself, while with national pride 
 I heard the admiring murmurs of the foreigners who 
 grouped around it (nothing, indeed, of which our nation 
 may be more proud had they seen in the Crystal Palace) 
 heard, with no less a pride in the generous nature of fellow- 
 artists, the warm applause of living and deathless masters, 
 sanctioning the enthusiasm of the popular crowd ; what 
 28*
 
 658 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 struck me more than the precision of drawing, for which 
 the artist has been always renowned, and the just, though 
 gorgeous affluence of color which he has more recently ac- 
 quired, was the profound depth of conception, out of which 
 this great work had so elaborately arisen. That monk, 
 \vith his scowl toward the printer and his back on the Bible 
 over which his form casts a shadow the whole transition be- 
 tween the mediaeval Christianity of cell and cloister, and 
 the modern Christianity that rejoices in the daylight, is de- 
 picted there, in the shadow that obscures the Book in the 
 scowl that is fixed upon the Book-diffuscr ; that sombre, 
 musing face of Richard, Duke of Gloucester, with the 
 beauty of Napoleon, darkened to the expression of a Fiend, 
 looking far and anxiously into futurity, as if foreseeing 
 there what antagonism was about to be created to the 
 schemes of secret crime and unrelenting force ; the chival- 
 rous head of the accomplished Rivers, seen but in profile 
 under his Helmet, as if the age when Chivalry must defend 
 its noble attributes, in steel, was already half passed away : 
 and, not least grand of all, the rude thews and sinews of 
 the artisan forced into service on the type, and the ray of 
 intellect, fierce and menacing revolutions yet to be, strug- 
 gling through his rugged features, and across his low knitted 
 brow ; all this, which showed how deeply the idea of the 
 discovery, in its good and in its evil, its saving light and its 
 perilous storms, had sunk into the artist's soul, charmed me 
 as effecting the exact union between sentiment and execu- 
 tion, which is the true and rare consummation of the ideal 
 in Art. But observe, while in these personages of the 
 group are depicted the deeper and graver agencies impli- 
 cated in the bright but terrible invention observe how 
 little the light epicures of the hour heed the scowl of the 
 monk, or the restless gesture of Richard, or the troubled 
 gleam in the eyes of the artisan King Edward, handsome 
 Poco curante, delighted in the surprise of a child, with a new 
 toy ; and Clarence, with his curious, yet careless, glance 
 all the while Caxton himself, calm, serene, untroubled, in- 
 tent solely upon the manifestation of his discovery, and no 
 doubt supremely indifferent whether the first proofs of it 
 shall be dedicated to a Rivers or an Edward, a Richard or 
 a Henry, Plantagenet or Tudor 'tis all the same to that 
 comely, gentle-looking man. So is it ever with your Ab- 
 stract Science ! not a jot cares its passionless logic for the 
 woe or weal of a generation or two. The stream, once
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 659 
 
 emerged from its source, passes on into the great Intellect- 
 ual Sea, smiling over the wretch that it drowns, or under 
 the keel of the ship which it serves as a slave. 
 
 " Now, when about to commence the present chapter on 
 the Varieties of Life, this masterpiece of thoughtful art 
 forced itself on my recollection, and illustrated what I de- 
 signed to convey. In the surface of every age, it is often 
 that which but amuses, for the moment, the ordinary chil- 
 dren of pleasant existence, the Edwards and the Clarences (be 
 they kings and dukes, or simplest of simple subjects), which 
 afterward towers out as the great serious epoch of the 
 time. When we look back upon human records, how the eye 
 settles upon WRITERS as the main land-marks of the past ! 
 We talk of the age of Augustus, of Elizabeth, of Louis XIV., 
 of Anne, as the notable eras of the world. Why ? Because 
 it is their writers who have made them so. Intervals between 
 one age of authors and another lie unnoticed, as the flats and 
 common lands of uncultured history. And yet, strange to 
 say, when these authors are living amongst us, they occupy 
 a very small portion of our thoughts, and fill up but desul- 
 tory interstices in the bitumen and tufo wherefrom we build 
 up the Babylon of our lives ! So it is, and perhaps so it 
 should be, whether it pleases the conceit of penmen or not. 
 Life is meant to be active ; and books, though they give the 
 action to future generations, administer but to the holiday 
 of the present. 
 
 And so, with this long preface, I turn suddenly from the 
 Randals and the Egertons, arid the Levys, Avenels, and 
 Peschieras from the plots and passions of practical life, and 
 drop the reader suddenly into one of those obscure retreats 
 wherein Thought weaves, from unnoticed moments, a new 
 link to the chain that unites the ages. 
 
 Within a small room, the single window of which opened 
 on a fanciful and fairy-like garden, that has been before de- 
 scribed, sat a young man alone. Fie had been writing, the 
 ink was not dry on his manuscript, but his thoughts had 
 been suddenly interrupted from his work, and his eyes, now 
 lifted from the letter which had occasioned that interruption, 
 sparkled with delight. "He will come," exclaimed the 
 young man! " come here to the home which I owe to him. 
 I have not been unworthy of his friendship. And she " his 
 breast heaved, but the joy faded from his face. " Oh, strange, 
 strange, that I feel sad at the thought to see her again. See 
 her Ah no ! my own comforting Helen my own Child-
 
 660 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 angel ! Her I can never see again ! The grown woman 
 that is not my Helen. And yet and yet (he resumed after 
 a pause), if ever she read the pages in which thought flowed 
 and trembled under her distant starry light if ever she see 
 how her image has rested with me, and feel that, while others 
 believe that I invent, I have but remembered will she not, 
 for a moment, be my own Helen again ! Again, in heart 
 and in fancy, stand by my side on the desolate bridge hand 
 in hand orphans both, as we stood in the days so sorrowful, 
 yet, as I recall them, so sweet, Helen in England, it is a 
 dream ! " 
 
 He rose, half-consciously, and went to the window. The 
 fountain played merrily before his eyes, and the birds in the 
 aviary carolled loud to his ear. " And in this house," he 
 murmured, "I saw her last ! And there, where the fountain 
 now throws its spray on high there her benefactor and mine 
 told rne that I was to lose her, that I might win fame. 
 Alas ! " 
 
 At this time a woman, whose dress was somewhat above 
 her mien and air, which, though not without a certain re- 
 spectability, were very homely, entered the room ; and, see- 
 ing the young man standing thus thoughtful by the window, 
 paused. She was used to his habits ; and since his success 
 in life, had learned to respect them. So she did not disturb 
 his reverie, but began softly to arrange the room dusting, 
 with the corner of her apron, the various articles of furni- 
 ture, putting a stray chair or two in its right place, but not 
 touching a single paper. Virtuous woman, and rare as 
 virtuous ! 
 
 The young man turned at last, with a deep, yet not al- 
 together painful, sigh 
 
 " My dear mother, good-day to you. Ah, you do well to 
 make the room look its best. Happy news ! I expect a 
 visitor ! " 
 
 " Dear me, Leonard, will he want lunch or what ?" 
 
 " Nay, I think not, mother. It is he to Avhom we owe 
 all ' Hcec otia fecit? Pardon my Latin ; it is Lord 
 L'Estrange." 
 
 The face of Mrs. Fairfield (the reader has long since di- 
 vined the name) changed instantly and betrayed a nervous 
 twitch of all the muscles, which gave her a family likeness 
 to old Mrs. Avenel. 
 
 " Do not be alarmed, mother. He is the kindest 
 
 "Don't talk so : I can't bear it !" cried Mrs. Fairfield.
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 66 1 
 
 " No wonder you are affected by the recollection of all 
 his benefits. But when once you have seen him, you will 
 find yourself ever after at your ease. And so, pray smile and 
 look as good as you are ; for I am proud of your open hon- 
 est look when you are pleased, mother. And he must see 
 your heart in your face as I do." 
 
 With this, Leonard put his arm around the widow's 
 neck, and kissed her. She clung to him fondly for a mo- 
 ment, and he felt her tremble from head to foot. Then she 
 broke from his embrace, and hurried out of the room. 
 Leonard thought perhaps she had gone to improve her 
 dress, or to carry her housewife energies to the decoration 
 of the other rooms ;'for "the house " was Mrs. Fairfield's 
 hobby and passion ; and now that she worked no more, save 
 for her amusement, it was her main occupation. The hours 
 she contrived to spend daily in bustling about those little 
 rooms, and leaving everything therein to all appearance pre- 
 cisely the same, were among the marvels in life which the 
 genius of Leonard had never comprehended. But she was 
 always so delighted when Mr. Norreys or some rare visitor 
 came ; and said, (Mr. Norreys never failed to do so), " How 
 neatly all is kept here ! What could Leonard do without 
 you, Mrs. Fairfield?" 
 
 And, to Norreys's infinite amusement, Mrs. Fairfield 
 always returned the same answer. "Deed, sir, and thank 
 you kindly, but 'tis my belief that the drawin'-room would 
 be awful dusty." 
 
 Once more left alone, Leonard's mind returned to the 
 state of reverie, and his face assumed the expression that 
 had now become to it habitual. Thus seen, he was changed 
 much since we last beheld him. His cheek was more pale 
 and thin, his lips more firmly compressed, his eye more fixed 
 and abstract. You could detect, if I may borrow a touching 
 French expression, that " sorrow had passed by there." But 
 the melancholy on his countenance was ineffably sweet and 
 serene, and on his ample forehead there was that power, so 
 rarely seen in early youth the power that has conquered, 
 and betrays its conquests but in calm. The period of doubt, 
 of struggle, of defiance, was gone perhaps for ever ; genius 
 and soul were reconciled to human life. It was a face most 
 loveable ; so gentle and peaceful in its character. No want 
 of fire : on the contrary, the fire was so clear and so stead- 
 fast, that it conveyed but the impression of light. The can- 
 dor of boyhood, the simplicity of the villager, were still
 
 662 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 there refined by intelligence, but intelligence that seemed 
 to have traversed through knowledge not with the footstep, 
 but the wing unsullied by the mire tending toward the 
 star seeking through the various grades of Being but the 
 lovelier forms of truth and goodness ; at home, as should 
 be the Art that consummates the Beautiful 
 
 " In den heitern Regionen 
 Wo die reinen Formen wohnen." * 
 
 From this reverie Leonard did not seek to rouse himself, 
 till the bell at the garden-gate rang loud and shrill ; and 
 then starting up and hurrying into the hall, his hand was 
 grasped in Harley's. 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 A FULL and happy hour passed away in Harley's ques- 
 tions and Leonard's answers ; the dialogue that naturally 
 ensued between the two, on the first interview after an ab- 
 sence of years so eventful to the younger man. 
 
 The history of Leonard during this interval was almost 
 solely internal, the struggle of intellect with its own diffi- 
 culties, the wanderings of imagination through its own 
 adventurous worlds. 
 
 The first aim of Norreys, in preparing the mind of his 
 pupil for its vocation, had been to establish the equilibrium 
 of its powers, to calm into harmony the elements rudely 
 shaken by the trials and passions of the old, hard, outer 
 life. 
 
 The theory of Norreys was briefly this. The education 
 of a superior human being is but the development of ideas 
 in one for the benefit of others. To this end, attention 
 should be directed ist, To the value of the ideas collected ; 
 2ndly, To their discipline ; 3rdly, To their expression. For 
 the first, acquirement is necessary ; for the second, disci- 
 pline ; for the third, art. The first comprehends knowledge, 
 purely intellectual, whether derived from observation, 
 memory, reflection, books or men, Aristotlp or Fleet Street. 
 The second demands training, not only intellectual, but 
 
 * At home " In the serene regions 
 
 Where dwell the pure forms."
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 663 
 
 moral ; the purifying and exaltation of motives ; the forma- 
 tion of habits : in which method is but a part of a divine 
 and harmonious symmetry an union of intellect and con- 
 science. Ideas of value, stored by the first process ; mar- 
 shalled into force, and placed under guidance, by the second ; 
 it is the result of the third, to place them before the world 
 in the most attractive or commanding form. This may be 
 done by actions no less than words ; but the adaptation of 
 means to end, the passage of ideas from the brain of one man 
 into the lives and souls of all, no less in action than in books, 
 requires study. Action has its art as Avell as literature. 
 Here Norreys had but to deal with the calling of the scholar, 
 the formation of the writer, and so to guide the perceptions 
 toward those varieties in the sublime and beautiful, the 
 just combination of which is at once CREATION. Man him- 
 self is but a combination of elements. He who combines in 
 nature, creates in art. 
 
 Such, very succinctly and inadequately expressed, was 
 the system upon which Norreys proceeded to regulate and 
 perfect the great native powers of his pupil ; and though 
 the reader may perhaps say that no system laid down by 
 another can either form genius or dictate to its results, yet 
 probably nine-tenths at least of those in whom we recognize 
 the luminaries of our race, have passed, unconsciously to 
 themselves (for self-education is rarely conscious of its 
 phases), through each of these processes. And no one who 
 pauses to reflect will deny, that, according to this theory, 
 illustrated by a man of vast experience, profound knowl- 
 edge, and exquisite taste, the struggles of genius would be 
 infinitely lessened ; its vision cleared and strengthened, and 
 the distance between effort and success notably abridged. 
 
 Norreys, however, was far too deap a reasoner to fall 
 into the error of modern teachers, who suppose that educa- 
 tion can dispense with labor. No mind becomes muscular 
 without rude and early exercise. Labor should be stren- 
 uous, but in right directions. All that we can do for it is to 
 save the waste of time in blundering into needless toils. 
 
 The master had thus first employed his neophyte in arrang- 
 ing and compiling materials for a great critical work in 
 which Norreys himself was engaged. In this stage of 
 scholastic preparation, Leonard was necessarily led to the 
 acquisition of languages, for which he had great aptitude 
 the foundations of a large and comprehensive erudition were 
 solidly constructed. lie traced by the ploughshare the
 
 664 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 walls of the destined city. Habits of accuracy and of gen- 
 eralization became formed insensibly ; and that precious 
 faculty which seizes, amidst accumulated materials, those that 
 serve the object for which they are explored, (that faculty 
 which quadruples all force, by concentrating it on one point) 
 once roused into action, gave purpose to every toil and 
 quickness to each perception. But Norreys did not confine 
 his pupil solely to the mute world of a library ; he intro- 
 duced him to some of the first minds in arts, science, and 
 letters and active life. " These," said he, "are the living 
 ideas of the present, out of which books for the future will 
 be written : study them ; and here, as in the volumes of the 
 past, diligently amass and deliberately compile." 
 
 By degrees Norreys led on that young, ardent mind 
 from the selection of ideas to their aesthetic analysis from 
 compilation to criticism : but criticism severe, close, and 
 logical a reason for each word of praise or of blame. Led 
 in this stage of his career to examine into the laws of 
 beauty, a new light broke upon his mind ; from amidst the 
 masses of marble he had piled around him, rose the vision 
 of the statue. 
 
 And so, suddenly one day Norreys said to him, " I need 
 a compiler no longer maintain yourself by your own crea- 
 tions." And Leonard wrote, and a work flowered up from 
 the seed deep buried, and the soil well cleared to the rays 
 of the sun and the healthful influence of expanded air. 
 
 That first work did not penetrate to a very wide circle 
 of readers, not from any perceptible fault of its own there 
 is luck in these things ; the first anonymous work of an 
 original genius is rarely at once eminently successful. But 
 the more experienced recognized the promise of the book. 
 Publishers, who have an instinct in the discovery of avail- 
 able talent, which often forestalls the appreciation of the 
 public, volunteered liberal offers. " Be fully successful 
 this time," said Norreys ; " think not of models nor of style. 
 Strike at once at the common human heart throw away 
 the corks swim out boldly. One word more never write 
 a page till you have walked from your room to Temple 
 Bar, and, mingling with men, and reading the human face, 
 learn why great poets have mostly passed their lives in 
 cities." 
 
 Thus Leonard wrote again, and woke one morning to 
 find himself famous. So far as the chances of all profes- 
 sions dependent on health will permit, present independence,
 
 N ENGLISH LIFE. 665 
 
 and, with foresight and economy, the prospect of future 
 competence, were secured. 
 
 "And, indeed," said Leonard, concluding a longer but 
 a simpler narrative than is here told " indeed, there is 
 some chance that I may obtain at once a sum that will 
 leave me free for the rest of my life to select my own sub- 
 jects and write without care for remuneration. This is 
 what I call the true (and, perhaps, alas ! the rare) indepen- 
 dence of him who devotes himself to letters. Norreys, hav- 
 ing seen my boyish plan for the improvement of certain ma- 
 chinery in the steam-engine, insisted on my giving much 
 time to mechanics. The study that once pleased ie so 
 greatly, now seemed dull ; but I went into it with good 
 heart ; and the result is, that I have improved so far on 
 my original idea, that my scheme has met the approbation 
 of one of our most scientific engineers ; and I am assured 
 that the patent for it will be purchased of me upon terms 
 which I am ashamed to name to you, so disproportioned do 
 they seem to the value of so simple a discovery. Mean- 
 while, I am already rich enough to have realized the two 
 dreams of my heart to make a home in the cottage where 
 I had last seen you and Helen 1 mean Miss Digby ; 
 and to invite to that home her who had sheltered my in- 
 fancy." 
 
 " Your mother, where is she ? Let me see her." 
 
 Leonard ran out to call the widow, but, to his surprise 
 and vexation, learned that she had quitted the house before 
 L'Estrange arrived. 
 
 He came back perplexed how to explain what seemed 
 ungracious and ungrateful, and spoke with hesitating lip 
 and flushed cheek of the widow's natural timidity and 
 sense of her own homely station. " And so overpowered is 
 she," added Leonard, " by the recollection of all that we 
 owe to you, that she never hears your name without agita- 
 tion or tears, and trembled like a leaf at the thought of see- 
 ing you." 
 
 " Ha ! " said Harley, with visible emotion. " Is it so ? " 
 And he bent down, shading his face with his hand. " And," 
 he renewed, after a pause, but not looking up " and you 
 ascribe this fear of seeing me, this agitation at my name, 
 solely to an exaggerated sense of of the circumstances at- 
 tending my acquaintance with yourself?" 
 
 "And, perhaps, to a sort of shame that the mother of 
 one you have made her proud of is but a peasant."
 
 666 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 " That is all ? " said Harlcy, earnestly, now looking up 
 and fixing his eyes, in which stood tears, upon Leonard's 
 ingenuous brow. 
 
 "Oh, my dear lord, what else can it be ? Do not judge 
 her harshly." 
 
 L'Estrange arose abruptly, pressed Leonard's hand, mut- 
 tered something not audible, and then drawing his young 
 friend's arm in his, led him into the garden, and turned 
 the conversation back to its former topics. 
 
 Leonard's heart yearned to ask after Helen, and yet 
 something withheld him from doing so, till, seeing Har- 
 ley djd not volunteer to speak of her, he could not resist 
 his impulse. " And Helen Miss Digby is she much 
 changed ? " 
 
 " Changed, no yes ; very much." 
 
 "Very much ! " Leonard sighed. " I shall see her again?" 
 
 " Certainly," said Harley, in a tone of surprise. " How 
 can you doubt it ? And I reserve to you the pleasure of 
 saying that you are renowned. You blush ; well, I will say 
 that for you. But you shall give her your books." 
 
 " She has not yet read them, then ? not the last ? The 
 first was not worthy of her attention," said Leonard, disap- 
 pointed. 
 
 " She has only just arrived in England ; and though 
 your books reached me in Germany, she was not then with 
 me. When I have settled some busrness that will take me 
 from town, I shall present you to her and my mother." 
 There was a certain embarrassment in Ilarley's voice as he 
 spoke ; and, turning round abruptly, he exclaimed, " But 
 you have shown poetry even here. I could not have con- 
 ceived that so much beauty could be drawn from what ap- 
 peared to me the most common-place of all suburban gar- 
 dens. Why, surely, where that charming fountain now 
 plays stood the rude bench in which I read your verses." 
 
 " It is true ; I wished to unite all together my happiest 
 associations. I think I told you, my lord, in one of my let- 
 ters, that I had owed a very happy, yet very struggling time 
 in my boyhood to the singular kindness and generous in- 
 structions of a foreigner whom I served. This fountain is 
 copied from one that I made in his garden, and by the 
 margin of which many a summer day I have sat and dreamt 
 of fame and knowledge." 
 
 "True, you told me of that ; and your foreigner will be 
 pleased to hear of your success, and no less so of your
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 667 
 
 grateful recollections. By the way, you did not mention 
 his name." 
 
 " Riccabocca." 
 
 "Riccabocca! My own dear and noble friend ! is it 
 possible ? One of my reasons for returning to England is 
 connected with him. You shall go down with me and see 
 him. I meant to start this evening." 
 
 " My dear lord," said Leonard, "I think that you may 
 spare yourself so long a journey. I have reason to suspect 
 that Signer Riccabocca is my nearest neighbor. Two days 
 ago I was in the garden, when suddenly lifting my eyes to 
 yon hillock I perceived the form of a man seated amongst 
 the brushwood ; and, though I could not see his features, 
 there was something in the very outline of his figure and 
 his pecu-liar posture, that irresistibly reminded me of Ricca- 
 bocca. I hastened out of the garden and ascended the hill, 
 but he was gone. My suspicions were so strong, that I 
 caused inquiry to be made at the different shops scattered 
 about, and learned that a family, consisting of a gentleman, 
 his wife, and daughter, had lately come to live in a house that 
 you must have passed in your way hither, standing a little 
 back from the road, surrounded by high walls ; and though 
 they were said to be English, yet from the description 
 given to me of the gentleman's person by one who had noticed 
 it, by the fact of a foreign servant in their employ, and by 
 the very name ' Richmouth,' assigned to the new-comers, I 
 can scarcely doubt that it is the family you seek." 
 
 "And you have not called to ascertain ?" 
 
 "Pardon me, but the family so evidently shunning ob- 
 servation (no one but the master himself ever seen without 
 the walls), the adoption of another name too led me to 
 infer that Signer Riccabocca has some strong motive for 
 concealment ; and now, with my improved knowledge of 
 life, and recalling all the past, I cannot but suppose that 
 Riccabocca was not what he appeared. Hence, I have hes- 
 itated on formally obtruding myself upon his secrets, what- 
 ever they be, and have rather watched for some chance 
 occasion to meet him in his walks." 
 
 " You did right, my dear Leonard ; but my reasons for 
 seeing my old friend forbid all scruples of delicacy, and I 
 will go at once to his house." 
 
 ' You will tell me, my lord, if I am right." 
 
 " I hope to be allowed to do so. Pray, stay at home till 
 I return. And now, ere I go, one question more : You
 
 668 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 indulge conjectures as to Riccabocca, because he has 
 changed his name why have you dropped your own ? " 
 
 " I wished to have no name," said Leonard, coloring 
 deeply, " but that which I could make myself." 
 
 " Proud poet, this I can comprehend. But from what 
 reason did you assume the strange and fantastic name of 
 Oran ? " 
 
 The flush on Leonard's face became deeper. "My lord," 
 said he, in a low voice, " it is a childish fancy of mine ; it is 
 an anagram." 
 
 "Ah!" 
 
 " At a time when my cravings after knowledge were 
 likely much to mislead, and perhaps to undo me, I chanced 
 on some poems that suddenly affected my whole mind, and 
 led me up into purer air ; and I was told that these poems 
 were written in youth, by one who had beauty and genius 
 one who was in her grave a relation of my own, and her 
 familiar name was Nora " 
 
 "Ah ! " again ejaculated Lord L'Estrange, and his arm 
 pressed heavily .upon Leonard's. 
 
 " So, somehow or other," continued the young author 
 falteringly, " I wished that if ever I won a poet's fame, 
 it might be to my own heart, at least, associated with this 
 name of Nora with her whom death had robbed of the 
 fame that she might otherwise have won with her 
 who " 
 
 He paused, greatly agitated. 
 
 Harley was no less so. But, as if by a sudden impulse, 
 the soldier bent down his manly head and kissed the poet's 
 brow ; then he hastened to the gate, flung himself on his 
 horse, and rode away. 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 LORD L'ESTRANGE did not proceed at once to Ricca- 
 bocca's house. He was under the influence of a remem- 
 brance too deep and too strong to yield easily to the luke- 
 warm claim of friendship. He rode fast and far ; and im- 
 possible it would be to define the feelings that passed 
 through a mind so acutely sensible and so rootedly tena- 
 cious of all affections. When recalling his duty to the Italian,
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 669 
 
 he once more struck into the road to Norwood, the slow 
 pace of his horse was significant of his own exhausted 
 spirits ; a deep dejection had succeeded to feverish excite- 
 ment. " Vain task," he murmured, " to wean myself from 
 the dead ! Yet I am now betrothed to another ; and she, 
 
 with all her virtues, is not the one to " He stopped 
 
 short in generous self-rebuke. " Too late to think of that ! 
 Now, all that should remain to me is to insure the happi- 
 ness of the life to which I have pledged my own. But " 
 
 He sighed as he so murmured. On reaching the vicinity of 
 Riccabocca's house, he put up his horse at a little inn, and 
 proceeded on foot across the heath-land toward the dull 
 square building, which Leonard's description had sufficed 
 to indicate as the exile's new home. It w r as long before 
 any one answered his summons at the gate. Not till he had 
 thrice rung did he hear a heavy step on the gravel-walk 
 within ; then the wicket within the gate was partially drawn 
 aside, a dark eye gleamed out, and a voice in imperfect 
 English asked who was there. . 
 
 "Lord L'Estrange ; and if I am right as to the person I 
 seek, that name will at once admit me." 
 
 The door flew open as did that of- the mystic cavern at 
 the sound of " Open, Sesame ; " and Giacomo, almost weep- 
 ing with joyous emotion, exclaimed, in Italian, " The good 
 Lord ! Holy San Giacomo ! thou hast heard me at last ! 
 We are safe now." And dropping the blunderbuss with 
 which he had taken the precaution to arm himself, he lifted 
 Harley's hand to his lips, in the affectionate greeting pecu- 
 liar to his countrymen. 
 
 "And the Padrone?" asked Harley, as he entered the 
 jealous precincts. 
 
 " Oh, he is just gone out ; but he will not be long. You 
 will wait for him ? " 
 
 " Certainly. What lady is that I see at the far end of 
 the garden ? " 
 
 " Bless her, it is our Signorina. I will run and tell her 
 you are come." 
 
 " That I am come ; but she cannot know me even by 
 name." 
 
 " Ah, Excellency, can you think so ? Many and many 
 a time has she talked to me of you, and I have heard her 
 pray to the holy Madonna to bless you, and in a voice so 
 sweet 
 
 " Stay, I will present myself to her. Go into the house,
 
 670 MY NOVEL ; OR, 
 
 and we will wait without for the Padrone. Nay, I need the 
 air, my friend." Harley, as he said this, broke from Gia- 
 como, and approached Violante. 
 
 The poor child, in her solitary walk in the obscurer parts 
 of the dull garden, had escaped the eye of Giacomo when 
 he had gone forth to answer the bell ; and she, unconscious 
 of the fears of which she was the object, had felt something 
 of youthful curiosity at the summons at the gate, and the 
 sight of a stranger in close and friendly confidence with the 
 unsocial Giacomo. 
 
 Harley now neared her with that singular grace of 
 movement which belonged to him, a. thrill shot through 
 her heart she knew not why. She did not recognize his 
 likeness to the sketch taken by her father from his recol- 
 lections of Harley's early youth. She did not guess who lie 
 was ; and yet she felt herself color, and, naturally fearless 
 though she was, turned away with a vague alarm. 
 
 " Pardon my want of ceremony, Signorina," said Har- 
 ley, in Italian ;.'-but I am so old a friend of your father's 
 that I cannot feel as a stranger to yourself." 
 
 Then Violante lifted to him her dark eyes, so intelligent 
 and so innocent eyes full of surprise, but not displeased 
 surprise. And Harley himself stood amazed and almost 
 abashed, by the rich and almost marvellous beauty that 
 beamed upon him. " My father's friend," she said, hesi- 
 tatingly, "and I never to have seen you ! " 
 
 "Ah, Signorina," said Harley (and something of its na- 
 tive humor, half arch, half sad, played round his lip), "you 
 are mistaken there ; you have seen me before, and you re- 
 ceived me much more kindly then " 
 
 " Signer ! " said Violante, more and more surprised, and 
 with a yet richer color on her cheeks. 
 
 Harley, who had now recovered from the first effect of 
 her beauty, and who regarded her as men of his years and 
 character are apt to regard ladies in their teens, as more 
 child than woman, suffered himself to be amused by her 
 perplexity ; for it was in his nature, that the graver and 
 more mournful he felt at heart, the more he sought to give 
 play and whim to his spirits. 
 
 "Indeed, Signorina," said he, demurely, "you insisted 
 then on placing one of those fair hands in mine ; the other 
 (forgive me the fidelity of my recollections) was affection- 
 ately thrown around my neck." 
 
 " Signer ! " again exclaimed Violante ; but this time
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 671 
 
 there was anger in her voice, as well as surprise, and noth- 
 ing could be more charming than her look of pride and 
 resentment. 
 
 Harley smiled again, but with so much kindly sweet- 
 ness, that the anger vanished at once, or rather Violante 
 felt angry with herself that she was no longer angry with 
 him. But she had looked so beautiful in her anger, that 
 Harley wished, perhaps, to see her angry again. So, com- 
 posing his lips from their propitiatory smile, he resumed, 
 gravely 
 
 " Your flatterers will tell you, Signorina, that you are 
 much improved since then, but I liked you better as you 
 were ; not but what I hope to return some day what you 
 then so generously press.ed upon me." 
 
 " Pressed upon you ! I ? Signer, you are under some 
 strange mistake." 
 
 " Alas ! no ; but the female heart is so capricious and 
 fickle ! You pressed it upon me, I assure you. I own that 
 I was not loath to accept it." 
 
 " Pressed it ! Pressed what ? " 
 
 " Your kiss, my child," said Harley ; and then added, 
 with a serious tenderness, " And I again say that I hope to 
 return it some day -when I see you, by the side of father 
 and of husband, in your native land the fairest bride on 
 whom the skies of Italy ever smiled ! And now, pardon a 
 hermit and a soldier for his rude jests, and give your hand, 
 in token of that pardon, to Harley L' Estrange." 
 
 Violante, who, at the first words of his address had re- 
 coiled, with a vague belief that the stranger was out of his 
 mind, sprang forward as it closed, and, in all the vivid en- 
 thusiasm of her nature, pressed the hand held out to her, 
 with both her own. "Harley L'Estrange the preserver of 
 my father's life ! " she cried ; and her eyes were fixed on 
 his with such evident gratitude and reverence that Harley 
 felt at once confused and delighted. She did not think at 
 that instant of the hero of her dreams she thought but of 
 him who had saved her father. But, as his eyes sank be- 
 fore her own, and his head uncovered, bowed over the 
 hand he held, she recognized the likeness to the features on 
 which she had so often gazed. The first bloom of youth 
 was gone, but enough of youth still remained to soften the 
 lapse of years, and to leave to manhood the attractions 
 which charm the eye. Instinctively she withdrew her hands 
 from his clasp, and, in her turn, looked down.
 
 672 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 In this pause of embarrassment to both, Riccabocca let 
 himself into the garden by his own latch-key, and, startled 
 to see a man by the side of Violante, sprang forward with 
 an abrupt and angry cry. Harley heard, and turned. 
 
 As if restored to courage and self-possession by the 
 sense of her father's presence, Violante again took the hand 
 of the visitor. "Father," she said, simply, "it is he he is 
 corne at last." And then, retiring a few steps, she contem- 
 plated them both ; and her face was radiant with happiness 
 as if something, long silently missed and looked for, was 
 as silently found, and life had no more a want, nor the 
 heart a void.
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 673 
 
 BOOK TENTH. 
 
 INITIAL CHAPTER. 
 
 UPON THIS FACT THAT THE WORLD IS STILL MUCH THE SAME 
 AS IT ALWAYS HAS BEEN. 
 
 IT is observed by a very pleasant writer read now-a- 
 days only by the brave pertinacious few who still struggle 
 hard to rescue from the House of Pluto the souls of de- 
 parted authors, jostled and chased as those souls are by the 
 noisy footsteps of the living it is observed by the admirable 
 Charron, that "judgment and wisdom is not only the best, 
 but the happiest portion God Almighty hath distributed 
 amongst men ; for though this distribution be made with a 
 very uneven hand, yet nobody thinks himself stinted or ill- 
 dealt with, but he that hath never so little is contented in 
 this respect."* 
 
 And, certainly, the present narrative may serve in nota- 
 ble illustration of the remark so dryly made by the witty 
 and wise preacher. For whether our friend Riccabocca de- 
 duce theories for daily life from the great folio of Machia- 
 velli, or that promising young gentleman, Mr. Randal Les- 
 lie, interpret the power of knowledge into the art of being 
 too knowing for dull honest folks to cope with him ; or 
 acute Dick Avenel push his way up the social ascent with 
 a blow for those before, and a kick for those behind him, 
 after the approved fashion of your strong New Man ; or 
 Baron Levy that cynical impersonation of Gold compare 
 himself to the Magnetic Rock in the Arabian tale, to which 
 the nails in every ship that approaches the influence of the 
 loadstone fly from the planks, and a shipwreck per day 
 
 * Translation of Charron on Wisdom. By G. STANHOPE, D.D., late Dean of Canter- 
 bury (1729). A translation remarkable for ease, vigor, and (despite that contempt for the 
 strict rules of grammar, which was common enough amongst writers at the commencement of 
 the last century) for the idiomatic raciness of its English. 
 
 29
 
 674 MY NOVEL; OK, 
 
 adds its waifs to the Rock : questionless at least it is, that 
 each of those personages believes that Providence has be- 
 stowed on him an elder son's inheritance of wisdom. Nor, 
 were we to glance toward the obscurer paths of life, should 
 we find good Parson Dale deem himself worse off than the 
 rest of the world in this precious commodity as, indeed, 
 he has signally evinced of late in that shrewd guess of his 
 touching Professor Moss ; even plain Squire Hazeldean 
 takes it for granted that he could teach Audley Egerton a 
 thing or two worth knowing in politics ; Mr. Stirn thinks 
 that there is no branch of useful lore on which he could not 
 instruct the Squire; while Sprott, the tinker, with his bag 
 full of tracts and lucifer-matches, regards the whole frame- 
 work of modern society, from a rick to a constitution, with 
 the profound disdain of a revolutionary philosopher. Con- 
 sidering that every individual thus brings into the stock of 
 the world so vast a share of intelligence, it cannot but ex- 
 cite our wonder to find that Oxenstiern is popularly held to 
 be right when he said, " See, my son, how little wisdom it 
 requires to govern States ; " that is, Men ! That so many 
 millions of persons, each with a profound assurance that he 
 is possessed of an exalted sagacity, should concur in the as- 
 cendancy of a few inferior intellects, according to a few 
 stupid, prosy, matter-of-fact rules as old as the hills, is a 
 phenomenon very discreditable to the spirit and energy of 
 the aggregate human species ! It creates no surprise that 
 one sensible watch-dog should control the movements of a 
 flock of silly grass-eating sheep ; but that two or three silly 
 grass-eating sheep should give the law to whole flocks of 
 such mighty sensible watch-dogs Diavolo ! Dr. Riccabocca, 
 explain that if you can ! And wonderfully strange it is, that 
 notwithstanding all the march of enlightenment, notwith- 
 standing our progressive discoveries in the laws of nature 
 our railways, steam-engines, animal magnetism, and electro- 
 biulogy we have never made any improvement that is gen- 
 erally acknowledged, since Men ceased to be troglodytes 
 and nomads, in the old-fashioned gamut of flats and sharps, 
 which attunes into irregular social jog-trot all the genera- 
 tions that pass from the cradle to the grave; still, "the de- 
 sire for something we have not" impels all the energies that 
 keep us in movement, for good or for ill, according to the 
 checks or the directions of each favorite desire. 
 
 A friend of mine once said to a millionaire, whom he saw 
 for ever engaged in making money which he never seemed
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 675 
 
 to have any pleasure in spending, " Pray, Mr. , will you 
 
 answer me one question : You are said to have two millions, 
 and you spend ^600 a-year. In order to rest and enjoy, 
 what will content you ?" 
 
 " A little more," answered the millionaire. That "little 
 more" is the main-spring of civilization. Nobody ever gets it ! 
 
 "Philus," saith a Latin writer, "was not so rich as 
 Laelius ; Laelius was not so rich as Scipio ; Scipio was not so 
 rich as Crassus ; and Crassus was not so rich as he wished to 
 be ! " If John Bull were once contented, Manchester might 
 shut up its mills. It is the " little more " that makes a mere 
 trifle of the National Debt ! Long life to it ! 
 
 Still, mend our law-books as we will, one is forced to 
 confess that knaves are often seen in fine linen, and honest 
 men in the most shabby old rags ; and still, notwithstanding 
 the exceptions, knavery is a very hazardous game ; and 
 honesty, on the whole, by far the best policy. Still, most of 
 the Ten Commandments remain at the core of all the Pan- 
 dects and Institutes that keep our hands off our neighbors' 
 throats, wives, and pockets ; still, every year shows that 
 the Parson's maxim non quieta movere is as prudent for the 
 health of communities as when Apollo recommended his 
 votaries not to rake up a fever by stirring the Lake Cama- 
 rina ; still people, thank Heaven, decline to reside in paral- 
 lelograms ; and the surest token that we live under a free 
 government is, when we are governed by persons whom we 
 have a full right to imply, by our censure and ridicule, are 
 blockheads compared to ourselves ! Stop that delightful 
 privilege, and, by Jove ! sir, there is neither pleasure nor 
 honor in being governed at all ! You might as well be a 
 Frenchman ! 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE Italian and his friend are closeted together. 
 
 "And why have you left your home in shire? and 
 
 why this new change of name ? " 
 
 " Peschiera is in England." 
 
 " I know it." 
 
 " And bent on discovering me ; and, it is said, of stealing 
 from me my child." 
 
 " He has had the assurance to lay wagers that he will
 
 676 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 win the hand of your heiress. I know that too ; and there- 
 fore I have come to England first to baffle his design for 
 I do not think your fears altogether exaggerated and next 
 to learn from you how to follow up a clue which, unless I 
 am too sanguine, may lead to his ruin, and your uncon- 
 ditional restoration. Listen to me. You are aware that, 
 after the skirmish with Peschiera's armed hirelings sent in 
 search of you, I received a polite message from the Austrian 
 Government, requesting me to leave its Italian domains. 
 Now, as I hold it the obvious duty of any foreigner, admit- 
 ted to the hospitality of a State, to refrain from all participa- 
 tion in its civil disturbances, so I thought my honor assailed 
 at this intimation, and went at once to Vienna to explain to 
 the Minister there (to whom I was personally known), that 
 though I had, as became man to man, aided to protect a 
 refugee, who had taken shelter under my roof, from the 
 infuriated soldiers at the command of his private foe, I had 
 not only not shared in any attempt at revolt, but dissuaded, 
 as far as I could, my Italian friends from their enterprise ; 
 and that because, without discussing its merits, I believed, 
 as a military man and a cool spectator, the enterprise could 
 only terminate in fruitless bloodshed. I was enabled to 
 establish my explanation by satisfactory proof ; and my 
 acquaintance with the Minister assumed something of the 
 character of friendship. I was then in a position to advo- 
 cate your cause, and to state your original reluctance to 
 enter into the plots of the insurgents. I admitted freely 
 that you had such natural desire for the independence of 
 your native land, that, had the standard of Italy been boldly 
 hoisted by its legitimate chiefs, or at the common uprising 
 of its whole people, you would have been found in the van, 
 amidst the ranks of your countrymen ; but I maintained 
 that you would never have shared in a conspiracy frantic in 
 itself, and defiled by the lawless schemes and sordid ambition 
 of its main projectors, had you not been betrayed and 
 decoyed into it by the misrepresentations and domestic 
 treachery of .your kinsman the very man who denounced 
 you. Unfortunately, of this statement I had no proof but 
 your own word. I made, however, so far an impression in 
 your favor, and. it may be, against the traitor, that your 
 property was not confiscated to the State, nor handed over, 
 upon the plea of your civil death, to your kinsman." 
 
 " How ! I do not understand. Peschiera has the prop- 
 erty?"
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 677 
 
 " He holds the revenues but of one-half upon pleasure, 
 and they would be withdrawn, could I succeed in establish- 
 ing the case that exists against him. I was forbidden before 
 to mention this to you ; the Minister, not inexcusably, sub- 
 mitted you to the probation of unconditional exile. Your 
 grace might depend upon your own forbearance from fu- 
 ture conspiracies forgive the word. I need not say I was 
 permitted to return to Lombardy. I found, on my arrival, 
 that that your unhappy wife had been to my house, and 
 exhibited great despair at hearing of my departure." 
 
 Riccabocca knit his dark brows, and breathed hard. 
 
 " I did not judge it necessary to acquaint you with this 
 circumstance, nor did it much affect me. I believed in her 
 guilt and what could now avail her remorse, if remorse she 
 felt ? Shortly afterward,. I heard that she was no more." 
 
 "Yes," muttered Riccabocca, "she died in the same year 
 that I left Italy. It must be a strong reason that can excuse 
 a friend for reminding me even that she once lived ! " 
 
 "I come at once to that reason," said L'Estrange gently. 
 " This autumn I was roaming through Switzerland, and, in 
 one of my pedestrian excursions amidst the mountains, I 
 met with an accident, which confined me for some days to 
 a sofa at a little inn in an obscure village. My hostess was 
 an Italian ; and, as I had left my servant at a town at some 
 distance, I required her attention till I could write to him to 
 come to me. I was thankful for her care, and amused by 
 her Italian babble. We became very good friends. She 
 told me she had been servant to a lady of great rank, who 
 had died in Switzerland ; and that, being enriched by the 
 generosity of her mistress, she had married a Swiss inn- 
 keeper, and his people had become hers. My servant 
 arrived, and my hostess learned my name, which she did 
 not know before. She came into my room greatly agitated. 
 In brief, this woman had been servant to your wife. She 
 had accompanied her to my villa, and known of her anxiety 
 to see me, as your friend. The Government had assigned 
 to your wife your palace at Milan, with a competent income. 
 She had refused to accept of either. Failing to see me, 
 she had set off toward England, resolved upon seeing your- 
 self ; for the journals had stated that to England you had 
 escaped." 
 
 " She dared ! shameless ! And see, but a moment be- 
 fore, I had forgotten all but her grave in a foreign soil and 
 these tears had forgiven her," murmured the Italian.
 
 678 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 " Let them forgive her still," said Harley, with all his 
 exquisite sweetness of look and tone. "I resume. On en- 
 tering Switzerland, your wife's health, which you know was 
 always delicate, gave way. To fatigue and anxiety suc- 
 ceeded fever, and delirium ensued. She had taken with her 
 but this one female attendant the sole one she could trust 
 on leaving home. She suspected Peschiera to have bribed 
 her household. In the presence of this woman she raved 
 of her innocence in accents of terror and aversion, de- 
 nounced your kinsman and called on you to vindicate her 
 name and your own." 
 
 " Ravings indeed ! Poor Paulina ! " groaned Ricca- 
 bocca, covering his face with both hands. 
 
 "But in her delirium there were lucid intervals. In one 
 of these she rose, in spite of all her servant could do to re- 
 strain her, took from her desk several letters, and reading 
 them over, exclaimed piteously, ' But how to get them to 
 him ? whom to trust ? And his friend is gone ! ' Then an 
 idea seemed suddenly to flash upon her, for she uttered a 
 joyous exclamation, sat down, and wrote long and rapidly ; 
 enclosed what she wrote with all the letters, in one packet, 
 which she sealed carefully, and bade her servant carry to 
 the post, with many injunctions to take it with her own 
 hand, and pay the charge on it. ' For oh ! ' said she (I re- 
 peat the words as my informant told them to me) 'for, oh ! 
 this is my sole chance to prove to my husband that, though 
 I have erred, I am not the guilty thing he believes me : the 
 sole chance, too, to redeem my error, and restore, perhaps 
 to my husband his country, to my child her heritage.' The 
 servant took the letter to the post ; and when she returned, 
 her lady was asleep, with a smile upon her face. But from 
 that sleep, she woke again delirious, and before the next 
 morning her soul had fled." Here Riccabocca lifted one 
 hand from his face and grasped Harley's arm, as if mutely 
 beseeching him to pause. The heart of the man struggled 
 hard with his pride and his philosophy ; and it was long be- 
 fore Harley could lead him to regard the worldly prospects 
 which this last communication from his wife might open to 
 his ruined fortunes. Not, indeed, till Riccabocca had per- 
 suaded himself, and half-persuaded Harley (for strong, in- 
 deed, was all presumption of guilt against the dead) that his 
 wife's protestations of innocence from all but error had been 
 but ravings. 
 
 "Be this as it may," said Harley, "there seems every
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 679 
 
 reason to suppose that the letters enclosed were Peschiera's 
 correspondence, and that, if so, these would establish the 
 proof of his influence over your wife, and of his perfidious 
 machinations against yourself. I resolved, before coming 
 hither, to go round by Vienna. There I heard, with dismay, 
 that Peschiera had not only obtained the imperial sanction 
 to demand your daughter's hand, but had boasted to his 
 profligate circle that he should succeed ; and he was actually 
 on his road to England. I saw at once that could this de- 
 sign, by any fraud or artifice, be successful with Violante 
 (for of your consent, I need not say, I did not dream), the 
 discovery of the packet, whatever its contents, would be 
 useless : Peschiera's end would be secured. I saw also that 
 his success would suffice for ever to clear his name for 
 his success must imply your consent (it would be to disgrace 
 your daughter, to assert that she had married without it), 
 and your consent would be his acquittal. I saw, too, with 
 alarm, that to all means for the accomplishment of his pro- 
 ject he would be urged by despair ; for his debts are great, 
 and his character nothing but new wealth can support. I 
 knew that he was able, bold, determined, and that he had 
 taken with him a large supply of money borrowed upon 
 usury; in a word, I trembled for you both. I have now 
 seen your daughter, and 1 tremble no more. Accomplished 
 seducer as Peschiera boasts himself, the first look upon her 
 fp.ce, so sweet yet so noble, convinced me that she is proof 
 ngainst a legion of Peschieras. Now, then, return we to 
 this all-important subject to this packet. It never reached 
 you. Long years have passed since then. Does it exist 
 still ? Into whose hands would it have fallen ? Try to 
 summon up all your recollections. The servant could not 
 remember the name of the person to whom it was addressed ; 
 she only insisted that the name began with a B, that it was 
 directed to England, and that to England she accordingly 
 paid the postage. Whom then, with a name that begins 
 with B, or (in case the servant's memory here misled her) 
 whom did you or your wife know, during your visit to Eng- 
 land, with sufficient intimacy to make it probable that she 
 would select such a person for her confidant ? " 
 
 "I cannot conceive," said Riccabocca, shaking his head. 
 "We came to England shortly after our marriage. Paulina 
 was affected by the climate. She spoke not a word of English, 
 and indeed not even French, as might have been expected 
 from her birth, for her father was poor, and thoroughly
 
 68o MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 Italian. She refused all society. I went, it is true, some- 
 what into the London world enough to induce me to 
 shrink from the contrast that my second visit as a beggared 
 refugee would have made to the reception I met with on my 
 first ; but I formed no intimate friendships. I recall no one 
 whom she could have written to as intimate with me." 
 
 "But," persisted Harley, "think again. Was there no 
 lady well acquainted with Italian, and with whom, perhaps, 
 for that very reason, your wife became familiar?" 
 
 " Ah, it is true. There was one old lady of retired hab- 
 its, but who had been much in Italy. Lady Lady I re- 
 memberLady Jane Horton." 
 
 " Horton Lady Jane ! " exclaimed Harley ; " again ! 
 thrice in one day is this wound never to scar over ? " 
 Then, noting Riccabocca's look of surprise, he said, " Ex- 
 cuse me, my friend ; I listen to you with renewed interest. 
 Lady Jane was a distant relation of my own ; she judged 
 me, perhaps, harshly and I have some painful associations 
 with her name ; but she was a woman of many virtues. 
 Your wife knew her ?" 
 
 " Not, however, intimately still, better than any one 
 else in London. But Paulina would not have written to 
 her ; she knew that Lady Jane had died shortly after her 
 own departure from England. I myself was summoned 
 back to Italy on pressing business ; she was too unwell to 
 journey with me as rapidly as I was obliged to travel ; 
 indeed, illness detained her several weeks in England. In 
 this interval she might have made acquaintances. Ah, 
 now I see ; I guess. You say the name began with B. 
 Paulina, in my absence, engaged a companion a Mrs. 
 Bertram. This lady accompanied her abroad. Paulina 
 became excessively attached to her, she knew Italian so 
 well. Mrs. Bertram left, her on the road and returned to 
 England, for some private affairs of her own. I forget why 
 or wherefore ; if, indeed, I ever asked or learned. Paulina 
 missed her sadly, often talked of her, wondered why she 
 never heard from her. No doubt it was to this Mrs. Ber- 
 tram that she wrote ! " 
 
 " And you don't know the lady's friends, or address ? " 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Nor who recommended her to your wife ? " 
 
 "No." 
 
 " Probably Lady Jane Horton ? " 
 
 " It may be so. Very likely."
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 68 1 
 
 " I will follow up this track, slight as it is." 
 
 " But if Mrs. Bertram received the communication, how 
 comes it that it never reached myself O, fool that I am, 
 how should it ! I, who guarded so carefully my incognito ! " 
 
 "True. This your wife could not foresee ; she would 
 naturally imagine that your residence in England would be 
 easily discovered. But many years must have passed since 
 your wife lost sight of this Mrs. Bertram, if their acquaint- 
 ance was made soon after your marriage ; and now it is a 
 long time to retrace before even your Violante was born." 
 
 " Alas ! yes. I lost two fair sons in the interval. Vio- 
 lante was born to me as a child of sorrow." 
 
 "And to make sorrow lovely ! how beautiful she is ! " 
 
 The father smiled proudly. 
 
 " Where, in the loftiest houses of Europe, find a hus- 
 band worthy of such a prize ? " 
 
 " You forget that I am still an exile she still dower- 
 less. You forget that I am pursued by Peschiera ; that I 
 would rather see her a beggar's wife than Pah, the very 
 thought maddens me, it is so foul. Corpo di Bacco ! I have 
 been glad to find her a husband already." 
 
 " Already ! Then that young man spoke truly ? " 
 
 "What young man ? '' 
 
 "Randal Leslie. How! you know him?" Here a 
 brief explanation followed. Harlev heard with attentive 
 ear, and marked vexation, the particulars of Riccabocca's 
 connection and implied engagement with Leslie. 
 
 "There is something very suspicious to me in all this," 
 said he. " Why should this young man have so sounded 
 me as to Violante's chance of losing fortune if she married 
 an Englishman ? " 
 
 " Did he ? O, pooh ! excuse him. It was but his nat- 
 ural wish to seem ignorant of all about me. He did not 
 know enough of my intimacy with you to betray my secret." 
 
 " But he knew enough of it must have known enough 
 to have made it right that he should tell you I was in 
 England. He does not seem to have done so." 
 
 " No that is strange yet scarcely strange ; for, when 
 we last met, his head was full of other things love and 
 marriage. Basta! youth will be youth." 
 
 "He has no youth left in him!" exclaimed Harley, 
 
 passionately. " I doubt if he ever had any. He is one of 
 
 those men who come into the world with the pulse of a 
 
 centenarian. You and I never shall be as old as he was 
 
 29*
 
 682 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 in long-clothes. Ah, you may laugh ; but I am never 
 wrong in my instincts. I disliked him at the first his eye, 
 his smile, his voice, his very footstep. It is madness in 
 you to countenance such a marriage ; it may destroy all 
 chance of your restoration." 
 
 " Better that than infringe my word once passed." 
 
 " No, no," exclaimed Harley ; " your word is not passed 
 it shall not be passed. Nay, never look so piteously at 
 me. At all events, pause till we know more of this young 
 man. If he be worthy of her without a dower, why, then, let 
 him lose you your heritage ? I should have no more to say. " 
 
 "But why lose me my heritage? There is no law in 
 Austria which can dictate to a father what husband to 
 choose for his daughter." 
 
 "Certainly not. But you are out of the pale of law 
 itself just at present ; and it would surely be a reason for 
 state policy to withhold your pardon, and it would be to the 
 loss of that favor with your own countrymen, which would 
 now make that pardon so popular, if it were known that 
 the representative of your name were debased by your 
 daughter's alliance with an English adventurer a clerk in 
 a public office ! O, sage in theory, why are you such a 
 simpleton in action ? " 
 
 Nothing moved by this taunt, Riccabocca rubbed his 
 hands, and then spread them comfortably over the fire. 
 
 "My friend," said he, "the representation of my name 
 would pass to my son." 
 
 " But you have no son ? " 
 
 " Hush ! I am going to have one ; my Jemima informed 
 me of it yesterday morning ; and it was upon that informa- 
 tion that I resolved to speak to Leslie. Am I a simpleton 
 now ? " 
 
 " Going to have a son," repeated Harley, looking very 
 bewildered ; " how do you know it is to be a son ?" 
 
 " Physiologists are agreed," said the sage, positively, 
 " that where the husband is much older than the wife, and 
 there has been a long interval without children before she 
 c ondescends to increase the population of the world she 
 (that is, it is at least as nine to four) she brings into the 
 world a male. I consider that point, therefore, as settled, 
 to according the calculations of statisticians and the re- 
 searches of naturalists." 
 
 Harley could not help laughing, though he was still 
 angry and disturbed.
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 683 
 
 "The same man as ever ; always the fool of philosophy." 
 
 " Cospetto ! " said Riccabocca. " I am rather the phi- 
 losopher of fools. And talking of that, shall I present you 
 to my Jemima ?" 
 
 " Yes ; but in turn I must present you to one who re- 
 members with gratitude your kindness, and whom your 
 philosophy, for a wonder, has not ruined. Some time or 
 other you must explain that to me. Excuse me for a mo- 
 ment ; I will go for him." 
 
 " For him ; for whom ? In my position I must be cau- 
 tious and 
 
 " I will answer for his faith and discretion. Meanwhile, 
 order dinner, and let me and my friend stay to share it." 
 
 " Dinner ? Corpo di Bacco ! not that Bacchus can help 
 us here. What will Jemima say ? " 
 
 " Henpecked man, settle that with your connubial ty- 
 rant. But dinner it must be." 
 
 I leave the reader to imagine the delight of Leonard at 
 seeing once more Riccabocca unchanged, and Violante so 
 improved; and the kind Jemima too. And their wonder 
 at him and his history, his books and his fame. He nar- 
 rated his struggles and adventures with a simplicity that 
 removed from a story so personal the character of egotism. 
 But when he came to speak of Helen, he was brief and re- 
 served. 
 
 Violante would have questioned more closely ; but, to 
 Leonard's relief, Harley interposed. 
 
 "You shall see her whom he speaks of before long, and 
 question her yourself." 
 
 With these words, Harley turned the young man's narra- 
 tive into new directions ; and Leonard's words again flowed 
 freely. Thus the evening passed away happily to all save 
 Riccabocca. For the thought of his dead wife rose ever 
 and anon before the exile ; but when it did, and became 
 too painful, he crept nearer to Jemima, and looked in her 
 simple face, and pressed her cordial hand. And yet the 
 monster had implied to Harley that his comforter was a 
 fool so she was, to love so contemptible a slanderer of her- 
 self and her sex. 
 
 Violante was in a state of blissful excitement ; she could 
 not analyze her own joy. But her conversation was chiefly 
 with Leonard ; and the most silent of all was Harley. He 
 sat listening to Leonard's warm, yet unpretending elo- 
 quence that eloquence which flows so naturally from
 
 6S 4 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 genius, when thoroughly at its ease, and not chilled back 
 on itself by hard, unsympathizing hearers listened, yet 
 more charmed, to the sentiments less profound, yet no less 
 earnest sentiments so feminine, yet so noble, with which 
 Violante's fresh, virgin heart responded to the poet's kin- 
 dling soul. Those sentiments of hers were so unlike all he 
 heard in the common world so akin to himself in his gone 
 youth ! Occasionally at some high thought of her own, 
 or some lofty line from Italian song, that she cited with 
 lighted eyes, and in melodious accents occasionally he 
 reared his knightly head, and his lip quivered, as if he had 
 heard the sound of a trumpet. The inertness of long years 
 was shaken. The Heroic, that lay deep beneath all the 
 humors of his temperament, was reached, appealed to ; and 
 stirred within him, rousing up all the bright associations 
 connected with it, and long dormant. When he arose to 
 take leave, surprised at the lateness of the hour, Harley 
 said, in a tone that bespoke the sincerity of the compliment, 
 " I thank you for the happiest hours I have known for 
 years." His eye dwelt on Violante as he spoke. But 
 timidity returned to her with his words at his look ; and 
 it was no longer the inspired muse, but the bashful girl that 
 stood before him. 
 
 " And when shall I see you again ? " asked Riccabocca, 
 disconsolately, following his guest to the door. 
 
 " When ? Why, of course, to-morrow. Adieu ! my 
 friend. No wonder you have borne your exile so patiently, 
 with such a child ! " 
 
 He took Leonard's arm, and walked with him to the inn 
 where he had left his horse. Leonard spoke of Violante 
 with enthusiasm. Harlev was silent. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE next day a somewhat old-fashioned, but exceedingly 
 patrician, equipage stopped at Riccabocca's garden-gate. 
 Giacomo, who, from a bed-room window, had caught sight 
 of its winding toward the house, was seized with undefinable 
 terror when he beheld it pause before their walls, and heard 
 the shrill summons at the portal. He rushed into his mas- 
 ter's presence, and implored him not to stir not to allow
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 685 
 
 any one to give ingress to the enemies the machine might 
 disgorge. "I have heard," said he, "how a town in Italy 
 I think it was Bologna was once taken and given up to 
 the sword, by incautiously admitting a wooden horse, full 
 of the troops of Barbarossa, and all manner of bombs and 
 Congreve rockets." 
 
 "The story is differently told in Virgil," quoth Ricca- 
 bocca, peeping out of the window. " Nevertheless, the 
 machine looks very large and suspicious ; unloose Pompey." 
 
 "Father," said Violante, coloring, " it is your friend 
 Lord L'Estrange ; I hear his voice." 
 
 " Are you sure ? " 
 
 " Quite. How can I be mistaken ? " 
 
 " Go then, Giacomo ; but take Pompey with thee and 
 give the alarm if we are deceived." 
 
 But Violante was right ; and in a few moments Lord 
 L'Estrange was seen walking up the garden, and giving the 
 arm to two ladies. 
 
 " Ah," said Riccabocca, composing his dressing-robe 
 around him, "go, my child, and summon Jemima. Man 
 to man ; but, for Heaven's sake, woman to woman." 
 
 Harley had brought his mother and Helen, in compli- 
 ment to the ladies of his friend's household. 
 
 The proud Countess knew that she was in the presence 
 of Adversity, and her salute to Riccabocca was only less re- 
 spectful than that by which she would have rendered homage 
 to her sovereign. But Riccabocca, always gallant to the 
 sex that he pretended to despise, was not to be outdone in 
 ceremony ; and the bow which replied to the curtsey would 
 have edified the rising generation, and delighted such sur- 
 viving relics of the old Court breeding as may linger yet 
 amidst the gloomy pomp of the Faubourg St. Germain. 
 These dues paid to etiquette, the Countess briefly intro- 
 duced Helen as Miss Digby, and seated herself near the 
 exile. In a few moments the two elder personages be- 
 came quite at home with each other ; and, really, perhaps 
 Riccabocca had never, since we have known him, showed 
 to sucli advantage as by the side of his polished, but some- 
 what formal visitor. Both had lived so little with our mod- 
 ern ill-bred age ! They took out their manners of a 
 former race, with a sort of pride in airing once more such 
 fine lace and superb brocade. Riccabocca gave truce to 
 the shrewd but homely wisdom of his proverbs perhaps 
 he remembered that Lord Chesterfield denounces proverbs
 
 686 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 as vulgar ; and gaunt though his figure, and far from 
 elegant though his dressing-robe, there was that about him 
 which spoke undeniably of the grand seigneur of one to 
 whom a Marquis de Dangeau would have offered a.fauteuil 
 by the side of the Rohans and Montmorencies. 
 
 Meanwhile Helen and Harley seated themselves a little 
 apart, and were both silent the first, from timidity, the 
 second from abstraction. At length the door opened, and 
 Harley suddenly sprang to his feet Violante and Jemima 
 entered. Lady Lansmere's eyes first rested on the daugh- 
 ter, and she could scarcely refrain from an exclamation of 
 admiring surprise ; but then, when she caught sight of Mrs. 
 Riccabocca's somewhat humble, yet not obsequious mien 
 looking a little shy, a little homely, yet still thoroughly a 
 gentlewoman (though of your plain rural kind of that 
 genus) she turned from the daughter, and with the s'avoir 
 vivre of the fine old school, paid her first respects to the 
 wife ; respects literally, for her manner implied respect, 
 but it was more kind, simple, and cordial than the respect 
 she had shown to Riccabocca ; as the sage himself had 
 said, here " it was Woman to Woman." And then she took 
 Violante's hand in both hers, and gazed on her as if she 
 could not resist the pleasure of contemplating so much 
 beauty. "My son," she said, softly, and with a half-sigh 
 "my son in vain told me not to be surprised. This is the 
 first time I have ever known reality exceed description ! " 
 
 Violante's blush here made her still more beautiful ; and 
 as the Countess returned to Riccabocca, she stole gently to 
 Helen's side. 
 
 " Miss Digby, my ward," said Harley, pointedly, observ- 
 ing that his mother had neglected her duty of presenting 
 Helen to the ladies. He then reseated himself, and con- 
 versed with Mrs. Riccabocca ; but his bright quick eye 
 glanced over at the two girls. They were about the same 
 age and youth was all that, to the superficial eye, they 
 seemed to have in common. A greater contrast could not 
 well be conceived ; and, what is strange, both gained by it. 
 Violante's brilliant loveliness seemed yet more dazzling, 
 and Helen's fair gentle face yet more winning. Neither 
 had mixed much with girls of her own age ; each took to 
 the other at first sight. Violante, as the less shy, began 
 the conversation. 
 
 "You are his ward Lord L'Estrange's ?" 
 
 "Yes."
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 687 
 
 " Perhaps you came with him from Italy ? " 
 
 " No, not exactly. But I have been in Italy for some 
 years." 
 
 " Ah ! you regret nay, I am foolish you return to your 
 native land. But the skies in Italy are so blue here it 
 seems as if nature wanted colors." 
 
 " Lord L'Estrange says that you were very young when 
 you left Italy ; you remember it well. He, too, prefers Italy 
 to England." 
 
 " He ! Impossible ! " 
 
 " Why impossible, fair sceptic ? " cried Harley, inter- 
 rupting himself in the midst of a speech to Jemima. 
 
 Violante had not dreamed that she could be overheard 
 she was speaking low ; but, though vividly embarrassed, 
 she answered distinctly 
 
 " Because in England there is the noblest career for no- 
 ble minds." 
 
 Harley was startled, and replied, with a slight sigh, 
 "At your age I should have said as you do. But this Eng- 
 land of ours is so crowded with noble minds, that they only 
 jostle each other, and the career is one cloud of dust." 
 
 " So, I have read, seems a battle to a common soldier, 
 but not to the chief." 
 
 " You have read good descriptions of battles, I see." 
 
 Mrs. Riccabocca, who thought this remark a taunt upon 
 her step-daughter's studies, hastened to Violante's relief. 
 
 " Her papa made her read the history of Italy, and I be- 
 lieve that is full of battles. " 
 
 HARLEY. All history is, and all women are fond of war 
 and of warriors. I wonder why ? 
 
 VIOLANTE (turning to Helen, and in a very low voice, 
 resolved that Harley should not hear this time). We can 
 guess why can we not ? 
 
 HARLEY (hearing every word, as if it had been spoken in 
 St. Paul's Whispering Gallery). If you can guess, Helen, 
 pray tell me. 
 
 HELEN (shaking her pretty head, and answering, with a 
 livelier smile than usual). But I am not fond of war and 
 warriors. 
 
 HARLEY (to Violante). Then I must appeal at once to 
 you, self-convicted Bellona that you are. Is it from the 
 cruelty natural to the fenrale disposition ? 
 
 VIOLANTE (with a sweet musical laugh). From two pro- 
 pensities still more natural to it.
 
 6S8 MY *tiOVEL; OR, 
 
 HARLEY. You puzzle me : what can they be ? 
 
 VIOLANTE Pity and admiration ; we pity the weak and 
 admire the brave. 
 
 Harley inclined his head, and was silent. 
 
 Lady Lansmere had suspended her conversation with 
 Riccabocca to listen to this dialogue. "Charming!" she 
 cried. " You have explained what has often perplexed me. 
 Ah, Harley, I am glad to see that your satire is foiled ; you 
 have no reply to that." 
 
 "No ; I willingly own myself defeated, too glad to claim 
 the Signorina's pity, since my cavalry-sword hangs on the 
 wall, and I can have no longer a professional pretence to 
 her admiration." 
 
 He then rose, and glanced toward the window. " But I 
 see a more formidable disputant for my conqueror to en- 
 counter is coming into the field one whose profession it is 
 to substitute some other romance for that of camp and siege." 
 
 " Our friend Leonard," said Riccabocca, turning his 
 eyes also toward the window. "True; as Quevedo says 
 wittily, ' Ever since there has been so great a demand for 
 type, there has been much less lead to spare for cannon- 
 balls.' " 
 
 Here Leonard entered. Harley had sent Lady Lans- 
 mere's footman to him with a note, that prepared him to 
 meet Helen. As he came into the room, Harley took him 
 by the hand and led him to Lady Lansmere. 
 
 " The friend of whom I spoke. Welcome him now for 
 my sake, ever after for his own ; " and then, scarcely allow- 
 ing time for the Countess's elegant and gracious response, 
 he drew Leonard toward Helen. " Children," said he, with 
 a touching voice, that thrilled through the hearts of both, 
 "go and seat yourselves yonder, and talk together of the 
 past. Signorina, I invite you to renewed discussion upon 
 the abstruse metaphysical subject you have started ; let us 
 see if we cannot find gentler sources for pity and admira- 
 tion than war and warriors." He took Violante aside to 
 the window. "You remember that Leonard, in telling you 
 his history last night, spoke, you thought rather too briefly, 
 of the little girl who had been his companion in the rudest 
 time of his trials. When you would have questioned more, 
 I interrupted you, and said, 'You should see her shortly, 
 and question her yourself.' And- now what think you .of 
 Helen Digby ? Hush, speak low. But her ears are not so 
 sharp as mine."
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 689 
 
 VIOLANTE. Ah ! that is the fair creature whom Leonard 
 called his child-angel ? What a lovely innocent face ! the 
 angel is there still. 
 
 HARLEY (pleased both at the praise and with her who 
 gave it). You think so ; and you are right. Helen is not 
 communicative. But fine natures are like fine poems, a 
 glance at the first two lines suffices for a guess into the 
 beauty that waits you if you read on. 
 
 Violante gazed on Leonard and Helen, as they sat apart. 
 Leonard was the speaker, Helen the listener ; and though 
 the former had, in his narrative the night before, been in- 
 deed brief as to the episode in his life connected with the 
 orphan, enough had been said to interest Violante in the 
 pathos of their former position toward each other, and in 
 the happiness they must feel in their meeting again sepa- 
 rated for years on the wide sea of life, now both saved from 
 the storm and shipwreck. The tears came into her eyes. 
 " True," she said, very softly, " there is more here to move 
 pity and admiration than in " She paused. 
 
 HARLEY. Complete the sentence. Are you ashamed to 
 retract ? Fie on your pride and obstinacy. 
 
 VIOLANTE. No ; but even here there have been war and 
 heroism the war of genius with adversity, and heroism in 
 the comforter who shared it and consoled. Ah ! wherever 
 pity and admiration are both felt, something nobler than 
 mere sorrow must have gone before ; the heroic must exist. 
 
 " Helen does not know what the word heroic means," 
 said Harley, rather sadly ; "you must teach her." 
 
 "Is it possible," thought he, as he spoke, "that a Ran- 
 dal Leslie could have charmed this grand creature ? No 
 'Heroic,' surely, in that sleek young placeman." "Your 
 father," he said aloud, and fixing his eyes on her face, 
 " sees much, he tells me, of a young man about Leonard's 
 age, as to date ; but I never estimate the age of men by the 
 parish register ; and I should speak of that so-called young 
 man as a contemporary of my great-grandfather ; I mean 
 Mr. Randal Leslie. Do you like him ?" 
 
 " Like him ?" said Violante, slowly, as if sounding her 
 own mind " Like him ? yes." 
 
 "Why ? " asked Harley, with dry and curt indignation. 
 
 " His visits seem to please my dear father. Certainly I 
 like him." 
 
 " Hum. He professes to like you, I suppose ?" 
 
 Violante laughed unsuspiciously. She had half a mind
 
 690 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 to reply, "Is that so strange ?" But her respect for Har- 
 ley stopped her. The words would have seemed to her 
 pert. 
 
 " I am told he is clever," resumed Harley. 
 
 " O, certainly." 
 
 "And he is rather handsome. But I like Leonard's face 
 better." 
 
 ' Better that is not the word. Leonard's face is as 
 that of one Who has gazed so often upon Heaven ; and Mr. 
 Leslie's there is neither sunlight nor starlight reflected 
 there." 
 
 " My dear Violante ! " exclaimed Harley, overjoyed ; and 
 he pressed her hand. 
 
 The blood rushed over the girl's cheek and brow ; her 
 hand trembled in his. But Harley's familiar exclamation 
 might have come from a father's lips. 
 
 At that moment Helen softly approached them, and 
 looking timidly into her guardian's face, said, " Leonard's 
 mother is with him : he asks me to call and see her. May 
 I?" 
 
 " May you ! A pretty notion the Signorina must form 
 of your enslaved state of pupilage, when she hears you 
 ask that question. Of course you may." 
 
 " Will you come with us ? " 
 
 Harley looked embarrassed. Fie thought of the widow's 
 agitation at his name ; of that desire to shun him, which 
 Leonard had confessed, and of which he thought he had 
 divined the cause. And so divining, he, too, shrank from 
 such a meeting. 
 
 " Another time, then," said he, after a pause. 
 
 Helen looked disappointed, but said no more. 
 
 Violante was surprised at this ungracious answer. She 
 would have blamed it as unfeeling in another. But all 
 that Harley did was right in her eyes. 
 
 "Cannot I go with Miss Digby ? " said she; "and my 
 mother will go too. We both know Mrs. Fairfielcl. We 
 shall be so pleased to see her again." 
 
 " So be it," said Harley ; " I will wait here with your 
 father till you come back. O, as to my mother, she will 
 excuse the excuse Madame Riccabocca, and you too. 
 See how charmed she is with your father. I must stay to 
 watch over the conjugal interests of mine." 
 
 But Mrs. Riccabocca had too much good old country 
 breeding to leave the Countess ; and Harley was forced
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 691 
 
 himself to appeal to Lady Lansmere. When he had ex- 
 plained the case in point, the Countess rose, and said, 
 
 " But I will call myself with Miss Digby." 
 
 " No," said Harley, gravely, but in a whisper " no I 
 would rather not. I will explain later." 
 
 " Then," said the Countess aloud, after a glance of sur- 
 prise at her son, " I must insist on your performing this 
 visit, my dear madam, and you, Signorina. In truth, I have 
 something to say confidentially to " 
 
 "To me!" interrupted Riccabocca. "Ah, Madame la 
 Comtesse, you restore me to five-and-twenty. Go, quick 
 O jealous and injured wife ; go, both of you quick ; and 
 you too, Harley." 
 
 "Nay," said Lady Lansmere, in the same tone, " Harley 
 must stay, for my design is not at present upon destroying 
 your matrimonial happiness, whatever it may be later. It 
 is a design so innocent, that my son will be a partner in 
 it." 
 
 Here the Countess put her lips to Harley's ear, and 
 whispered. He received her communication in attentive 
 silence ; but when she had done, pressed her hand, and 
 bowed his head, as if in assent to a proposal. 
 
 In a few minutes the three ladies and Leonard were on 
 their road to the neighboring cottage. 
 
 Violante, with her usual delicate intuition, thought that 
 Leonard and Helen must have much to say to each other ; 
 and (ignorant, as Leonard himself was, of Helen's engage- 
 ment to Harley) began already, in the romance natural to 
 her age, to predict for them happy and united days in the 
 future. So she took her step-mother's arm, and left Helen 
 and Leonard to follow. 
 
 "I wonder," she said, musingly, "how Miss Digby be- 
 came Lord L'Estrange's ward. I hope she is not very rich, 
 nor very high-born." 
 
 " La, my love," said the good Jemima, " that is not like 
 you ; you are not envious of her, poor girl ?" 
 
 " Envious ! Dear mamma, what a word ! But don't 
 you think Leonard and Miss Digby seem born for each 
 other ? And then the recollections of their childhood the 
 thoughts of childhood are so deep, and its memories so 
 strangely soft ! " The long lashes drooped over Violante's 
 musing eyes as she spoke. " And therefore," she said, after 
 a pause " therefore I hoped that Miss Digby might not be 
 very rich nor very high-born."
 
 692 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 " I understand you now, Violante," exclaimed Jemima, 
 her own early passion for match-making instantly return- 
 ing to her; "for as Leonard, however clever and distin- 
 guished, is still the son of Mark Fairfield, the carpenter, it 
 would spoil all, if Miss Digby was, as you say, rich and high- 
 born. I agree with you a very pretty match a very 
 pretty match, indeed. I wish dear Mrs. Dale were here 
 now she is so clever in settling such matters." 
 
 Meanwhile Leonard and Helen walked side by side a 
 few paces in the rear. He had not offered her his arm. 
 They had been silent hitherto since they left Riccabocca's 
 house. 
 
 Helen now spoke first. In similiar cases it is generally 
 the woman, be she ever so timid, who does speak first. 
 And here Helen was the bolder ; for Leonard did not dis- 
 guise from himself the nature of his feelings, and Helen 
 was engaged to another ; and her pure heart was fortified 
 by the trust reposed in it. 
 
 " And have you ever heard more of the good Dr. Mor- 
 gan, who had powders against sorrow, and who meant to be 
 so kind to us though," she added, coloring, "we did not 
 think so then ? " 
 
 " He took my child-angel from me," said Leonard, with 
 visible emotion ; " and if she had not returned, where and 
 "what should I be now ? But I have forgiven him. No, I 
 have never met him since." 
 
 "And that terrible Mr. Burley ? " 
 
 "Poor, poor Burley! He, too, is vanished out of my 
 present life. I have made many inquiries after him ; all I 
 can hear is that he went abroad, supposed as a correspond- 
 ent to some journal. I shall like so much to see him again, 
 now that perhaps I could help him as he helped me." 
 
 " Helped you ah ! " 
 
 Leonard smiled with a beating heart, as he saw again 
 the dear prudent, warning look, and involuntarily drew 
 closer to Helen. She seemed more restored to him and to 
 her former self. 
 
 " Helped me much by his instructions ; more, perhaps, 
 by his very faults. Yu cannot guess, Helen, I beg par- 
 don, Miss Digby but I forgot that we are no longer chil- 
 dren : you cannot guess how much we men, and more than 
 all perhaps, we writers, whose task it is to unravel the web 
 of human actions, owe even to our own past errors ; and 
 if we learned nothing by the errors of others, we should
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 693 
 
 be dull indeed. We must know where the roads divide, 
 and have marked where they lead to, before we can erect 
 our sign-post ; and books are the sign-posts in human 
 life." 
 
 " Books ! and I have not yet read yours. And Lord 
 L'Estrange tells me you are famous now. Yet you remem- 
 ber me still the poor orphan child, whom you first saw 
 weeping at her father's grave, and with whom you burdened 
 your own young life, over-burdened already. No, still call 
 me Helen you must always be to me a brother ! Lord 
 L'Estrange feels that ; he said so to me when he told me 
 that we were to meet again. He is so generous, so noble. 
 Brother ! " cried Helen, suddenly, and extending her hand, 
 with a sweet but sublime look in her gentle face " brother, 
 we will never forfeit his esteem ; we will both do our best 
 to repay him ! Will we not ? say so ! " 
 
 Leonard felt overpowered by contending and unanalyzed 
 emotions. Touched almost to tears by the affectionate ad- 
 dress thrilled by the hand that pressed his own and yet 
 with a vague fear, a consciousness that something more 
 than the words themselves was implied something that 
 checked all hope. And this word " brother," once so pre- 
 cious and so dear, why did he shrink from it now ? why 
 could he not too say the sweet word " sister ? " 
 
 "She is above me now and evermore !" .he thought, 
 mournfully ; and the tones of his voice, when he spoke 
 again, were changed. The appeal to renewed intimacy but 
 made him more distant ; and to that appeal itself he made 
 no direct answer; for Mrs. Riccabocca, now turning round, 
 and pointing to the cottage which came in view, with its 
 picturesque gable-ends, cried out 
 
 " But is that your house, Leonard? I never saw any- 
 thing so pretty." 
 
 " You do not remember it then," said Leonard to Helen, 
 in accents of melancholy reproach "there where I saw you 
 last ! I doubted whether to keep it exactly as it was, and I 
 said, ' No ! the association is not changed because we try to 
 surround it with whatever beauty we can create ; the dearer 
 the association, the more the Beautiful becomes to it natu- 
 ral.' Perhaps you don't understand this perhaps it is 
 only we poor poets who do." 
 
 " I understand it," said Helen, gently. She looked 
 wistfully at the cottage. 
 
 " So changed I have so often pictured it to myself
 
 694 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 never, never like this ; yet I loved it, common-place as it 
 was to my recollection ; and the garret, and the tree in the 
 carpenter's yard." 
 
 She did not give these thoughts utterance. And they 
 now entered the garden. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 MRS. FAIRFIELD was a proud woman when she received 
 Mrs. Riccabocca and Violante in her grand house ; for a 
 grand house to her was that cottage to which her boy 
 Lenny had brought her home. Proud, indeed, ever was 
 Widow Fail-field ; but she thought then in her secret heart, 
 that if ever she could receive in the drawing-room of that 
 grand house the great Mrs. Hazeldean, who had so lectured 
 her for refusing to live any longer in the humble tenement 
 rented of the Squire, the cup of human bliss would be filled, 
 and she could contentedly die of the pride of it. She did 
 not much notice Helen her attention was too absorbed by 
 the ladies who renewed their old acquaintance with her, 
 and she carried them all over the house, yea, into the very 
 kitchen ; and so, somehow or other, there was a short time 
 when Helen and Leonard found themselves alone. It was 
 in the study. Helen had unconsciously seated herself in 
 Leonard's own chair, and she was gazing with anxious and 
 wistful interest on the scattered papers, looking so disor- 
 derly (though, in truth, in that disorder there was method, 
 but method only known to the owner), and at the venera- 
 ble well-worn books, in all languages, lying on the floor, on 
 the chairs anywhere. I must confess that Helen's first 
 tidy woman-like idea was a great desire to arrange the litter. 
 " Poor Leonard," she thought to herself " the rest of the 
 house so neat, but no one to take care of his own room and 
 of him ! " 
 
 As if he divined her thought, Leonard smiled and said, 
 " It would be a cruel kindness to the spider, if the gentlest 
 hand in the world tried to set its cobweb to-rights. " 
 
 HELEN. You were not quite so bad in the old days. 
 
 LEONARD. Yet even then, you were obliged to take care 
 of the money. I have more books now, and more money.
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 695 
 
 My present housekeeper lets me take care of the books, but 
 she is less indulgent as to the money. 
 
 HELEN (archly). Are you as absent as ever? 
 
 LEONARD. Much more so, I fear ; the habit is incor- 
 rigible. Miss Digby 
 
 HELEN. Not Miss Digby sister, if you like. 
 
 LEONARD (evading the word that implied so forbidden an 
 affinity). Helen, will you grant me a favor? Your eyes 
 and your smile say, " yes." Will you lay aside, for one 
 minute, your shawl and bonnet? What! can you be sur- 
 prised that I ask it ? Can you not understand that I wish 
 for one minute to think that you are at home again under 
 this roof ? 
 
 Helen cast down her eyes, and seemed troubled ; then 
 she raised them, with a soft angelic candor in their dove- 
 like blue, and, as if in shelter from all thoughts of more 
 warm affection, again murmured "brother" and did as he 
 asked her. 
 
 So there she sate, amongst the dull books, by his table, 
 near the open window her fair hair parted on her fore- 
 head looking so good, so calm, so happy ! Leonard won- 
 dered at his own self-command. His heart yearned to her 
 with such inexpressible love his lips so longed to murmur 
 "Ah, as now so could it be forever! Is the home too 
 mean?" But that word "brother" was as a talisman be- 
 tween her and him. 
 
 Yet she looked so at home perhaps so at home she felt ! 
 more certainly than she had yet learned to do in that stiff 
 stately house in which she was soon to have a daughter's 
 rights. Was she suddenly made aware of this, that she so 
 suddenly arose, and with a look of alarm and distress on her 
 face 
 
 " But we are keeping Lady Lansmere too long," she 
 said, falteringly. " We must go now," and she hastily took 
 up her shawl and bonnet. 
 
 Just then Mrs. Fairfield entered with the visitors, and 
 began making excuses for inattention to Miss Digby, whose 
 identity with Leonard's child-angel she had not yet learned. 
 
 Helen received these apologies with her usual sweetness. 
 " Nay," she said, " your son and I are such old friends, how 
 could you stand on ceremony with me ? " 
 
 " Old friends ! " Mrs. Fairfield stared amazed, and then 
 surveyed the fair speaker more curiously than she had yet 
 done. " Pretty nice-spoken thing," thought the widow ;
 
 696 MY NOVEL; OK, 
 
 "as nice-spoken as Miss Violante, and humbler-looking like 
 though, as to dress, I never see anything so elegant out 
 of a picter." 
 
 Helen now appropriated Mrs. Riccabocca's arm ; and, 
 after a kind leave-taking with the widow, the ladies returned 
 toward Riceabocca's house. 
 
 Mrs. Fairfield, however, ran after them with Leonard's 
 hat and gloves, which he had forgotten. 
 
 "'Deed, boy," she said, kindly, yet scoldingly, "but 
 there'd be no more fine books, if the Lord had not fixed 
 your head on your shoulders. You would not think it, 
 inarm," she added to Mrs. Riccabocca, "but sin' he has left 
 you, he's not the 'cute lad he was ; very helpless at times, 
 marm ! " 
 
 Helen could not resist turning round, and looking at 
 Leonard, with a sly smile. 
 
 The widow saw the smile, and catching Leonard by the 
 arm, whispered, " But, where before have you seen that 
 pretty young lady ? Old friends ! " 
 
 "Ah, mother," said Leonard, sadly, "it is a long tale ; 
 you have heard the beginning who can guess the end ? " 
 and he escaped. But Helen still leant on the arm of Mrs. 
 Riccabocca, and, in the walk back, it seemed to Leonard as 
 if the winter had re-settled in the sky. 
 
 Yet he was by the side of Violante, and she spoke to him 
 with such praise of Helen ! Alas ! it is not always so sweet 
 as folks say, to hear the praises of one we love. Sometimes 
 those praises seem to ask ironically, " And what right hast 
 thou to hope because thou lovest ? All love her." 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 No sooner had Lady Lansmere found herself alone with 
 Riccabocca and Harley, than she laid her hand on the exile's 
 arm, and, addressing him by a title she had not before given 
 him, and from which he appeared to shrink nervously, said 
 " Harley, in bringing me to visit you, was forced to reveal 
 to me your incognito, for I should have discovered it. You 
 may not remember me, in spite of your gallantry. But I 
 mixed more in the world than I do now, during your first 
 visit to England, and once sate next to you at dinner at
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 697 
 
 Carlton House. Nay, no compliments, but listen to me. 
 Harley tells me you have cause for some alarm respecting 
 the designs of an audacious and unprincipled adventurer, I 
 may call him ; for adventurers are of all ranks. Suffer your 
 daughter to come to me, on a visit, as long as you please. 
 With me, at least, she will be safe ; and if you too, and 
 the " 
 
 "Stop, my dear madam," interrupted Riccabocca, with 
 great vivacity, " your kindness overpowers me. I thank you 
 most gratefully for your invitation to my child ; but " 
 
 " Nay," in his turn interrupted Harley, " no buts. I 
 was not aware of my mother's intention when she entered 
 this room. But since she whispered it to me, I have reflected 
 on it, and am convinced that it is but a prudent precaution. 
 Your retreat is known to Mr. Leslie he is known to Pes- 
 chiera. Grant that no indiscretion of Mr. Leslie's betrays 
 the secret ; still I have reason to believe that the Count 
 guesses Randal's acquaintance with you. Audley Egerton 
 this morning told me he had gathered that, not from the 
 young man himself, but from questions put to himself by 
 Madame di Negra ; and Peschiera might, and would, set 
 spies to track Leslie to every house that he visits might 
 and would, still more naturally, set spies to track myself. 
 Were this man an Englishman, I should laugh at his machina- 
 tions ; but he is an Italian, and has been a conspirator. 
 What he could do I know not ; but an assassin can penetrate 
 into a camp, and a traitor can creep through closed walls to 
 one's hearth. With my mother, Violante must be safe ; that 
 you cannot oppose. And why not come yourself ?" 
 
 Riccabocca had no reply to these arguments, so far as 
 they affected Violante ; indeed, they awakened the almost 
 superstitious terror with which he regarded his enemy, and 
 he consented at once that Violante should accept the invi- 
 tation proffered. But he refused it for himself and 
 Jemima. 
 
 <! To say truth," said he, simply, " I made a secret vow, 
 on re-entering England, that I would associate with none 
 who knew the rank I had formerly held in my own land. I 
 felt that all my philosophy was needed to reconcile and 
 habituate myself to my .altered circumstances. In order to 
 find in my present existence, however humble, those bless- 
 ings which make all life noble dignity and peace it was 
 necessary for poor weak human nature wholly to dismiss 
 the past. It would unsettle me sadly, could I come to your 
 
 3
 
 6 9 S MY XOVEL; OR, 
 
 house, renew awhile, in your kindness and respect nay, in 
 the very atmosphere of your society the sense of what I 
 have been ; and then (should the more than doubtful chance 
 of recall from my exile fail me) to awake, and find myself 
 for the rest of life what I am. And though, were I alone, I 
 might trust myself perhaps to the danger yet my wife ; she 
 is happy and contented now ; would she be so if you had 
 once spoiled her, for the simple position of Dr. Riccabocca's 
 wife ? Should I not have to listen to regrets, and hopes, and 
 fears that would prick sharp through my thin cloak of phil- 
 osophy ? Even as it is, since in a moment of weakness I 
 confided my secret to her, I have had 'my rank 'thrown at 
 me with a careless hand, it is true but it hits hard never- 
 theless. No stone hurts like one taken from the ruins of 
 one's own home ; and the grander the home, why, the 
 heavier the stone ! Protect, dear madame protect my 
 daughter, since her father doubts his own power to do so. 
 But ask no more." 
 
 Riccabocca was immovable here. And the matter was 
 settled as he decided, it being agreed that Violante should 
 be still styled but the daughter of Dr. Riccabocca. 
 
 "And now, one word more," said Harley. "Do not 
 confide to Mr. Leslie these arrangements ; do not let him 
 know where Violante is placed at least, until I authorize 
 such confidence in him. It is sufficient excuse, that it is no 
 use to know unless he called to see her, and his movements, 
 as I said before, may be watched. You can give the same 
 reason to suspend his visits to yourself. Suffer me, mean- 
 while, to mature my judgment on this young man. In the 
 meanwhile, also, I think that I shall have means of ascer- 
 taining the real nature of Peschiera's schemes. His sister 
 has sought to know me ; I will give her the occasion. I 
 have heard some things of her in my last residence abroad, 
 which make me believe that she cannot be wholly the 
 Count's tool in any schemes nakedly villanous ; that she has 
 some finer qualities in her than I once supposed ; and that 
 she can be won from his influence. It is a state of war ; we 
 will carry it into the enemy's camp. You will promise me, 
 then, to refrain from all further confidence in Mr. Leslie." 
 
 " For the present, yes," said Riccabocca, reluctantly. 
 
 " Do not even say that you have seen me, unless he first 
 tell you that I am in England, and wish to learn your resi- 
 dence. I will give him full occasion to do so. Pish ! don't 
 hesitate ; you know your own proverb
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 699 
 
 ' Boccha chiusa, ed occhio aperto 
 Non fece mai nissun deserto.' 
 
 'The close mouth and the open eye,' etc." 
 
 " That's very true," said the Doctor, much struck "very 
 true. ' In boccha chiusa non c'entrano mosche ' one can't swal- 
 low flies if one keeps one's mouth shut. Corpo di J3acco ! 
 that's very true indeed." 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 VIOLANTE and Jemima were both greatly surprised, as 
 the reader may suppose, when they heard, on their return, 
 the arrangements already made for the former. The Count- 
 ess insisted on taking her at once, and Riccabocca briefly 
 said, " Certainly, the sooner the better." Violante was 
 stunned and bewildered. Jemima hastened to make up a 
 little bundle of things necessary, with many a woman's sigh 
 that the poor wardrobe contained so few things befitting. 
 But among the clothes she slipped a purse, containing the 
 savings of months, perhaps of years, and with it a few affec- 
 tionate lines, begging Violante to ask the Countess to buy 
 her all that was proper for her father's child. There is al- 
 ways something hurried and uncomfortable in the abrupt 
 and unexpected withdrawal of any member from a quiet 
 household. The small party broke into still smaller knots. 
 Violante hung on her father, and listened vaguely to his 
 not very lucid explanations. The Countess approached 
 Leonard, and, according to the usual mode with persons of 
 quality addressing young authors, complimented him highly 
 on the books she had not read, but which her son assured 
 her were so remarkable. She was a little anxious to know 
 where Harley had first met with Mr. Oran, whom he called 
 his friend ; but she was too high-bred to inquire or to ex- 
 press any wonder that rank should be friends with genius. 
 She took it for granted that they had formed their acquaint- 
 ance abroad. 
 
 Harley conversed with Helen. " You are not sorry that 
 Violante is coming to us ? She will be just such a compan- 
 ion for you as I could desire ; of your own years too."
 
 700 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 HELEN (ingenuously). It is hard to think I am not 
 younger than she is. 
 
 HARLEV. Why, my dear Helen ? 
 
 HELEN. She is so brilliant. She talks so beautifully. 
 And I 
 
 HARLEY. And you want but the habit of talking, to do 
 justice to your own beautiful thoughts. 
 
 Helen looked at him gratefully, but shook her head : it 
 was a common trick of hers, and always when she was 
 praised. 
 
 A.t last the preparations were made the farewell was 
 said. Violante was in the carriage by Lady Lansmere's 
 side. Slowly moved on the stately equipage with its four 
 horses and trim postilions, heraldic badges on their shoul- 
 ders, in the style rarely seen in the neighborhood of the 
 metropolis, and now fast vanishing even amidst distant 
 counties. 
 
 Riccabocca, Jemima, and Jackeymo, continued to gaze 
 after it from the gate. 
 
 " She is gone," said Jackeymo, brushing his eyes with 
 his coat-sleeve. " But it is a load off one's mind." 
 
 "And another load on one's heart," murmured Ricca- 
 bocca. " Don't cry, Jemima; it may be bad for you, and bad 
 for him that is to come. It is astonishing how the humors 
 of the mother may affect the unborn. I should not like to 
 have a son who has a more than usual propensity to tears." 
 
 The poor philosopher tried to smile ; but it was a bad 
 attempt. He went slowly in, and shut himself with his 
 books. But he could not read. His whole mind was 
 unsettled. And though, like all parents, he had been 
 anxious to rid himself of a beloved daughter for life, now 
 that she was gone but for a while, a string seemed broken 
 in the Music of Home. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE evening of the same day, as Egerton, who was to 
 entertain a large party at dinner, was changing his dress, 
 Harley walked into his room. 
 
 Egerton dismissed his valet by a sign, and continued 
 his toilet.
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 701 
 
 " Excuse me, my dear Harley, I have only ten minutes 
 to give you. I expect one of the royal dukes, and punc- 
 tuality is the stern virtue of men of business, and the grace- 
 ful courtesy of princes." 
 
 Harley had usually a jest for his friend's aphorisms; 
 but he had none now. He laid his hand kindly on Eger- 
 ton's shoulder " Before I speak of my business, tell me 
 how you are better ? " 
 
 " Better nay, I am always well. Pooh ! I may look a 
 little tired years of toil will tell on the countenance. But 
 that matters little ; the period of life has passed with me 
 when one cares how one looks in the glass." 
 
 As he spoke, Egerton completed his dress, and came to 
 the hearth, standing there, erect and dignified as usual, still 
 far handsomer than many a younger man, and with a form 
 that seemed to have ample vigor to support for many a 
 year the sad and glorious burthen of power. 
 
 "So now to your business, Harley." 
 
 " In the first place, I want you to present me, at the 
 earliest opportunity, to Madame di Negra. You say she 
 wished to know me." 
 
 ' Are you serious ? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " Well, then, she receives this evening. I did not mean 
 to go ; but when my party breaks up " 
 
 " You can call for me at ' The Travellers.' Do! " 
 
 " Next you knew Lady Jane Horton better even than 
 I did, at least in the last year of her life." Harley sighed, 
 and Egerton turned and stirred the fire. 
 
 <: Pray, did you ever see at her house, or hear her speak 
 of, a Mrs. Bertram ?" 
 
 "Of whom?" said Egerton, in a hollow voice, his face 
 still turned toward the fire. 
 
 " A Mrs. Bertram ; but Heavens ! my dear fellow, what 
 is the matter ? Are you ill ? " 
 
 "A spasm at the heart, that is all don't ring I shall 
 be better presently go on talking. Mrs. why do you 
 ask ? " 
 
 " Why ? I have hardly time to explain ; but I am, as I 
 told you, resolved on righting my old Italian friend, if 
 Heaven will help me, as it ever does help the just when 
 they bestir themselves ; and this Mrs. Bertram is mixed up 
 in my friend's affairs." 
 
 "'His ! How is that possible ? "
 
 702 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 Harley rapidly and succinctly explained. Audley lis- 
 tened attentively, with his eyes fixed on the floor, and still 
 seeming to labor under great difficulty of breathing. 
 
 At last he answered, " I remember something of this 
 Mrs. :Mrs. Bertram. But your inquiries after her would 
 be useless. I think I have heard that she is long since 
 dead ; nay, I am sure of it." 
 
 "Dead? that is most unfortunate. But do you know 
 any of her relations or friends? Can you suggest any mode 
 of tracing this packet, if it came to her hands ?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 " And Lady Jane had scarcely any friend that I remem- 
 ber, except my mother, and she knows nothing of this 
 Mrs. Bertram. How unlucky ! I think I shall advertise. 
 Yet, no. I could only distinguish this Mrs. Bertram from 
 any other of the same name, by stating with whom she had 
 gone abroad, and that would catch the attention of 
 Peschiera, and set him to counterwork us." 
 
 "And what avails it?" said Egerton. " She whom you 
 seek is no more no more ! " He paused, and went on rapidly 
 "The packet did not arrive in England till years after her 
 death was no doubt returned to the post-office is de- 
 stroyed long ago." 
 
 Harley looked very much disappointed. Egerton went 
 on in a sort of set mechanical voice, as if not thinking of 
 what he said, but speaking from the dry practical mode of 
 reasoning which was habitual to him, and by which the 
 man of the world destroys the hopes of an enthusiast. 
 Then starting up at the sound of the first thundering 
 knock at the street-door, he said, " Hark ! you must excuse 
 me." 
 
 " I leave you, my dear Audley. But I must again ask 
 Are you better now ? " 
 
 " Much, much quite well. I will call for you pro- 
 bably between eleven and twelve." 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 IF any one could be more surprised at seeing Lord 
 L'Estrange at the house of Madame di Negra that evening 
 than the fair hostess herself, it was Randal Leslie. Some-
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 703 
 
 thing instinctively told him that this visit threatened inter- 
 ference with whatever might be his ultimate projects in 
 regard to Riccabocca and Violante. But Randal Leslie 
 was not one of those who shrink from an intellectual com- 
 bat. On the contrary, he was too confident of his powers 
 of intrigue, not to take a delight in their exercise. He 
 could not conceive that the indolent Harley could be a 
 match for his own restless activity and dogged perseverance. 
 But in a very few moments fear crept on him. No man of 
 his day could produce a more brilliant effect than Lord 
 L'Estrange, when he deigned to desire it. Without much 
 pretence to that personal beauty which strikes at first sight, 
 he still retained all the charm of countenance, and all the 
 grace of manner, which had made him in boyhood the 
 spoiled darling of Society. Madame di Negra had collected 
 but a small circle round her, still it was of the elite of the 
 great world ; not, indeed, those more precise and reserved 
 dames de chateau, whom the lighter and easier of the fair 
 dispensers of fashion ridicule as prudes ; but, nevertheless, 
 ladies were there, as unblemished in reputation as high in 
 rank ; flirts and coquettes, perhaps nothing more ; in 
 short, " charming women " the gay butterflies that hover 
 over the stiff parterre. And there were ambassadors and 
 ministers, and wits and brilliant debaters, and first-rate 
 dandies (dandies, when first-rate, are generally very agree- 
 able men). Amongst all these various persons, Harley, so 
 long a stranger to the London world, seemed to make him- 
 self at home with the ease of an Alcibiades. Many of the 
 less juvenile ladies remembered him, and rushed to claim 
 his acquaintance, with nods, and becks, and wreathed 
 smiles. He had a ready compliment for each. And few 
 indeed were there, men or women, for whom Harley 
 L'Estrange had not appropriate attraction. Distinguished 
 reputation as soldier and scholar for the grave ; whim and 
 pleasantry for the gay ; novelty for the sated ; and for the 
 more vulgar natures was he not Lord L'Estrange, un- 
 married, possessed already of a large independence, and 
 heir to an ancient earldom, and some fifty thousands a-year ? 
 Not till he had succeeded in the general effect which, 
 it must be owned, he did his best to create -did Harley 
 seriously and especially devote himself to his hostess. And 
 then he seated himself by her side ; and, as if in compliment 
 to both, less pressing admirers insensibly slipped away and 
 edged off.
 
 704 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 Frank Hazeldean was the last to quit his ground behind 
 Madame di Negra's chair ; but when he found that the two 
 began to talk in Italian, and he could not understand a 
 word they said, he too fancying, poor fellow, that he looked 
 foolish, and cursing his Eton education that had neglected, 
 for languages spoken by the dead, of which he had learned 
 little, those still in use among the living, of which he had 
 learned naught retreated toward Randal, and asked wist- 
 fully, " Pray, what age should you say L'Estrange was ? 
 He must be devilish old, in spite of his looks. Why, he was 
 at Waterloo ! " 
 
 " He is young enough to be a terrible rival," answered 
 Randal, with artful truth. 
 
 Frank turned pale, and began to meditate dreadful blood- 
 thirsty thoughts, of which hair-triggers and Lord's cricket- 
 ground formed the staple. 
 
 Certainly there was apparent ground for a lover's jeal- 
 ousy, for Harley and Beatrice now conversed in a low tone, 
 and Beatrice seemed agitated, and Harley earnest. Randal 
 himself grew more and more perplexed. Was Lord L'Es- 
 trange really enamoured of the Marchesa ? If so, farewell 
 to all hopes of Frank's marriage with her ! Or was he 
 merely playing a part in Riccabocca's interest ; pretending 
 to be the lover, in order to obtain an influence over her 
 mind, rule her through her ambition, and secure an ally 
 against her brother ? Was this finesse compatible with Ran- 
 dal's notions of Harley's character ? Was it consistent with 
 that chivalric and soldierly spirit of honor which the frank 
 nobleman affected, to make love to a woman in mere ruse 
 de guerre ? Could mere friendship for Riccabocca be a suf- 
 ficient inducement to a man, who, whatever his weakness 
 or his errors, seemed to wear on his very forehead a soul 
 above deceit, to stoop to paltry means, even for a worthy 
 end ? At this question a new thought flashed upon Randal 
 might not Lord L'Estrange have speculated himself upon 
 winning Violante ? would not that account for all the ex- 
 ertions he had made on behalf of her inheritance at the 
 court of Vienna exertions of which Peschiera and Beatrice 
 had both complained ? Those objections which the Aus- 
 trian government might take to Violante's marriage with 
 some obscure Englishman would probably not exist against 
 a man like Harley L'Estrange, whose family not only be- 
 longed to the highest aristocracy of England, but had always 
 supported opinions in vogue amongst the leading govern-
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 705 
 
 ments of Europe. Harley himself, it is true, had never ta- 
 ken part in politics, but his notions were, no doubt, those 
 of a high-born soldier, who had fought, in alliance with 
 Austria, for the restoration of the Bourbons. And this im- 
 mense wealth which Violante might lose, if she married 
 one like Randal himself her marriage with .the heir of the 
 Lansmeres might actually tend only to secure. Could Har- 
 ley, with all his own expectations, be indifferent to such a 
 prize ? and no doubt he had learned Violante's rare beauty 
 in his correspondence with Riccabocca. 
 
 Thus considered, it seemed natural to Randal's estimate 
 of human nature, that Harley's more prudish scruples of 
 honor, as regards what is due to women, could not resist a 
 temptation so strong. Mere friendship was not a motive 
 powerful enough to shake them, but ambition was. 
 
 While Randal was thus cogitating, Frank thus suffering, 
 and many a whisper, in comment on the evident flirtation 
 between the beautiful hostess and the accomplished guest, 
 reached the ears both of the brooding schemer and the jeal- 
 ous lover, the conversation between the two objects of re- 
 mark and gossip had taken a new turn. Indeed, Beatrice 
 had made an effort to change it. 
 
 " It is long, my lord," said she, still speaking Italian, 
 " since I have heard sentiments like those you address to 
 me ; and if I do not feel myself wholly unworthy of them, 
 it is from the pleasure I have felt in reading sentiments 
 equally foreign to the language of the world in which I 
 live." She took a book from the table as she spoke : " Have 
 you seen this work ? " 
 
 Harley glanced at the title-page. " To be sure I have, 
 and I know the author." 
 
 " I envy you that honor. I should so like also to know 
 one who has discovered to me deeps in my own heart 
 which I had never explored." 
 
 "Charming Marchesa, if the book has done this, believe 
 me that I have paid you no small compliment formed 
 no over-flattering estimate of your nature ; for the charm 
 of the work is but in its simple appeal to good and gen- 
 erous emotions, and it can charm none in whom those emo- 
 tions exist not ! " 
 
 " Nay, that cannot be true, or why is it so popular ? " 
 
 " Because good and generous emotions are more com- 
 mon to the human heart than we are aware of till the 
 appeal comes." 
 30*
 
 706 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 " Don't ask me to think that ! I have found the world 
 so base." 
 
 " Pardon me a rude question ; but what do you know 
 of the world ? " 
 
 Beatrice looked first in surprise at Harley, then glanced 
 round the rooni with significant irony. 
 
 "As I thought; you call this little room 'the world.' 
 Be it so. I will venture to say, that if the people in this 
 room were suddenly converted into an audience before a 
 stage, and you were as consummate in the actor's art as 
 you are in all others that please and command " 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 " And were to deliver a speech full of sordid and base 
 sentiments, you would be hissed. But let any other wo- 
 man, with half your powers, arise and utter sentiments 
 sweet and womanly, or honest and lofty and applause 
 would flow from every lip, and tears rush to many a worldly 
 eye. The true proof of the inherent nobleness of our com- 
 mon nature is in the sympathy it> betrays with what is noble 
 wherever crowds are collected. Never believe the world 
 is base ; if it were so, no society could hold together for a 
 day. But you would know the author of this book ? I 
 will bring him to vou." 
 
 " Do." 
 
 " And now," said Harley, rising, and with his candid, 
 winning smile, "do you think we shall ever be friends ? " 
 
 "You have startled me so, that I can scarcely answer. 
 But why would you be friends with me ? " 
 
 " Because you need a friend. You have none ! " 
 
 " Strange flatterer ! " said Beatrice, smiling, though very 
 sadly ; and looking up, her eyes caught Randal's. 
 
 " Pooh," said Harley, "you are too penetrating to believe 
 that you inspire friendship there. Ah, do you suppose that, 
 all the while I have been conversing with you, I have not 
 noticed the watchful gaze of Mr. Randal Leslie ? What tie 
 can possibly connect you together, I know not yet ; but I 
 soon shall." 
 
 " Indeed ! you talk like one of the old Council of Ve- 
 nice. You try hard to make me fear you," said Beatrice, 
 seeking to escape from the graver kind of impression 
 Harley had made on her by the affectation partly of co- 
 quetry, partly of levity. 
 
 "And I," said L'Estrange, calmly, "tell you already, 
 that I fear you no more." He bowed, and passed through
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 707 
 
 the crowd to rejoin Audley, who was seated in a corner 
 whispering with some of his political colleagues. Before 
 Harley reached the minister, he found himself close to 
 Randal and young Hazeldean. 
 
 He bowed to the first, and extended his hand to the last. 
 Randal felt the distinction, and his sullen, bitter pride was 
 deeply galled a feeling of hate toward Harley passed into 
 his mind. He was pleased to see the cold hesitation with 
 which Frank just touched the hand offered to him. But 
 Randal had not been the only person whose watch upon 
 Beatrice the keen-eyed Harley had noticed. Harley had seen 
 the angry looks of Frank Hazeldean, and divined the cause. 
 So he smiled forgivingly at the slight he had received. 
 
 " You are like me, Mr. Hazeldean," said he. You think 
 something of the heart should go with all courtesy that 
 bespeaks friendship 
 
 ' The hand of Douglas is his own."* 
 
 Here Harley drew aside Randal. " Mr. Leslie, a word 
 with you. If I wished to know the retreat of Dr. Ricca- 
 bocca, in order to render him a great service, would you 
 confide to me that secret?" 
 
 " That woman has let out her suspicions that I know the 
 exile's retreat," thought Randal ; and with quick presence 
 of mind, he replied at once 
 
 "My Lord, yonder stands a connection of Dr. Ricca- 
 bocca's. Mr. Hazeldean is surely the person to whom you 
 should address this inquiry." 
 
 "Not so, Mr. Leslie ; for I suspect that he cannot an- 
 swer it, and that you can. Well, I will ask something that 
 it seems to me yju may grant without hesitation. Should 
 you see Dr. Riccabocca, tell him that I am in England, and 
 so leave it to him to communicate with me or not ; but 
 perhaps you have already done so ? " 
 
 "Lord L'Estrange," .said Randal, bowing low, with 
 pointed formality, " excuse me if I decline either to dis- 
 claim or acquiesce in the knowledge you impute to me. If 
 I am acquainted with any secret intrusted to me by Dr. 
 Riccabocca, it is for me to use my own discretion how best 
 to guard it. And for the rest, after the Scotch earl, whose 
 words your lordship has just quoted, refused to touch the 
 hand of Marmion, Douglas could scarcely have called Mar- 
 mion back in order to give him a message !"
 
 708 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 Harley was not prepared for this tone in Mr. Egerton's 
 protege, and his own gallant nature was rather pleased than 
 irritated by a haughtiness that at least seemed to bespeak 
 independence of spirit. Nevertheless, L'Estrange's sus- 
 picions of Randal were too strong to be easily set aside, 
 and therefore lie replied, civilly, but with covert taunt 
 
 " I submit to your rebuke, Mr. Leslie, though I meant 
 not the offence you would ascribe to me. I regret my 
 unlucky quotation yet the more, since the wit of your retort 
 has obliged you to identify yourself with Marmion, who, 
 though a clever and brave fellow, was an uncommonly 
 tricky one." And so Harley, certainly having the best 
 of it, moved on, and joining Egerton, in a few minutes more 
 both left the room. 
 
 " What was L'Estrange saying to you ? " asked Frank ; 
 "something about Beatrice, I am sure." 
 
 " No ; only quoting poetry." 
 
 " Then what made you look so angry, my dear fellow ? 
 I know it was your kind feeling for me. As you say, he 
 is a formidable rival. But that can't be his own hair. Do 
 you think he wears a toupet? I am sure he was praising 
 Beatrice. He is evidently very much smitten with her. 
 But I don't think she is a woman to be caught by mere rank 
 and fortune ! Do you ? Why can't you speak ? " 
 
 " If you do not get her consent soon, I think she is lost 
 to you," said Randal, slowly ; and before Frank could re- 
 cover his dismay, glided from the house. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 VIOLANTE'S first evening at the Lansmeres had passed 
 more happily to her than the first evening under the same 
 roof had done to Helen. True that she missed her father 
 much Jemima somewhat ; but she so identified her father's 
 cause with Harley, that she had a sort of vague feeling that 
 it was to promote the cause that she was on this visit to 
 Harley's parents. And the Countess, it must be owned, 
 was more emphatically cordial to her than she had ever 
 been to Captain Digby's orphan. But perhaps the real 
 difference in the heart of either girl was this, that Helen 
 felt awe of Lady Lansmere, and Violante felt only love for
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 709 
 
 Lord L'Estrange's mother. Violante, too, was one of those 
 persons whom a reserved and formal person, like the 
 Countess, " can get on with," as the phrase goes. Not so 
 poor little Helen so shy herself, and so hard to coax into 
 more than gentle monosyllables. And Lady Lansmere's 
 favorite talk was always of Harley. Helen had listened to 
 such talk with respect and interest. Violante listened to 
 it with inquisitive eagerness with blushing delight. The 
 mother's heart noticed the distinction between the two, and 
 no wonder that that heart moved more to Violante than to 
 Helen. Lord Lansmere, too, like most gentlemen of his 
 age, clumped all young ladies together, as a harmless, ami- 
 able, but singularly stupid class of the genus Petticoat, 
 meant to look pretty, play the piano, and talk to each other 
 about frocks and sweethearts. Therefore this animated 
 dazzling creature, with her infinite variety of look and play 
 of mind, took him by surprise, charmed him into attention, 
 and warmed him into gallantry. Helen sat in her quiet 
 corner, at her work, sometimes listening with almost mourn- 
 ful, though certainly unenvious, admiration at Violante's 
 vivid, yet ever unconscious, eloquence of word and thought 
 sometimes plunged deep into her own secret meditations. 
 And all the while the work went on the same, under the 
 small noiseless fingers. This was one of Helen's habits 
 that irritated the nerves of Lady Lansmere. She despised 
 young ladies who were fond of work. She did not com- 
 prehend how often it is the resource of the sweet womanly 
 mind, not from want of thought, but from silence and the 
 depth of it. Violante w r as surprised, and perhaps disap- 
 pointed, that Harley had left the house before dinner, and 
 did not return all the evening. But Lady Lansmere, in 
 making excuses for his absence, on the plea of engage- 
 ments, found so good an opportunity to talk of his ways in 
 general of his rare promise in boyhood of her regret at 
 the inaction of his maturity of her hope to see him yet do 
 justice to his natural powers, that Violante almost ceased 
 to miss him. 
 
 And then Lady Lansmere conducted her to her room, 
 and, kissing her cheek tenderly, said, " But you are just 
 the person Harley admires just the person to rouse him 
 from his melancholy dreams, of which his wild humors are 
 now but the vain disguise " Violante crossed her arms on 
 her bosom, and her bright eyes, deepened into tenderness, 
 seemed to ask, " He melancholy and why I "
 
 7io MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 On leaving Violante's room, Lady Lansmere paused 
 before the door of Helen's ; and, after musing a little while, 
 entered softly. 
 
 Helen had dismissed her maid ; and, at the moment 
 Lady Lansmere entered, she was kneeling at the foot of the 
 bed, her hands clasped before her face. 
 
 Her form, thus seen, looked so youthful and child-like 
 the attitude itself was so holy and so touching, that 
 the proud and cold expression on Lady Lansmere's face 
 changed. She shaded the light involuntarily, and seated 
 herself in silence that she might not disturb the act of 
 prayer. 
 
 When Helen rose, she was startled to see the Countess 
 seated by the fire ; and hastily drew her hand across her 
 eyes. She had been weeping. 
 
 Lady Lansmere did not, however, turn to observe those 
 traces of tears, which Helen feared were too visible. The 
 Countess was too absorbed in her own thoughts ; and as 
 Helen timidly approached, she said still with her eyes on 
 the clear low fire "I beg your pardon, Miss Digby, for 
 my intrusion ; but my son has left it to me to prepare Lord 
 Lansmere to learn the offer you have done Harleythe honor 
 to accept. I have not yet spoken to my lord ; it may be 
 days before I find a fitting occasion to do so ; meanwhile, 
 I feel assured that your sense of propriety will make you 
 agree with me that it is due to Lord L'Estrange's father, 
 that strangers should not learn arrangements of such mo- 
 ment in his family, before his own consent be obtained." 
 
 Here the Countess came to a full pause ; and poor 
 Helen, finding herself called upon for some reply to this 
 chilling speech, stammered out, scarcely audibly 
 
 " Certainly, madam, I never dreamed of 
 
 "That is right, my dear," interrupted Lady Lansmere, 
 rising suddenly, and as if greatly relieved. " I could not 
 doubt your superiority to ordinary girls of your age, with 
 whom these matters are never secret for a moment. There- 
 fore, of course, you will not mention, at present, what has 
 passed between you and Harley, to any of the friends with 
 whom you may correspond." 
 
 "I have no correspondents no friends, Lady Lans- 
 mere," said Helen, deprecatingly, and trying hard not to 
 cry. 
 
 " I am very glad to hear it, my dear; young ladies never 
 should have. Friends, especially friends who correspond,
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 711 
 
 are the worst enemies they can have. Good night, Miss 
 Digby. I need not add, by the way, that though we are 
 bound to show all kindness to this young Italian lady, still 
 she is wholly unconnected with our family, and you will be 
 as prudent with her as you would have been with your cor- 
 respondents had you had the misfortune to have any." 
 
 Lady Lansmere said the last words with a smile, and 
 left an ungenial kiss (the stepmother's kiss) on Helen's 
 bended brow. She then left the room, and Helen sat on 
 the seat vacated by the stately unloving form, and again 
 covered her face with her hands, and again wept. But 
 when she rose at last, and the light fell upon her face, that 
 soft face was sad indeed, but serene serene, as if with some 
 inward sense of duty sad, as with the resignation which 
 accepts patience instead of hope. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE next morning Harley appeared at breakfast. He 
 was in gay spirits, and conversed more freely with Violante 
 than he had yet done. He seemed to amuse himself by 
 attacking all she said, and provoking her to argument. 
 Violante was naturally a very earnest person ; whether 
 grave or gay, she spoke with her heart on her lips, and her 
 soul in her eyes. She did not yet comprehend the light 
 vein of Harley's irony, so she grew piqued and chafed ; and 
 she was so lovely in anger ; it so brightened her beauty 
 and animated her words, that no wonder Harley thus mali- 
 ciously teased her. But what, perhaps, she liked still less 
 than the teasing though she, could not tell why was the 
 kind of familiarity that Harley assumed with her a famili- 
 arity as if he had known her all her life that of a good- 
 humored elder brother, or a bachelor uncle. To Helen, on 
 the contrary, when he did not address her apart, his man- 
 ner was more respectful. He did not call her by her Chris- 
 tian name, as he did Violante, but "Miss Digby," and soft- 
 ened his tone and inclined his head when he spoke to her. 
 Nor did he presume to jest at the very few and brief sen- 
 tences he drew from Helen, but rather listened to them 
 with deference, and invariably honored them with approval. 
 After breakfast he asked Violante to play or sing ; and
 
 712 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 when she frankly owned how little she had cultivated those 
 accomplishments, he persuaded Helen to sit down to the 
 piano, and stood by her side while she did so, turning over 
 the leaves of her music-book with the ready devotion of an 
 admiring amateur. Helen always played well, but less well 
 than usual that day, for her generous nature felt abashed. 
 It was as if she were showing off to mortify Violante. But 
 Violante, on the other hand, was so passionately fond of 
 music, that she had no feeling left for the sense of her own 
 inferiority. Yet she sighed when Helen rose and Harley 
 thanked Miss Digby for the delight she had given him. 
 
 The day was fine. Lady Lansmere proposed to walk in 
 the garden. While the ladies went up-stairs for their shawls 
 and bonnets, Harley lighted his cigar, and stepped from the 
 window upon the lawn. Lady Lansmere joined him before 
 the girls came out. 
 
 "Harley," said she, taking his arm, "what a charming 
 companion you have introduced to us ! I never met with 
 any that both pleased and delighted me like this dear Vio- 
 lante. Most girls who possess some power of conversation, 
 and who have dared to think for themselves, are so pedan- 
 tic, or so masculine ; but she is always so simple, and always 
 still the girl. Ah, Harley ! " 
 
 " Why that sigh, my dear mother ? " 
 
 " I was thinking how exactly she would have suited 
 you how proud I should have been of such a daughter-in- 
 law and how happy you would have been with such a 
 wife." 
 
 Harley started. " Tut," said he, peevishly, " she is a 
 mere child ; you forget my years." 
 
 "Why," said Lady Lansmere, surprised, "Helen is quite 
 as young as Violante." 
 
 "In dates yes. But Helen's character is so staid ; 
 what it is now it will be ever ; and Helen, from gratitude, 
 respect, or pity, condescends to accept the ruins of my 
 heart ; while this bright Italian has the soul of a Juliet, 
 and would expect in a husband all the passion of a Romeo. 
 Nay, mother, hush. Do not forget that I am engaged 
 and of my own free will and choice ! Poor dear Helen ! 
 Apropos, have you spoken to my father, as you undertook 
 to do ? " 
 
 " Not yet. I must seize the right moment. You know 
 that my lord requires management." 
 
 " My dear mother, that female notion of marrying us
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 713 
 
 men, costs you ladies a great waste of time, and occasions 
 us a great deal of sorrow. Men are easily managed by 
 plain truth. We are brought up to respect it, strange as it 
 may seem to you ! " 
 
 Lady Lansmere smiled with the air of superior wisdom, 
 and the experience of an accomplished wife. " Leave it to 
 me, Harley, and rely on my lord's consent." 
 
 Harley knew that Lady Lansmere always succeeded in 
 obtaining her way with his father ; and he felt that the 
 Earl might naturally be disappointed in such an alliance, 
 and, without due propitiation, evince that disappointment 
 in his manner to Helen. Harley was bound to save her 
 from all chance of such humiliation. He did not wish her 
 to think that she was not welcomed into his family ; there- 
 fore he said, " I resign myself to your promise and your 
 diplomacy. Meanwhile, as you love me, be kind to my 
 betrothed." 
 
 " Am I not so ? " 
 
 " Hem. Are you as kind as if she were the great heiress 
 you believe Violante to be ? " 
 
 " Is it," answered Lady Lansmere, evading the question, 
 " is it because one is an heiress and the other is not that 
 you make so marked a difference in your own manner to 
 the two ; treating Violante as a spoiled child, .and Miss 
 Digby as " 
 
 " The destined wife of Lord L'Estrange, and the daugh- 
 ter-in-law of Lady Lansmere yes." 
 
 The Countess suppressed an impatient exclamation that 
 rose to her lips, for Harley's brow wore that serious aspect 
 which it rarely assumed, save when he was in those moods 
 in which men must be soothed, not resisted. And after a 
 pause he went on " I am going to leave you to-day. I 
 have engaged apartments at the Clarendon. I intended to 
 gratify your wish, so often expressed, that I should enjoy 
 what are called the pleasures of my rank, and the privileges 
 of single-blessedness celebrate my adieu to celibacy, and 
 blaze once more, with the splendor of a setting sun, upon 
 Hyde Park and May Fair." 
 
 " You are a positive enigma. Leave our house, just 
 when you are betrothed to its inmate ! Is that the natural 
 conduct of a lover ? " 
 
 " How can your woman eyes be so dull, and your 
 woman heart so obtuse ? " answered Harley, half-laughing, 
 half-scolding. " Can you not guess that I wish that Helen
 
 7H MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 and myself should both lose the association of mere ward 
 and guardian ; that the very familiarity of our intercourse 
 under the same roof almost forbids us to be lovers ; that we 
 lose the joy to meet, and the pang to part. Don't you 
 remember the story of the Frenchman, who for twenty 
 years loved a lady, and never missed passing his evening at 
 her house. She became a widow. 'I wish you joy,' cried 
 his friend : 'you may now marry the woman you have so 
 long adored.' ' Alas,' said the poor Frenchman, profoundly 
 dejected ; 'and if so, where shall I spend my evenings ?" 
 
 Here Violante and Helen were seen in the garden, 
 walking affectionately arm-in-arm. 
 
 " I don't perceive the point of your witty, heartless 
 anecdote," said Lady Lansmere, obstinately. "Settle that, 
 however, with Miss Digby. But, to leave the very day after 
 your friend's daughter comes as a guest ! what will :>he 
 think of it ? " 
 
 Lord L'Estrange looked steadfastly at his mother. 
 " Does it matter much what she thinks of me ? of a man 
 engaged to another ; and old enough to be " 
 
 " I wish to Heaven you would not talk of your age, 
 Harley ; it is a reflection upon mine ; and I never saw you 
 look so well nor so handsome." With that she drew him 
 on toward the young ladies ; and, taking Helen's arm, 
 asked her, aside, " If she knew that Lord L'Estrange had 
 engaged rooms at the Clarendon ; and if she understood 
 why?" As while she said this she moved on, Harley was 
 left by Violante's side. 
 
 "You will be very dull here, I fear, my poor child," said 
 he. 
 
 " Dull ! But why will you call me child ? Am I so 
 very very child-like ? " 
 
 " Certainly you are to me a mere infant. Have I not 
 seen you one ; have I not held you in my arms ? " 
 
 VIOLANTE. But that was a long time ago ! 
 
 HARLEY. True. But if years have not stood still for 
 you, they have not been stationary for me. There is the 
 same difference between us now that there was then. And, 
 therefore, permit me still to call you child, and as child to 
 treat you ! 
 
 VIOLANTE. I will do no such thing.. Do you know 
 that I always thought I was good-tempered till this morn- 
 ing ?
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 715 
 
 HARLEY. And what undeceived you ? Did you break 
 your doll ? 
 
 VIOLANTE (with an indignant flash from her dark eyes). 
 There ! again ! you delight in provoking me ! 
 
 HARLEY. It was the doll, then. Don't cry ; I will get 
 you another. 
 
 Violante plucked her arm from him, and walked away 
 toward the Countess in speechless scorn. Barley's brow 
 contracted, in thought and in gloom. He stood still for a 
 moment or so, and then joined the ladies. 
 
 " I am trespassing sadly on your morning ; but I wait 
 for a visitor, whom I sent to before you were up. He is to 
 be here at twelve. With your permission, I will dine with 
 you to-morrow, and you will invite him to meet me." 
 
 " Certainly. And who is your friend ? I guess the 
 young author?" 
 
 "Leonard Fairfield," cried Violante, who had conquered, 
 or felt ashamed of her short-lived anger. 
 
 " Fairfield ! " repeated Lady Lansmere. " I thought, 
 Harley, you said the name was Oran ?" 
 
 " He has assumed the latter name. He is the son of 
 Mark Fairfield, who married an Avenel. Did you recog- 
 nize no family likeness? none in those eyes mother?" 
 said Harley, sinking his voice into a whisper. 
 
 "No," answered the Countess, falteringly. 
 
 Harley, observing that Violante was now speaking to 
 Helen about Leonard, and that neither was listening to 
 him, resumed in the same low tone, "And his mother 
 Nora's sister shrank from seeing me ! That is the rea- 
 son why I wished you not to call. She has not told the 
 young man why she shrank from seeing me ; nor have I ex- 
 plained it to him as yet. Perhaps I never shall." 
 
 " Indeed, dearest Harley," said the Countess, with great 
 gentleness, " I wish you too much to forget the folly well, 
 I will not say that word : the sorrows of your boyhood, not 
 to hope that you will rather strive against such painful 
 memories than renew them by unnecessary confidence to any 
 one ; least of all to the relation of " 
 
 "Enough! don't name her ; the very name pains me. 
 And as to confidence, there are but two persons in the 
 world to whom I ever bare the old wounds yourself and 
 Egerton. Let this pass. Ha ! a ring at the bell ; that is 
 he!"
 
 716 MY NOVEL; OK, 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 LEONARD entered on the scene, and joined the party in 
 the garden. The Countess, perhaps to please her son, was 
 more than civil she was markedly kind to him. She no- 
 ticed him more attentively than she had hitherto done ; and, 
 with all her prejudices of birth, was struck to find the son 
 of Mark Fairfield the carpenter so thoroughly the gentle- 
 man. He might not have the exact tone and phrase by 
 which Convention stereotypes those born and schooled in a 
 certain world ; but the aristocrats of Nature can dispense 
 with such trite minutiae. And Leonard had lived of late 
 at least in the best society that exists for the polish of 
 language and the refinement of manners, the society in 
 which the most graceful ideas are clothed in the most grace- 
 ful forms, the society which really, though indirectly, 
 gives the law to courts, the society of the most classic au- 
 thors in the various ages in which literature has flowered 
 forth from civilization. And if there was something in the 
 exquisite sweetness of Leonard's voice, look, and manner, 
 which the Countess acknowledged to attain that perfection 
 in high breeding, which, under the name of "suavity," 
 steals its way into the heart, so her interest in him was 
 aroused by a certain subdued melancholy which is rarely 
 without distinction, and never without charm. He and 
 Helen exchanged but few words. There was but one occa- 
 sion in which they could have spoken apart, and Helen her- 
 self contrived to elude it. His face brightened at Lady 
 Lansmere's cordial invitation, and he glanced at Helen as 
 he accepted it ; but her eye did not meet his own. 
 
 "And now," said Harley, whistling to Nero, whom his 
 ward was silently caressing, " I must take Leonard away. 
 Adieu ! all of you, till to-morrow at dinner. Miss Violante, 
 is the doll to have blue eyes or black ? " 
 
 Violante turned her own black eyes in mute appeal to 
 Lady Lansmere, and nestled to that lady's side, as if in re- 
 fuge from unworthy insult.
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 717 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 " LET the carriage go to the Clarendon," said Harley to 
 his servant ; " I and Mr. Oran will walk to town. Leonard, 
 I think you would rejoice at an occasion to serve your old 
 friends, Dr. Riccabocca and his daughter?" 
 
 "Serve them! O yes." And there instantly returned 
 to Leonard the recollection of Violante's words when, on 
 leaving his quiet village, he had sighed to part from all 
 those he loved ; and the little dark-eyed girl had said, 
 proudly, yet consolingly, " But to SERVE those you love ! " 
 He turned to L'Estrange with beaming, inquisitive eyes. 
 
 ''I said to our friend," resumed Harley, "that I would 
 vouch for your honor as my own. I am about to prove my 
 words, and to confide the secrets which your penetration 
 has indeed divined ; our friend is not what he seems." Har- 
 ley then briefly related to Leonard the particulars of the 
 exile's history, the rank he had held in his native land, the 
 manner in which, partly through the misrepresentations of 
 a kinsman he had trusted, partly through the influence of a 
 wife he had loved, he had been drawn into schemes which 
 be believed bounded to the emancipation of Italy from a 
 foreign yoke, by the united exertions of her best and bravest 
 sons. 
 
 "A noble ambition," interrupted Leonard, manfully. 
 " And pardon me, my Lord, I should not have thought that 
 you would speak of it in a tone that implies blame." 
 
 " The ambition in itself was noble," answered Harley ; 
 " but the cause to which it was devoted became defiled in 
 this instance in its dark channel through Secret Societies. 
 It is the misfortune of all miscellaneous political combina- 
 tions, that with the purest motives of their more generous 
 members are ever mixed the most sordid interests and the 
 fiercest passions of mean confederates. When those com- 
 binations act openly, and in daylight, under the eye of Pub- 
 lic Opinion, the healthier elements usually prevail ; where 
 they are shrouded in mystery, where they are subjected to 
 no censor in the discussion of the impartial and dispas- 
 sionate, where chiefs working in the dark exact blind obe- 
 dience, and every man who is at war with law is at once
 
 718 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 admitted as a friend of freedom, the history of the world 
 tells us that patriotism soon passes away. Where all is in 
 public, public virtue, by the natural sympathies of the com- 
 mon mind, and by the wholesome control of shame, is likely 
 to obtain ascendency ; where all is in private, and shame is 
 but for him who refuses the abnegation of his conscience, 
 each man seeks the indulgence of his private vice. And 
 hence, in Secret Societies (from which may yet proceed 
 great danger to all Europe), we find but foul and hateful 
 Eleusinia, affording pretexts to the ambition of the great, 
 to the license of the penniless, to the passions of the re- 
 vengeful, to the anarchy of the ignorant. In a word, the 
 societies of these Italian Carbonari did but engender 
 schemes in which the abjer chiefs disguised new forms of 
 despotism, and in which the revolutionary many looked for- 
 ward to the overthrow of all the institutions that stand be- 
 tween Law and Chaos. Naturally, therefore," (added 
 L'Estrangc, dryly), "when their schemes were detected, and 
 the conspiracy foiled, it was for the silly honest men en- 
 trapped into the league to suffer the leaders turned king's 
 evidence, and the common mercenaries became banditti." 
 Harley then proceeded to state that it was just when the 
 soi-disant Riccabocca had discovered the true nature and 
 ulterior views of the conspirators he had joined, and actu- 
 ally withdrawn from their councils, that he was denounced 
 by the kinsman who had duped him into the enterprise and 
 who now profited by his treason. Harley next spoke of 
 the packet despatched by Riccabocca's dying wife, as it 
 was supposed to Mrs. Bertram ; and of the hopes he founded 
 on the contents of that packet, if discovered. He then re- 
 ferred to the design which had brought Peschiera to Eng- 
 land a design which that personage had avowed with such 
 effrontery to his companions at Vienna, that he had pub- 
 licly laid wagers on his success. 
 
 "But these men can know nothing of England of the 
 safety of English laws," said Leonard, naturally. "We 
 take it for granted that Riccabocca, if I am still so to call 
 him, refuses his consent to the marriage between his daugh- 
 ter and his foe. Where, then, the danger ? This Count, 
 even if Violante were not under your mother's roof, could 
 not get an opportunity to see her. He could not attack 
 the house and carry her off like a feudal baron in the mid- 
 dle ages." 
 
 "All this is very true," answered Harley. "Yet I have
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 719 
 
 found through life that we cannot estimate danger by ex- 
 ternal circumstances, but by the character of those from 
 whom it is threatened. This Count is a man of singular 
 audacity, of no mean natural talents talents practised in 
 every art of duplicity and intrigue ; one of those men whose 
 boast it is that they succeed in whatever they undertake ; 
 and he is, here, urged on the one hand by all that can whet 
 the avarice, and on the other, by all that can give invention 
 to despair. Therefore, though I cannot guess what plan he 
 may possibly adopt, I never doubt that some plan, formed 
 with cunning and pursued with daring, will be embraced 
 the moment he discovers Violante's retreat, unless, indeed, 
 we can forestall all peril by the restoration of her father, 
 and the detection of the fraud and falsehood to which 
 Peschiera owes the fortune he appropriates. Thus, while 
 we must prosecute to the utmost our inquiries for the miss- 
 ing documents, so it should be our care to possess ourselves, 
 if possible, of such knowledge of the Count's machinations 
 as may enable us to defeat them. Now, it was with satis- 
 faction that I learned in Germany that Peschiera's sister 
 was in London. I knew enough both of his disposition and 
 of the intimacy between himself and this lady, to make me 
 think it probable he will seek to make her his instrument 
 and accomplice, should he require one. Peschiera (as you 
 may suppose by his audacious wager) is not one of those 
 secret villains who would cut off their right hand if it could 
 betray the knowledge of what was done by the left rather 
 one of those self-confident, vaunting knaves of high animal 
 spirits, and conscience so obtuse that it clouds their intel- 
 lect who must have some one to whom they can boast of 
 their abilities and confide .their projects. And Peschiera 
 has done all he can to render this poor woman so wholly 
 dependent on him, as to be his slave and his tool. But I 
 have learned certain traits in her character that show it to 
 be impressionable to good, and with tendencies to honor. 
 Peschiera had taken advantage of the admiration she ex- 
 cited, some years ago, in a rich young Englishman, to entice 
 this admirer into gambling, and sought to make his sister 
 both a decoy and an instrument in his designs of plunder. 
 She did not encourage the addresses of our countryman, 
 but she warned him of the snare laid for him, and entreated 
 him to leave the place, lest her brother should discover and 
 punish her honesty. 
 
 <; The Englishman told me this himself. In fine, my hope
 
 720 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 of detaching this lady from Peschiera's interests, and inducing 
 her to forewarn us of his purpose, consists but in the inno- 
 cent, and, I hope, laudable artifice, of redeeming herself 
 of appealing to, and calling into disused exercise, the better 
 springs of her nature." 
 
 Leonard listened with admiration and some surprise to 
 the singularly subtle and sagacious insight into character 
 which Harley evinced in the brief clear strokes by which 
 he had thus depicted Peschiera and Beatrice, and was struck 
 by the boldness with which Harley rested a whole system 
 of action upon a few deductions drawn from his reasonings 
 on human motive and characteristic bias. Leonard had not 
 expected to find so much practical acuteness in a man v/ho, 
 however accomplished, usually seemed indifferent, dreamy, 
 and abstracted to the ordinary things of life. But Harley 
 L'Estrange was one of those whose powers lie dormant till 
 circumstance supplies to them all they need for activity 
 the stimulant of a motive. 
 
 Harley resumed "After a conversation I had with the 
 lady last night, it occurred to me that in this part of our 
 diplomacy you could render us essential service. Madame 
 di Negra such is the sister's name has conceived an ad- 
 miration for your genius, and a strong desire to know you 
 personally. I have promised to present you to her; and I 
 shall do so after a preliminary caution. The lady is very 
 handsome and very fascinating. It is possible that your 
 heart and your senses may not be proof against her 
 attractions." 
 
 " Oh, do not fear that ! " exclaimed Leonard, with a tone 
 of conviction so earnest that Harley smiled. 
 
 " Forewarned is not always forearmed against the might 
 of beauty, my dear Leonard; so I cannot at once accept 
 your assurance. But listen to me ! Watch yourself nar- 
 rowly, and if you find that you are likely to be captivated, 
 promise, on your honor, to retreat at once from the field. 
 I have no right, for the sake of another, to expose you to 
 danger ; and Madame di Negra, whatever may be her good 
 qualities, is the last person I should wish to see you in love 
 with." 
 
 " In love with her ! Impossible ! " 
 
 "Impossible is a strong word," returned Harley; "still, 
 I own fairly (and this belief alone warrants me in trusting 
 you to her fascinations) that I do think, as far as one man 
 can judge of another, that she is not the woman to attract
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 721 
 
 you ; and, if filled by one pure and generous object in your 
 intercourse with her, you will see her with purged eyes. 
 Still I claim your promise as one of honor." 
 
 "I give it," said Leonard, positively. " But how can I 
 serve Riccabocca ? How aid in " 
 
 "Thus," interrupted Harley. "The spell of your writ- 
 ings is that, unconsciously to ourselves, they make us bet- 
 ter and nobler. And your writings are but the impressions 
 struck off from your mind. Your conversation, when you are 
 aroused, has the same effect. And as you grow more famil- 
 iar with Madame di Negra, I wish, you to speak of your 
 boyhood, your youth. Describe the exile as you have seen 
 him so touching amidst his foibles, so grand amidst the 
 petty privations of his fallen fortunes, so benevolent while 
 poring over his hateful Machiavelli, so stingless in his wis- 
 dom of the serpent, so playfully astute in his innocence of 
 the dove I leave the picture to your knowledge of humor 
 and pathos. Describe Violante brooding over her Italian 
 poets, and filled with dreams of her fatherland ; describe 
 her with all the flashes of her princely nature, shining forth 
 through humble circumstance and obscure position ; waken 
 in your listener compassion, respect, admiration for her 
 kindred exiles ; and I think our work is done. She will 
 recognize evidently those whom her brother seeks. She 
 will question you closely where you met with them where 
 they now are. Protect that secret ; say at once that it is 
 not your own. Against your descriptions and the feelings 
 they excite, she will not be guarded as against mine. 
 And there are other reasons why your influence over this 
 woman of mixed nature may be more direct and effectual 
 than my own." 
 
 " Nay, I cannot conceive that." 
 
 " Believe it, without asking me to explain," answered 
 Harley. For he did not judge it necessary to say to Leon- 
 ard, " I am high-born and wealthy you a peasant's son, 
 and living by your exertions. This woman is ambitious 
 and distressed. She might have projects on me that would 
 counteract mine on her. You she would but listen to, and 
 receive, through the sentiments of good or of poetical that 
 are in her you she would have no interest to subjugate, no 
 motive to ensnare. 
 
 "And now," said Harley, turning the subject, "1 have 
 another object in view. This foolish sage friend of ours, in 
 his bewilderment and fear, has sought to save Violante from 
 
 3'
 
 722 MY NOVEL; OA\ 
 
 one rogue by promising her hand to a man who, unless my 
 instincts deceive me, I suspect much disposed to be an- 
 other. Sacrifice such exuberance of life and spirit to that 
 bloodless heart, to that cold and earthward intellect ! By 
 Heaven, it shall not be ! " 
 
 " But whom can the exile possibly have seen of birth and 
 fortunes to render him a fitting spouse for his daughter } 
 Whom, my lord, except yourself ? " 
 
 "Me!" exclaimed Harley, angrily, and changing color. 
 "I worthy of such a creature ? I with my habits! I 
 silken egotist that I am ! And you, a poet, to form such 
 an estimate of one who might be the queen of a poet's 
 dream ?" 
 
 "My lord, when we sat the other night round Ricca- 
 bocca's hearth when I heard her speak, and observed you 
 listen, I said to myself, from such knowledge of human na- 
 ture as comes, we know not how, to us poets I said, ' Har- 
 ley L' Estrange has looked long and wistfully on the heavens, 
 and he now hears the murmur of the wings that can waft 
 him toward them.' And then I sighed, for I thought how 
 the world rules us all in spite of ourselves, and I said, 
 4 What pity for both that the exile's daughter is not the 
 worldly equal of the peer's son ! ' And you too sighed, as 
 I thus thought ; and I fancied that, while you listened to 
 the music of the wing, you felt the iron of the chain. But 
 the exile's daughter is.your equal in birth, and you are her 
 equal in heart and in soul." 
 
 " My poor Leonard, you rave," answered Harley, calmly ; 
 " and if Violante is not to be some young prince's bride, 
 she should be some young poet's." 
 
 " Poet's ! O, no ! " said Leonard, with a gentle laugh. 
 " Poets need repose where they love ! " 
 
 Harley was struck by the answer, and mused over it in 
 silence. "I comprehend," thought he; "it is a new light 
 that dawns on me. What is needed by the man, whose 
 whole life is one strain after glory whose soul sinks, in 
 fatigue, to the companionship of earth is not the love of 
 a nature like his own. He is right it is repose ! While 
 I ! it is true boy that he is, his intuitions are wiser than 
 all my experience ! It is excitement energy elevation, 
 that Love should bestow on me. But I have chosen ; and, 
 at least, with Helen, my life will be calm, and my hearth 
 sacred. Let the rest sleep in the same grave as my 
 youth."
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 723 
 
 " But," said Leonard, wishing kindly to arouse his 
 noble friend from a reverie which he felt was mournful, 
 though he did not divine its true cause " but you have 
 not yet told me the name of the signorina's suitor. May I 
 know ?" 
 
 " Probably one you never heard of. Randal Leslie a 
 placeman. You refused a place ; you were right." 
 
 " Randal Leslie ? Heaven forbid ! " cried Leonard, re- 
 vealing his surprise at the name. 
 
 " Amen ! But what do you know of him ? " 
 
 Leonard related the story of Burley's pamphlet. 
 
 Harley seemed delighted to hear his suspicions of Ran- 
 dal confirmed. " The paltry pretender ! and yet I fancied 
 that he might be formidable ! However, we must dismiss 
 him for the present ; we are approaching Madame di Ne- 
 gra's house. Prepare yourself, and remember your prom- 
 ise." 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 SOME days have passed by. Leonard and Beatrice di 
 Negra have already made friends. Harley is satisfied with 
 his young friend's report. He himself has been actively 
 occupied. He has sought, but hitherto in vain, all trace of 
 Mrs. Bertram ; he has put that investigation into the hands 
 of his lawyer, and his lawyer has not been more fortunate 
 than himself. Moreover, Harley has blazed forth again in 
 the London world, and promises again de fair e fur eur ; but 
 he has always found time to spend some hours in the 
 twenty-four at his father's house. He has continued much 
 the same tone with Violarite, and she begins to accustom her- 
 self to it, and reply saucily. His calm courtship to Helen 
 flows on in silence. Leonard, too, has been a frequent 
 guest at the Lansmeres : all welcome and like him there. 
 Peschiera has not evinced any signs of the deadly machina- 
 tions ascribed to him. He goes less into the drawing-room 
 world ; for in that world he meets Lord L'Estrange ; and 
 brilliant and handsome though Peschiera be, Lord L'Es- 
 trange, like Rob Roy Macgregor, is "on his native heath/' 
 and has the decided advantage over the foreigner. Pes- 
 chiera, however, shines in the clubs, and plays high. Still 
 scarcely an evening passes in which he and Baron Levy do 
 not meet.
 
 724 MY NOVEL; OK, 
 
 Audlcy Egerton has been intensely occupied with affairs. 
 Only seen once by Harley. Harley then was about to de- 
 liver himself of his sentiments respecting Randal Leslie, 
 and to communicate the story of Burley and the pamphlet. 
 Egerton stopped him short. 
 
 " My dear Harley, don't try to set me against this young 
 man. I wish to hear nothing in his disfavor. In the first 
 place, it would not alter the line of conduct I mean to adopt 
 with regard to him. He is my wife's kinsman ; I charged 
 myself with his career, as a wish of hers, and therefore as a 
 duty to myself. In attaching him so young to my own fate, 
 I drew him necessarily away from the professions in which 
 his industry and talents (for he has both in no common de- 
 gree) would have secured his fortunes ; therefore, be he 
 bad, be he good, I shall try to provide for him as I best 
 can ; and, moreover, cold as I am to him, and worldly 
 though herhaps he be, I have somehow or other conceived 
 an interest in him a liking to him. He has been under my 
 roof, he is dependent on me ; he has been docile and pru- 
 dent, and I am a lone childless man ; therefore, spare him, 
 since in so doing you spare me ; and ah, Harley, I have so 
 many cares on me now, that " 
 
 " O, say no more, my dear, dear Audley," cried the gen- 
 erous friend ; " how little people know you ! " 
 
 Audley 's hand trembled. Certainly his nerves began to 
 show wear and tear. 
 
 Meanwhile, the object of this dialogue the type of per- 
 verted intellect of mind without heart of knowledge 
 which had no aim but power was in a state of anxious 
 perturbed gloom. He did not know whether wholly to be- 
 lieve Levy's assurance of his patron's ruin. He could not 
 believe it when he saw that great house in Grosvenor 
 Square, its hall crowded with lacqueys, its sideboard blaz- 
 ing with plate ; when no dun was ever seen in the ante- 
 chamber ; when not a tradesman was ever known to call 
 twice for a bill. He hinted to Levy the doubts all these 
 phenomena suggested to him ; but the Baron only smiled 
 ominously, and said 
 
 "True, the tradesmen are always paid ; but the how is 
 the question ! Randal, mon cher, you are too innocent. I 
 have but two pieces of advice to suggest, in the shape of two 
 proverbs ' Wise rats run from a failing house,' and, ' Make 
 hay while the sun shines.' Apropos, Mr. Avenel likes you 
 greatly, and has been talking of the borough of Lansmere
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 723 
 
 for you. He has contrived to get together a great interest 
 there. Make much of him." 
 
 Randal had indeed been to Mrs. Avenel's soiree dansante, 
 and called twice and found her at home, and been very bland 
 and civil, and admired the children. She had two, a boy 
 and a girl, very like their father, with open faces as bold as 
 brass. And as all this had won Mrs. Avenel's good graces, 
 so it had propitiated her husband's. Avenel was shrewd 
 enough to see how clever Randal was. He called him 
 " smart/' and said "he would have got on in America," 
 which was the highest praise Dick Avenel ever accorded to 
 any man. But Dick himself looked a little care-worn ; and 
 this was the first year in which he had murmured at the 
 bills of his wife's dressmaker, and said with an oath, that 
 " there was such a thing as going too much ahead." 
 
 Randal had visited Dr. Riccabocca, and found Violante 
 flown. True to his promise to Harley, the Italian refused 
 to say where, and suggested, as was agreed, that for the 
 present it would be more prudent if Randal suspended his 
 visits to himself. Leslie, not liking this proposition, at- 
 tempted to make himself still necessary, by working on 
 Riccabocca's fears as to that espionage on his retreat, which 
 had been among the reasons that had hurried the sage into 
 offering Randal Violante's hand. But Riccabocca had al- 
 ready learned that the fancied spy was but his neighbor 
 Leonard ; and, without so saying, he cleverly contrived to 
 make the supposition of such espionage an additional reason 
 for the cessation of Leslie's visits. Randal then, in his own 
 artful, quiet, roundabout way, had sought to find out if any 
 communication had passed between L'Estrange and Ricca- 
 bocca. Brooding over Harley's words to him, he suspected 
 there had been such communication, with his usual pene- 
 trating astuteness. Riccabocca, here, was less on his guard, 
 and rather parried the sidelong questions than denied their 
 inferences. 
 
 Randal began already to surmise the truth. Where was 
 it likely Violante should go but to the Lansmeres ? This 
 confirmed his idea of Harley's pretensions to her hand. 
 With such a rival, what chance had he ? Randal never 
 doubted for a moment that the pupil of Machiavelli would 
 " throw him over," if such an alliance to his daughter really 
 presented itself. The schemer at once discarded from his 
 projects all further aim on Violante ; either she would be 
 poor, and he would not have her ; or she would be rich,
 
 726 MV NOVEL; OR, 
 
 and her father would give her to another. As his heart had 
 never been touched by the fair Italian, so the moment her 
 inheritance became more doubtful, it gave him no pang to 
 lose her ; but he did feel very sore and resentful at the 
 thought of being supplanted by Lord L'Estrange, the man 
 who had insulted him. 
 
 Neither, as yet, had Randal made anyway in his designs 
 on Frank. For several days Madame di Negra had not been 
 at home either to himself or young Hazeldean ; and Frank, 
 though very unhappy, was piqued and angry ; and Randal 
 suspected, and suspected, and suspected, he knew not ex- 
 actly what, but that the devil was not so kind to him there 
 as that father of lies ought to have been to a son so dutiful. 
 Yet, with all these discouragements, there was in Randal 
 Leslie so dogged and determined a conviction of his own 
 success there was so great a tenacity of purpose under ob- 
 stacles, and so vigilant an eye upon all chances that could 
 be turned to his favor, that he never once abandoned hope, 
 nor did more than change the details in his main schemes. 
 Out of calculations apparently the most far-fetched and im- 
 probable, he had constructed a patient policy to which he 
 obstinately clung. How far his reasonings and patience 
 served to his ends, remains yet to be seen. But could our 
 contempt for the baseness of Randal himself be separated 
 from the faculties which he elaborately degraded to the ser- 
 vice of that baseness, one might allow that there was some- 
 tiling one could scarcely despise in this still self-reliance, 
 this inflexible resolve. Had such qualities, aided as they 
 were by abilities of no ordinary acuteness, been applied to 
 objects commonly honest, one would have backed Randal 
 Leslie against any fifty picked prize-men from the colleges. 
 But there are judges of weight and metal who do that now, 
 especially Baron Levy, who says to himself, as he eyes that 
 pale face all intellect, and that spare form all nerve, " This 
 is a man who must make way in life ; he is worth helping." 
 
 By the words "worth helping," Baron Levy meant 
 " worth getting into my power, that he may help me."
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 727 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 BUT Parliament had met. Events that belonged to his- 
 tory had contributed yet more to weaken the administra- 
 tion. Randal Leslie's interest became absorbed in politics ; 
 for the stake to him was his whole political career. Should 
 Audley lose office, and for good, Audley could aid him no 
 more ; but to abandon his patron, as Levy recommended, 
 and pin himself, in the hope of a seat in Parliament, to a 
 stranger an obscure stranger, like Dick Avenel that was 
 a policy not to be adopted at a breath. Meanwhile, almost 
 every night, when the House met, that pale face and spare 
 form, which Levy so identified with shrewdness and energy, 
 might be seen amongt the benches appropriated to those 
 more select strangers who obtain the Speaker's order of ad- 
 mission. There, Randal heard the great men of that day, 
 and with the half-contemptuous surprise at their fame, 
 which is common enough amongst clever well-educated 
 young men, who know not what it is to speak in the House 
 of Commons. He heard much slovenly English, much trite 
 reasoning, some eloquent thoughts, and close argument, 
 often delivered in a jerking tone of voice (properly called 
 the Parliamentary twang)) and often accompanied by gestic- 
 ulations that would have shocked the manager of a provin- 
 cial theatre. He thought how much better than these great 
 dons (with but one or two exceptions) he himself could speak 
 with what more refined logic with -what more polished 
 periods how much more like Cicero and Burke ! Very 
 probably he might have so* spoken, and for that very reason 
 have made that deadest of all dead failures a pretentious 
 imitation of Burke and Cicero. One thing, however, he 
 was obliged to own, viz., that in a popular representative 
 assembly it is not precisely knowledge which is power, or if 
 knowledge, it is but the knowledge of that particular as- 
 sembly, and what wilt best take with it ; passion, invective, 
 sarcasm, bold declamation, shrewd common sense, the read- 
 iness so rarely found in a veiy profound mind he owned 
 that all these were the qualities that told ; when a man who 
 exhibited nothing but " knowledge," in the ordinary sense 
 of the word, stood an imminent chance of being coughed 
 down.
 
 728 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 There at his left last but one in the row of the minis- 
 terial chiefs Randal watched Audley Egerton, his arms 
 folded on his breast, his hat drawn over his brows, his eyes 
 fixed with steady courage on whatever speaker in the Op- 
 position held possession of the floor. And twice Randal 
 heard Egerton speak, and marvelled much at the effect 
 that minister produced. For of those qualities enumerated 
 above, and which Randal had observed to be more sure of 
 success, Audley Egerton only exhibited to a marked degree 
 the common sense and the readiness. And yet, though 
 but little applauded by noisy cheers, no speaker seemed 
 more to satisfy friends, and command respect from foes. 
 The true secret was this, which Randal might well not 
 divine, since that young person, despite his ancient birth, 
 his Eton rearing, and his refined air, was not one of Na- 
 ture's gentlemen ; the true secret was, that Audley Eger- 
 ton moved, looked, and spoke like a thorough gentleman of 
 England. A gentleman of more than average talents and 
 of long experience, speaking his sincere opinions not a 
 rhetorician aiming at effect. Moreover, Egerton was a 
 consummate man of the world. He said, with nervous sim- 
 plicity, what his party desired to be said, and put what his 
 opponents felt to be the strong points of the case. Calm 
 and decorous, yet spirited and energetic, with little variety 
 of tone, and action subdued and rare, but yet signalized by 
 earness vigor, Audley Egerton impressed the understand- 
 ing of the dullest, and pleased the taste of the most fas- 
 tidious. 
 
 But once, when allusions were made to a certain popu- 
 lar question, on which the premier had announced his reso- 
 lution to refuse all concession, and on the expediency of 
 which it was announced that the cabinet was nevertheless 
 divided and when such allusions were coupled with di- 
 rect appeals to Mr. Egerton, as "the enlightened member 
 of a great commercial constituency," and with a flattering 
 doubt that "that Right Honorable gentleman, member for 
 that great city, identified with the cause of the Burgher 
 class, could be so far behind the spirit of the age as his 
 official chief," Randal observed that Egerton drew his hat 
 still more closely over his brows, and turned to whisper 
 with one of his colleagues. He could not be got up to speak. 
 
 That evening Randal walked home with Egerton, and 
 intimated his surprise that the minister had declined what 
 seemed to him a good occasion for one of those brief,
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 729 
 
 weighty replies by which Audley was chiefly distinguished 
 an occasion to which he had been loudly invited by the 
 " hears " of the House. 
 
 " Leslie," answered the statesman, briefly, " I owe all my 
 success in Parliament to this rule I have never spoken 
 against my convictions. I intend to abide by it to the last." 
 
 " But if the question at issue comes before the House, 
 you will vote against it ? " 
 
 "Certainly, I vote as a member of the cabinet. But 
 since I am not leader and mouthpiece of the party, I retain 
 as an individual the privilege to speak or keep silence." 
 
 " Ah, my dear Mr. Egerton," exclaimed Randal, "forgive 
 me. But this question, right or wrong, has got such hold 
 of the public mind. So little, if conceded in time, would 
 give content ; and it is so clear (if I rnay judge by the talk 
 I hear everywhere I go) that by refusing all concession, the 
 Government must fall, that I wish " 
 
 " So do I wish," interrupted Egerton, with a gloomy, im- 
 patient sigh " so do I wish ! But what avails it ? If my 
 advice had been taken but three weeks ago now it is too 
 late we could have doubled the rock ; we refused, we must 
 split upon it." 
 
 This speech was so unlike the discreet and reserved 
 minister, that Randal gathered courage to proceed with an 
 idea that had occurred to his own sagacity. And before I 
 state it, I must, add that Egerton had of late shown much 
 more personal kindness to his protege ; whether his spirits 
 were broken, or that at last, close and compact as his nature 
 of bronze was, he felt the imperious want to groan aloud in 
 some loving ear, the stern Audley seemed tamed and soft- 
 ened. So Randal went on % 
 
 " May I say what I have heard expressed with regard to 
 you and your position in the streets in the clubs ?" 
 
 " Yes, it is in the streets and the clubs that statesmen 
 should go to school. Say on." 
 
 " Well, then, I have heard it made a matter of wonder 
 why you, and one or two others I will not name, do not at 
 once retire from the ministry, and on the avowed ground 
 that you side with the public feeling on this irresistible 
 question." 
 
 " Eh ! " 
 
 "It is clear that in so doing you would become the most 
 popular man in the country clear that you would be sum- 
 moned back to power on the shoulders of the people. No
 
 730 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 new cabinet could be formed without you, and your station 
 in it would perhaps be higher, for life, than that which you 
 may now retain but for a few weeks longer. Has not this 
 ever occurred to you ? " 
 
 " Never," said Audley, with dry composure. 
 
 Amazed at such obtuseness, Randal exclaimed, " Is it 
 possible ! And yet, forgive me if I say I think you are 
 ambitious, and love power." 
 
 " No man more ambitious ; and if by power you mean 
 office, it has grown the habit of my life, and I shall not know 
 what to do without it." 
 
 " And how, then, has what seems to me so obvious never 
 occurred to you ?" 
 
 " Because you are young, and therefore I forgive you ; 
 but not the gossips who could wonder why Audley Egerton 
 refused to betray the friends of his whole career, and to 
 profit by the treason." 
 
 " But one should love one's country before a party." 
 
 " No doubt of that ; and the first interest of a country is 
 the honor of its public men." 
 
 " But men may leave their party without dishonor ! " 
 
 " Who doubts that ? Do you suppose that if I were an 
 ordinary independent member of Parliament, loaded with 
 no obligations, charged with no trust, I could hesitate for a 
 moment what course to pursue ? Oh, that I were but the 
 
 member for ! Oh, that I had the full right to be a free 
 
 agent ! But if a member of a cabinet, a chief in whom 
 thousands confide, because he is outvoted in a council of 
 his colleagues, suddenly retires, and by so doing breaks up 
 the whole party whose confidence he has enjoyed, whose 
 rewards he has reaped, to whom he owes the very position 
 which he employs to their ruin own that though his choice 
 may be honest, it is one which requires all the consolations 
 of conscience." 
 
 " But you will have those consolations. And," added 
 Randal energetically, " the gain to your career will be so 
 immense ! " 
 
 " That is precisely what it cannot be," answered Egerton, 
 gloomily. " I grant that I may, if I choose, resign office 
 with the present Government, and so at once destroy that 
 government ; for my resignation on such ground would 
 suffice to do it. I grant this ; but for that very reason I 
 could not the next day take office with another administra- 
 tion. I could not accept wages for desertion. No gentleman
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 731 
 
 could ! and therefore " Audley stopped short, and but- 
 toned his coat over his broad breast. The action was signi- 
 ficant ; ->t said that the man's mind was made up. 
 
 In fact, whether Audley Egerton was right or wrong in 
 his theory, depends upon much subtler, and perhaps loftier 
 views in the casuistry of political duties, than it was in his 
 character to take. And I guard myself from saying any- 
 thing in praise or disfavor of his notions, or implying that 
 he is a fit or unfit example in a parallel case. I am but 
 describing the man as he was, and as a man like him would 
 inevitably be, under the influences in which he lived, and in 
 that peculiar world of which he was so emphatically a 
 member. " Ce n'est pas moi qui parle, c'est Marc Aurcle." 
 
 He speaks, not I. 
 
 Randal had no time for further discussion. They now 
 reached Egerton's house, and the minister, taking the 
 chamber candlestick from his servant's hand, nodded a 
 silent good-night to Leslie, and with a jaded look retired to 
 his room. 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 BUT not on the threatened question was that eventful 
 campaign of Party decided. The Government fell less in 
 battle than skirmish. It was one fatal Monday a dull 
 question of finance and figures. Prosy and few were the 
 speakers. All the Government silent, save the Chancellor 
 of the Exchequer, and another business-like personage 
 connected with the Board of Trade, whom the House would 
 hardly condescend to hear. The House was in no mood to 
 think of facts and figures. Early in the evening, between 
 nine and ten, the Speaker's sonorous voice sounded, 
 " Strangers must withdraw ! " And Randal, anxious and 
 foreboding, descended from his seat and went out of the 
 fatal doors. He turned to take a last glance at Audley 
 Egerton. The whipper-in was whispering to Audley ; and 
 the minister pushed back his hat from his brows, and 
 glanced round the House, and up into the galleries, as if to 
 calculate rapidly the relative numbers of the two armies in 
 the field ; then he smiled bitterly, and threw himself back 
 into his seat. That smile long haunted Leslie. 
 
 Amongst the strangers thus banished with Randal, while
 
 732 MY NOVEL; OA\ 
 
 the division was being taken, were many young men, like 
 himself connected with the administration some by blood, 
 some by place. Hearts beat loud in the swarming lobbies. 
 Ominous mournful whispers were exchanged. " They say 
 the Government will have a majority of ten." " No ; I hear 
 
 they will certainly be beaten." " H says by fifty." " I 
 
 don't believe it," said a Lord of the Bedchamber ; "it is im- 
 possible. I left five Government members dining at the 
 ' Travellers.' " " No one thought ths division would be so 
 early." "A trick of the Whigs shameful." "Wonder 
 
 some one was not set up to talk for time ; very odd P 
 
 did not speak ; however, he is so cursedly rich, he does not 
 care whether he is out or in." " Yes ; and Audley Egerton 
 too, just such another ; glad, no doubt, to be set free to 
 look after his property ; very different tactics if we had 
 men to whom office was as necessary as it is to me ! " said 
 a candid young placeman. Suddenly the silent Leslie felt 
 a friendly grasp on his arm. He turned and saw Levy. 
 
 " Did I not tell you ? " said the Baron, with an exulting 
 smile. 
 
 " You are sure, then, that the Government will be out- 
 voted ? " 
 
 " I spent the morning in going over the list of members 
 with a parliamentary client of mine, 'who knows them all as 
 a shepherd does his sheep. Majority for the Opposition at 
 least twenty-five." 
 
 "And in that case must the Government resign, sir?" 
 asked the candid young placeman, who had been listening to 
 the smart well-dressed Baron, " his soul planted in his ears." 
 
 " Of course, sir," replied the Baron, blandly, and offer- 
 ing his snuff-box (true Louis Quinze, with a miniature of 
 Madame de Pompadour, set in pearls). "You are a friend 
 to the present ministers ? You could not wish them to be 
 mean enough to stay in ? " Randal drew aside the Baron. 
 
 " If Audley's affairs are as you state, what can he do ? " 
 
 " I shall ask him that question to-morrow," answered the 
 Baron, with a look of visible hate. " And I have come here 
 just to see how he bears the prospect before him." 
 
 " You will not discover that in his face. And those ab- 
 surd scruples of his ! If he had but gone out in time to 
 come in again with the New Men ! " 
 
 " Oh, of course, our Right Honorable is too punctilious 
 for that !" answering the Baron, sneering. 
 
 Suddenly the doors opened in rushed the breathless
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 733 
 
 expectants. " What are the numbers ? What is the 
 division ?" 
 
 " Majority against ministers," said a member of Oppo- 
 sition, peeling an orange, "twenty-nine." 
 
 The Baron, too, had a Speaker's order ; and he came into 
 the House with Randal, and sat by his side. But, to their 
 disgust, some member was talking about the other motions 
 before the House. 
 
 "What! has nothing been said as to the division?" 
 asked the Baron of a young county member, who was talk- 
 ing to some non-parliamentary friend in the bench before 
 Levy. The county member was one of the Baron's pet 
 eldest sons had dined often with Levy was under "obli- 
 gations" to him. The young legislator looked very much 
 ashamed of Levy's friendly pat on his shoulder, and an- 
 swered, hurriedly, " O yes ; H asked, ' if, after such an 
 
 expression of the House, it was the intention of ministers 
 to retain their places, and carry on the business of the 
 Government?'" 
 
 " Just like H ! Very inquisitive mind ! And what 
 
 was the answer he got ? " 
 
 " None," said the county member ; and returned in haste 
 to his proper seat in the body of the House. 
 
 " There comes Egerton," said the Baron. And, indeed, as 
 most of the members were now leaving the House, to talk 
 over affairs at clubs or in saloons, and spread through town 
 the great tidings, Audley Egerton's tall head was seen 
 towering above the rest. And Levy turned away disap- 
 pointed. For not only was the minister's handsome face, 
 though pale, serene and cheerful, but there was an obvious 
 courtesy, a marked respect, in the mode in which that as- 
 sembly heated though -it was made way for the fallen 
 minister as he passed through the jostling crowd. And the 
 frank, urbane nobleman who afterward, from the force, 
 not of talent but of character, became the leader in that 
 House, pressed the hand of his old opponent, as they met 
 in the throng near the doors, and said aloud, "I shall not 
 be a proud man if ever I live to have office ; but I shall be 
 proud if ever I leave it with as little to be said against me 
 as your bitterest opponents can say against you, Egerton." 
 
 " I wonder," exclaimed the Baron aloud, and leaning 
 over the partition that divided him from the throng below, 
 so that his voice reached Egerton and there was a cry
 
 734 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 from formal indignant members, " Order in the strangers' 
 gallery ! " "I wonder what Lord L'Estrange will say ! " 
 
 Audley lifted his dark brows, surveyed the Baron for an 
 instant with flashing eyes, then walked down the narrow 
 defile between the last benches, and vanished from the scene 
 in which, alas ! so few of the most admired performers leave 
 more than an actor's short-lived name ! 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 BARON LEVY did not execute his threat of calling on 
 Egerton the next morning. Perhaps he shrank from again 
 meeting the flash of those indignant eyes. And indeed 
 Egerton was too busied all the forenoon to see any one 
 upon public affairs, except Harley, who hastened to console 
 or cheer him. When the House met, it was announced 
 that the ministers had resigned, only holding their offices 
 till their successors were appointed. But already there 
 was some reaction in their favor ; and when it became gen- 
 erally known that the new administration was to be formed 
 of men, few indeed of whom had ever before held office, the 
 common superstition in the public mind, that the govern- 
 ment is like a trade, in which a regular apprenticeship 
 must be served, began to prevail ; and the talk at the clubs 
 was, that the new men could not stand ; that the former 
 ministry, with some modification, would be back in a month. 
 Perhaps that too might be a reason why Baron Levy 
 thought it prudent not prematurely to offer vindictive con- 
 dolences to Mr. Egerton. Randal spent part of his morn- 
 ing in inquiries as to what gentlemen in his situation 
 meant to do with regard to their places ; he heard with 
 great satisfaction that very few intended to volunteer retire- 
 ment from their desks. As Randal himself had observed to 
 Egerton, " their country before their party ! " 
 
 Randal's place was of great moment to him ; its duties 
 were easy, its salary amply sufficient for his wants, and suf- 
 ficed to defray such expenses as were bestowed on the edu- 
 cation of Oliver and his sister. For I am bound to do justice 
 to this young man indifferent as he was toward his species 
 in general, the ties of family were strong with him ; and he 
 stinted himself in many temptations most alluring to his
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 735 
 
 age, in the endeavor to raise the dull honest Oliver and the . 
 loose-haired pretty Juliet somewhat more to his own level 
 of culture and refinement. Men essentially griping and 
 unscrupulous often do make the care for their family an 
 apology for their sins against the world. Even Richard 
 III., if the chroniclers are to be trusted, excused the murder 
 of his nephews by his passionate affection for his son. With 
 the loss of that place, Randal lost all means of support, 
 save what Audley could give him ; and if Audley were in 
 truth ruined ! Moreover, Randal had already established 
 at the office a reputation for ability and industry. It was a 
 career in which, if he abstained from party politics, he 
 might rise to a fair station and to a considerable income. 
 Therefore, much contented with what he learned as to the 
 general determination of his fellow-officials, a determination 
 warranted by ordinary precedent in such cases, Randal 
 dined at a club with good relish, and much Christian resig- 
 nation for the reverse of his patron, and then walked to 
 Grosvenor Square, on the chance of finding Audley within. 
 Learning that he was so, from the porter who opened the 
 door, Randal entered the library. Three gentlemen were 
 seated there with Egerton ; one of the three was Lord 
 L' Estrange, the other two were members of the really 
 defunct, though nominally still existing, Government. He 
 was about to withdraw from intruding on this conclave, 
 when Egerton said to him gently, "Come in, Leslie ; I was 
 just speaking about yourself." 
 
 " About me, sir ? " 
 
 " Yes ; about you and the place you hold. I had asked 
 Sir - (pointing to a fellow-minister) whether I might not, 
 with propriety, request your chief to leave some note of 
 his opinion of your talents, which I know is high, and which 
 might serve you with his successor." 
 
 " Oh, sir, at such a time to think of me ! " exclaimed 
 might serve Randal, and he was genuinelv touched. 
 
 "But," resumed Audley, with his usual dryness, "Sir 
 
 , to my surprise, thinks that it would better become you 
 
 that you should resign. Unless his reasons, which he has 
 
 not yet stated, are very strong, such would not be my 
 
 advice." 
 
 " My reasons," said Sir , with official formality, " are 
 
 simply these : I have a nephew in a similar situation ; he 
 will resign, as a matter of course. Every one in the public 
 offices whose relations and near connections hold high ap-
 
 736 MY NOVEL: OR, 
 
 pointments in the Government, will do so. I do not think 
 Mr. Leslie will like to feel himself a solitary exception." 
 
 " Mr. Leslie is no relation of mine not even a near con- 
 nection," answered Egerton. 
 
 " But his name is so associated with your own he has 
 resided so long in your house is so well known in society 
 (and don't think I compliment when I add, that we hope so 
 well of him), that I can't think it worth his while to keep 
 this paltry place, which incapacitates him too from a seat 
 in Parliament." 
 
 Sir was one of those terribly rich men, to whom all 
 
 considerations of mere bread and cheese are paltry. But I 
 must add that he supposed Egerton to be still wealthier 
 than himself, and sure to provide handsomely for Randal, 
 
 whom Sir rather liked than not ; and for Randal's own 
 
 sake, Sir thought it would lower him in the estimation 
 of Egerton himself, despite that gentleman's advocacy, if he 
 did not follow the example of his avowed and notorious 
 patron. 
 
 " You see, Leslie," said Egerton, checking Randal's 
 meditated reply, " that nothing can be said against your 
 honor if you stay where you are ; it is a mere question of 
 expediency ; I will judge that for you ; keep your place." 
 
 Unhappily the other member of the Government, who 
 had hitherto been silent, was a literary man. Unhappily, 
 while this talk had proceeded, he had placed his hand upon 
 Randal Leslie's celebrated pamphlet, which lay on the 
 library table ; and, turning over the leaves, the whole spirit 
 and matter of that masterly composition in defence of the 
 administration (a composition steeped in all the essence of 
 party) recurred to his too faithful recollection. He, too, 
 liked Randal ; he did more he admired the author of that 
 striking and effective pamphlet. And therefore, rousing 
 himself from the sublime indifference he had before felt 
 for the fate of a subaltern, he said, with a bland and com- 
 plimentary smile, " No ; the writer of this most able publi- 
 cation is no ordinary placeman. His opinions also are too 
 vigorously stated ; this fine irony on the very person who in 
 all probability will be the chief in his office, has excited too 
 lively an attention to allow him the sedet ceternumque sedebit 
 on an official stool. Ha, ha ! this is so good ! Read it, 
 L'Estrange. What say you ?" 
 
 Harley glanced over the page pointed out to him. The 
 original was in one of Burley's broad, coarse, but telling
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 737 
 
 burlesques, strained fine through Randal's more polished 
 satire. It was capital. Harley smiled, and lifted his eyes 
 to Randal. The unlucky plagiarist's face was flushed the 
 beads stood on his brow. Harley was a good hater; he 
 loved too warmly not to err on the opposite side ; but he 
 was one of those men who forget hate when its object is 
 distressed and humbled. He put down the pamphlet and 
 said, " I am no politician ; but Egerton is so well known to 
 be fastidious and over-scrupulous in all points of official 
 etiquette, that Mr. Leslie cannot follow a safer counsellor." 
 
 " Read that yourself, Egerton," said Sir ; and he 
 
 pushed the pamphlet to Audley. 
 
 Now Egerton had a dim recollection that that pamphlet 
 was unlucky ; but he had skimmed over its contents hastily, 
 and at that moment had forgotten all about it. He took 
 up the too famous work with a reluctant hand, but he read 
 attentively the passages pointed out to him, and then said 
 gravely and sadly 
 
 " Mr. Leslie, I retract my advice. I believe Sir is 
 
 right ; that the nobleman here so keenly satirized will be 
 the chief in your office. I doubt whether he will not com- 
 pel your dismissal ; at all events, he could scarcely be 
 expected to promote your advancement. Under the cir- 
 cumstances, 1 fear you have no option as a " Egerton 
 
 paused a moment, and, with a sigh that seemed to settle the 
 question, concluded with " as a gentleman." 
 
 Never did Jack Cade, never did Wat Tyler, feel a more 
 deadly hate to that word "gentleman," than the well-born 
 Leslie felt then ; but he bowed his head, and answered with 
 his usual presence of mind 
 
 " You utter my own .sentiment." 
 
 " You think we are right, Harley?" asked Egerton, with 
 an irresolution that surprised all present. 
 
 "I think," answered Harley, with a compassion for Ran- 
 dal that was almost over-generous, and yet with an equivoque 
 on the words, despite the compassion " I think whoever 
 has served Audley Egerton, never yet has been a loser by 
 it ; and if Mr. Leslie wrote this pamphlet, he must have 
 well served Audley Egerton. If he undergoes the penalty, 
 we may safely trust to Egerton for the compensation." 
 
 " My compensation has long since been made," answered 
 Randal, with grace; "and that Mr. Egerton could thus 
 have cared for my fortunes, at an hour so occupied, is a 
 thought of pride which
 
 738 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 " Enough, Leslie ! enough ! " interrupted Egerton, rising 
 and pressing \\\?> protege" s hand. " See me before you go to 
 bed." 
 
 Then the two other ministers rose also and shook hands 
 with Lesli.e, and told him he had done the right thing, and 
 that they hoped soon to see him in Parliament ; and hinted, 
 smilingly, that the next administration did not promise to 
 be very long-lived ; and one asked him to dinner, and the 
 other to spend a week at his country seat. And amidst these 
 congratulations at the stroke that left him penniless, the 
 distinguished Pamphleteer left the room. How he cursed 
 big John Burley ! 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 IT was past midnight when Audley Egerton summoned 
 Randal. The statesman was then alone, seated before his 
 great desk, with its manifold compartments, and engaged 
 on the task of transferring various papers and letters, some 
 to the waste-basket, some to the flames, some to two great 
 iron chests, with patent locks, that stood, open-mouthed, at 
 his feet. Strong, stern, and grim, looked those iron chests, 
 silently receiving the relics of power departed ; strong, 
 stern, and grim as the grave. Audley lifted his eyes at 
 Randal's entrance, signed to him to take a chair, continued 
 his task for a few moments, and then turning round, as if 
 by an effort, he plucked himself from his master-passion 
 Public Life, he said, with deliberate tones 
 
 " I know not, Randal Leslie, whether you thought me 
 needlessly cautious, or wantonly unkind, when I told you 
 never to expect from me more than such advance to your 
 career as my then position could effect never to expect 
 from my liberality in life, nor from my testament in death 
 an addition to your private fortunes. I see by your gesture 
 what would be your reply, and I thank you for it. I now 
 tell you, as yet in confidence, though before long it can be 
 no secret to the world, that my pecuniary affairs have been 
 so neglected by me in my devotion to those of the State, 
 that I am somewhat like the man who portioned out his 
 capital at so much a day, calculating to live just long enough 
 to make it last. Unfortunately he lived too long." Audley 
 smiled but the smile was as cold as a sunbeam npon ice
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 739 
 
 and went on with the same firm unfaltering accents : " The 
 prospects that face me I am prepared for ; they do not take 
 me by surprise. I knew long since how this would end, if 
 I survived the loss of office. I knew it before you came to 
 me, and therefore I spoke to you as I did, judging it manful 
 and right to guard you against hopes which you might 
 otherwise have naturally entertained. On this head, I need 
 .say no more. It may excite your surprise, possibly your 
 blame, that I, esteemed methodical and practical enough in 
 the affairs of the State, should be so imprudent as to my 
 own." 
 
 " Oh, sir ! you owe no account to me." 
 
 " To you, at least, as much as to any one. I am a soli- 
 tary man ; my few relations need nothing from me. I had 
 a right to spend what I possessed as I pleased ; and if I 
 have spent it recklessly as regards myself, I have not spent 
 it ill in its effect on others. It has been my object for many 
 years to have no Private Life to dispense with its sorrows, 
 joys, affections ; and as to its duties, they did not exist for 
 me. I have said." Mechanically, as he ended, the minis- 
 ter's hand closed the lid of one of the iron boxes, and on 
 the closed lid he rested his firm foot. " But now, he re- 
 sumed, " I have failed to advance your career. True, I 
 warned you that you drew into a lottery ; but you had 
 more chance of a prize than a blank. A blank, however, it 
 has turned out, and the question becomes grave What are 
 you to do ? " 
 
 Here, seeing that Egerton came to a full pause, Randal 
 answered, readily 
 
 " Still, sir, to go by your advice." 
 
 ," My advice," said A-udley, with a softened look, "would 
 perhaps be rude and unpalatable. I would rather place be- 
 fore you an option. On the one hand, recommence life 
 again. I told you that I would keep your name on your 
 college books. You can return you can take your degree 
 after that, you can go to the bar you have just the tal- 
 ents calculated to succeed in that profession. Success will 
 be slow, it is true ; but, with perseverance, it will be sure. 
 And, believe me, Leslie, Ambition is only sweet while it is 
 but the loftier name for Hope. Who would care for a fox's 
 brush if it had not been rendered a prize by the excitement 
 of the chase ? " 
 
 "Oxford again! It is a long step back in life," said 
 Randal, drearily, and little heeding Egcrton's unusual in-
 
 740 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 diligence of illustration. " A long step back and to what ? 
 To a profession in which one never begins to rise till one's 
 hair is gray ? Besides, how live in the meanwhile ? " 
 
 " Do not let that thought disturb you. The modest in- 
 come that suffices for a student at the bar, I trust, at least, 
 to insure you from the wrecks of my fortune." 
 
 "Ah, sir, I would not burthen you farther. What right 
 have I to such kindness, save my name of Leslie?" And 
 in spite of himself, as Randal concluded, a tone of bitter-" 
 ness, that betrayed reproach, broke forth. Egerton was 
 too much the man of the world not to comprehend the re- 
 proach, and not to pardon it. 
 
 " Certainly," he answered, calmly, " as a Leslie you are 
 entitled to my consideration, and would have been enti- 
 tled perhaps to more, had I not so explicitly warned you to 
 the contrary. But the bar does not seem to please you ?" 
 
 " What is the alternative, sir? Let me decide when I 
 hear it," answered Randal, sullenly. He began to lose 
 respsct for the man who owned he could do so little for 
 him, and who evidently recommended him to shift for him- 
 self. 
 
 If one could have pierced into Egerton's gloomy heart 
 as he noted the young man's change of tone, it may be a 
 doubt whether one would have seen there pain or pleasure 
 pain, for merely from the force of habit he had begun to 
 like Randal or pleasure, at the thought that he might 
 have reason to withdraw that liking. So lone and stoical 
 had grown the man, who had made it his object to have no 
 private life ! Revealing, however, neither pleasure nor pain, 
 but with the composed calmness of a judge upon the bench, 
 Egerton replied 
 
 " The alternative is to continue in the course you have 
 begun, and still to rely on me." 
 
 " Sir, my dear Mr. Egerton," exclaimed Randal, regain- 
 ing all his usual tenderness of look and voice, " rely on 
 you ! But that is all I ask ! Only " 
 
 " Only, you would say, I am going out of power, and 
 you don't see the chance of my return ?" 
 
 " I did not mean that." 
 
 " Permit me to suppose that you did : very true ; but the 
 party I belong to is as sure of return as the pendulum of 
 that clock is sure to obey the mechanism that moves it from 
 left to right. Our successors profess to come in upon a pop- 
 ular question. All administrations who do that are neces-
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 741 
 
 sarily short-lived. Either they do not go far enough to 
 please present supporters, or they go so far as to arm new 
 enemies in the rivals who outbid them with the people. 'Tis 
 the history of all revolutions, and of all reforms. Our own 
 administration in reality is destroyed for having passed what 
 was called a popular measure a year ago, which lost us half 
 our friends, and refusing to propose another popular meas- 
 ure this year, in the which we are outstripped by the man who 
 halloo'd us on to the last. Therefore, whatever our succes- 
 sors do, we shall, by the law of reaction, have another ex- 
 periment of power afforded to ourselves. It is but a question 
 of time ; you can wait for it ; whether I can is uncertain. 
 But if I die before that day arrives, I have influence enough 
 still left with those who will come in, to obtain a promise of 
 a better provision for you than that which you have lost. 
 The promises of public men are proverbially uncertain. 
 But I shall intrust your cause to a man who never failed a 
 friend, and whose rank will enable him to see that justice is 
 done to you I speak of Lord L'Estrange." 
 
 " Oh, not him ; he is unjust to me ; he dislikes me ; 
 he 
 
 " May dislike you (he has his whims), but he loves me ; 
 and though for no other human being but you would I ask 
 Harley L'Estrange a favor, yetforj>,?# I will," said Egerton, 
 betraying, for the first time in that dialogue, a visible emo- 
 tion <( for you, a Leslie, a kinsman, however remote, to the 
 wife from whom I received my fortune ! And despite of all 
 my cautions, it is possible that in wasting that fortune I 
 may have wronged you. Enough ! You have now before 
 you the two options, much as you had at first ; but you have 
 at present more experience to aid you in your choice. You 
 are a man, and with more brains than most men ; think over 
 it well, and decide for yourself. Now to bed, and postpone 
 thought till the morrow. Poor Randal, you look pale ! " 
 
 Audley, as he said the last words, put his hand on Ran- 
 dal's shoulder, almost with a father's gentleness ; and then 
 suddenly drawing himself up, as the hard inflexible expres- 
 sion, stamped on that face by years, returned, he moved away 
 and resettled to Public Life and the iron box.
 
 742 MY NO I 7 EL; OR, 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 EARLY the next day, Randal Leslie was in the luxurious 
 business-room of Baron Levy. How unlike the cold Doric 
 simplicity of the statesman's library ! Axminster carpets 
 three inches thick, portieres a la Franfmse before the doors ; 
 Parisian bronzes on the chimney-piece ; and all the recepta- 
 cles that lined the room, and contained title deeds, and 
 post-obits, and bills, and promises to pay, and lawyer-like 
 japan boxes, with many a noble name written thereon in 
 large white capitals " making ruin pompous " all these 
 sepulchres of departed patrimonies veneered in rosewood 
 that gleamed with French polish, and blazed with ormolu. 
 There was a coquetry, an air of petit-maitre, so diffused over 
 the whole room, that you could not, for the life of you, re- 
 collect you were with an usurer ! Plutus wore the aspect 
 of his enemy Cupid ; and how realize your idea of Harpa- 
 gon in that Baron, with his easy French " Man c/ier," and 
 his white warm hands that pressed yours so genially, and 
 his dress so exquisite, even at the earliest morn ? No man 
 ever yet saw that Baron in a dressing-gown and slippers ! 
 As one fancies some feudal baron of old (not half so terri- 
 ble) everlastingly clad in mail, so all one's notions of this 
 grand marauder of civilization were inseparably associated 
 with varnished boots and a camelia in the button-hole. 
 
 "And this is all that he does for you ! " cried the Baron, 
 pressing together the points of his ten taper fingers. " Had 
 he but let you conclude your career at Oxford, I have heard 
 enough of your scholarship to know that you would have 
 taken high honors been secure of a fellowship have be- 
 taken yourself with content to a slow and laborious profes- 
 sion, and prepared yourself to die on the woolsack." 
 
 " He proposes to me now to return to Oxford," said 
 Randal. " It is not too late ! " 
 
 "Yes, it is," said the Baron. "Neither individuals nor 
 nations ever go back of their own accord. There must be 
 an earthquake before a river recedes to its source." 
 
 "You speak well," answered Randal, "and I cannot 
 gainsay you. But now ! " 
 
 "Ah, the 0w is the grand question in life the then is
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 743 
 
 obsolete, gone by out of fashion ; and now, won chcr, you 
 come to ask my advice ? " 
 
 "No, Baron, I come to ask your explanation." 
 
 "Of what?" 
 
 " I want to know why you spoke to me of Mr. Egerton's 
 ruin ; why you spoke to me of the lands to be sold by Mr. 
 Thornhill ; and why you spoke to me of Count Peschiera. 
 You touched on each of those points within ten minutes 
 you omitted to indicate what link can connect them." 
 
 " By Jove," said the Baron, rising, and with more admi- 
 ration in his face than you could have conceived that face, 
 so smiling and so cynical, could exhibit" by Jove, Randal 
 Leslie, but your shrewdness is wonderful. You really are 
 the first young man of your day ; and I will 'help you,' as I 
 helped Audley Egerton. Pdrhaps you will be more grateful. " 
 
 Randal thought of Egerton's ruin. The parallel implied 
 by the Baron did not suggest to him the rare enthusiasm of 
 gratitude. However, he merely said, "Pray, proceed I 
 listen to you with interest." 
 
 "As for politics, then," said the Baron, "we will discuss 
 that topic later. I am waiting myself to see how these new 
 men get on. The first consideration is for your private for- 
 tunes. You should buy this ancient Leslie property Rood 
 and Dulmansberry only ^20,000 down ; the rest may re- 
 main on mortgage for ever or at least till I find you a rich 
 wife as in fact I did for Egerton. Thornhill wants the 
 ^20,000 now wants them very much." 
 
 "And where," said Randal, with an iron smile, "are the 
 ^20,000 you ascribe to me to come from ?" 
 
 " Ten thousand shall come to you the day Count Pes- 
 chiera marries the daughter of his kinsman with your help 
 and aid the remaining ten thousand I will lend you. No 
 scruple I shall hazard nothing the estates will bear that 
 additional burden. What say you shall it be so ?" 
 
 "Ten thousand pounds from Count Peschiera!" said 
 Randal, breathing hard. "You cannot be serious! Such 
 a sum for what ? for a mere piece of information ? How 
 otherwise can I aid him ? There must be trick and decep- 
 tion intended here." 
 
 " My dear fellow," answered Levy, " I will give you a 
 hint. There is such a thing in life as being over-suspicious. 
 If you have a fault, it is that. The information you allude 
 to is, of course, the first assistance you are to give. Per- 
 haps more may be needed perhaps not. Of that you will
 
 744 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 judge yourself, since the ^10,000 are contingent on the 
 marriage aforesaid." 
 
 "Over-suspicious or not, "answered Randal, '-'the amount 
 of the sum is too improbable, and the security too bad, for 
 me to listen to this proposition, even if I could descend 
 to " 
 
 "Stop, mon cher. Business first, scruples afterward. 
 The security too bad what security ? " 
 
 " The word of Count Peschiera." 
 
 " He has nothing to do with it he need know nothing 
 about it. 'Tis my word you doubt. I am your security." 
 
 Randal thought of that dry witticism in Gibbon, " Abu 
 Rafe says he will be witness for this fact, but who will be 
 witness for Abu Rafe ? " but he remained silent, only fixing 
 on Levy those dark observant eyes, with their contracted 
 wary pupils. 
 
 "The fact is simply this," resumed Levy: "Count di 
 Peschiera has promised to pay his sister a dowry of ^20,000, 
 in case he has the money to spare. He can only have it to 
 spare by the marriage we are discussing. On my part, as 
 I manage his affairs in England for him, I have promised 
 that, for the said sum of ^20,000, I will guarantee the ex- 
 penses in the way of that marriage, and settle with Madame 
 di Negra. Now, though Peschiera is a very liberal, warm- 
 hearted fellow, I don't say that he would have named so 
 large a sum for his sister's dowry, if in strict truth he did 
 not owe it to her. It is the amount of her own fortune, 
 which, by some arrangements with her late husband, not 
 exactly legal, he possessed himself of. If Madame di Negra 
 went to law with him for it, she could get it back. I have 
 explained this to him ; and, in short, you now understand 
 why the sum is thus assessed. But I have bought up Ma- 
 dame di Negra's debts. I have bought up young Hazeldean's 
 (for we must make a match between these two a part of our 
 arrangements) ; I shall present to Peschiera, and to those 
 excellent young persons, an account that will absorb the 
 whole ^20,000. That sum will come into my hands. If I 
 settle the claims against them for half the money, which, 
 making myself the sole creditor, I have the right to do, the 
 moiety will remain. And if I choose to give it to you in 
 return for the services which provide Peschiera with a 
 princely fortune discharge the debts of his sister and se- 
 cure her a husband in my promising young client, Mr. 
 Hazeldean, that is my look-outall parties are satisfied, and
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 745 
 
 no one need ever be the wiser. The sum is large, no doubt ; 
 it answers to me to give it to you ; does it answer to you to 
 receive it ? " 
 
 Randal was greatly agitated ; but, vile as he was and 
 systematically as in thought he had brought himself to 
 regard others merely as they could be made subservient 
 to his own interest, still with all who have not hardened 
 themselves in actual crime, there is a wide distinction be- 
 tween the thought and the act ; and though, in the exercise 
 of ingenuity and cunning, he would have had few scruples 
 in that moral swindling which is mildly called " outwitting 
 another," yet thus nakedly and openly to accept a bribe 
 for a deed of treachery toward the poor Italian who had 
 so generously trusted him he recoiled. He was nerving 
 himself to refuse, when Levy, opening his pocket-book, 
 glanced over the memoranda therein, and said, as to him- 
 self, " Rood Manor Dulmansberry, sold to the Thornhills 
 by Sir Gilbert Leslie, knight of the shire ; estimated pres- 
 ent net rental ^2,250. 75. od. It is the greatest bargain I 
 ever knew. And with this estate in hand, and your talents, 
 Leslie, I don't see why you should not rise higher than 
 Audley Egerton. He was poorer than you once ! " 
 
 The old Leslie lands a positive stake in the country 
 the restoration of the fallen family ; and, on the other hand, 
 either long drudgery at the bar, a scanty allowance on 
 Egerton's bounty his sister wasting her youth at slovenly, 
 dismal Rood Oliver debased into a boor ! or a mendi- 
 cant's dependence on the contemptuous pity of Harley 
 L'Estrange Harley, who had refused his hand to him 
 Harley, who perhaps w T ould become the husband of Vio- 
 lante ! Rage seized him as these contrasting pictures rose 
 before his view. He walked to and fro in disorder, striving 
 to recollect his thoughts, and reduce himself from the pas- 
 sions of the human heart into the mere mechanism of cal- 
 culating intellect. " I cannot conceive," said he, abruptly, 
 " why you should tempt me thus what interest it is to 
 you ! " 
 
 Baron Levy smiled, and put up his pocket-book. He 
 saw from that moment that the victory was gained. 
 
 " My dear boy," said he, with the most agreeable bon- 
 homie, " it is very natural that you should think a man 
 would have a personal interest in whatever he does for an- 
 other. I believe that view of human nature is called utili- 
 tarian philosophy, and is much in fashion at present. Let 
 32
 
 ?46 MY NOVEL; OK, 
 
 me try and explain to you. In this affair I shan't injure 
 myself. True, you will say, I will settle claims, which 
 amount to ^20,000, for ^10,000, I might put the surplus 
 into my own pocket instead of yours. Agreed. But I 
 shall not get the ^20,000, nor repay myself Madame di 
 Negra's debts (whatever I may do as to Hazeldean's), unless 
 the Count gets this heiress. You can help in this. I want 
 you ; and I don't think I could get you by a less offer than 
 I make. I shall soon pay myself back the ^"10,000 if the 
 Count get hold of the lady and her fortune. Brief I see 
 my way here to my own interests. Do you want more rea- 
 sons you shall have them. I am now a very rich man. 
 How have I become so ? Through attaching myself from 
 the first to persons of expectations, whether from fortune 
 or talent. I have made connections in society, and society 
 has enriched me. I have still a passion for making money. 
 Que voulez-vous ? It is my profession, my hobby. It will be 
 useful to me in a thousand ways, to secure as a friend a 
 young man who will have influence with other young men, 
 heirs to something better than Rood Hall. You may suc- 
 ceed in public life. A man in public life may attain to the 
 knowledge of state secrets that are very profitable to one 
 who dabbles a little in the Funds. We can perhaps here- 
 after do business together that may put yourself in a way 
 of clearing off all mortgages on these estates on the en- 
 cumbered possession of which I shall soon congratulate 
 you. You see I am frank ; 'tis the only way of coming to 
 the point with so clever a fellow as you. And now, since 
 the less we rake up the mud in a pond from which we have 
 resolved to drink, the better, let us dismiss all other thoughts 
 but that of securing our end. Will you tell Peschiera where 
 the young lady is, or shall I ? Better do it yourself ; reason 
 enough for it, that he has confided to you his hope, and 
 asked you to help him ; why should not you ? Not a word 
 to him about our little arrangement ; he need never know 
 it. You need never be troubled." Levy rang the bell : 
 "Order my carriage round." 
 
 Randal made no objection. He was death-like pale, 
 but there was a sinister expression of firmness on his thin 
 bloodless lips. 
 
 " The next point," Levy resumed, " is to hasten the 
 match between Frank and the fair widow. How does that 
 stand ? " 
 
 " She will not see me, nor receive him."
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 747 
 
 " Oh, learn why ! And if you find on either side there 
 is a hitch, just let me know ; I will soon remove it." 
 
 " Has Hazeldean consented to the post-obit ? " 
 
 " Not yet ; I have not pressed it ; I wait the right mo- 
 ment, if necessary." 
 
 " It will be necessary." 
 
 " Ah, you wish it. It shall be so." 
 
 Randal Leslie again paced the room, and after a silent 
 self-commune, came up close to the Baron, and said 
 
 " Look you, sir, I am poor and ambitious ; you have 
 tempted me at the right moment, and with the right induce- 
 ment. I succumb. But what guarantee have I that this 
 money will be paid these estates made mine upon the con- 
 dition stipulated ? " 
 
 " Before anything is settled," replied the Baron, " go 
 and ask my character of any of our young friends, Borro- 
 well, Spendquick whom you please ; you will hear me 
 abused, of course ; but they will all say this of me, that 
 when I pass my word, I keep it. If I say, ' Mm cher, you 
 shall have the money,' a man has it ; if I say, ' I renew your 
 bill for six months/ it is renewed. Tis my way of doing 
 business. In all cases my word is my bond. In this case, 
 where no writing can pass between us, my only bond must 
 be my word. Go, then, make your mind clear as to your 
 security, and come here and dine at eight. We will call on 
 Peschiera afterward." 
 
 " Yes," said Randal, " I will at all events take the day 
 to consider. Meanwhile, I say this I do not disguise from 
 myself the nature of the proposed transaction, but what I 
 have once resolved I go through with. My sole vindication 
 to myself is, that if I play here with a false die, it will be 
 for a stake so grand, as, once won, the magnitude of the 
 prize will cancel the ignominy of the play. It is not this 
 sum of money for which -I sell myself it is for what that 
 sum will aid me to achieve. And in the marriage of young 
 Hazeldean with the Italian woman, I have another, and it 
 may be, a larger interest. I have slept on it lately I wake 
 to it now. Insure that marriage, obtain the post-obit from 
 Hazeldean, and whatever the issue of the more direct scheme 
 for which you seek my services, rely on my gratitude, and 
 believe that you will have put me in the way to render 
 gratitude of avail. At eight I will be with you." 
 
 Randal left the room. 
 
 The Baron sat thoughtful. " It is true," said he to
 
 ^48 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 himself, " this young man is the next of kin to the Hazel- 
 dean estate, if Frank displease his father sufficiently to lose 
 his inheritance ; that must be the clever boy's design. 
 Well, in the long run, I should make as much, or more, out 
 of him than out of the spendthrift Frank. Frank's faults 
 are those of youth. He will reform and retrench. But this 
 man ! No, I shall have him for life. And should he fail 
 in this project, and have but this encumbered property a 
 landed proprietor mortgaged up to his ears why, he is my 
 slave, and I shall foreclose when I wish, or if he prove use- 
 less ; no, I risk nothing. And if I did if I lost ten thou- 
 sand pounds what then ? I can afford it for revenge ! 
 afford it for the luxury of leaving Audley Egerton alone 
 with penury and ruin, deserted, in his hour of need, by the 
 pensioner of his bounty as he will be by the last friend of 
 his youth when it so pleases me me whom he has called 
 
 ' scoundrel ! ' and whom he " Levy's soliloquy halted 
 
 there, for the servant entered to announce the carriage. 
 And the Baron hurried his hand over his features, as if to 
 sweep away all trace of the passions that distorted their 
 smiling effrontery. And so, as he took up his cane and his 
 gloves, and glanced at the glass, the face of the fashionable 
 usurer was once more as varnished as his boots. 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 WHEN a clever man resolves on a villanous action, he 
 hastens, by the exercise of his cleverness, to get rid of the 
 sense of his villany. With more than his usual alertness, 
 Randal employed the next hour or two in ascertaining how 
 far Baron Levy merited the character he boasted, and how 
 far his word might be his bond. He repaired to young men 
 whom he esteemed better judges on these points than 
 Spendquick and Borrowell young men who resembled the 
 Merry Monarch, inasmuch as 
 
 " They never said a foolish thing, 
 And never did a wise one." 
 
 There are many such young men about town sharp and 
 able in all affairs except their own. No one knows the 
 world better, nor judges of character more truly, than your
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 749 
 
 half-beggared roue*. From all these Baron Levy obtained 
 much the same testimonials ; he was ridiculed as a would- 
 be dandy, but respected as a very responsible man of busi- 
 ness, and rather liked as a friendly, accommodating species 
 of the Sir Epicure Mammon, who very often did what were 
 thought handsome, liberal things ; and, " in short," said one 
 of these experienced referees, " he is the best fellow going 
 - for a money-lender ! You may always rely on what he 
 promises, and he is generally very forbearing and indulgent 
 to us of good society ; perhaps for the same reason that our 
 tailors are ; to send one of us to prison would hurt his cus- 
 tom. His foible is to be thought a gentleman. I believe, 
 much as I suppose he loves money, he would give up half 
 his fortune rather than do anything for which we could cut 
 him. He allows a pension of three hundred a-year to Lord 
 
 S . True ; he was his man of business for twenty years, 
 
 and before then S was rather a prudent fellow, and had 
 
 fifteen thousand a-year. He has helped on, too, many a 
 clever young man ; the best boroughmonger you ever 
 knew. He likes having friends in Parliament. In fact, of 
 course, he is a rogue ; but if one wants a rogue, one can't 
 find a pleasanter. I should like to see him on the French 
 stage a prosperous Macaire ; Le Maitre could hit him off 
 to the life." 
 
 From information in these more fashionable quarters, 
 gleaned with his usual tact, Randal turned to a source less 
 elevated, but to which he attached more importance. Dick 
 Avenel associated with the Baron Dick Avenel must be in 
 his clutches. Now Randal did justice to that gentleman's 
 practical shrewdness. Moreover, Avenel was by profession 
 a man of business. He must know more of Levy than these 
 men of pleasure could ; and, as he was a plain-spoken per- 
 son, and evidently honest, in the ordinary acceptation of the 
 word, Randal did not doubt that out of Dick Avenel he 
 should get the truth. 
 
 On arriving in Eton Square, and asking for Mr. Avenel, 
 Randal was at once ushered into the drawing-room. The 
 apartment was not in such good, solid, mercantile taste as 
 had characterized Avenel's more humble bachelor's residence 
 at Screwstown. The taste now was the Honorable Mrs. Aven- 
 el's ; and, truth to say, no taste could be worse. Furniture 
 of all epochs heterogeneously clumped together here a 
 sofa a la renaissance in Gobelin there a rosewood console 
 from Gillovv a tall mock-Elizabethan chair in black oak,
 
 7so MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 by the side of a modern Florentine table of mosaic marbles. 
 All kinds of colors in the room, and all at war with each 
 other. Very bad copies of the best-known pictures in the 
 world, in the most gaudy frames, and imprudently labelled 
 by the names of their murdered originals "Raffaele," 
 "Corregio," "Titian," Sebastian del Piombo." Neverthe- 
 less, there had been plenty of money spent, and there was 
 plenty to show for it. Mrs. Avenel was seated on her sofa 
 a la renaissance, with one of her children at her feet, who 
 was employed in reading a nej(v Annual in crimson silk bind- 
 ing. Mrs. Avenel was in an attitude as if sitting for her 
 portrait. 
 
 Polite society is most capricious in its adoptions or re- 
 jections. You see many a vulgar person firmly established 
 in the beau monde ; others, with very good pretensions as to 
 birth, fortune, etc., either rigorously excluded, or only per- 
 mitted a peep over the pales. The Honorable Mrs. Avenel 
 belonged to families unquestionably noble, both by her own 
 descent and by her first marriage ; and if poverty had kept 
 her down in her earlier career, she now, at least, did not 
 want wealth to back her pretensions. Nevertheless, all the 
 dispensers of fashion concurred in refusing their support to 
 the Honorable Mrs. Avenel. One might suppose it was 
 solely on account of her plebeian husband ; but indeed it 
 was not so. Many a woman of high family can marry a 
 low-born man not so presentable as Avenel, and, by the help 
 of his money, get the fine world at her feet. But Mrs. 
 Avenel had not that art. She was still a very handsome 
 showy woman ; and as for dress, no duchess could be more 
 extravagant. Yet these very circumstances had perhaps 
 gone against her ambition ; for your quiet little plain 
 woman, provoking no envy, slips into the coteries, when a 
 handsome flaunting lady who, once seen in your drawing- 
 ing-room, can be no more overlooked than a scarlet poppy 
 amidst a violet bed is pretty sure to be weeded out as ruth- 
 lessly as a poppy would be in a similar position. 
 
 Mr. Avenel was sitting by the fire, rather moodily, his 
 hands in his pockets, and whistling to himself. To say 
 truth, that active mind of his was very much bored in Lon- 
 don, at least during the fore part of the day. He hailed 
 Randal's entrance with a smile of relief, and rising and post- 
 ing himself before the fire a coat-tail under each arm he 
 scarcely allowed Randal to shake hands with Mrs. Avenel, 
 and pat the child on the head, murmuring, " Beautiful
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 75! 
 
 creature." (Randal was ever civil to children that sort of 
 wolf in sheep's clothing always is don't be taken in, O you 
 foolish young mothers !) Dick, I say, scarcely allowed his 
 visitor these preliminary courtesies, before he plunged far 
 beyond depth of wife and child, into the political ocean. 
 " Things now were coming right a vile oligarchy was to be 
 destroyed. British respectability and British talent were to 
 have fair play." To have heard him, you would have thought 
 the day fixed for the millennium ! "And what is more," 
 said Avenel, bringing down the fist of his right hand upon 
 the palm of his left, " if there is to be a new parliament, we 
 must have new men not worn-out old brooms that never 
 sweep clean, but men who understand how to govern the 
 country, sir. I INTEND TO COME IN MYSELF ! " 
 
 "Yes," said Mrs. Avenel, hooking in a word at last, " I 
 am sure, Mr. Leslie, you will think I did right. I persuaded 
 Mr. Avenel that, with his talents and property, he ought, 
 for the sake of his country, to make a sacrifice ; and then 
 you know his opinions now are all the fashion, Mr. Leslie ; 
 formerly they would have been called shocking and vulgar ! " 
 
 Thus saying, she looked with fond pride at Dick's comely 
 face, which at that moment, however, was all scowl and 
 frown. I must do justice to Mrs. Avenel ; she was a weak, 
 silly woman in some things, and a cunning one in others ; 
 but she was a good wife, as wives go. Scotchwomen gen- 
 erally are. 
 
 "Bother!" said Dick; "what do women know about 
 politics ? I wish you'd mind the child it is crumpling up, 
 and playing almighty smash with that flim-flam book, which 
 cost me one pound one." 
 
 Mrs. Avenel submissively bowed her head, and removed 
 the Annual from the hands of the young destructive ; the 
 destructive set up a squall, as destructives usually do when 
 they don't have their own way. Dick clapped his hand to 
 his ears. "Whe-e-ew, I can't stand this; come and take a 
 walk, Leslie ; I want stretching ! " He stretched himself as 
 he spoke, first half-way up to the ceiling, and then fairly 
 out of the room. 
 
 Randal, with his May Fair manner, turned toward Mrs. 
 Avenel as if to apologize for her husband and himself. 
 
 " Poor Richard ! " said she, "he is in one of his humors 
 all men have them. Come and see me again soon. When 
 does Almack's open ? " 
 
 " Nay, I ought to ask you that question, you who know
 
 752 My NOVEL; OK, 
 
 everything that goes on in our set," said the young serpent 
 Any tree planted in " our set," if it had been but a crab-tree, 
 would have tempted Mr. Avenel's Eve to jump at its 
 boughs. 
 
 " Are you coming, there ? " cried Dick, from the foot of 
 the stairs. 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 " I HAVE just been at our friend Levy's," said Randal, 
 when he and Dick were outside the street-door. " He, like 
 you, is full of politics pleasant man for the business he 
 is said to do." 
 
 " Well," said Dick, slowly, " I suppose he is pleasant, 
 but make the best of it and still " 
 
 " Still what, my dear Avenel ? '.' (Randal here for the first 
 time discarded the formal Mister.) 
 
 MR. AVENEL. Still the thing itself is not pleasant. 
 
 RANDAL (with his soft hollow laugh). You mean borrow- 
 ing money upon more than five per cent. 
 
 " Oh, curse the per-centage. I agree with Bentham on 
 the Usury Laws no shackles in trade for me, whether in 
 money or anything else. That's not it. But when one 
 owes a fellow money even at two percent., and 'tis not con- 
 venient to pay him, why, somehow or other, it makes one 
 feel small ; it takes the British Liberty out of a man ! " 
 
 " I should have thought you more likely to lend money 
 than to borrow it." 
 
 "'Well, I guess you are right there, as a general rule. 
 But I tell you what it is, sir ; there is too great a mania 
 for competition getting up in this old rotten country of 
 ours. I am as liberal as most men. I like competition to a 
 certain extent, but there is too much of it, sir too much 
 of it." 
 
 Randal looked sad and convinced. But if Leonard had 
 heard Dick Avenel, what would have been his amaze ? Dick 
 Avenel rail against competition ! Think there could be too 
 much of it ! Of course, " heaven aud earth are coming 
 together," said the spider, when the housemaid's broom 
 invaded its cobweb. Dick was all for sweeping away other 
 cobwebs ; but he certainly thought heaven and earth com-
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 753 
 
 ing together when he saw a great Turk's-head besom poked 
 up at his own. 
 
 Mr. Avenel, in his genius for speculation and improve- 
 ment, had established a factory at Screwstown, the first 
 which had ever eclipsed the church spire with its Titanic 
 chimney. It succeeded well at first. Mr. Avenel trans- 
 ferred to this speculation nearly all his capital. " Nothing," 
 quoth he, " paid such an interest. Manchester was getting 
 worn out time to show what Screwstown could do. 
 Nothing like competition." But by-and-by a still greater 
 capitalist than Dick Avenel, finding out that Screwstown 
 was at the mouth of a coal-mine, and that Dick's profits 
 were great, erected a still uglier edifice, with a still taller 
 chimney. And having been brought up to the business, 
 and making his residence in the town, while Dick employed 
 a foreman and flourished in London, this infamous com- 
 petitor so managed first to share, and then gradually to 
 sequester, the profits which Dick had hitherto monopolized, 
 that no wonder Mr. Avenel thought competition should 
 have its limits. " The tongue touches where the tooth 
 aches," as Dr. Riccabocca would tell us. By little and 
 little our juvenile Talleyrand (I beg the elder great man's 
 pardon) wormed out from Dick this grievance, and in the 
 grievance discovered the origin of Dick's connection with 
 the money-lender. 
 
 " But Levy," said Avenel, candidly, " is a decentish 
 chap in his way friendly too. Mrs. A. finds him useful ; 
 brings some of yoiir young highflyers to her soirees. To 
 be sure, they don't dance stand all in a row at the door, 
 like mutes at a funeral. Not but what they have been 
 uncommon civil to me lately Spendquick particularly. 
 By the bye, I dine with him to-morrow. The aristocracy 
 are behindhand not smart, sir not up to the mark ; but 
 when a man knows how 'to take 'em, they beat the New 
 Yorkers in good manners. I'll say that for them. I have 
 no prejudice." 
 
 " I never saw a man with less ; no prejudice even against 
 Levy." 
 
 " No, not a bit of it ! Every one says he's a Jew ; he 
 says he's not. I don't care a button what he is. His 
 money is English that's enough for any man of a liberal 
 turn of mind. His charges, too, are moderate. To be 
 sure, he knows I shall pay them ; only what I don't like 
 in him is a sort of way he has of mon-cher-'wg and my
 
 754 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 good-fellowing one, to do things quite out of the natural 
 way of that sort of business. He knows I have got Parlia- 
 mentary influence. I could return a couple of members 
 for Screwstown, and one, or perhaps two, for Lansmere, 
 where I have of late been cooking up an interest ; and he 
 dictates to no, not dictates but tries to humbug me into 
 putting in his own men. However, in one respect, we are 
 likely to agree. He says you want to come into Parlia- 
 ment. You seem a smart young fellow ; but you must 
 throw over that stiff red-tapist of yours, and go with Public 
 Opinion, and Myself." 
 
 " You are very kind, Avenel ; perhaps when we come 
 to compare opinions, we may find that we agree entirely. 
 Still, in Egerton's present position, delicacy to him how- 
 ever, we'll not discuss that now. But you really think I 
 might come in for Lansmere against the L'Estrange inter- 
 est, too, which must be strong there ? " 
 
 " It was very strong, but I've smashed it, I calculate." 
 " Would a contest there cost very much ? " 
 " Well, I guess you must come down with the ready. 
 But, as you say, time enough to discuss that when you 
 have squared your account with 'delicacy;' come to me 
 then, and we'll go into it." 
 
 Randal, having now squeezed his orange dry, had no 
 desire to waste his time in brushing up the rind with his 
 coat-sleeve, so he unhooked his arm from Avenel's, and, 
 looking at his watch, discovered he should be just in time 
 for an appointment of the most urgent business hailed a 
 cab, and drove off. 
 
 Dick looked hipped and disconsolate at being left alone; 
 he yawned very loud, to the astonishment of three prim old 
 maiden Belgravians who were passing that way ; and then 
 his mind began to turn toward his factory at Screwstown, 
 which had led to his connection with the Baron ; and he 
 thought over a letter he had received from his foreman 
 that morning, informing him that it was rumored at Screws- 
 town that Mr. Dyce, his rival, was about to have new ma- 
 chinery on an improved principle ; and that Mr. Dyce had 
 already gone up to town, it was supposed with the intention 
 of concluding a purchase for a patent discovery to be ap- 
 plied to the new machinery, and which that gentleman had 
 publicly declared, in the corn-market, "would shut up Mr. 
 Avenel's factory before the year was out." As this menacing 
 epistle recurred to him, Dick felt his desire to yawn inconti-
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 75$ 
 
 nently checked. His brow grew very dark, and he walked, 
 with restless strides, on and on, till he found himself in the 
 Strand. He then got into an omnibus, and proceeded to 
 the city, wherein he spent the rest of the day, looking over 
 machines and foundries, and trying in vain to find out what 
 diabolical invention the over-competition of Mr. Dyce had 
 got hold of. " If," said Dick Avenel to himself, as he re- 
 turned fretfully homeward " if a man like me, who has 
 done so much for British industry and go-ahead principles, 
 is to be catawampously champed up by a mercenary selfish 
 cormorant of a capitalist like that interloping blockhead in 
 drab breeches, Tom Dyce, all I can say is, that the sooner 
 this cursed old country goes to the dogs, the better pleased 
 I shall be. I wash my hands of it." 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 RANDAL'S mind was made up. All he had learned in 
 regard to Levy had confirmed his resolves or dissipated his 
 scruples. He had started from the improbability that 
 Peschiera would offer, and the still greater improbability 
 that Peschiera would pay him, ten thousand pounds for 
 such information or aid as he could bestow in furthering 
 the Count's object. But when Levy took such proposals 
 entirely on himself, the main question to Randal became 
 this Could it be Levy's interest to make so considerable a 
 sacrifice ? Had the Baron implied only friendly senti- 
 ments as his motives, Randal would have felt sure he was 
 to be taken in ; but the usurer's frank assurance that it 
 would answer to him in the long-run to concede to Randal 
 terms so advantageous, altered the case, and led our young 
 philosopher to look at the affair with calm contemplative 
 eyes. Was it sufficiently obvious that Levy counted on an 
 adequate return ? Might he calculate on reaping help by 
 the bushel if he sowed it by the handful ? The result of 
 Randal's cogitations was, that the Baron might fairly deem 
 himself no wasteful sower. In the first place, it was clear 
 that Levy, not without reasonable ground, believed that he 
 could soon replace, with exceeding good interest, any sum 
 he might advance to Randal, out of the wealth which Ran- 
 dal's prompt information might bestow on Levy's client,
 
 756 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 the Count ; and, secondly, Randal's self-esteem was im- 
 mense, and could he but succeed in securing a pecuniary 
 independence on the instant, to free him from the slow 
 drudgery of the bar, or from a precarious reliance on 
 . Audley Egerton, as a politician out of power, his convic- 
 tions of rapid triumph in public life were as strong as if 
 whispered by an angel, or promised by a fiend. On such 
 triumphs, with all the social position they would secure, Levy 
 might well calculate for repayment by a thousand indirect 
 channels. Randal's sagacity detected that, through all the 
 good-natured or liberal actions ascribed to the usurer, Levy 
 had steadily pursued his own interests, he saw that Levy 
 meant to get him into his power, and use his abilities as 
 instruments for digging new mines, in which Baron Levy 
 would claim the right of large royalties. But at that thought 
 Randal's pale lip curled disdainfully ; he confided too much 
 in his own powers not to think that he could elude the 
 grasp of the usurer, whenever it suited him to do so. 
 Thus, on a survey, all conscience hushed itself, his mind 
 rushed buoyantly on to anticipations of the future. He 
 saw the hereditary estates regained no matter how mort- 
 gaged, for the moment still his own legally his own, 
 yielding for the present what would suffice for competence 
 to one of few wants, and freeing his name from that title of 
 Adventurer, which is so prodigally given in rich old coun- 
 tries to those who have no estates but their brains. He 
 thought of Violante but as the civilized trader thinks of a 
 trifling coin, of a glass bead, which he exchanges with some 
 barbarian for gold dust ; he thought of Frank Hazeldean 
 married to the foreign woman of beggared means, and repute 
 that had known the breath of scandal, married, and living 
 on post-obit instalments of the Casino property ; he thought 
 of the poor Squire's resentment, his avarice swept from the 
 lands annexed to Rood on to the broad fields of Hazeldean ; 
 he thought of Avenel, of Lansmere, of Parliament ; with 
 one hand he grasped fortune, with the next power. " And 
 yet I entered on life with no patrimony (save a ruined hall 
 and a barren waste) no patrimony but knowledge. I have 
 but turned knowledge from books to men ; for books may 
 give fame after death, but men give us power in life." And 
 all the while he thus ruminated, his act was speeding his 
 purpose. Though it was but in a miserable hack cab that 
 he erected airy scaffoldings round airy castles, still the 
 miserable hack cab was flying fast to secure the first foot of
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 757 
 
 solid ground whereon to transfer the mental plan of the 
 architect to foundations of positive lime and clay. The 
 cab stopped at the door of Lord Lansmere's house. % Randal 
 had suspected Violante to be there ; he resolved to ascer- 
 tain. Randal descended from his vehicle, and rang the 
 bell. The lodge-keeper opened the great wooden gates. 
 
 " I have called to see the young lady staying here the 
 foreign young lady." 
 
 Lady Lansmere had been too confident of the security 
 of her roof to condescend to give any orders to her servants 
 with regard to her guest, and the lodge-keeper answered 
 directly, 
 
 "At home, I believe, sir. I rather think she is in the 
 garden with my lady." 
 
 " I see," said Randal. And he did see the form of 
 Violante at a distance. " But since she is walking, I will 
 not disturb her at present. I will call another day." 
 
 The lodge-keeper bowed respectfully, Randal jumped 
 into his cab " To Curzon Street quick ! " 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 HARLEY had made one notable oversight in that appeal 
 to Beatrice's better and gentler nature, which he intrusted 
 to the advocacy of Leonard, a scheme in itself very char- 
 acteristic of Harley's romantic temper, and either wise or 
 foolish, according as his indulgent theory of human idiosyn- 
 crasies in general, and of those peculiar to Beatrice di Negra 
 in especial, was the dream of an enthusiast, or the inductive 
 conclusion of a sound philosopher. 
 
 Harley had warned Leonard not to fall in love with the 
 Italian, he had forgotten to warn the Italian not to fall in 
 love with Leonard ; nor had he ever anticipated the proba- 
 bility of that event. This is not to be very much wondered 
 at ; for if there be anything on which the most sensible men 
 are dull-eyed, where those eyes are not lighted by jealousy, 
 it is as to the probabilities of another male creature being 
 beloved. All, the least vain of the whiskered gender, think 
 it prudent to guard themselves against being too irresistible 
 to the fair sex ; and each says of his friend, " Good fellow
 
 758 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 enough, but the last man for that woman to fall in love 
 with ! " 
 
 But certainly there appeared on the surface more than 
 ordinary cause for Harley's blindness in the special instance 
 of Leonard. 
 
 Whatever Beatrice's better qualities, she was generally 
 esteemed worldly and ambitious. She was pinched in cir- 
 cumstances, she was luxurious and extravagant ; how was 
 it likely that she could distinguish any aspirant of the hum- 
 ble birth and fortunes of the young peasant author ? As a 
 coquette, she might try to win his admiration, and attract 
 his fancy ; but her own heart would surely be guarded in 
 the triple mail of pride, poverty, and the conventional opin- 
 ions of the world in which she lived. Had Harley thought 
 it possible that Madame di Negra could stoop below her 
 station, and love, not wisely, but too w r ell, he would rather 
 have thought that the object would be some brilliant ad- 
 venturer of fashion, some one who could turn against her- 
 self all the arts of deliberate fascination, and all the experi- 
 ence bestowed by frequent conquest. One so simple as 
 Leonard so young and so new ! Harley L'Estrange would 
 have smiled at himself, if the idea of that image subjugat- 
 ing the ambitious woman to the disinterested love of a vil- 
 lage maid, had once crossed his mind. Nevertheless, so it 
 was, and precisely from those causes which would have 
 seemed to Harley to forbid the weakness. 
 
 It was that fresh, pure heart, it was that simple, earnest 
 sweetness, it was that contrast in look, in tone, in senti- 
 ment, and in reasonings, to all that had jaded and disgusted 
 her in the circle of her admirers, it was all this that capti- 
 vated Beatrice at the first interview with Leonard. Here 
 was what she had confessed to the sceptical Randal she had 
 dreamed and sighed for. Her earliest youth had passed 
 into abhorrent marriage, without the soft, innocent crisis of 
 human life virgin love. Many a wooer might have touched 
 her vanity, pleased her fancy, excited her ambition her 
 heart had never been awakened : it woke now. The world, 
 and the years that the world had wasted, seemed to fleet 
 away as a cloud. She was as if restored to the blush and 
 the sigh of youth the youth of the Italian maid. As in 
 the restoration of our golden age is the spell of poetry with 
 us all, so such was the spell of the poet himself on her. 
 
 Oh, how exquisite was that brief episode in the life of 
 the woman palled with the " hack sights and sounds " of
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 759 
 
 worldly life ! How strangely happy were those hours, when, 
 lured on by her silent sympathy, the young scholar spoke 
 of his early struggles between circumstance and impulse, 
 musing amidst the flowers, and hearkening to the fountain ; 
 or of his wanderings in the desolate, lamp-lit streets, while 
 the vision of Chatterton's glittering eyes shone dread 
 through the friendless shadows. And as he spoke, whether 
 of his hopes or his fears, her looks dwelt* fondly on the 
 young face, that varied between pride and sadness pride 
 ever so gentle, and sadness ever so nobly touching. She 
 was never weary of gazing on that brow, with its quiet 
 power ; but her lids dropped before those eyes, with tfyeir 
 serene, unfathomable passion. She felt, as they haunted 
 her, what a deep and holy thing love in such souls must be. 
 Leonard never spoke to her of Helen that reserve every 
 reader can comprehend. To natures like his, love is a mys- 
 tery ; to confide it is to profane. But he fulfilled his com- 
 mission of interesting her in the exile and his daughter. 
 And his description of them. brought tears so her eyes. She 
 inly resolved not to aid Peschiera in his designs on Violante. 
 She forgot for the moment that her own fortune was to de- 
 pend on the success of those designs. Levy had arranged 
 so that she was not reminded of her poverty by creditors 
 she knew not how ; she knew nothing of business ; she 
 gave herself up to the delight of the present hour, and to 
 vague prospects of a future, associated with that young 
 image with that face of a guardian angel that she saw be- 
 fore her, fairest in the moments of absence ; for in those 
 moments came the life of fairy-land, when we shut our eyes 
 on the world, and see through the haze of golden reverie. 
 Dangerous, indeed, to Leonard would have been the soft 
 society of Beatrice di Negra, had not his heart been wholly 
 devoted to one object, and had not his ideal of woman been 
 from that object one sole and indivisible reflection. But 
 Beatrice guessed not this barrier between herself and him. 
 Amidst the shadows that he conjured up from his past life, 
 she beheld no rival form. She saw him lonely in the world 
 as she was herself. And in his lowly birth, his youth, in the 
 freedom from presumption which characterized him in all 
 things (save that confidence in his intellectual destinies, 
 which is the essential attribute of genius), she but grew the 
 bolder by the belief that, even if he loved her, he would not 
 dare to hazard the avowal. 
 
 And thus, one day, yielding, as she had ever been wont
 
 7<5o MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 to yield, to the impulse of her quick Italian heart how she 
 never remembered in what words she never could recall 
 she spoke she owned her love she pleaded, with tears 
 and blushes, for love in return. All that passed was to her as 
 a dream a dream from which she woke with a fierce sense 
 of agony, of humiliation woke as the woman "scorned." 
 No matter how gratefully, how tenderly Leonard had re- 
 plied the repfy was refusal. For the first time she learned 
 she had a rival ; that all he could give of love was long 
 since, from his boyhood, given to another. For the first 
 time in her life that ardent nature knew jealously, its tortur- 
 ing, stings, its thirst for vengeance, its tempest of loving 
 hate. But, to outward appearance, silent and cold she 
 stood as marble. Words that sought to soothe fell on her 
 ear unheeded : they were drowned by the storm within. 
 Pride was the first feeling which dominated the warring 
 elements that raged in her soul. She tore her hand from 
 that which clasped hers with so loyal a respect. She could 
 have spurned the form that knelt at her feet, not for love, 
 but for pardon. She pointed to the door with the gesture 
 of an insulted queen. She knew no more till she was alone. 
 Then came that rapid flash of conjecture peculiar to the 
 storms of jealousy ; that which seems to single from all nature 
 the one object to dread and to destroy ; the conjecture so often 
 false ; yet received at once by our convictions as the revela- 
 tion of instinctive truth. He to whom she had humbled 
 herself loved another ; whom but Violante ? whom else, 
 young and beautiful, had he named in the record of his 
 life ? None ! And he had sought to interest her, Beatrice 
 di Negra, in the object of his love ; hinted at dangers, 
 which Beatrice knew too well ; implied trust in Beatrice's 
 will to protect. Blind fool that she had been ! This, then, 
 was the reason why he had come, day after day, to Beatrice's 
 house ; this was the charm that had drawn him thither ; this 
 she pressed her hands to her burning temples, as if to 
 stop the torture of thought. Suddenly a voice was heard 
 below, the door opened, and Randal Leslie entered.
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 761 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 PUNCTUALLY at eight o'clock that evening, Baron Levy 
 welcomed the new ally he had secured. The pair dined en 
 tete-a-tete, discussing general matters till the servants left 
 them to their wine. Then said the Baron, rising and stir- 
 ring the fire then said the Baron, briefly and significantly 
 
 " Well ! " 
 
 *' As regards the property you spoke of," answered Ran- 
 dal, " I am willing to purchase it on the terms you name. 
 The only point that perplexes me is how to account to Aud- 
 ley Egerton, to my parents, to the world, for the power of 
 purchasing it." 
 
 " True," said the Baron, without even a smile at the in- 
 genious and truly Greek manner in which Randal had con- 
 trived to denote his meaning, and conceal the ugliness of it 
 " true, we must think of that. If we could manage to 
 conceal the real name of the purchaser for a year or so it 
 might be easy you may be supposed to have speculated in 
 the Funds ; or Egerton may die, and people may believe 
 that he had secured to you something handsome from the 
 ruin of his fortune." 
 
 " Little chance of Egerton's dying." 
 
 " Humph ! " said the Baron. " However, this is a mere 
 detail, reserved for consideration. You can now tell us 
 where the young lady is ?" 
 
 "Certainly. I could not this morning I can now. I 
 will go with you to the Count. Meanwhile, I have seen 
 Madame di Negra ; she will accept Frank Hazeldean, if he 
 will but offer himself at onee." 
 
 " Will he not ? " 
 
 " No ! I have been to him. He is overjoyed at my repre- 
 sentations, but considers it his duty to ask the consent of 
 his parents. Of course they will not give it ; and if there 
 be delay, she will retract. She is under the influence of 
 passions, on the duration of which there is no reliance." 
 
 " What passions ? Love ? " 
 
 " Love ; but not for Hazeldean. The passions that 
 bring her to accept his hand are pique and jealously. She 
 believes, in a word, that one, who seems to have gained the
 
 ^62 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 mastery over her affections with a strange suddenness, is but 
 blind to her charms because dazzled by Violante's. She is 
 prepared to aid in all that can give her rival to Peschiera ; 
 and yet, such is the inconsistency of woman," added the 
 young philosopher, with a shrug of the shoulders, " that 
 she is also prepared to lose all chance of securing him she 
 loves, by bestowing herself on another ! " 
 
 "Woman, indeed, all over!" said the Baron, tapping 
 the snuff-box (Louis Quinze), and regaling his nostrils 
 with a scornful pinch. " But who is the man whom the fair 
 Beatrice has thus honored ? Superb creature ! I had some 
 idea of her myself when I bought up her debts ; but it 
 might have embarrassed me, in more general plans, as re- 
 gards the Count. All for the best. Who's the man ? Not 
 Lord L'Estrange ?" 
 
 " I do not think it is he ; but I have not yet ascertained. 
 I have told you all I know. I found her in a state so ex- 
 cited, so unlike herself, that I had no little difficulty in 
 soothing her into confidence so far. I could not venture 
 more." 
 
 ''And she will accept Frank?" 
 
 " Had he offered to-day, she would have accepted him ! " 
 
 " It may be a great help to your fortunes, man cher, if 
 Frank Hazeldean marry this lady without his father's con- 
 sent. Perhaps he may be disinherited. You are next of 
 kin." 
 
 "How do you know that ? " asked Randal, sullenly. 
 
 " It is my business to know all about the chances and 
 connections of any one with whom I do money matters. I 
 do money matters with young Hazeldean ; so I know that 
 the Hazeldean property is not entailed ; and as the Squire's 
 half-brother has no Hazeldean blood in him, you have ex- 
 cellent expectations." 
 
 " Did Frank tell you I was next of kin,?" 
 
 " I rather think so ; but I am sure jw* did." 
 
 " I when ? " 
 
 " When you told me how important it was to you that 
 Frank should marry Madame di Negra. Peste! moncher, do 
 you think I'm a blockhead ?" 
 
 "Well, Baron, Frank is of age, and can marry to please 
 himself. You implied to me that you could help him in 
 this." 
 
 " I will try. See that he call at Madame di Negra's to- 
 morrow, at two precisely."
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 763 
 
 " I would rather keep clear of all apparent interference 
 in this matter. Will you not arrange that he call on her ? 
 And do not forget to entangle him in a post-obit" 
 
 " Leave it to me. Any more wine ? No ; then let us 
 go to the Count's." 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 THE next morning Frank Hazeldean was sitting over 
 his solitary breakfast-table. It was long past noon. The 
 young man had risen early, it is true, to attend his mili- 
 tary duties, but he had contracted the habit of breakfasting 
 late. One's appetite does not come early when one lives in 
 London, and never goes to bed before daybreak. 
 
 There was nothing very luxurious or effeminate about 
 Frank's rooms, though they were in a very dear street, and 
 he paid a monstrous high price for them. Still, to a prac- 
 tised eye they betrayed an inmate who can get through his 
 money ; and make very little show for it. The walls were 
 covered with colored prints of racers, and steeple-chases, 
 interspersed with the portraits of opera-dancers all smirk 
 and caper. Then there was a semicircular recess covered 
 with red cloth, and fitted up for smoking, as you mfght 
 perceive by sundry stands full of Turkish pipes in cherry- 
 stick and jessamine, with amber mouth-pieces ; while a 
 great serpent hookah, from which Frank could no more 
 have smoked than he could have smoked out of the head of 
 a boa-constrictor, coiled itself up on the floor ; over the 
 chimney-piece was a collection of Moorish arms. What 
 use on earth, ataghan and scimitar, and damasquined pis- 
 tols, that would not carry straight three yards, could be to 
 an officer in his Majesty's Guards, is more than I can con- 
 jecture, or even Frank satisfactorily explain. I have strong 
 suspicions that this valuable arsenal passed to Frank in 
 part payment of a bill to be discounted. At all events, if 
 so, it was an improvement on the bear that he had sold to 
 the hairdresser. No books were to be seen anywhere, ex- 
 cept a Court Guide, a Racing Calendar, an Army List, a 
 Sporting Magazine complete (whole-bound in scarlet mo- 
 rocco, at about a guinea per volume), and a small book, as 
 small as an Elzevir, on the chimney-piece, by the side of a
 
 764 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 cigar-case. That small book had cost Frank more than all 
 the rest put together ; it was his Own Book, his book par 
 excellence ; book made up by himself his BETTING BOOK ! 
 
 On a centre-table were deposited Frank's well-brushed 
 hat a satin-wood box, containing kid gloves, of various 
 delicate tints, from primrose to lilac a tray full of cards 
 and three-cornered notes an opera-glass, and an ivory sub- 
 scription-ticket to his opera stall. 
 
 In one corner was an ingenious receptacle for canes, 
 sticks, and whips I should not like, in these bad times, to 
 have paid the bill for them ; and mounting guard by that 
 receptacle, stood a pair of boots as bright as Baron Levy's 
 "the force of brightness could no further go." Frank 
 was in his dressing-gown very good taste quite Oriental 
 guaranteed to be true India cashmere, and charged as 
 such. Nothing could be more neat, though perfectly 
 simple, than the appurtenances of his breakfast-table : sil- 
 ver tea-pot, ewer and basin all fitting into his dressing 
 box (for the which may Storr and Mortimer be now 
 praised, and some day paid) ! Frank looked very handsome 
 rather tired, and exceedingly bored. He had been try- 
 ing to read the Morning Post, but the effort had proved too 
 much for him. 
 
 Poor dear Frank Hazeldean ! true type of many a poor 
 dear fellow who has long since gone to the dogs. And if, 
 in this road to ruin, there had been the least thing to do 
 the traveller any credit by the way ! One feels a respect 
 for the ruin of a man like Audley Egerton. He is ruined 
 en roi ! From the wrecks of his fortune he can look down 
 and see stately monuments built from the stones of that 
 dismantled edifice. In every institution which attests the 
 humanity of England, was a record of the princely bounty 
 of the public man. In those objects of party, for which the 
 proverbial sinews of war are necessary in those rewards 
 for service, which private liberality can confer the hand 
 of Egerton had been opened as with the heart of a king. 
 Many a rising member of Parliament, in those days when 
 talent was brought forward through the aid of wealth and 
 rank, owed his career to the seat which Audley Egerton's 
 large subscription had secured to him ; many an obscure 
 supporter in letters and the press looked back to the day 
 when he had been freed from the gaol by the gratitude of 
 the patron. The city he represented was embellished at his 
 cost ; through the shire that held his mortgaged lands, which
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 765 
 
 he had rarely ever visited, his gold had flowed as a Pac- 
 tolus ; all that could animate its public spirit, or increase its 
 civilization claimed kindred with his munificence and never 
 had a claim disallowed. Even in his grand, careless house- 
 hold, with its large retinue and superb hospitality, there 
 was something worthy of a representative of that time- 
 honored portion of our true nobility the untitled gentle- 
 men of the land. The Great Commoner had, indeed, 
 " something to show " for the money he had disdained and 
 squandered. But for Frank Hazeldean's mode of getting 
 rid of the dross, when gone, what would be left to tell the 
 tale ? Paltry prints in a bachelor's lodging ; a collection of 
 canes and cherry-sticks ; half a dozen letters in ill-spent 
 French from a figurante ; some long-legged horses, fit for 
 nothing but to lose a race ; that damnable Betting-Book ; 
 and sic transit gloria down sweeps some hawk of a Levy, 
 on the wings of an I O U, and not a feather is left of the 
 pigeon ! 
 
 Yet Frank Hazeldean has stuff in him a good heart, 
 and strict honor. Fool though he seem, there is sound 
 sterling sense in some odd corner of his brains, if one could 
 but get at it. All he wants to save him from perdition is, 
 to do what he has never yet done viz., pause and think. 
 But, to be sure, that same operation of thinking is not so 
 easy for folks unaccustomed to it, as people who think 
 think ! 
 
 " I can't bear this," said Frank, suddenly, and springing 
 to his feet. " This woman, I cannot get her out of my head. 
 I ought to go down to the governor's ; but then if he gets 
 into a passion, and refuses his consent, where am I ? And 
 he will too, I fear. I wish I could make out what Randal 
 advises. He seems to recommend that I should marry Beat- 
 rice at once, and trust to my mother's influence to make all 
 right afterward. But when I ask, ' Is that your advice ? ' 
 he backs out of it. Well, I suppose he is right there. I can 
 understand that he is unwilling, good fellow, to recommend 
 anything that my father would disapprove. But still 
 
 Here Frank stopped in his soliloquy, and did make his 
 first desperate effort to think ! 
 
 Now, O dear reader, I assume, of course, that tho'u art 
 one of the class to which thought is familiar ; and, perhaps, 
 thou hast smiled in disdain or incredulity at that remark on 
 the difficulty of thinking which preceded Frank Hazel- 
 dean's discourse to himself. But art thou quite sure that
 
 766 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 when thou hast tried to think thou hast always succeeded ? 
 Hast thou not often been duped by that pale visionary simu- 
 lacrum of thought which goes by the name of reverie ? Hon- 
 est old Montaigne confessed that he did not understand that 
 process of sitting down to think, on which some folks ex- 
 press themselves so glibly. He could not think unless he 
 had a pen in his hand, and a sheet of paper before him ; and 
 so, by a manual operation, seized and connected the links of 
 ratiocination. Very often has it happened to myself, when 
 I have said to Thought peremptorily, " Bestir thyself a 
 serious matter is before thee ponder it well think of it," 
 that that same Thought has behaved in the most refractory, 
 rebellious manner conceivable and instead of concentrating 
 its rays into a single stream of light, has broken into all the 
 desultory tints of the rainbow, coloring senseless clouds, and 
 running off into the seventh heaven so that after sitting a 
 good hour by the clock, with brows as knit as if I was intent 
 on squaring the circle, I have suddenly discovered that I 
 might as well have gone comfortably to sleep I have been 
 doing nothing but dream and the most nonsensical dreams ! 
 So when Frank Hazeldean, as he stopped at that meditative 
 " But still " and leaning his arm on the chimney-piece, 
 and resting his face on his hand, felt himself at the grave 
 crisis of life, and fancied he was going " to think on it," 
 there only rose before him a succession of shadowy pictures : 
 Randal Leslie, with an unsatisfactory countenance, from 
 which he could extract nothing ; the Squire, looking as 
 black as thunder in his study at Hazeldean ; his mother 
 trying to plead for him, and getting herself properly scolded 
 for her pains; and then off went that Will-o'-the-wisp 
 which pretended to call itself Thought, and began playing 
 round the pale charming face of Beatrice di Negra in the 
 drawing-room at Curzon Street, and repeating, with small 
 elfin voice, Randal Leslie's assurance of the preceding day, 
 " as to her affection for you, Frank, there is no doubt of 
 that; she only begins to think you are trifling with her." 
 And then there was a rapturous vision of a young gentle- 
 man on his knee, and the fair pale face bathed in blushes, 
 and a clergyman standing by the altar, and a carriage-and- 
 four with white favors at the church-door ; and of a honey- 
 moon, which would have astonished as to honey all the bees 
 of Hymettus. And in the midst of these phantasmagoria, 
 which composed what Frank fondly styled "making up his 
 -mind," there came a single man's rat-tat-tat at the street-door.
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 767 
 
 " One never has a moment for thinking," cried Frank, and 
 he called out to his valet, " Not at home." 
 
 But it was too late. Lord Spendquick was in the hall, 
 and presently within the room. How d'ye do's were ex- 
 changed and hands shaken. 
 
 I LORD SPENDQUICK. I have a note for you, Hazeldean. 
 I FRANK (lazily). From whom ? 
 
 LORD SPENDQUICK. Levy. Just come from him never 
 saw him in such a fidget. He was going into the city I 
 suppose to see X. Y. Dashed off this note for you and 
 would have sent it by a servant, but I said I would bring it. 
 
 FRANK (looking fearfully at the note). I hope he does not 
 want his money yet. Private and confidential that looks bad. 
 
 SPENDQUICK. Devilish bad, indeed. 
 
 Frank opens the note and reads, half aloud, " Dear 
 Hazeldean." 
 
 SPENDQUICK (interrupting). Good sign ! He always 
 "Spendquicks " me when he lends me money; and 'tis 
 " My dear Lord," when he wants it back. Capital sign ! 
 
 Frank reads on, but to himself, and with a changing 
 countenance 
 
 " DEAR HAZELDEAN, I am very sorry to tell you that, 
 in consequence of the sudden failure of a house at Paris 
 with which I had large dealings, I am pressed, on a sudden, 
 for all the ready money I can get. I don't want to incon- 
 venience you ; but do try and see if you can take up those 
 bills of yours which I hold, and which, as you know, have 
 been due some little time. I had hit on a way of arranging 
 your affairs ; but when I hinted at it, you seemed to dislike 
 the idea ; and Leslie has since told me that you have strong 
 objections to giving any security on your prospective prop- 
 erty. So no more of that, my dear fellow. I am called out 
 in haste to try what I can do for a very charming client of 
 mine, who is in great pecuniary distress, though she has for 
 her brother a foreign Count, as rich as a Croesus. There is 
 an execution in her house. I am going down to the trades- 
 man who put it in, but have no hopes of softening him ; 
 and I fear there will be others before the day is out. An- 
 other reason for wanting money, if you can help me, mon 
 cher ! An execution in the house of one of the most brilliant 
 women in London an execution in Curzon Street, May 
 Fair ! It will be all over the town, if I can't stop it. 
 Yours in haste, 
 
 " LEVY.
 
 768 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 " P. S. Don't let what I have said vex you too much. I 
 should not trouble you if Spendquick and Borrowell would 
 pay me something. Perhaps you can get them to do so." 
 
 Struck by Frank's silence and paleness, Lord Spend- 
 quick here, in the kindest way possible, laid his hand on 
 the young guardsman's shoulder, and looked over the note 
 with that freedom which gentlemen in difficulties take with 
 each other's private and confidential correspondence. His 
 eye fell on the postscript. " Oh, damn it," cried Spendquick, 
 " but that's too bad- employing you to get me to pay him ! 
 Such horrible treachery. Make yourself easy, my dear 
 Frank ; I could never suspect you of anything so unhand- 
 some. I could as soon suspect myself of paying him " 
 
 "Curzon Street ! Count ! " muttered Frank, as if waking 
 from a dream. " It must be so." To thrust on his boots 
 change his dressing-robe for a frock-coat snatch at his 
 hat, gloves, and cane break from Spendquick descend 
 the stairs a flight at a leap gain the street throw him- 
 self into a cabriolet ; all this was done before his astounded 
 visitor could even recover breath enough to ask " What's 
 the matter ? " 
 
 Left thus alone, Lord Spendquick shook his head 
 shook it twice, as if fully to convince himself that there 
 was nothing in it ; and then re-arranging his hat before 
 the looking-glass, and drawing on his gloves deliberately, 
 he walked down-stairs, and strolled into White's, but with 
 a bewildered and absent air. Standing at the celebrated 
 bow-window for some moments in musing silence, Lord 
 Spendquick at last thus addressed an exceedingly cynical, 
 sceptical, old roue 
 
 " Pray do you think there is any truth in the stories 
 about people in former times selling themselves to the 
 devil ? " 
 
 " Ugh," answered the roue, much too wise ever to be 
 surprised. " Have you any personal interest in the ques- 
 tion ? " 
 
 " I ! no ; but a friend of mine has just received a letter 
 from Levy, and he flew out of the room in the most ex-tra- 
 or-di-na-ry manner just as people did in those days when 
 their time was up ! And Levy, you know, is ' 
 
 " Not quite as great a fool as the other dark gentleman 
 to whom you would compare him ; for Levy never made
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 769 
 
 such bad bargains for himself. Time up ! No doubt it is. 
 I should not like to be in your friend's shoes." 
 
 " Shoes ! " said Spendquick, with a sort of shudder ; 
 " you never saw a neater fellow, nor one, to do him justice, 
 who takes more time in dressing than he does in general. 
 And talking of shoes he rushed out with the right boot 
 on the left foot, and the left boot on the right. Very 
 mysterious!" And a third time Lord Spendquick shook 
 his head and a third time that head seemed to him won- 
 drous empty. 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 BUT Frank had arrived in Curzon Street leapt from 
 the cabriolet knocked at the door, which was opened by a 
 strange-looking man in a buff waistcoat and corduroy 
 smalls. Frank gave a glance at this personage pushed 
 him aside and rushed up-stairs. He burst into the draw- 
 ing-room no Beatrice was there. A thin elderly man, 
 with a manuscript book in his hand, appeared engaged in 
 examining the furniture and making an inventory, with the 
 aid of Madame di Negra's upper servant. The thin man 
 stared at Frank, and touched the hat which was on his 
 head. The servant, who was a foreigner, approached 
 Frank, and said, in broken English, that his lady did not 
 receive that she was unwell, and kept her room. Frank 
 thrust a sovereign into the servant's hand, and begged him 
 to tell Madame di Negra that Mr. Hazeldean entreated the 
 honor of an interview. As soon as the servant vanished on 
 this errand, Frank seized the thin man by the arm " What 
 is this ? an execution ? " 
 
 " Yes sir." 
 
 " For what sum ?" 
 
 " Fifteen hundred and forty-seven pounds. We are the 
 first in possession." 
 
 " There are others, then ? " 
 
 " Or else, sir, we should never have taken this step. 
 Most painful to our feelings, sir ; but these foreigners are 
 here to-day, and gone to-morrow. And 
 
 The servant re-entered. Madame di Negra would 3ee 
 Mr. Hazeldean. Would he walk up-stairs ? Frank has- 
 tened to obey this surr.mons. 
 
 33
 
 770 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 Madame di Negra was in a small room which was fitted 
 up as a boudoir. Her eyes showed the traces of recent 
 tears, but her face was composed, and even rigid, in its 
 haughty, though mournful expression. Frank, however, 
 did not pause to notice her countenance to hear her digni- 
 fied salutation. All his timidity was gone. He saw but 
 the woman whom he loved, in distress and humiliation. 
 As the door closed on him, he flung himself at her feet. 
 He caught at her hand the skirt of her robe. 
 
 "Oh! Madame di Negra! -Beatrice!" he exclaimed, 
 tears in his eyes, and his voice half-broken by generous 
 emotion ; ''forgive me forgive me ; don't see in me a mere 
 acquaintance. By accident I learned, or, rather, guessed 
 this this strange insult to which you are so unworthily 
 exposed. I am here. Think of me but as a friend the 
 truest friend. Oh ! Beatrice," and he bent his head over 
 the hand he held " I never dared to say so before it 
 seems presuming to say it now but I cannot help it. I 
 love you, I love you with my whole heart and soul ; to 
 serve you if only but to serve you ! I ask nothing else." 
 And a sob went from his warm, young, foolish heart. 
 
 The Italian was deeply moved. Nor was her nature 
 that of the mere sordid adventuress. So much love, and 
 so much confidence ! She was not prepared to betray the 
 one, and entrap the other. 
 
 " Rise rise," she said, softly ; " I thank you gratefully. 
 But do not suppose that I " 
 
 "Hush hush ! you must not refuse me. Hush! don't 
 let your pride speak." 
 
 " No it is not pride. You exaggerate what is occur- 
 ring here. You forget that I have a brother. I have sent 
 for him. He is the only one I can apply to. Ah ! that is 
 his knock ! But I shall never, never forget that I have 
 found one generous, noble heart in this hollow world." 
 
 Frank would have replied, but he heard the Count's 
 voice on the stairs, and had only time to rise and withdraw 
 to the window, trying hard to repress his agitation and 
 compose his countenance. Count di Peschiera entered 
 entered as a very personation of the beauty and magnifi- 
 cence of careless, luxurious, pampered, egotistical wealth. 
 His surtout, trimmed with the costliest sables, flung back 
 from his splendid chest. Amidst the folds of the glossy 
 satin that enveloped his throat, gleamed a turquoise, of 
 such value as a jeweller might have kept for fifty years be-
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 771 
 
 fore he could fipd a customer rich and frivolous enough to 
 buy it. The very head of his cane was a masterpiece of 
 art, and the man himself, so elegant despite his strength, 
 and so fresh despite his years ! It is astonishing how well 
 men wear when they think of no one but themselves! 
 
 " Pr-rr !" said the Count, not observing Frank behind 
 
 the draperies of the window ! " Pr-rr . It seems to me 
 
 that you must have passed a very unpleasant quarter of an 
 hour. And now Dieu me damne quoifaire!" 
 
 Beatrice pointed to the window, and felt as if she could 
 have sunk into the earth for shame. But as the Count 
 spoke in French, and Frank did not very readily comprehend 
 that language, the words escaped him ; though his ear was 
 shocked by a certain satirical levity of tone. 
 
 Frank came forward. The Count held out his hand, 
 and with a rapid change of voice and manner, said, " One 
 whom my sister admits at such a moment must be a friend 
 to me." 
 
 "Mr. Hazeldean," said Beatrice, with meaning, "would 
 indeed have nobly pressed on me the offer of an aid which 
 I need no more, since you, my brother, are here." 
 
 "Certainly," said the Count, with his superb air of grand 
 seigneur ; " I will go down and clear your house of this im- 
 pertinent canaille. But I thought your affairs were with 
 Baron Levy. He should be here." 
 
 " I expect him every moment. Adieu ! Mr. Hazeldean." 
 Beatrice extended her hand to her young lover with a frank- 
 ness which was not without a certain pathetic and cordial 
 dignity. Restrained from further words by the Count's 
 presence, Frank bowed over the fair hand in silence, and 
 retired. He was on the stairs when he was joined by 
 Peschiera. 
 
 "Mr. Hazeldean," said the latter, in a low tone, "will 
 you come into the drawing-room ? " 
 
 Frank obeyed. The man employed in his examination 
 of the furniture was still at his task, but at a short whisper 
 from the Count he withdrew. 
 
 "My dear sir," said Peschiera, "I am so unacquainted 
 with your English laws, and your mode of settling embar- 
 rassments of this degrading nature, and you have evidently 
 shown so kind a sympathy in my sister's distress, that I 
 venture to ask you to stay here, and aid me in consulting 
 with Baron Levy." 
 
 Frank was just expressing his unfeigned pleasure to be
 
 772 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 of the slightest use, when Levy's knock resounded at the 
 street-door, and in another moment the Baron entered. 
 
 "Ouf !" said Levy, wiping his brows, and sinking into 
 a chair as if he had been engaged in toils the most exhaust- 
 ing " Ouf ! this is a very sad business very ; and noth- 
 ing, my dear Count, nothing but ready money can save us 
 here." 
 
 "You know my affairs, Levy," replied Peschiera, mourn- 
 fully shaking his head, "and that though in a few months, 
 or it may be weeks, I could discharge with ease my sister's 
 debts, whatever their amount, yet at this moment, and in a 
 strange land, I have not the power to do so. The money 
 I brought with me is nearly exhausted. Can you not ad- 
 vance the requisite sum ?" 
 
 " Impossible ! Mr. Hazeldean is aware of the distress 
 under which I labor myself." 
 
 "In that case," said the Count, "all we can do to-day is 
 to remove my sister, and let the execution proceed. Mean- 
 while I will go among my friends, and see what I can bor- 
 row from them." 
 
 "Alas!" said Levy, rising and looking out of the win- 
 dow "alas! we cannot remove the Marchesa the worst is 
 to come. Look ! you see those three men ; they have a 
 writ against her person ; the moment she sets her foot out 
 of these doors, she will be arrested." * 
 
 " Arrested ! " exclaimed Peschiera and Frank in a breath. 
 
 " I have done my best to prevent this disgrace, but in 
 vain," said the Baron, looking very wretched. " You see 
 these English trades-people fancy they have no hold upon 
 foreigners. But we can get bail ; she must not go to 
 prison 
 
 " Prison ! " echoed Frank. He hastened to Levy, and 
 drew him aside. The Count seemed paralyzed by shame 
 and grief. Throwing himself back on the sofa, he covered 
 his face with his hands. 
 
 " My sister ! " groaned the Count " daughter to a Pes- 
 chiera, widow to a di Negra ! " There was something af- 
 fecting in the proud woe of this grand patrician. 
 
 " What is the sum ? " whispered Frank, anxious that the 
 poor Count should not overhear him ; and indeed the Count 
 seemed too stunned and overwhelmed to hear anything less 
 loud than a clap of thunder ! 
 
 " We may settle all liabilities for ^5, ooo. Nothing to 
 
 * At that date the law of inesne proce ss existed still.
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 773 
 
 Peschiera, who is enormously rich. Entre nous, I doubt his 
 assurance that he is without ready money. It may be so, 
 but " 
 
 " Five thousands pounds ! How can I raise such a 
 sum ?" 
 
 " You, my dear Hazeldean ? What are you talking 
 about ? To be sure you could raise twice as much with a 
 stroke of your pen, and throw your own debts into the bar- 
 gain. But to be so generous to an acquaintance ! " 
 
 " Acquaintance ! Madame di Negra ! the height of my 
 ambition is to claim her as my wife ! " 
 
 " And these debts don't startle you ? " 
 
 "If a man loves," answered Frank, simply, "he feels it 
 most when the woman he loves is in affliction. And," he 
 added, after a pause, " though these debts are faults, kind- 
 ness at this moment may give me the power to cure for ever 
 both her faults and my own. I can raise this money by a 
 stroke of the pen ! How ?" 
 
 " On the Casino property." 
 
 Frank drew back. 
 
 " No other way ? " 
 
 " Of course not. But I know your scruples ; let us see 
 if they can be conciliated. You would marry Madame di 
 Negra ; she will have ^20,000 on her wedding-day. Why 
 not arrange that, out of this sum, your anticipative charge 
 on the Casino property be paid at once ? Thus, in truth, 
 it will be but for a few weeks that the charge will exist. 
 The bond will remain locked in my desk it can never come 
 to your father's knowledge, nor wound his feelings. And 
 when you marry (if you will but be prudent in the mean- 
 while), you will not owe a debt in the world." 
 
 Here the Count suddenly started up. 
 
 " Mr. Hazeldean, I asked you to stay and aid us by your 
 counsel ; I see now that counsel is unavailing. This blow 
 on our house must fall! I thank you, sir I thank you. 
 Farewell. Levy, come with me to my poor sister and pre- 
 pare her for the worst." 
 
 " Count," said Frank, "hear me. My acquaintance with 
 you is but slight, but I have long known and and esteemed 
 your sister. Baron Levy has suggested a mode in which I 
 can have the honor and the happiness of removing this tem- 
 porary but painful embarrassment. I can advance the 
 money." 
 
 " No no ! " exclaimed Peschiera. " How can you sup-
 
 774 MY NOVEL; Off, 
 
 pose that I will hear of such a proposition ? Your youth 
 and benevolence mislead and blind you. Impossible, sir 
 impossible ! Why, even if I had no pride, no delicacy of 
 my own, my sister's fair fame " 
 
 " Would suffer, indeed," interrupted Levy, " if she were 
 under such obligation to any one but her affianced husband. 
 Nor, whatever my regard for you, Count, could I suffer my 
 client, Mr. Hazeldean, to make this advance upon any less 
 valid security than that of the fortune to which Madame di 
 Negra is entitled." 
 
 " Ha ! is this indeed so ? You are a suitor for my 
 sister's hand, Mr. Hazeldean?" 
 
 " But not at this moment not to owe her hand to the 
 compulsion of gratitude," answered gentleman Frank. 
 
 "Gratitude! And you do not know her heart, then? 
 Do not know " the Count interrupted himself, and went 
 on after a pause. " Mr. Hazeldean, I need not say that we 
 rank among the first houses in Europe. My pride led me 
 formerly into the error of disposing of my sister's hand to 
 one whom she did not love merely because in rank he was 
 her equal. I will not again commit such an error, nor 
 would Beatrice again obey me if I sought to constrain her. 
 Where she marries, there will she love. If, indeed, she ac- 
 cepts you, as I believe she will, it will be from affection 
 solely. If she does, I cannot scruple to accept this loan a 
 loan from a brother-in-law loa'n to me, and not charged 
 against her fortune ! That, sir [turning to Levy, with his 
 grand air], you will take care to arrange. If she do not ac- 
 cept you, Mr. Hazeldean, the loan, I repeat, is not to be 
 thought of. Pardon me if I leave you. This, one way or 
 other, must be decided at once." The Count inclined his 
 head with much stateliness, and then quitted the room. His 
 step was heard ascending the stairs. 
 
 "If," said Levy, in the tone of a mere man of business 
 " if the Count pay the debts, and the lady's fortune be 
 only charged with your own after all it will not be a bad 
 marriage in the world's eye, nor ought it to be in a father's. 
 Trust me, we shall get Mr.Hazeldean's consent, and cheer- 
 fully too." 
 
 Frank did not listen ; he could only listen to his love, to 
 his heart beating loud with hope and with fear. 
 
 Levy sate down before the table, and drew up a long list 
 of figures in a very neat hand a list of figures on two ac-
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 775 
 
 counts, which the post-obit on the Casino was destined to 
 efface. 
 
 After a lapse of time, which to Frank seemed intermin- 
 able, the Count reappeared. He took Frank aside, with a 
 gesture to Levy, who rose, and retired into the drawing- 
 room. 
 
 "My dear young friend," said Peschiera, " as I suspected, 
 my sister's heart is wholly yours. Stop ; hear me out 
 But, unluckily I informed her of your generous proposal ; 
 it was most unguarded, most ill-judged in me, and that has 
 well-nigh spoiled all ; she has so much pride and spirit ; so 
 great a fear that you may think yourself betrayed into an 
 imprudence which you may hereafter regret, that I am sure 
 she will tell you that she does not love you, she cannot ac- 
 cept you, and so forth. Lovers like you are not easily de- 
 ceived. Don't go by her words ; but you shall seeher your- 
 self and judge. Come." 
 
 Followed mechanically by Frank, the Count ascended 
 the stairs and threw open the door of Beatrice's room. The 
 Marchesa's back was turned ; but Frank could see that she 
 was weeping. 
 
 "I have brought my friend to plead for himself," said 
 the Count, in French ; " and take my advice, sister, and do 
 not throw away all prospect of real and solid happiness for 
 a vain scruple. Heed me!" He retired, and left Frank 
 alone with Beatrice. 
 
 Then the Marchesa, as if by a violent effort, so sudden 
 was her movement, and so wild her look, turned her face to 
 her wooer, and came up to him where he stood. 
 
 " Oh ! " she said, clasping her hands, " is this true ? You 
 would save me from disgrace, from a prison and what can 
 I give you in return ? My love ! No, no ; I will not deceive 
 you. Young, fair, noble, as you are, I do not love you as 
 you should be loved. Go; leave this house ; you do not 
 know my brother. Go, go while I have still strength, still 
 virtue enough to reject whatever may protect me from him \ 
 whatever may Oh go, go." 
 
 "You do not love me," said Frank. "Well, I don't 
 wonder at it ; you are so brilliant, so superior to me. I 
 will abandon hope I will leave you as you command me. 
 But at least I will not part with my privilege to serve you. 
 As for the rest shame on me if I could be mean enough to 
 boast of love, and enforce a suit, at such a moment." Frank 
 turned his face and stole away softly. He did not arrest his
 
 776 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 steps at the drawing-room ; he went into the parlor, wrote 
 a brief line to Levy charging him quietly to dismiss the ex- 
 ecution, and to come to Frank's rooms with the necessary 
 deeds ; and, above all, to say nothing to the Count. Then 
 he went out of the house and walked back to his lodgings. 
 
 That evening Levy came to him, and accounts were gone 
 into, and papers signed ; and the next morning Madame di 
 Negra was free from debt ; and there was a great claim on 
 the reversion of the Casino estates ; and at the noon of that 
 next day Randal was closeted with Beatrice ; and before the 
 night, came a note from Madame di Negra, hurried, blurred 
 with tears, summoning Frank to Curzon Street. And when 
 he entered the Marchesa's drawing-room, Peschiera was 
 seated beside his sister ; and rising at Frank's entrance, 
 said, " My dear brother-in-law ! " and placed Frank's hand 
 in Beatrice's. 
 
 " You accept you accept me and of your own free will 
 and choice ? " 
 
 And Beatrice answered, " Bear with me a little, and I 
 will try to repay you with all my all my " She stopped 
 short, and sobbed aloud. 
 
 " I never thought her capable of such acute feelings, 
 such strong attachment," whispered the Count. 
 
 Frank heard, and his face was radiant. By degrees 
 Madame di Negra recovered composure, and she listened 
 with what her young lover deemed a tender interest, but 
 what in fact, was mournful and humbled resignation, to his 
 joyous talk of the future. To him the hours passed by, 
 brief and bright, like a flash of sunlight. And his dreams, 
 when he retired to rest, were so golden ! But, when he 
 awoke the next morning, he said to himself, "What what 
 will they say at the Hall ? " 
 
 At that same hour Beatrice, burying her face on her 
 pillow, turned from the loathsome day, and could have 
 prayed for death. At that same hour, Giulio Franzini, 
 Count di Peschiera, dismissing some gaunt haggard Italians, 
 with whom he had been in close conference, sallied forth to 
 reconnoitre the house that contained Violante. At that 
 same hour Baron Levy was seated before his desk casting 
 up a deadly array of figures, headed, " Account with the 
 Right Hon. Audley Egerton, M.P., Dr. and Cr." title-deeds 
 strewed around him, and Frank Hazeldean's post-obit peep- 
 ing out fresh from the elder parchments. At that same 
 hour, Audley Egerton had just concluded a letter from the
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 777 
 
 chairman of his committee in the city he represented, which 
 letter informed him that he had not a chance of being 
 re-elected. And the lines of his face were as composed as 
 usual, and his foot rested as firm on the grim iron box ; but 
 his hand was pressed to his heart, and his eye was on the 
 
 clock ; and his voice muttered " Dr. F should be 
 
 here ! " And at that hour, Harley L'Estrange, who the pre- 
 vious night had charmed courtly crowds with his gay humor, 
 was pacing to and fro the room in his hotel with restless 
 strides and many a heavy sigh ; and Leonard was standing 
 by the fountain in his garden, and watching the wintry sun- 
 beams that sparkled athwart the spray ; and Violantc was 
 leaning on Helen's shoulder, and trying archly, yet inno- 
 cently, to lead Helen to talk of Leonard ; and Helen was 
 gazing steadfastly on the floor, and answering but by mono- 
 syllables ; and Randal Leslie was walking down to his 
 office for the last time, and reading, as he passed across the 
 Green Park, a letter from home, from his sister ; and then, sud- 
 denly crumpling the letter in his thin pale hand, he looked 
 up, beheld in the distance the spires of the great national 
 Abbey ; and recalling the words of our hero Nelson, he 
 muttered ''Victory and Westminster, but not the Abbey ! " 
 And Randal Leslie felt that, within the last few days, he had 
 made a vast stride in his ambition ; his grasp on the old 
 Leslie lands Frank Hazeldean betrothed, and possibly dis- 
 inherited ; and Dick Avenel, in the background, opening 
 against the hated Lansmere interest that same seat in Par- 
 liament which had first welcomed into public life Randal's 
 ruined patron. 
 
 " But some must laugh, and some most weep ; 
 Thus runs the world away I " 
 
 30*
 
 778 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 BOOK ELEVENTH. 
 
 INITIAL CHAPTER. 
 
 ON THE IMPORTANCE OF HATE AS AN AGENT IN CIVILIZED 
 
 LIFE. 
 
 IT is not an uncommon crochet amongst benevolent men 
 to maintain that wickedness is necessarily a sort of insanity, 
 and that nobody would make a violent start out of the 
 straight path unless stung to such disorder by a bee 
 in his bonnet. Certainly, when some very clever well- 
 educated person, like our friend Randal Leslie, acts upon 
 the fallacious principle that " roguery is the best policy," 
 it is curious to see how many points he has in common 
 with the insane; what over-cunning what irritable rest- 
 lessness what suspicious belief that the rest of the world 
 are in a conspiracy against him, which it requires all his 
 wit to baffle and turn to his own proper aggrandizement 
 and profit. Perhaps some of my readers may have thought 
 that I have represented Randal as unnaturally far-fetched 
 in his schemes, too wire-drawn and subtle in his specula- 
 tions ; yet that is commonly the case with very refining in- 
 tellects, when they choose to play the knave ; it helps to 
 disguise from themselves the ugliness of their ambition, 
 just as a philosopher delights in the ingenuity of some 
 metaphysical process, which ends in what plain men call 
 "atheism," who would be infinitely shocked and offended 
 if he were called an atheist. 
 
 Having premised thus much on behalf of the "Natural" 
 in Randal Leslie's character, I must here fly off to say a 
 word or two on the agency in human life exercised by a 
 passion rarely seen without a mask in our debonnaire and 
 civilized age I mean Hate.
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 779 
 
 In the good old days of our forefathers, when plain 
 speaking and hard blows were in fashion when a man had 
 his heart a.1 the tip of his tongue, and four feet of sharp 
 iron dangling at his side, Hate played an honest open part 
 in the theatre of the world. In fact, when we read history, 
 Hate seems to have "starred it" on the stage. But now 
 where is Hate ? who ever sees its face ? Is it that smiling, 
 good-tempered creature, that presses you by the hand so 
 cordially ? or that dignified figure of state that calls you its 
 "Right Honorable friend?" Is it that bowing, grateful 
 dependant ? is it that soft-eyed Amaryllis ? Ask not, guess 
 not ; you will only know it to be Hate when the poison is 
 in your cup, or the poniard in your breast. In the Gothic 
 age, grim Humor painted "the Dance of Death ;" in our 
 polished century, some sardonic wit should give us " the 
 Masquerade of Hate." 
 
 Certainly, the counter-passion betrays itself with ease to 
 our gaze. Love is rarely a hypocrite. But Hate how 
 detect, and how guard against it ? It lurks where you least 
 suspect it ; it is created by causes that you can the least 
 foresee ; and Civilization multiplies its varieties, whilst it 
 favors its disguise ; for Civilization increases the number of 
 contending interests, and Refinement renders more suscep- 
 tible to the least irritation the cuticle of Self-Love. But 
 Hate comes covertly forth from some self-interest we have 
 crossed, or some self-love we have wounded ; and, dullards 
 that we are, how seldom we are aware of our offence ! You 
 may be hated by a man you have never seen in your life ; 
 you may be hated as often by one you have loaded with 
 benefits ; you may so walk as not to tread on a worm ; but 
 you must sit fast on your easy-chair till you are carried out 
 to your bier, if you would be sure not to tread on some 
 snake of a foe. But, then, what harm does hate do us? 
 Very often the harm is as unseen by the world as the hate 
 is unrecognized by us. It may come on us, unawares, in 
 some solitary by-way of our life ; strike us in our unsus- 
 pecting privacy ; thwart us' in some blessed hope we have 
 never told to another ; for the moment the world sees that 
 it is Hate that strikes us, its worst power of mischief is 
 gone. 
 
 We have a great many names for the same passion 
 Envy, Jealousy, Spite, Prejudice, Rivalry ; but they are so 
 many synonyms for the one old heathen demon. When 
 the death giving shaft of Apollo sent the plague to some
 
 780 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 unhappy Achaean, it did not much matter to the victim 
 whether the god were called Helios or Smintheus. 
 
 No man you ever met in the world seemed more raised 
 above the malice of Hate than Audley Egerton ; even in the 
 hot war of politics he had scarcely a personal foe ; and in 
 private life he kept himself so aloof and apart from others 
 that he was little known, save by the benefits the waste of 
 his wealth conferred. That the hate of any one could reach 
 the austere statesman on his high pinnacle of esteem you 
 would have smiled at the idea ! But Hate is now, as it 
 ever has been, an actual Power amidst "the Varieties of 
 Life ; " and, in spite of bars to the doors, and policemen in 
 the street, no one can be said to sleep in safety while there 
 wakes the eye of a single foe. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE glory of Bond Street is no more ; the title of Bond 
 Street Lounger has faded from our lips. In vain the crowd 
 of equipages and the blaze of shops ; the renown of Bond 
 Street was in its pavement its pedestrians. Art thou old 
 enough, O reader ! to remember the Bond Street Lounger 
 and his incomparable generation ? For my part, I can just 
 recall the decline of the grand era. It was on its wane 
 when, in the ambition of boyhood, I first began to muse 
 upon high neckcloths and Wellington boots. But the ancient 
 habitue's the magni nominis umbra contemporaries of Brum- 
 mel in his zenith boon companions of George IV. in his 
 regency still haunted the spot. From four to six in the 
 hot month of June, they sauntered stately to and fro, look- 
 ing somewhat mournful even then foreboding the extinc- 
 tion of their race. The Bond Street Lounger was rarely 
 seen alone ; he was a social animal, and walked arm in-arm 
 with his fellow-man. He did not seem born for the cares 
 of these ruder times ; not made was he for an age in which 
 Finsbury returns members to Parliament. He loved his 
 small talk ; and never since then has talk been so pleasingly 
 small. Your true Bond Street Lounger had a very dissi- 
 pated look. His youth had been spent with heroes who 
 loved their bottle. He himself had perhaps supped with 
 Sheridan. He was by nature a spendthrift ; you saw it in the
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 781 
 
 roll of his walk. Men who make money rarely saunter ; men 
 who save money rarely swagger. But saunter and swagger 
 both united to stamp PRODIGAL on the Bond Street Lounger. 
 And so familiar as he was with his own set, and so amus- 
 ingly supercilious with the vulgar residue of mortals whose 
 faces were strange to Bond Street. But he is gone. The 
 world, though sadder for his loss, still strives to do its best 
 vdthout him ; and our young men, nowadays, attend to 
 model cottages, and incline to Tractarianism. Still the 
 place, to an unreflecting eye, has its brilliancy and bustle. 
 But it is a thoroughfare, not a lounge. And down the 
 thoroughfare, somewhat before the hour when the throng is 
 thickest, passed two gentlemen of an appearance exceed- 
 ingly out of keeping with the place. Yet both had the 
 air of men pretending to aristocracy an old-world air 
 of respectability and stake in the country, and Church-and- 
 Stateism. The burlier of the two was even rather a beau 
 in his way. He had first learned to dress, indeed, when 
 Bond Street was at its acme, and Brummel in his pride. 
 He still retained in his garb the fashion of his youth ; only 
 what then had spoken of the town, now betrayed the life of 
 , the country. His neckcloth ample and high, and of snowy 
 whiteness, set off to comely advantage a face smooth-shaven, 
 and of clear florid hues ; his coat of royal blue, with but- 
 tons in which you might have seen yourself reluti in specu- 
 lum, was, rather jauntily, buttoned across a waist that spoke 
 of lusty middle age, free from the ambition, the avarice, 
 and the anxieties that fret Londoners into threadpapers ; 
 his small clothes, of grayish drab, loose at the thigh and 
 tight at the knee, were made by Brummel's own breeches- 
 maker, and the gaiters to match (thrust half-way down the 
 calf), had a manly dandyism that would have done honor 
 to the beau-ideal of a county member. The profession of 
 this gentleman's companion was unmistakable the shovel- 
 hat, the clerical cut of the coat, the neck-cloth without 
 collar, that seemed made for its accessory the band, and 
 something very decorous, yet 'very mild, in the whole mien 
 of this personage, all spoke of one who was every inch the 
 gentleman and the parson. 
 
 "No," said the portlier of these two persons "no, I 
 can't say I like Frank's looks at all. There's certainly 
 something on his mind. However, I suppose it will be all 
 out this evening." 
 
 " He dines with you at your hotel, Squire ? Well, you
 
 782 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 must be kind to him. We can't put old heads upon young 
 shoulders." 
 
 " I don't object to his head being young," returned the 
 Squire ; " but I wish he had a little of Randal Leslie's 
 good sense in it. I see how it will end ; I must take him 
 back to the country ; and if he wants occupation, why he 
 shall keep the hounds, and I'll put him into Brooksby 
 Farm." 
 
 "As for the hounds," replied the Parson, "hounds 
 necessitate horses ; and I think more mischief comes to a 
 young man of spirit, from the stables, than from any other 
 place in the world. They ought to be exposed from the 
 pulpit, those stables ! " added Mr. Dale, thoughtfully ; " see 
 what they entailed upon Nimrod ! But Agriculture is a 
 healthful and noble pursuit, honored by sacred nations, and 
 cherished by the greatest men in classical times. For 
 instance, the Athenians were " 
 
 " Bother the Athenians," cried the Squire, irreverently ; 
 " you need not go so far back for an example. It is enough 
 for a Hazeldean that his father, and his grand-father, and 
 his great-grandfather, all farmed before him ; and a devilish 
 deal better, I take it, than any of those musty old Athenians 
 no offence to them. But I'll tell you one thing, Parson 
 a man, to farm well, and live in the country, should have a 
 wife ; it is half the battle." 
 
 " As to a battle, a man who is married is pretty sure of 
 half, though not always the better half, of it," answered the 
 Parson, who seemed peculiarly facetious that day. " Ah, 
 Squire, I wish I could think Mrs. Hazeldean right in her 
 conjecture ! you would have the prettiest daughter-in-law 
 in the three kingdoms. And I do believe that, if I could 
 have a good talk with the young lady apart from her father, 
 we could remove the only objection I know to the marriage. 
 Those Popish errors " 
 
 "Ah, very true!" cried the Squire; "that Pope sticks 
 hard in my gizzard. I could excuse her being a foreigner, 
 and not having, I suppose, a shilling in her pocket bless 
 her handsome face ! but to be worshipping images in her 
 room instead of going to the parish church, that will never 
 do. But you think you could talk her out of the Pope, and 
 into the family pew ? " 
 
 " Why, I could have talked her father out of the Pope, 
 only, when he had not a word to say for himself, he bolted
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 783 
 
 out of the window. Youth is more ingenuous in confessing 
 its errors." 
 
 "I own," said the Squire, "that both Harry and I had 
 a favorite notion of ours till this Italian girl got into our 
 heads. Do you know we both took a great fancy to Ran- 
 dal's little sister pretty, blushing, English-faced girl as 
 ever you saw. And it went to Harry's good heart to see her 
 so neglected by that silly fidgety mother of hers, her hair 
 hanging about her ears ; and I thought it would be a fine 
 way to bring Randal and Frank more together, and enable 
 me to do something for Randal himself a good boy with 
 Hazeldean blood in his veins. But Violante is so handsome, 
 that I don't wonder at the boy's choice ; and then it is our 
 fault we let them see so much of each other as children. 
 However, I should be very angry if Rickeybockey had been 
 playing sly, and running away from the Casino in order to 
 give Frank an opportunity to carry on a clandestine inter- 
 course with his daughter." 
 
 " I don't think that would be like Riccabocca ; more like 
 him to run away in order to deprive Frank of the best of 
 all occasions to court Violante, if he so desired ; for where 
 could he see more of her than at the Casino ? " 
 
 SQUIRE. That's well put. Considering he was only a 
 foreign doctor, and, for aught we know, once went about 
 in a caravan, he is a gentleman-like fellow, that Rickey- 
 bockey. I speak of people as I find them. But what is 
 your notion about Frank ? I see you don't think he is 
 in love with Violante, after all. Out with it, man ; speak 
 plain. 
 
 PARSON. Since you so urge me, I own I do not think 
 him in love with her ; neither does my Carry, who is un- 
 commonly shrewd in such matters. 
 
 SQUIRE. Your Carry, indeed ! as if she were half as 
 shrewd as my Harry. Carry nonsense ! 
 
 PARSON (reddening). I don't want to make invidious 
 remarks ; but, Mr. Hazeldean, when you sneer at my Carry, 
 I should not be a man if I did not say that 
 
 SQUIRE (interrupting). She is a good little woman 
 enough ; but to compare her to my Harry ! 
 
 PARSON. I don't compare her to your Harry ; I don't 
 compare her to any woman in England, sir. But you are 
 losing your temper, Mr. Hazeldean ! 
 
 SQUIRE. I ! 
 
 PARSON. And people are staring at you, Mr. Hazeldean.
 
 784 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 For decency's sake, compose yourself, and change the sub- 
 ject. We are just at the Albany. I hope that we shall not 
 find poor Captain Higgtnbotham as ill as he represents 
 himself in his letter. Ah, is it possible ? No, it cannot be. 
 Look look ! 
 
 SQUIRE. Where what where ? Don't pinch so hard. 
 Bless me, do you see a ghost ? 
 
 PARSON. There the gentleman in black ! 
 
 SQUIRE. Gentleman in black ! What ! in broad day- 
 light ! Nonsense ! 
 
 Here the Parson made a spring forward, and, catching 
 the arm of the person in question, who himself had stop- 
 ped, and was gazing intently on the pair, exclaimed 
 
 "Sir, pardon me ; but is not your name Fairfield ? Ah, 
 it is Leonard it is my dear, dear boy ! What joy ! So 
 altered, so improved, but still the same honest face. Squire, 
 come here your old friend, Leonard Fairfield." 
 
 " And he wanted to persuade me," said the Squire, shak- 
 ing Leonard heartily by the hand, " that you were the 
 Gentleman in Black ; but, indeed, he has been in strange 
 humors and tantrums all the morning. Well, Master 
 Lenny ; why, you are grown quite a gentleman ! The world 
 thrives with you eh ! I suppose you are head-gardener 
 to some grandee." 
 
 " Not that, sir," said Leonard, smiling. " But the world 
 has thriven with me as last, though not without some rough 
 usage at starting. Ah, Mr. Dale, you can little guess how 
 often I have thought of you and your discourse on Know- 
 ledge ; and, what is more, how I have lived to feel the truth 
 of your words, and to bless the lesson." 
 
 PARSON (much touched and flattered). I expected noth- 
 ing less from you, Leonard ; you were always a lad of great 
 sense, and sound judgment. So you have thought of my 
 little discourse on Knowledge, have you ? 
 
 SQUIRE. Hang Knowledge ! I have reason to hate the 
 word. It burned down three ricks of mine ; the finest ricks 
 you ever set your eyes on, Mr. Fairfield. 
 
 PARSON. That was not knowledge, Squire ; that was 
 ignorance. 
 
 SQUIRE. Ignorance ! The deuce it was ! I'll just ap- 
 peal to you, Mr. Fairfield. We have been having sad riots 
 in the shire, and the ringleader was just such another lad 
 as you were !
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 785 
 
 LEONARD. I am very much obliged to you, Mr. Hazel- 
 dean. In what respect ? 
 
 SQUIRE. Why he was a village genius, and always read- 
 ing some cursed little tract or other ; and got mighty dis- 
 contented with King, Lords, and Commons, I suppose, and 
 went about talking of the wrongs of the poor, and the 
 crimes of the rich, till, by Jove, sir, the whole mob rose one 
 day with pitchforks and sickles, and smash went Farmer 
 Smart's trashing-machines ; and on the same night my ricks 
 were on fire. We caught the rogues, and they were all 
 tried ; but the poor deluded laborers were let off with a 
 short imprisonment. The village genius, thank Heaven, is 
 sent packing to Botany Bay. 
 
 LEONARD. But, did his books teach him to burn ricks 
 and smash machines ? 
 
 PARSON. No ; he said quite the contrary, and declared 
 that he had no hand in those misdoings. 
 
 SQUIRE. But he was proved to have excited with his 
 wild talk the boobies who had ! 'Gad, sir, there was a 
 hypocritical Quaker once, who said to his enemy, " I can't 
 shed thy blood, friend, but I will hold thy head under water 
 till thou art drowned." And so there is a set of demagogi- 
 cal fellows, who keep calling out, " Farmer this is an op- 
 pressor, and Squire that is a vampire ! But no violence ! 
 Don't smash their machines, don't burn their ricks ! Moral 
 force, and a curse on all tyrants ! " Well, and if poor 
 Hodge thinks moral force is all my eye, and that the recom- 
 mendation is to be read backward, in the devil's way of 
 reading the Lord's Prayer, I should like to know which of 
 the two ought to go to Botany Bay Hodge, who comes 
 out like a man, if he thinks he is wronged, or t'other sneak- 
 ing chap, who makes use of his knowledge to keep himself 
 out of the scrape ? 
 
 PARSON. It may be very true ; but when I saw that 
 poor fellow at the bar, with his intelligent face, and heard 
 his bold clear defence, and thought of all his hard struggles 
 for knowledge, and how they, had ended, because he forgot 
 that knowledge, is like fire, and must not be thrown 
 amongst flax why, I could have given my right hand to 
 save him. And, oh, Squire, do you remember his poor 
 mother's shriek of despair when he was sentenced to trans- 
 portation for life ? I hear it now ! And what, Leonard 
 what do you think had misled him ? At the bottom of
 
 786 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 all the mischief was a Tinker's bag. You cannot forget 
 Sprott ? 
 
 LEONARD. Tinker's bag ! Sprott ! 
 
 SQUIRE. That rascal, sir, was the hardest fellow to nab 
 you could possibly conceive ; as full of quips and quirks as 
 an Old Bailey lawyer. But we managed to bring it home 
 to him. Lord ! his bag was choke-full of tracts against 
 every man who had a good coat on his back ; and as if that 
 was not enough, cheek by jowl with the tracts were lucifers, 
 contrived on a new principle, for teaching my ricks the 
 theory of spontaneous combustion. The laborers bought 
 the lucifers 
 
 PARSON. And the poor village genius bought the 
 tracts. 
 
 SQUIRE. All headed with a motto " To teach the 
 working classes that knowledge is power." So that I was 
 right in saying that knowledge had burnt my ricks ; knowl- 
 edge inflamed the village genius, the village genius in- 
 flamed fellows more ignorant than himself, and they in- 
 flamed my stack-yard. However, lucifers, tracts, village 
 genius, and Sprott, are all off to Botany Bay ; and the 
 shire has gone on much the better for it. So no more of 
 your knowledge for me, begging your pardon, Mr. Fair- 
 field. Such uncommonly fine ricks as mine were too ! I 
 declare, Parson, you are looking as if you felt pity for 
 Sprott ; and I saw you, indeed, whispering to him as he 
 was taken out of court. 
 
 PARSON (looking sheepish). Indeed, Squire, I was only 
 asking him what had become of his .donkey, an unoffending 
 creature. 
 
 SQUIRE. Unoffending! Upset me amidst a thistle-bed 
 in my own village green. I remember it. Well, what did 
 he say had become of the donkey ? 
 
 PARSON. He said but one word ; but that showed all 
 the vindictiveness of his disposition. He said it with a 
 horrid wink, that made my blood run cold. " What's be- 
 come of your donkey ? " said I, and he answered 
 
 SQUIRE. Go on. He answered 
 
 PARSON. Sausages. 
 
 SQUIRE. Sausages ! Like enough ; and sold to the 
 poor ; and that's what the poor will come to if they listen 
 to such revolutionizing villains. Sausages ! Donkey sau- 
 sauges ! (spitting) 'Tis as bad as eating one another ; per- 
 fect cannibalism.
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 787 
 
 Leonard, who had been thrown into grave thought by 
 the history of Sprott and the village genius, now pressing 
 the Parson's hand, asked permission to wait on him before 
 Mr. Dale quitted London ; and was about to withdraw, 
 when the Parson, gently detaining him, said "No ; don't 
 leave me yet, Leonard I have so much to ask you, and to 
 talk about. I shall be at leisure shortly. We are just now 
 going to call on a relation of the Squire's, whom you must 
 recollect, I am sure Captain Higginbotham Barnabas 
 Higginbotham. He is very poorly." 
 
 "And I am sure he would take it kind in you to call 
 too," said the Squire, with great good-nature. 
 
 LEONARD. Nay, sir, would not that be a great liberty ? 
 
 SQUIRE. Liberty ! to ask a poor sick gentleman how he 
 is ? Nonsense. And I say, sir, perhaps as no doubt you 
 have been living in town, and know more of new-fangled no- 
 tions than I do perhaps you can tell us whether or not it is 
 all humbug, that new way of doctoring people. 
 
 LEONARD. What new way, sir ? There are so many. 
 
 SQUIRE. Are there ? Folks in London do look un- 
 commonly sickly. But my poor cousin (he was never a 
 Solomon) has got hold, he says, of a homey homely 
 What's the word, Parson ? 
 
 PARSON. Hornceopathist. 
 
 SQUIRE. That's it ! You see the captain went to live 
 with one Sharpe Currie, a relation who had a great deal of 
 money, and very little liver ; made the one, and left much 
 of the other in Ingee, you understand. The Captain had 
 expectations of the money. Very natural, I dare say ; but 
 Lord, sir, what do you think has happened ? Sharpe Cur- 
 rie has done him. Would not die, sir ; got back his liver, 
 and the Captain has lost his own. Strangest thing you 
 ever heard. And then the ungrateful old Nabob has dis- 
 missed the Captain, saying, " He can't bear to have inva- 
 lids about him ; " and is gong to marry, and I have no 
 doubt will have children by the dozen ! 
 
 PARSON. It was in Germany, at one of the Spas, that 
 Mr. Currie recovered ; and as he had the selfish inhumanity 
 to make the Captain go through a course of waters simul- 
 taneously with himself, it has so chanced that the same 
 waters that cured Mr. Currie's liver have destroyed Captain 
 Higginbotham's. An English homoeopathic physician, then 
 staying at the Spa, has attended the Captain hither, and 
 declares that he will restore him by infinitesimal doses of
 
 788 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 the same chemical properties that were found in the waters 
 which diseased him. Can there be anything in such a 
 theory ? 
 
 LEONARD. I once knew a very able, though eccentric 
 homceopathist, and I am inclined to believe there may be 
 something in the system. My friend went to Germany ; it 
 may possibly be the same person who attends the Captain. 
 May I ask his name ? 
 
 SQUIRE. Cousin Barnabas does not mention it. You 
 may ask it of himself, for here we are at his chambers. I 
 say, Parson (whispering slyly), if a small dose of what hurt 
 the Captain is to cure him, don't you think the proper 
 thing would be a legacy ? Ha ! ha ! 
 
 PARSON (trying not to laugh). Hush, Squire. Poor hu- 
 man nature ! We must be merciful to its infirmities. 
 Come in, Leonard. 
 
 Leonard, interested in his doubt whether he might thus 
 chance again upon Dr. Morgan, obeyed the invitation, and 
 with his two companions followed the woman who "did for 
 the Captain and his rooms," across the small lobby into the 
 presence of the sufferer. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 WHATEVER the disposition toward merriment at his 
 cousin's expense entertained by the Squire, it vanished in- 
 stantly at the sight of the Captain's doleful visage and 
 emaciated figure. 
 
 " Very good in you to come to town to see me very 
 good in you, cousin ; and in you too, Mr. Dale. How very 
 well you are both looking. I am a sad wreck. You might 
 count every bone in my body." 
 
 " Hazeldean air and roast beef will soon set you up, my 
 boy," said the Squire, kindly. " You were a great goose to 
 leave them, and these comfortable rooms of yours in the 
 Albany." 
 
 " They are comfortable, though not showy," said the 
 Captain, with tears in his eyes. li I had done my best to 
 make them so. New carpets this very chair (morocco !) 
 that Japan cat (holds toast and muffins) just when just 
 when (the tears here broke forth, and the Captain fairly
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 789 
 
 whimpered) just when that ungrateful, bad-hearted man 
 wrote me word ' he was was dying, and lone in the world ; ' 
 and and to think what I've gone through for him ; and 
 to treat me so. Cousin William, he has grown as hale as 
 yourself, and and " 
 
 " Cheer up, cheer up ! " cried the compassionate Squire. 
 " It is a very hard case, I'll allow. But you see, as the old 
 proverb says, ' Tis ill waiting for a dead man's shoes ; ' and 
 in future I don't mean offence but I think, if you would 
 calculate less on the livers of your relations, it would be all 
 the better for your own. Excuse me." 
 
 "Cousin William," replied the poor Captain, "I am sure 
 I never calculated ; but still, if you had seen that deceitful 
 man's good-for-nothing face as yellow as a guinea and 
 have gone through all I've gone through, you would have 
 felt cut to the heart, as I do. I can't bear ingratitude ; I 
 never could. But let it pass. Will that gentleman take a 
 chair ? " 
 
 PARSON. Mr. Fairfield has kindly called with us, because 
 he knows something of this system of homoeopathy which 
 you have adopted, and may, perhaps, know the practitioner. 
 What is the name of your doctor ? 
 
 CAPTAIN (looking at his watch). That reminds me 
 (swallowing a globule). A great relief these little pills 
 after the physic I've taken to please that malignant man. 
 He always tried his doctor's stuff upon me. But there's an- 
 other world, and a juster. 
 
 With that pious conclusion the Captain again began to 
 weep. 
 
 " Touched," muttered the Squire, with his forefinger on 
 his forehead. " You seem to have a good tidy sort of a 
 nurse here, Cousin Barnabas. I hope she's pleasant and 
 lively, and dont let you take on so ? " 
 
 "Hist! don't talk of her. All mercenary; every bit 
 of her fawning ! Would you believe it ? I give her ten 
 shillings a-week, besides all that goes down of my pats of 
 butter and rolls ; and I overheard the jade saying to the 
 laundress that ' I could not last long and she'd EXPECTA- 
 TIONS ! ' Ah, Mr. Dale, when one thinks of the sinfulness 
 there is in this life ! But I'll not think of it ; no I'll not. 
 Let us change the subject. You were asking my doctor's 
 name. It is 
 
 Here the woman with " expectations " threw open the 
 door, and suddenly announced " DR. MORGAN."
 
 790 MY NOVEL ; OX, 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE Parson started, and so did Leonard. 
 
 The Homoeopathist did not at first notice either. With 
 an unobservant bow to the visitors, he went straight to the 
 patient, and asked, " How go the symptoms ?" 
 
 Therewith the Captain commenced, in a tone of voice 
 like a school-boy reciting the catalogue of the ships in 
 Homer. He had been evidently conning the symptoms, 
 and learning them by heart. Nor was there a single nook 
 or corner in his anatomical organization, so far as the Cap- 
 tain was acquainted with that structure, but what some 
 symptom or other was dragged therefrom, and exposed to- 
 day. The Squire listened with horror to the morbific in- 
 ventory, muttering at each dread interval, " Bless me ! 
 Lord bless me ! What, more still ! Death woidd be a very 
 happy release ! " Meanwhile, the Doctor endured the re- 
 cital with exemplary patience, noting down in the leaves 
 of his pocket-book what appeared to him the salient points 
 in this fortress of disease to which he had laid siege, and 
 then, drawing forth a minute paper, said, 
 
 " Capital nothing can be better. This powder must be 
 dissolved in eight table-spoonfuls of water ; one spoonful 
 every two hours." 
 
 " Table-spoonful ?" 
 
 " Table-spoonful." 
 
 "'Nothing can be better,' did you say, sir?" repeated 
 the Squire, who, in his astonishment at the assertion ap- 
 plied to the Captain's description of his sufferings, had 
 hitherto hung fire " nothing can be better ? " 
 
 " For the diagnosis, sir!" replied Dr. Morgan. 
 
 " For the dogs' noses, very possibly," quoth the Squire ; 
 "but for the inside of Cousin Higginbotharn, I should 
 think nothing could be worse." 
 
 "You are mistaken, sir," replied Dr. Morgan. "It is 
 not the Captain who speaks here it is his liver. Liver, 
 sir, though a noble, is an imaginative organ, and indulges 
 in the most extraordinary fictions. Seat of poetry, and 
 love, and jealousy the liver. Never believe what it says. 
 You have no idea what a liar it is ! But ahem ahem.
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 791 
 
 Cott I think I've seen you before, sir. Surely your name's 
 Hazeldean ? " 
 
 "William Hazeldean, at your service, Doctor. But 
 where have you seen me ?" 
 
 " On the hustings at Lansmere. You were speaking on 
 behalf of your distinguished brother, Mr. Egerton." 
 
 " Hang it ! " cried the Squire ; " I think it must have 
 been my liver that spoke there ! for I promised the electors 
 that that half-brother of mine would stick by the land ; and 
 I never told a bigger lie in my life ! " 
 
 Here the patient, reminded of his other visitors, and 
 afraid he was going to be bored with the enumeration of 
 the Squire's wrongs, and probably the whole history of his 
 duel with Captain Dashmore, turned with a languid wave 
 of his hand, and said, "Doctor, another friend of mine, the 
 Rev. Mr. Dale, and a gentleman who is acquainted with 
 homoeopathy. " 
 
 " Dale ? What, more old friends ! " cried the Doctor, 
 rising ; and the Parson came somewhat reluctantly from 
 the window nook, to which he had retired. The Parson 
 and the Homoeopathist shook hands. 
 
 " We have met before on a very mournful occasion," 
 said the Doctor, with feeling. 
 
 The Parson held his finger to his lips, and glanced 
 toward Leonard. The Doctor stared at the lad, but he did 
 not recognize in the person before him the gaunt, careworn 
 boy whom he had placed with Mr. Prickett, until Leonard 
 smiled and spoke. And the smile and the voice sufficed. 
 
 " Cott and it is the poy ! " cried Dr. Morgan ; and he 
 actually caught hold of Leonard, and gave him an affec- 
 tionate Welsh hug. Indeed, his agitation at these several 
 surprises became so great that he stopped short, drew forth 
 a globule "Aconite good against nervous shocks!" and 
 swallowed it incontinently. 
 
 "Gad," said the Squire, rather astonished, " 'tis the first 
 doctor I ever saw swallow his own medicine ! There must 
 be something in it." 
 
 The Captain now, highly disgusted that so much atten- 
 tion was withdrawn from his own case, asked, in a queru- 
 lous voice, " And as to diet ? What shall I have for din- 
 ner ? " 
 
 " A friend ! " said the doctor, wiping his eyes. 
 
 "Zounds ! " cried the Squire, retreating, "do you mean 
 to say that the British laws (to be sure they are very much
 
 792 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 changed of late) allow you to diet your patients upon their 
 fellow-men ? Why, Parson, this is worse than the donkey 
 sausages." 
 
 "Sir," said Dr. Morgan, gravely, "I mean to say, that 
 it matters little what we eat, in comparison with care as to 
 whom we eat with. It is better to exceed a little with a 
 friend, than to observe the strictest regimen, and eat alone. 
 Talk and laughter help the digestion, and are indispensable 
 in affections of the liver. I have no doubt, sir, that it was 
 my patient's agreeable society that tended to restore to 
 health his dyspeptic relative Mr. Sharpe Currie." 
 
 The Captain groaned aloud. 
 
 "And, therefore, if one of you gentlemen will stay and 
 dine with Mr. Higginbotham, it will greatly assist the 
 effects of his medicine." 
 
 The Captain turned an imploring eye, first toward his 
 cousin, then toward the Parson. 
 
 " I'm engaged to dine with my son very sorry," said 
 the Squire. " But Dale, here " 
 
 " If he will be so kind," put in the Captain, "we might 
 cheer the evening with a game at whist double dummy." 
 
 Now, poor Mr. Dale had set his heart on dining with 
 an old college friend, and having no stupid, prosy double 
 dummy, in which one cannot have the pleasure of scolding 
 one's partner, but a regular orthodox rubber, with the 
 pleasing prospect of scolding all the three other perform- 
 ers. But as his quiet life forbade him to be a hero in great 
 things, the Parson had made up his mind to be a hero in 
 small ones. Therefore, though with rather a rueful face, 
 he accepted the Captain's invitation, and promised to re- 
 turn at six o'clock. Meanwhile he must hurry off to the 
 other end of the town, and excuse himself from the pre- 
 cngagement he had already formed. He now gave his 
 card, with the address of a quiet family hotel thereon, to 
 Leonard, and not looking quite so charmed with Dr. Mor- 
 gan as he was before that unwelcome prescription, he took 
 his leave. The Squire too, having to see a new churn, and 
 execute various commissions for his Harry, went his way 
 (not, however, till Dr. Morgan had assured him that, in a 
 few weeks, the Captain might safely remove to Hazeldean) ; 
 and Leonard was about to follow, when Morgan hooked his 
 arm in his old protege's, and said, "But I must have some 
 talk with you ; and you have to tell me all about the little 
 orphan girl."
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 793 
 
 Leonard could not resist the pleasure of talking about 
 Helen, and he got into the carriage, which was waiting at 
 the door for the Homceopathist. 
 
 " I am going into the country a few miles to see a pa- 
 tient," said the Doctor ; " so we shall have time for undis- 
 turbed consultation. I have so often wondered what had 
 become of you. Not hearing from Prickett, I wrote to 
 him, and received from his heir an answer as dry as a bone. 
 Poor fellow, I found that he had neglected his globules and 
 quitted the globe. Alas, pulvis et umbra sumus > I could 
 learn no tidings of you. Prickett's successor declared he 
 knew nothing about you. I hoped the best ; for I always 
 fancied you were one who would fall on your legs bilious- 
 nervous temperament ; such are the men who succeed in 
 their undertakings, especially if they take a spoonful of 
 cJiamomilla whenever they are over-excited. So now for 
 your history and the little.girl's pretty little thing never 
 saw a more susceptible constitution, nor one more suited 
 to pulsatilla. " 
 
 Leonard briefly related his own struggles and success, 
 and informed the good Doctor how they had at last dis- 
 covered the nobleman in whom poor Captain Digby had 
 confided, and whose care of the orphan had justified the 
 confidence. 
 
 Dr. Morgan opened his eyes at hearing the name of 
 Lord L'Estrange. " I remember him very well," said he, 
 " when I practised murder as an allopathist at Lansmere. 
 But to think that wild boy, so full of whim, and life, and 
 spirit, should become staid enough for a guardian to that 
 dear little child, with her timid eyes and pulsatilla sensibili- 
 ties. Well, wonders never cease. And he has befriended 
 you too, you say. Ah, he knew your family." 
 
 " So he says. Do you think, sir, that he ever knew 
 ever saw my mother ? " 
 
 "Eh ! your mother ? Nora ? " exclaimed the Doctor, 
 quickly ; and, as if struck by some sudden thought, his 
 brows met, and he remained silent and musing a few mo- 
 ments ; then, observing Leonard's eyes fixed on him ear- 
 nestly, he replied to the question : 
 
 " No doubt he saw her ; she was brought up at Lady 
 Lansmere's. Did he not tell you so ?" 
 
 " No." A vague suspicion here darted through Leon- 
 ard's mind, but as suddenly vanished. His father! Im- 
 possible. His father must have deliberately wronged the 
 
 34
 
 794 MY. NOVEL; OR, 
 
 dead mother. And was Harley L'Estrange a man capable 
 of such wrong? And had he been Harley's son, would not 
 Harley have guessed it at once, and so guessing, have 
 owned and claimed him ? Besides, Lord L'Estrange looked 
 so young ; old enough to be Leonard's father ! he could 
 not entertain the idea. He roused himself and said, falter- 
 ingly 
 
 " You told me you did not know by what name I should 
 call my father." 
 
 " And I told you the truth, to the best of my belief." 
 
 " By your honor, sir ? " 
 
 '' By my honor, I do not know it." 
 
 There was now a long silence. The carnage had long 
 left London, and was on a high-road somewhat lonelier and 
 more free from houses than most of those which form the 
 entrance to the huge city. Leonard gazed wistfully from 
 the window, and the objects that met his eye gradually 
 seemed to appeal to his memory. Yes ! it was the road by 
 which he had first approached the metropolis, hand in hand 
 with Helen and hope so busy at his poet's heart. He 
 sighed deeply. He thought he would willingly have re- 
 signed all he had won independence, fame, all to feel 
 again the clasp of that tender hand again to be the sole 
 protector of that gentle life. 
 
 The Doctor's voice broke on his reverie. " I am going 
 to see a very interesting patient coats to his stomach quite 
 worn out, sir man of great learning, with a very inflamed 
 cerebellum. I can't do him much good, and he does me a 
 great deal of harm." 
 
 " How harm ? " asked Leonard, with an effort at some 
 rejoinder. 
 
 " Hits me on the heart, and makes my eyes water ; very 
 pathetic case grand creature, who has thrown himself 
 away. Found him given over by the allopathists, and in a 
 high state of delirium tremens restored him for a time 
 took a great liking to him could not help it swallowed a 
 great many globules to harden myself against him would 
 not do brought him over to England with the other pa- 
 tients, who all pay me well (except Captain Higginbotham). 
 But this poor fellow pays me nothing costs me a great 
 deal in time and turnpikes, and board and lodging. Thank 
 Heaven I'm a single man, and can afford it ! My poy, I 
 would let all the other patients go to the allopathists if I 
 could but save this poor, big, penniless, princely fellow.
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 795 
 
 But what can one do with a stomach that has not a rag of 
 its coats left? Stop [the Doctor pulled the check-string]/ 
 This is the stile. I get out here and go across the fields." 
 
 That stile those fields with what distinctness Leonard 
 remembered them ! Ah, where was Helen ? Could she 
 ever, ever again be his child-angel ? 
 
 " I will go with you, if you permit," said he to the good 
 Doctor. "And while you pay your visit, I will saunter by 
 a little brook that I think must run by your way." 
 
 " The Brent you know that brook ? Ah, you should 
 hear my poor patient talk of it, and of the hours he has 
 spent angling in it you would not know whether to laugh 
 or cry. The first day he was brought down to the place, he 
 wanted to go out and try once more, he said, for his old 
 deluding demon a one-eyed perch." 
 
 " Heavens ! " exclaimed Leonard, " are you speaking of 
 John Burley ?" 
 
 "To be sure, that is his name John Burley." 
 
 " Oh, has it come to this ? Cure him, save him, if it be 
 in human power. For the last two years I have sought his 
 trace everywhere, and in vain, the moment I had money of 
 my own a home of my own. Poor, erring, glorious Bur- 
 ley : take me to him. Did you say there was no hope ? " 
 
 " I did not say that," replied the Doctor. " But art can 
 only assist nature ; and though nature is ever at work to 
 repair the injuries we do to her, yet, when the coats of a 
 stomach are all gone, she gets puzzled, and so do I. You 
 must tell me another time how you came to know Burley, 
 for here we are at the house, and I see him at the window 
 looking out for me." 
 
 The Doctor opened the garden-gate of the quiet cottage 
 to which poor Burley had fled from the pure presence of 
 Leonard's child-angel. And with heavy step, and heavy 
 heart, Leonard mournfully followed, to behold the wrecks 
 of him whose wit had glorified orgie, and " set the table in 
 a roar." Alas, poor Yorick !
 
 796 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 AUDLEY EGERTON stands on his hearth alone. During 
 the short interval that has elapsed since we last saw him, 
 events had occurred memorable in English history, where- 
 with we have nought to do in a narrative studiously avoid- 
 ing all party politics, even when treating of politicians. 
 The new Ministers had stated the general programme of 
 their policy, and introduced one measure in especial that 
 had lifted them at once to the dizzy height of popular 
 power. But it became clear that this measure could not be 
 carried without a fresh appeal to the people. A dissolution 
 of Parliament as Audiey's sagacious experience had fore- 
 seen, was inevitable. And Audley Egerton had no chance 
 of return for his own seat for the great commercial city 
 identified with his name. O sad, but not rare, instance of 
 the mutabilities of that same popular favor now enjoyed by 
 his successors ! The great commoner, the weighty speaker, 
 the expert man of business, the statesman who had seemed 
 a type of the practical steady sense for which our middle 
 class is renowned he who, not three years since, might 
 have had his honored choice of the largest popular constit- 
 uencies in the kingdom he, Audley Egerton, knew not 
 one single town (free from the influences of private prop- 
 erty or interest) in which the obscurest candidate, who 
 bawled out for the new liberal measure, would not have 
 beaten him hollow, where one popular hustings, on which 
 that grave sonorous voice that had stilled so often the roar 
 of faction, would not be drowned amidst the hoots of the 
 scornful mob ! 
 
 True, what were called the close boroughs still existed 
 true, many a chief of his party would have been too proud 
 of the honor of claiming Audley Egerton for his nominee. 
 But the ex-minister's haughty soul shrunk from this con- 
 trast to his past position. And to fight against the popular 
 measure as member of one of the seats most denounced by 
 the people, he felt it was a post in the grand army of 
 parties below his dignity to occupy, and foreign to his 
 peculiar mind, which required the sense of consequence and 
 station. And if, in a few months, those seats were swept
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 797 
 
 away were annihilated from the rolls of Parliament 
 where was he ? Moreover, Egerton, emancipated from the 
 trammels that had bound his will while his party was in 
 office, desired, in the turn of events, to be nominee of no 
 man desired to stand at -least freely and singly on the 
 ground of his own services, be guided by his own pene- 
 tration ; no law for action, but his strong sense and 
 his stout English heart. Therefore he had declined 
 all offers from those who could still bestow seats in 
 Parliament. Seats that he could purchase with hard gold 
 were yet open to him ; and the J~5,ooo he had borrowed 
 from Levy were yet untouched. 
 
 To this lone public man, public life, as we have seen, 
 was the all in all. But now more than ever it was vital 
 to his very wants. Around him yawned ruin. He knew 
 that it was in Levy's power at any moment to foreclose 
 on his mortgaged lands to pour in the bonds and the 
 bills which lay within those rosewood receptacles that 
 lined the fatal lair of the sleek usurer to seize on the 
 very house in which now moved all the pomp of a retinue 
 that vied with the valetaille of dukes to advertise for 
 public auction, under execution, "the costly effects of the 
 Right Hon. AudLy Egerton." But consummate in his 
 knowledge of the world, Egerton felt assured that Levy 
 would not adopt these measures against him while he 
 could still tower in the van of political war -while he 
 could still see before him the full chance of restoration to 
 power, perhaps to power still higher than before perhaps 
 to power the highest of all beneath the throne. That Levy, 
 whose hate he divined, though he did not conjecture all its 
 causes, had hitherto delayed even a visit, even 'a menace, 
 seemed to him to show that Levy still thought him one "to 
 be helped," or at least, one too powerful to crush. To 
 secure his position in Parliament unshackled, unfallen, if 
 but for another year, new combinations of party might 
 arise, new reactions take place in public opinion ! And, 
 with his hand pressed to his heart, the stern firm man mut- 
 tered, "If not, I ask but to die in my harness, and that 
 men may not know that I am a pauper, until all that I 
 need from my country is a grave." 
 
 Scarce had these words died upon his lips, ere two 
 quick knocks in succession resounded at the street-door. 
 In another moment Harley entered, and, at the same time,
 
 798 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 the servant in attendance approached Audley, and an- 
 nounced Baron Levy. 
 
 " Beg the Baron to wait, unless he would prefer to name 
 his own hour to call again," answered Egerton, with the 
 slightest possible change of color. " You can say I am now 
 with Lord L'Estrange." 
 
 "I had hoped you had done forever with that deluder of 
 youth," said Harley, as soon as the groom of the chambers 
 had withdrawn. " I remember that you saw too much of 
 him in the gay time, ere wild oats are sown ; but now 
 surely you can never need a loan ; and if so, is not Harley 
 L'Estrange by your side ? " 
 
 EGERTON. My dear Harley ! doubtless he but comes 
 to talk to me of some borough. He has much to do 
 with those delicate negotiations. 
 
 HARLEY. And I have come on the same business. I 
 claim the priority. I not only hear in the world, but I see 
 by the papers, that Josiah Jenkins, Esq., known to fame as 
 an orator who leaves out his h's, and young Lord Wil- 
 loughby Whiggolin, who is just made a Lord of the Ad- 
 miralty, because his health is too delicate for the army, are 
 certain to come in for the city which you and your present 
 colleague will as certainly vacate. That is true, is it not ? 
 
 EGERTON. My old Committee now vote for Jenkins and 
 Whiggolin. And I suppose there will not be even a con- 
 test. Goon. 
 
 " So my father and I are agreed that you must conde- 
 scend, for the sake of old friendship, to be once more 
 member for Lansmere ! " 
 
 " Harley," exclaimed Egerton, changing countenance 
 far more than he had done at the announcement of Levy's 
 portentous visit " Harley, No, no ! " 
 
 " No ! But why ? Wherefore such emotion ? " asked 
 L'Estrange, in surprise. 
 
 Audley was silent. 
 
 HARLEY. I suggested the idea to two or three of the 
 late Ministers ; they all concur in advising you to accede. 
 In the first place, if declining to stand for the place which 
 tempted you from Lansmere, what more natural than that 
 you should fall back on that earlier representation ? In the 
 second place, Lansmere is neither a rotten borough, to be 
 bought, nor a close borough, under one man's nomination. 
 It is a tolerably large constituency. My father, it is true, 
 has considerable interest in it, but only what is called the
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 799 
 
 legitimate influence of property. At all events, it is more 
 secure than a contest for a larger town, more dignified than 
 a seat for a smaller. Hesitating still ? Even my mother 
 entreats me to say how she desires you to renew that 
 connection. 
 
 " Harley ! " again exclaimed Egerton ; and fixing upon 
 his friend's earnest face, eyes which when softened by 
 emotion, were strangely beautiful in their expression 
 " Harley, if you could but read my heart at this moment, 
 
 you would you would " His voice faltered, and 
 
 he fairly bent his proud head upon Harley's shoulder ; 
 grasping the hand he had caught nervously, clingingly 
 " O Harley, if I ever lose your love, your friendship, 
 nothing else is left to me in the world." 
 
 " Audley, my dear, dear Audley, is it you who speak to 
 me thus ? You, my school-friend, my life's confidant 
 you ? " 
 
 " I am grown very weak and foolish," said Egerton, try- 
 ing to smile. " I do not know myself. I, too, whom you 
 have so often called 'Stoic/ and likened to the Iron Man in 
 the poem which you used to read by the riverside at Eton." 
 
 "And even then, my Audley, I knew that a warm human 
 heart (do what you would to keep it down) beat strong under 
 the iron ribs. And I often marvel now, to think you have 
 gone through life so free from the wilder passions. Happier 
 so!" 
 
 Egerton, who had turned his face from his friend's gaze, 
 remained silent for a few moments, and he then sought to 
 divert the conversation, and roused himself to ask Harley 
 how he had succeeded in his views upon Beatrice, and his 
 watch on the Count. 
 
 "With regard to Peschiera," answered Harley, " I think 
 we must have overrated the danger we apprehended, and 
 that his wagers were but an idle boast. He has remained 
 quiet enough, and seems devoted to play. His sister has 
 shut her doors both on myself and my young associate dur- 
 ing the last few days. I almost fear that in spite of very 
 sage warnings of mine, she must have turned his poet's 
 head, and that either he has met with some scornful rebuff 
 to incautious admiration, or that he himself has grown aware 
 of peril, and declines to face it ; for he is very much em- 
 barrassed when I speak to him respecting her. But if the 
 Count is not formidable, why, his sister is not needed ; and 
 I hope yet to get justice for my Italian friend through the
 
 800 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 ordinary channels. I have secured an ally in a young 
 Austrian prince who is now in London, and who has prom- 
 ised to back, with all his influence, a memorial I shall trans- 
 mit to Vienna. A propos, my dear Audley, now that you 
 have a little breathing-time, you must fix an hour for me to 
 present to you my young poet, the son of her sister. At 
 moments the expression of his face is so like hers." 
 
 " Ay, ay," answered Egerton quickly, " I will see him as 
 you wish, but later. I have not yet that breathing-time you 
 speak of ; but you say he has prospered ; and, with your 
 friendship, he is secure from fortune. I rejoice to think so." 
 
 " And your own protege, this Randal Leslie, whom you 
 forbid me to dislike hard task ! what has he decided ?" 
 
 " To adhere to my fate. Harley, if it please Heaven 
 that I do not live to return to power, aud provide adequate- 
 ly for that young man, do not forget that he clung to me in 
 my fall." 
 
 " If he still cling to you faithfully, I will never forget it. 
 I will forget only all that now makes me doubt him. But 
 you talk of not living, Audley ! Pooh ! your frame is that 
 of a predestined octogenarian." 
 
 " Nay," answered Audley, " I was but uttering one of 
 those vague generalities which are common upon all mortal 
 lips. And now farewell I must see this Baron." 
 
 " Not yet, until you have promised to consent to my pro- 
 posal, and be once more member for Lansmere. Tut ! don't 
 shake your head. I cannot be denied. I claim your prom- 
 ise in right of our friendship, and shall be seriously hurt if 
 you even pause to reflect on it." 
 
 ' Well, well, I know not how to refuse you, Hariey ; but 
 you have not been to Lansmere yourself since since that 
 sad event. You must not revive the old wound you must 
 not go ; and and, I own it, Harley ; the remembrance of 
 it pains even me. I would rather not go to Lansmere." 
 
 " Ah, my friend, this is an excess of sympathy, and I can- 
 not listen to it. I begin even to blame my own weakness, 
 and to feel that we have no right to make ourselves the 
 soft slaves of the past." 
 
 " You do appear to me of late to have changed," cried 
 Egerton, suddenly, and with a brightening aspect. "Do 
 tell me that you are happy in the contemplation of your new 
 ties that I shall live to see you once more restored to your 
 former self." 
 
 " All I can answer, Audley," said L' Estrange, with a
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 801 
 
 thoughtful brow, " is, that you are right in one thing I am 
 changed ; and I am struggling to gain strength for duty and 
 for honor. Adieu ! I shall tell my father that you accede 
 to our wishes." 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 WHEN Harley was gone, Egerton sunk back on his chair, 
 as if in extreme physical or mental exhaustion, all the lines 
 of his countenance relaxed and jaded. 
 
 " To go back to that place there there where Cour- 
 age, courage what is another pang?" 
 
 He rose with an effort, and folding his arms tightly 
 across his breast, paced slowly to and fro the large, mourn- 
 ful, solitary room. Gradually his countenance assumed its 
 usual cold and austere composure the secret eye, the 
 guarded lip, the haughty collected front. The man of the 
 world was himself once more. 
 
 " Now to gain time, and to baffle the usurer," murmured 
 Egerton, with that low tone of easy scorn which bespoke 
 consciousness of superior power and the familiar mastery 
 over hostile natures. He rang the bell ; the servant entered. 
 
 " Is Baron Levy still waiting ? " 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 ' Admit him." 
 
 Levy entered. 
 
 " I beg your pardon, Levy," said the ex-minister, " for 
 having so long detained you. I am now at your commands." 
 
 "My dear fellow," returned the Baron, "no apologies 
 between friends so old as we are ; and I fear that my busi- 
 ness is not so agreeable as to make you impatient to discuss 
 it." 
 
 EGERTON (with perfect composure). I am to conclude, 
 then, that you wish to bring our accounts to a closed. When- 
 ever you will, Levy. 
 
 The BARON (disconcerted and surprised). Peste ! mon 
 cher, you take things coolly. But if our accounts are closed, 
 I fear you will have but little to live upon. 
 
 EGERTON. I can continue to live on the salary of a 
 Cabinet Minister. 
 
 BARON. Possibly ; but you are no longer a Cabinet 
 Minister. 
 
 34*
 
 Soa MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 EGERTON. You have never found me deceived in a 
 political prediction. Within twelve months (should life be 
 spared to me) I shall be in office again. If the same to you, 
 I would rather wait till then, formally and amicably to re- 
 sign to you my lands and this house. If you grant that re- 
 prieve, our connection can thus close, without the Mat and 
 noise which may be invidious to you, as it would be disa- 
 greeable to me. But if that delay be inconvenient, I will 
 appoint a lawyer to examine your accounts, and adjust my 
 liabilities. 
 
 The BARON (soliloquizing). I don't like this. A lawyer! 
 That may be awkward. 
 
 EGERTON (observing the Baron, with a curl on his lip). 
 Well, Levy, how shall it be ? 
 
 The BARON. You know, my dear fellow, it is not my 
 character to be hard on any one, least of all upon an old 
 friend. And if you really think there is a chance of your 
 return to office, which you apprehend that an esclandre as to 
 your affairs at present might damage, why, let us see if we 
 can conciliate matters. But, first, man cher, in order to be- 
 come a minister, you must at least have a seat in Parlia- 
 ment ; and pardon me the question, how the deuce are you 
 to find one ? 
 
 EGERTON. It is found. 
 
 The BARON. Ah, I forgot the p^5,ooo you last borrowed. 
 
 EGERTON. No ; I reserve that sum for another purpose. 
 
 The BARON (with a forced laugh). Perhaps to defend 
 yourself against the actions you apprehend from me ? 
 
 EGERTON. You are mistaken. But to soothe your sus- 
 picions, I will tell you plainly, that finding any sum I might 
 have insured on my life would be liable to debts prein- 
 curred, and (as you will be my sole creditor) might thus at 
 my death pass back to you ; and doubting whether, indeed, 
 any office would accept my insurance, I appropriate that 
 sum to the relief of my conscience. I intend to bestow it, 
 while yet in life, upon my late wife's kinsman, Randal 
 Leslie. And it is solely the wish to do what I consider an 
 act of justice, that has prevailed with me to accept a favor 
 from the hands of Harley L'Estrange, and to become again 
 the member for Lansmere. 
 
 The BARON. Ha ! Lansmere ! You will stand for 
 Lansmere ? 
 
 EGERTON (wincing). I propose to do so. 
 
 The BARON. I believe you will be opposed, subjected to
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 803 
 
 even a sharp contest. Perhaps you may lose your elec- 
 tion. 
 
 EGERTON. If so, I resign myself, and you can foreclose 
 on my estates. 
 
 The BARON (his brow clearing). Look you, Egerton, I 
 shall be too happy to do you a favor. 
 
 EGERTON (with stateliness). Favor ! No, Baron Levy, 
 I ask from you no favor. Dismiss all thought of rendering 
 me one. It is but a consideration of business on both sides. 
 If you think it better that we shall at once settle our ac- 
 counts, my lawyer shall investigate them. If you agree to 
 the delay I request, my lawyer shall give you no trouble ; 
 and all that I have, except hope and character, pass to your 
 hands without a struggle. 
 
 The BARON. Inflexible and ungracious, favor or not 
 put it as you will I accede, provided, first, that you 
 allow me to draw up a fresh deed, which will accomplish 
 your part of the compact ; and, secondly, that we saddle 
 the proposed delay with the condition that you do not lose 
 your election. 
 
 EGERTON. Agreed. Have you anything further to say ? 
 
 The BARON. Nothing, except that, if you require more 
 money, I am still at your service. 
 
 EGERTON. I thank you. No, I shall take the occasion 
 of my retirement from office to reduce my establishment. 
 I have calculated already, and provided for the expenditure 
 I need, up to the date I have specified, and I shall have no 
 occasion to touch the ^5,000 that I still retain. 
 
 "Your young friend, Mr. Leslie, ought to be very grate- 
 ful to you," said the Baron, rising. " I have met him in the 
 world a lad of much promise and talent. You should try 
 and get him also into Parliament." 
 
 EGERTON (thoughtfully). You are a good judge of the 
 practical abilities and merits of men, as regards worldly 
 success. Do you really think Randal Leslie calculated for 
 public life for a parliamentary career ? 
 
 The BARON. Indeed I do. 
 
 EGERTON (speaking more to 'himself than Levy). Parlia- 
 ment without fortune 'tis a sharp trial ; still he is prudent, 
 abstemious, energetic, persevering ; and at the onset, under 
 my auspices and advice, he might establish a position beyond 
 his years. 
 
 The BARON. It strikes me that we might possibly get 
 him into the next Parliament ; or, as that is not likely to
 
 S04 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 last long, at all events into the Parliament to follow not for 
 one of the boroughs which will be swept away, but for a 
 permanent seat, and without expense. 
 
 EGERTON. Ay and how ? 
 
 The BARON. Give me a few days to consider. An idea 
 has occurred to me. I will call again if I find it practicable. 
 Good day to you, Egerton, and success to your election for 
 Lnnsmere. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 PESCHIERA had not been so inactive as he had appeared 
 to Harley and the reader. On the contrary, he had pre- 
 pared the way for his ultimate design, with ail the craft and 
 the unscrupulous resolution which belonged to his nature. 
 His object was to compel Riccabocca into assenting to the 
 Count's marriage with Violante, or, failing that, to ruin all 
 chance of his kinsman's restoration. Quietly and secretly 
 he had sought out, amongst the most needy and unprincipled 
 of his own countrymen, those whom he could suborn to 
 depose to Riccabocca's participation in plots and con- 
 spiracies against the Austrian dominion. These his former 
 connection with the Carbonari enabled him to track to their 
 refuge in London ; and his knowledge of th' characters he 
 had to deal with fitted him well for the villanous task he 
 undertook. 
 
 He had, therefore, already selected out of these desper- 
 adoes a sufficient number, either to serve as witnesses 
 against his kinsman, or to aid him in any more audacious 
 scheme which circumstance might suggest to his adoption. 
 Meanwhile he had (as Harley had suspected he would) set 
 spies upon Randal's movements ; and the day before that 
 young traitor confided to him Violante's retreat, he had, at 
 least, got scent of her father's. 
 
 The discovery that Violante was under a roof so honored, 
 and seemingly so safe as Lord Lansmere's, did not discourage 
 this bold and desperate adventurer. We have seen him set 
 forth to reconnoitre the house at Knightsbridge. He had 
 examined it well, and discovered the quarter which he judged 
 favorable to a coup de main, should that become necessary. 
 
 Lord Lansmere's house and grounds were surrounded 
 by a wall, the entrance being to the high-road, and by a
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 805 
 
 porter's lodge. At the rear there lay fields crossed by a 
 lane or by-road. To these fields a small door in the wall, 
 Which was used by the gardeners in passing to and from 
 their work, gave communication. This door was usually 
 kept locked ; but the lock was of the rude and simple 
 description common to such entrances, and easily opened 
 by a skeleton key. So far there was no obstacle which Pes- 
 chiera's experience in conspiracy and gallantry did not 
 disdain as trivial. But the Count was not disposed to abrupt 
 and violent means in the first instance. He had a confidence 
 in his personal gifts, in his address, in his previous triumphs 
 over the sex, which made him naturally desire to hazard the 
 effect of a personal interview ; and on this he resolved with 
 his wonted audacity. Randal's description of Violante's 
 personal appearance, and such suggestions as to her char- 
 acter, and the motives most likely to influence her actions, 
 as that young lynx-eyed observer could bestow, were all 
 that the Count required of present aid from his accomplice. 
 
 Meanwile we return to Violante herself. We see her 
 now seated in the gardens at Knightsbridge, side by side 
 with Helen. The place was retired, and out of sight from 
 the windows of the house. 
 
 VIOLANTE But why will you not tell me more of that 
 early time ? You are less communicative even than 
 Leonard. 
 
 HELEN (looking down, and hesitatingly). Indeed there 
 is nothing to tell you that you do not know ; and it is so 
 long since, and things are so changed now. 
 
 The tone of the last words was mournful, and the words 
 ended with a sigh. 
 
 VIOLANTE (with enthusiasm). How I envy you that past 
 which you treat so lightly ! To have been something, even 
 in childhood, to the formation of a noble nature ; to have 
 borne on those slight shoulders half the load of a man's 
 grand labor. And now to see Genius moving calm in its 
 clear career ; and to say inly, " Of that genius I am a 
 part ! " 
 
 HELEN (sadly and humbly). A part ! Oh, no ! I don't 
 understand you. 
 
 VIOLANTE. Take the child Beatrice from Dante's life, 
 and should we have a Dante ? What is a poet's genius but 
 the voice of its emotions ? All things in life and in Nature 
 influence genius ; but what influences it the most are its 
 own sorrows and affections.
 
 8o6 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 Helen looks softly into Violante's eloquent face, and 
 draws nearer to her in tender silence. 
 
 VIOLANTE (suddenly). Yes, Helen, yes I know by my 
 own heart how to read yours. Such memories are inefface- 
 able Few guess what strange self-weavers of our own 
 destinies we women are in our veriest childhood ! (she sunk 
 her voice into a whisper.) How could Leonard fail to be 
 dear to you dear as you to him dearer than all others ? 
 
 HELEN (shrinking back, and greatly disturbed). Hush, 
 hush ! you must not speak to me thus ; it is wicked I can- 
 not bear it. I would not have it be so it must not be it 
 cannot ! 
 
 She clasped her hands over her eyes for a moment, and 
 then lifted her face, and the face was very sad, but very 
 calm. 
 
 VIOLANTE (twining her arm around Helen's waist). How 
 have I wounded you ? how offended ? Forgive me but 
 why is this wicked ? Why must it not be ? Is it because 
 he is below you in birth ? 
 
 HELEN. No, no I never thought of that. And what 
 am I ? Don't ask me I cannot answer. You are wrong, 
 quite wrong, as to me. I can only look on Leonard as as 
 a brother. But but you can speak to him more freely than 
 1 can. I would not have him waste his heart on me, nor yet 
 think me unkind and distant, as I seem. I know not what 
 I sav. But but break to him indirectly gently that 
 duty in both forbids us both to to be more than friends 
 than 
 
 " Helen, Helen !" cried Violante, in her warm, generous 
 passion, "your heart betrays you in every word you say. 
 You weep ; lean on me, whisper to me ; why why is this ? 
 DJ you fear that your guardian would not consent ? He 
 not consent ? He who " 
 
 HELEN. Cease cease cease. 
 
 VIOLANTE. What! You can fear Harley Lord L'Es- 
 trange ? Fie ! you do not know him. 
 
 HELEN (rising suddenly). Violante, hold ; I am engaged 
 to another. 
 
 Violante rose also, and stood still, as if turned to stone ; 
 pale as death, till the blood came, at first slowly, then with 
 suddenness from her heart, and one deep glow suffused her 
 whole countenance. She caught Helen's hand firmly, and 
 said, in a hollow voice
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 807 
 
 " Another ! Engaged to another ! One word, Helen 
 not to him not to Harley to " 
 
 " I cannot say I must not. I have promised," cried 
 poor Helen, and as Violante let fall her hand, she hurried 
 away. 
 
 Violante sate down, mechanically ; she felt as if stun- 
 ned by a mortal blow. She closed her eyes and breathed 
 hard. A deadly faintness seized her ; and when it passed 
 away, it seemed to her as if she were no longer the same 
 being, nor the world around her the same world ; as if 
 she were but one sense of intense, hopeless misery, and 
 as if the universe were but one inanimate void. So 
 strangely immaterial are we really we human beings, with 
 flesh and blood that if you suddenly abstract from us but 
 a single, impalpable, airy thought, which our souls have 
 cherished, you seem to curdle the air, to extinguish the 
 sun, to snap every link that connects us to matter, and to 
 benumb everything into death, except woe. 
 
 And this warm, young, southern nature, but a moment 
 before was so full of joy and life, and vigorous lofty hope. 
 It never till now had known its own intensity and depth. 
 The virgin had never lifted the veil from her own soul of 
 woman. What till then had Harley L'Estrange been to 
 Violante? An ideal a dream of some imagined excel- 
 lence a type of poetry in the midst of the common world. 
 It had not been Harley the man it had been Harley the 
 Phantom. She had never said to herself, " He is identified 
 with my love my hopes, my home, my future." How 
 could she ? Of such, he himself had never spoken ; an in- 
 ternal voice, indeed, had vaguely, yet irresistibly, whispered 
 to her that, despite his light words, his feelings toward her 
 were grave and deep. O false voice ! how it had deceived 
 her ! Her quick convictions seized the all that Helen had 
 left unsaid. And now suddenly she felt what it is to love, 
 and what it is to despair. So she sate, crushed and sol- 
 itary, neither murmuring nor weeping, only now and then 
 passing her hand across her brow, as if to clear away some 
 cloud that would not be dispersed ; or heaving a deep 
 sigh, as if to throw off some load that no time hencefortli 
 could remove. There are certain moments in life in which 
 we say to ourselves, "All is over ; no matter what else 
 changes, that whicli I have made my all is gone evermore 
 evermore." And our own thought rings back in our ears, 
 " Evermore evermore ! "
 
 8o8 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 As Violante thus sate, a stranger, passing stealthily 
 through the trees, stood between herself and the evening 
 sun. She saw him not. He paused a moment, and then 
 spoke low, in her native tongue, addressing her by the 
 name which she had borne in Italy. He spoke as a re- 
 lation, and excused his intrusion : " For," said he, "I come 
 to suggest to the daughter the means by which she can re- 
 store to her father his country and his honors." 
 
 At the word "father" Violante roused herself, and all 
 her love for that father rushed back upon her with double 
 force. It does so ever we love most our parents at the 
 moment when some tie less holy is abruptly broken ; and 
 when the conscience says, " There, at least, is a love that 
 has never deceived thee ! " 
 
 She saw before her a man of mild aspect and princely 
 form. Peschiera (for it was he) had banished from hi? 
 dress, as from his countenance, all that betrayed the worldly 
 levity of his character. He was acting a part, and he 
 dressed and looked it. 
 
 "My father!" she said, quickly, and in Italian. "What 
 of him? And who are you, signor ? I know you not." 
 
 Peschiera smiled benignly, and replied in a tone in 
 which great respect was softened by a kind of parental 
 tenderness. 
 
 '' Suffer me to explain, and listen to me while I speak." 
 Then, quietly seating himself on the bench beside her, he 
 looked into her eyes, and resumed. 
 
 " Doubtless, you have heard of the Count di Peschiera ?" 
 
 VIOLANTE. I heard that name, as a child, when in Italy. 
 And when she with whom I then dwelt (my father's aunO, 
 fell ill and died, I was told that my home in Italy was gone, 
 that it had passed to the Count di Peschiera my father's 
 foe! 
 
 PESCHIERA. And your father, since then, has taught 
 you to hate this fancied foe ! 
 
 VIOLANTE. Nay ; my father did but forbid me ever to 
 breathe his name. 
 
 PESCHIERA. Alas ! what yearsof sufferingand exile might
 
 VARIETIES fff ENGLISH LIFE. 809 
 
 have been saved your father, had he but been more just to 
 his early friend and kinsman ; nay, had he but less cruelly con- 
 cealed the secret of his retreat. Fair child, I am that Giulio 
 Franzini, that Count di Peschiera. I am the man you have 
 been told to regard as your father's foe. I am the man on 
 whom the Austrian Emperor bestowed his lands. And now 
 judge if I am, in truth, the foe. 1 have come hither to seek 
 your father, in order to dispossess myself of my sovereign's 
 gift. I have come but with one desire, to restore Alphonso 
 to his native land, and to surrender the heritage that was 
 forced upon me. 
 
 VIOLANTE. My father, my dear father ! His grand 
 heart will have room once more. Oh ! this is noble enmity, 
 true revenge. I understand it, signor, and so will my 
 father, for such would have been his revenge on you. You 
 have seen him ? 
 
 PESCHIERA. No, not yet. I would not see him till I had 
 seen yourself; for you, in truth, are the arbiter of his desti- 
 nies as of mine ! 
 
 VIOLANTE. I Count ? I arbiter of my father's desti- 
 nies ? Is it possible ? 
 
 PESCHIERA (with a look of compassionate admiration, 
 and in a tone yet more emphatically parental). How 
 lovely is that innocent joy ! but do not indulge it yet. Per- 
 haps it is a sacrifice which is asked from you a sacrifice 
 too hard to bear. Do not interrupt me. Listen still, and 
 you will see why I could not speak to your father until I 
 had obtained an interview with yourself. See why a word 
 from you may continue still to banish me from his pres- 
 ence. You know, doubtless, that your father was one of 
 the chiefs of a party that sought to free Northern Italy 
 from the Austrians. I myself was at the onset a warm par- 
 ticipator in that scheme. In a sudden moment I discovered 
 that some of its more active projectors had coupled with a 
 patriotic enterprise plots of a dark nature, and that the 
 conspiracy itself was about to be betrayed to the govern- 
 ment. I wished to consult with your father ; but he was at 
 a distance. I learned that his life was condemned. Not 
 an hour was to be lost. I took a bold resolve, that has ex- 
 posed me to his suspicions and to my country's wrath. But 
 my main idea was to save him, my early friend, from death, 
 and my country from fruitless massacre. I withdrew from 
 the intended revolt. I sought at once the head of the 
 Austrian Government in Italy, and made terms for the lives
 
 8 io MY NOVEL; OK, 
 
 of Alphonso, and of the other more illustrious chiefs, which 
 otherwise would have been forfeited. I obtained permission 
 to undertake myself the charge of securing my kinsman in 
 order to place him in safety, and to conduct him to a for- 
 eign land, in an exile that would cease when the danger 
 was dispelled. But unhappily he deemed that I only 
 sought to destroy him. He fled from my friendly pursuit. 
 The soldiers with me were attacked by an intermeddling 
 Englishman ; your father escaped from Italy concealing 
 his retreat ; and the character of his flight counteracted my 
 efforts to obtain his pardon. The government conferred on 
 me half his revenues, holding the other half at its pleasure. 
 I accepted the offer in order to save his whole heritage 
 from confiscation. That I did not convey to him what I 
 pined to do viz., the information that I held but in trust 
 what was bestowed by the government, and the full explana- 
 tion of what seemed blameable in my conduct was neces- 
 sarily owing to the secrecy he maintained. I could not dis- 
 cover his refuge ; but I never ceased to plead for his recall. 
 This year only I have partially succeeded. He can be re- 
 stored to his heritage and rank, on one proviso a guarantee 
 for his loyalty. That guarantee the government has named ; 
 it is the alliance of his only child with one whom the gov- 
 ernment can trust. It was the interest of all the Italian 
 nobility, that the representation of a house so great, falling 
 to a female, should not pass away wholly from the direct 
 line ; in a word, that you should ally yourself with a kins- 
 man. But one kinsman, and he the next in blood, presented 
 himself. In short Alphonso regains all that he lost on the 
 day in which his daughter gives her hand toGiulio Franzini, 
 Count di Peschiera. Ah," continued the Count, mournfully, 
 "you shrink, you recoil. He thus submitted to your choice 
 is indeed unworthy of you. You are scarce in the spring of 
 life. He is in its waning autumn. Youth loves youth. He 
 does not aspire to your love. All that he can say is, love 
 is not the only joy of the heart it is joy to raise from ruin 
 a beloved father joy to restore to a land poor in all but 
 memories, a chief in whom it reverences a line of heroes. 
 These are the joys I offer to you you, a daughter, and an 
 Italian maid. Still silent ! Oh, speak to me ! " 
 
 Certainly this Count Peschiera knew well how woman 
 is to be wooed and won ; and never was woman more sensi- 
 tive to those high appeals which most move all true earnest 
 womanhood, than was the young Violante. Fortune favored
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 811 
 
 him in the moment chosen. Harley was wrenched away 
 from her hopes, and love a word erased from her language. 
 In the void of the world, her father's image alone stood 
 clear and visible. And she who from infancy had so pined 
 to serve that father, who at first learned to dream of Harley 
 as that father's friend ! She could restore to him all for 
 which the exile sighed ; and by a sacrifice of self ! Self- 
 sacrifice, ever in itself such a temptation to the noble ! 
 Still, in the midst of the confusion and disturbance of her 
 mind, the idea of marriage with another seemed so terrible 
 and revolting, that she could not at once conceive it ; and 
 still that instinct of openness and honor which pervaded all 
 her character warned even her inexperience that there was 
 something wrong in this clandestine meeting to herself. 
 
 Again the Count besought her to speak, and with an 
 effort she said, irresolutely 
 
 "If it be as you say, it is not for me to answer you ; it 
 is for my father." 
 
 "Nay," replied Peschiera. "Pardon, if I contradict you. 
 Do you know so little of your father as to suppose that he 
 will suffer his interest to dictate to his pride ? He would 
 refuse, perhaps, even to -receive my visit to hear my expla- 
 nations ; but certainly he would refuse to buy back his in- 
 heritance by the sacrifice of his daughter to one whom he 
 has deemed his foe, and whom the mere disparity of years 
 would incline the world to say he had made the barter of 
 his personal ambition. But if I could go to him sanctioned 
 by you if I could say your daughter overlooks what the' 
 father might deem an obstacle she has consented to ac- 
 cept my hand of her own free choice she unites her 
 happiness and blends her prayers with mine then, in- 
 deed, I could not fail of success ; and Italy would pardon 
 my errors, and bless your name. Ah ! Signorina, do not 
 think of me, save as an instrument toward the fulfilment 
 of duties so high and sacred think but of your ancestors, 
 your father, your native land, and reject not the proud oc- 
 casion to prove how you revere them all ! " 
 
 Violante's heart was touched at the right chord. Her 
 head rose the color came baqk to her pale cheek she 
 turned the glorious beauty of her countenance toward the 
 wily tempter. She was about to answer, and to seal her 
 fate, when at that instant Harley's voice was heard at a 
 little distance, and Nero came bounding toward, her, and 
 thrust himself, with rough familiarity, between her and
 
 Si2 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 Peschiera. The Count drew back, and Violante. whose 
 eyes were still fixed on his face, started at the change that 
 passed there. One quick gleam of rage sufficed in an instant 
 to light up the sinister secrets of his nature it was the face 
 of a baffled gladiator. He had time but for few words. 
 
 " I must not be seen here," he muttered ; " but to-morrow 
 in these gardens about this hour. I implore you for the 
 sake of your father his hopes, fortunes, his very life, to 
 guard the secret of this interview to meet me again. 
 Adieu ! " 
 
 He vanished amidst the trees, and was gone noiselessly, 
 mysteriously, as he had come. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE last words of Peschiera were still ringing in Vio- 
 lante's ears when Harley appeared in sight, and the sound 
 of his voice dispelled the vague and dreamy stupor which 
 had crept over her senses. At that voice there returned the 
 consciousness of a mighty loss, the sting of an intolerable 
 anguish. To meet Harley there, and thus, seemed impos- 
 sible. She turned abruptly away, and hurried toward the 
 house. Harley called to her by name, but she would not 
 answer, and only quickened her steps. He paused a moment 
 "in surprise, and then hastened after her. 
 
 "Under what strange taboo am I placed?" said he, 
 gaily, as he laid his hand on her shrinking arm. " I inquire 
 for Helen she is ill, and cannot see me. I come to sun 
 myself in your presence, and you fly me, as if gods and men 
 had set their mark on my brow. Child ! child ! what is 
 this ? You are weeping ? " 
 
 "Do not stay me now do not speak to me," answered 
 Violante, through her stifling sobs, as she broke from his 
 hand and made toward the house. 
 
 " Have you a grief, and under the shelter of my father's 
 roof ? A grief that you will not tell to me ? Cruel ! " cried 
 Harley, with inexpressible tenderness of reproach in his 
 soft tones. 
 
 Violante could not trust herself to reply. Ashamed of 
 her self-betrayal softened yet more by his pleading voice 
 she could have prayed to the earth to swallow her. At
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 813 
 
 length, checking her tears by an heroic effort, she said, 
 almost calmly, " Noble friend, forgive me. I have no grief, 
 believe me, which which I can tell to you. I was but 
 thinking of my poor father when you came up ; alarming 
 myself about him, it may be, with vain superstitious fears ; 
 and so even a slight surprise your abrupt appearance, 
 has sufficed to make me thus weak and foolish ; but I wish 
 to see my father ; to go home home ! " 
 
 " Your father is well, believe me, and pleased that you 
 are here. No danger threatens him ; and you, here, are 
 safe." 
 
 " I safe and from what ? " 
 
 Harley mused irresolute. He inclined to confide to her 
 the danger which her father had concealed ; but had he the 
 right to do so, against her father's will ? 
 
 " Give me," he said, " time to reflect, and to obtain 
 permission to intrust you with a secret which, in my judg- 
 ment, you should know. Meanwhile, this much I may say, 
 that rather than you should incur the danger that I believe 
 he exaggerates, your father would have given you a protec- 
 tor even in Randal Leslie." 
 
 Violante started. 
 
 " But," resumed Harley, with a calm, in which a certain 
 deep mournfulness was apparent, unconsciously to himself 
 " but I trust you are reserved for a fairer fate, and a 
 nobler spouse. I have vowed to live henceforth in the 
 common work-day world. But for you, bright child, for you 
 I am a dreamer still ! " 
 
 Violante turned her eyes for one instant toward the 
 melancholy speaker. The look thrilled to his heart. He 
 bowed his face involuntarly. When he looked up, she had 
 left his side. He did not this time attempt to follow her, 
 but moved away and plunged amidst the leafless trees. 
 
 An hour afterward he re-entered the house, and again 
 sought to see Helen. She had now recovered sufficiently 
 to give him the interview he requested. 
 
 He approached her with a grave and serious gentleness. 
 
 " My dear Helen," said he, "you have consented to be 
 my wife, my life's mild companion ; let it be soon soon 
 for I need you. I need all the strength of that holy tie. 
 Helen, let me press you to fix the time." 
 
 " I owe you too much," answered Helen, looking down, 
 " to have any will but yours. But your mother," she added,
 
 8 14 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 perhaps clinging to the idea of some reprieve " your 
 mother has not yet " 
 
 " My mother true. I will speak first to her. You shall 
 receive from mv family all honor due to your gentle vir- 
 tues. Helen, by the way, have you mentioned to Violante 
 the bond between us ?" 
 
 " No that is, I fear I may have unguardedly betrayed 
 it, against Lady Lansmere's commands too but but " 
 
 " So Lady Lansmere forbade you to name it to Violante. 
 This should not be. I will answer for her permission to 
 revoke that interdict. It is due to Violante and to you. 
 Tell your young friend all. Ah, Helen, if I am at times 
 cold or wayward, bear with me bear with me ; for you love 
 me, do you not ? " 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 THAT same evening Randal heard from Levy (at whose 
 house he stayed late) of that self-introduction to Violante 
 which (thanks to his skeleton-key) Peschiera had contrived 
 to effect ; and the Count seemed more than sanguine he 
 seemed assured as to the full and speedy success of his 
 matrimonial enterprise. " Therefore," said Levy, " I trust 
 I may very soon congratulate you on the acquisition of 
 your family estates." 
 
 "Strange ! " answered Randal, " strange that my fortunes 
 seem so bound up with the fate of a foreigner like Beatrice 
 di Negra and her connection with Frank Hazeldean." He 
 looked up at the clock as he spoke, and added 
 
 " Frank by this time has told his father of his engage- 
 ment." 
 
 " And you feel sure that the Squire cannot be coaxed 
 into consent ? " 
 
 " No ; but I feel sure that the Squire will be so choleric 
 at the first intelligence, that Frank will not have the self- 
 control necessary for coaxing ; and, perhaps, before the 
 Squire can relent upon this point, he may by some accident 
 learn his grievances on another, which would exasperate 
 him still more." 
 
 "Ay, I understand \.\\e post-obit ?" 
 
 Randal nodded. 
 
 " And what then ? " asked Levy.
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 815 
 
 " The next of kin to the lands of Hazeldean may have 
 his day." 
 
 The Baron smiled. 
 
 "You have good prospects in that direction, Leslie; 
 look now to another. I spoke to you of the borough of 
 Lansmere. Your patron, Audley Egerton, intends to stand 
 for it." 
 
 Randal's heart had of late been so set upon other and 
 more avaricious schemes, that a seat in Parliament had sunk 
 into a secondary object ; nevertheless his ambitious and all- 
 grasping nature felt a bitter pang, when he heard that Eger- 
 ton thus interposed between himself and any chance of ad- 
 vancement. 
 
 " So ! " he muttered, sullenly " so. This man, who pre- 
 tends to be my benefactor, squanders away the wealth of 
 my forefathers throws me penniless on the world ; and, 
 while still encouraging me to exertion and public life, robs 
 me himself of " 
 
 " No ! " interrupted Levy " not robs you ; we may pre- 
 vent that. The Lansmere interest is not so strong in the 
 borough as Dick Avenel's." 
 
 ' But I cannot stand against Egerton." 
 
 "Assuredly not you may stand with him." 
 
 "How?" :. 
 
 " Dick Avenel will never suffer Egerton to come in ; and 
 though he cannot, perhaps, carry two of his own politics, 
 he can split his votes upon you." 
 
 Randal's eyes flashed. He saw at a glance, that if 
 Avenel did not overrate the relative strength of parties, his 
 seat could be secured. 
 
 " But," he said, " Egerton has not spoken to me on such 
 a subject ; nor can you expect that he would propose to me 
 to stand with him, if he foresaw the chance of. being ousted 
 by 'the very candidate he himself introduced." 
 
 " Neither he nor his party will anticipate that possibil- 
 ity. If he ask you, agree to stand leave the rest to me." 
 
 "You must hate Egerton bitterly," said Randal ; "for I 
 am not vain enough to think that you thus scheme but from 
 pure love to me." 
 
 "The motives of men are intricate and complicated," an- 
 swered Levy, with unusual seriousness. "It suffices to the 
 wise to profit by the actions, and leave the motives in 
 shade." 
 
 There was silence for some minutes. Then the two drew
 
 816 MY NOVKT.; OR, 
 
 closer toward each other, and began to discuss details in 
 their joint designs. 
 
 Randal walked home slowly. It was a cold moonlit 
 night. Young idlers of his own years and rank passed him 
 by, on their way from the haunts of social pleasure. They 
 were yet in the first fair holiday of life. Life's holiday had 
 gone from him for ever. Graver men, in the various call- 
 ings of masculine labor professions, trade, the state 
 passed him also. Their steps might be sober, and their faces 
 care-worn ; but no step had the furtive stealth of his no 
 face the same contracted, sinister, suspicious gloom. Only 
 once, in a lonely thoroughfare, and on the opposite side of 
 the way, fell a footfall, and glanced an eye, that seemed to 
 betray a soul in sympathy with Randal Leslie's. 
 
 And Randal, who had heeded none of the other passen- 
 gers by the way, as if instinctively, took note of this one. 
 His nerves crisped at the noiseless slide of that form, as it 
 stalked on from lamp to lamp, keeping pace with his own. 
 He felt a sort of awe, as if he had beheld the wraith of him- 
 self ; and ever as he glanced suspiciously at the stranger, 
 the stranger glanced at him. He was inexpressibly re- 
 lieved when the figure turned down another street and 
 vanished. 
 
 That man was a felon, as yet undetected. Between him 
 and his kind there stood but a thought a veil air-spun, but 
 impassable, as the veil of the Image at Sais. 
 
 And thus moved and thus looked Randal Leslie, a thing 
 of dark and secret mischief within the pale of the law, but 
 equally removed from man by the vague consciousness that 
 at his heart lay that which the eyes of man would abhor 
 and loathe. Solitary amidst the vast city, and on through 
 the machinery of Civilization, went the still spirit of Intel- 
 lectual Evil.- 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 EARLY the next morning Randal received two notes 
 one from Frank, written in great agitation, begging Randal 
 to see and propitiate his father, whom he feared he had 
 grievously offended ; and then running off, rather incoher- 
 ently, into protestations that his honor as well as his affec-
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 817 
 
 tions were engaged irrevocably to Beatrice, and that her, 
 at least, he could never abandon. 
 
 And the second note was from the Squire himself 
 short, and far less cordial than usual requesting Mr. Leslie 
 to call on him. 
 
 Randal dressed in haste, and went first to Limner's 
 hotel. 
 
 ' He found the Parson with Mr. Hazeldean, and endea- 
 voring in vain to soothe him. The Squire had not slept all 
 night, and his appearance was almost haggard. 
 
 " Oho ! Mr. young Leslie," said he, throwing himself 
 back in his chair as Randal entered " I thought you were 
 a friend I thought you were Frank's adviser. Explain, 
 sir ; explain." 
 
 " Gently, my dear Mr. Hazeldean," said the Parson. 
 "You do but surprise and alarm Mr. Leslie. Tell him 
 more distinctly what he has to explain." 
 
 SQUIRE. Did you, or did you not, tell me or Mrs. Hazel- 
 dean, that Frank was in love with Violante Rickeybockey ? 
 
 RANDAL (as in amaze). I ! Never, sir ; I feared, on the 
 contrary, that he was somewhat enamoured of a very differ- 
 ent person. I hinted at that possibility ; I could not do 
 more, for I did not know how far Frank's affections were 
 seriously engaged. And indeed, sir, Mrs. Hazeldean, though 
 not encouraging the idea that your son could marry a for- 
 eigner and a Roman Catholic, did not appear to consider 
 such objections insuperable, if Frank's happiness were 
 really at stake. 
 
 Here the poor Squire gave way to a burst of passion, 
 that involved in one tempest Frank, Randal, Harry herself, 
 and the whole race of foreigners, Roman Catholics, and 
 women. While the Squire was still incapable of hearing 
 reason, the Parson, taking aside Randal, convinced himself 
 that the whole affair, so far as Randal was concerned, had 
 its origin in a very natural mistake ; and that while that 
 young gentleman had been hinting at Beatrice, Mrs. Hazel- 
 dean had been thinking of Violante. With considerable 
 difficulty he succeeded in conveying this explanation to the 
 Squire, and somewhat appeasing his wrath against Randal. 
 And the Dissimulator, seizing his occasion, then expressed 
 so much grief and astonishment at learning that matters 
 had gone as far as the Parson informed him that Frank 
 had actually proposed to Beatrice, been accepted, and en- 
 gaged himself, before even communicating with his father ; 
 
 35
 
 8i8 MY NOVEL; OK, 
 
 he declared so earnestly, that he could never conjecture 
 such evil that he had had'Frank's positive promise to take 
 no step without the sanction of his parents ; he professed 
 such sympathy with the Squire's wounded feelings, and 
 such regret at Frank's involvement, that Mr. Hazeldean at 
 last yielded up his honest heart to his consoler andgrip- 
 ing Randal's hand, said, " Well, well, I wronged you beg 
 your pardon. What now is to be done ?" 
 
 "Why, you cannot consent to this marriage impossi- 
 ble," replied Randal; "and we must hope, therefore, to 
 influence Frank by his sense of duty." 
 
 "That's it," said the Squire; "for I'll not give way. 
 Pretty pass things have come to, indeed ! A widow, too, I 
 hear. Artful jude thought, no doubt, to catch a Hazel- 
 dean of Hazeldean. My estates go to an outlandish Papis- 
 tical set of mongrel brats ! No, no, never!" 
 
 " But," said the Parson, mildly, " perhaps we may be 
 unjustly prejudiced against this lady. We should have 
 consented to Violante why not to her ? She is of good 
 family ? " 
 
 " Certainly," said Randal. 
 
 "And good character ?" 
 
 Randal shook his head, and sighed. The Squire caught 
 him roughly by the arm " Answer the Parson ! " cried he, 
 vehemently. 
 
 "Indeed, sir, I cannot speak disrespectfully of the char- 
 acter of a woman, who may, too, become Frank's wife ; 
 and the world is ill-natured and not to be believed. But 
 you can judge for yourself, my dear Mr. Hazeldean. Ask 
 your brother whether Madame di Negra is one whom he 
 would advise his nephew to marry." u> 
 
 " My brother ! " exclaimed the Squire, furiously. " Con- 
 sult my distant brother on the affairs of my own son ?" 
 
 " He is a man of the world," put in Randal. 
 
 "And of feeling and honor," said the Parson; "and 
 perhaps, through him, we may be enabled to enlighten 
 Frank, and save him from what appears to be the snare of 
 an artful woman." 
 
 " Meanwhile," said Randal, " I will seek Frank, and do 
 my best with him. Let me go now I will return in an 
 hour or so." 
 
 " I will accompany you," said the Parson. 
 
 "Nay, pardon me ; but I think we two young men can
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 819 
 
 talk more openly without a third person, even so wise and 
 kind as you." 
 
 " Let Randal go," growled the Squire. And Randal 
 went." 
 
 He spent some time with Frank, and the reader will 
 easily divine how that time was employed. As he left 
 Frank's lodgings, he found himself suddenly seized by the 
 Squire himself. 
 
 " I was too impatient to stay at home and listen to the 
 Parson's prosing," said Mr. Ha2eldean, nervously, r "I have 
 shaken Dale off. Tell me what has passed. Oh ! don't 
 fear I'm a man, and can bear the worst." 
 
 Randal drew the Squire's arm within his, and led him 
 into the adjacent park. 
 
 " My dear sir," said he, sorrowfully, " this is very confi- 
 dential what I am about to say. I must repeat it to you, 
 because, without such confidence, I see not how to advise 
 you on the proper course to take. But if I betray Frank, 
 it is for his good, and to his own father ; only do not tell 
 him. He would never forgive me it would for ever de- 
 stroy my influence over him." 
 
 "Go on, go on," gasped the Squire ;" speak out. I'll 
 never tell the ungrateful boy that I learned his secrets from 
 another." 
 
 "Then," said Randal, "the secret of his entanglement 
 with Madame di Negra is simply this he found her in 
 debt nay on the point of being arrested " 
 
 " Debt ! arrested ! Jezabel ! " 
 
 " And in paying the debt himself, and saving her from 
 arrest, he conferred on her the obligation which no woman 
 of honor could accept save from an affianced husband. 
 Poor Frank ! if sadly taken in, still we must pity and 
 forgive him !" 
 
 Suddenly, to Randal's great surprise, the Squire's whole 
 face brightened up. 
 
 " I see, I see ! " he exclaimed, slapping his thigh. " I 
 have it I have it. 'Tis an affair of money ! I can buy her 
 off. If she took money from him, the mercenary, painted 
 baggage ! why then, she'll take it from me. I don't care 
 what it costs half my fortune all ! I'd be content never 
 to see Hazeldean Hall again, if I could save my son, my 
 own son, from disgrace and misery ; for miserable he will 
 be, when he knows he has- broken my heart and his moth- 
 er's. And for a creature like that ! My boy, a thousand
 
 820 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 hearty thanks to you. Where does the wench live ? I'll 
 go to her at once." And, as he spoke, the Squire actually 
 pulled out his pocket-book, and began turning over and 
 counting the bank-notes in it. 
 
 Randal at first tried to combat this bold resolution on 
 the part of the Squire ; but Mr. Hazeldean had seized on 
 it with all the obstinacy of his straightforward English 
 mind. He cut Randal's persuasive eloquence off in the 
 midst. 
 
 " Don't waste your breath. I've settled it ; and if you 
 don't tell me where she lives, 'tis easily found out, I 
 suppose." 
 
 Randal mused a moment. "After all," thought he, 
 " why not ? He will be sure so to speak as to enlist her 
 pride against himself, and to irritate Frank to the utmost. 
 Let him go." 
 
 Accordingly, he gave the information required ; and, in- 
 sisting with great earnestness on the Squire's promise not 
 to mention to Madame di Negra his knowledge of Frank's 
 pecuniary aid (for that would betray Randal as the inform- 
 ant) ; and satisfying himself as he best might with the 
 Squire's prompt assurance, "that he knew how to settle 
 matters, without saying why or wherefore, as long as he 
 opened his purse wide enough," he accompanied Mr. Hazel- 
 dean back into the streets, and there left him fixing an 
 hour in the evening for an interview at Limner's, and hint- 
 ing that it would be best to have that interview without the 
 presence of the Parson. "Excellent, good man, "said Ran- 
 dal, " but not with sufficient knowledge of the world for 
 affairs of this kind, which you understand so well." 
 
 " I should think so," quoth the Squire, who had quite re- 
 covered his good-humor. " And the Parson is as soft as 
 buttermilk. We must be firm here firm, sir." And the 
 Squire struck the end of his stick on the pavement, nodded 
 to Randal, and went on to May Fair as sturdily and as con- 
 fidently as if to purchase a prize-cow at a cattle-show.
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 821 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 " BRING the light nearer," said John Burley " nearer 
 still." 
 
 Leonard obeyed, and placed the candle on a little table 
 by the sick man's bedside. 
 
 Burley's mind was partially wandering ; but there was 
 method in his madness. Horace Walpole said that " his 
 stomach would survive all the rest of him." That which in 
 Burley survived the last was his quaint wild genius. He 
 looked wistfully at the still flame of the candle : " It lives 
 ever in the air ! " said he. 
 
 " What lives ever ? " 
 
 Burley's voice swelled " Light ! " He turned from 
 Leonard, and again contemplated the little flame. " In the 
 fixed star, in the will-o'-the-wisp, in the great sun that il- 
 lumes half a world, or the farthing rushlight by which the 
 ragged student strains his eyes still the same flower of the 
 elements ! Light in the universe, thought in the soul ay 
 ay Go on with the simile. My head swims. Extinguish 
 the light ! You cannot ; fool, it vanishes from your eye, but 
 it is still in the space. Worlds must perish, suns shrivel up, 
 matter and spirit both fall into nothingness, before the com- 
 binations whose union makes that little flame, which the 
 breath of a babe can restore to darkness, shall lose the 
 power to form themselves into light once more. Lose the 
 power ! no, the necessity ; it is the one Must in creation. 
 Ay, ay, very dark riddles grow clear now now when I 
 could not cast up an addition sum in the baker's bill ! What 
 wise man denied that two and two made four ? Do they not 
 make four ? I can't answer him. But I could answer a 
 question that some wise men have contrived to make much 
 knottier." He smiled softly, and turned his face for some 
 minutes to the wall. 
 
 This was the second night on which Leonard had watched 
 by his bedside, and Burley's state had grown rapidly worse. 
 He could not last many days, perhaps many hours. But he 
 had evinced an emotion beyond mere delight at seeing Leon- 
 ard again. He had since then been calmer, more himself. 
 " I feared I might have ruined you by my bad example,"
 
 822 MY NOVEL; OR t 
 
 he said, with a touch of humor that became pathos as he 
 added, " that idea preyed on me." 
 
 "No, no ; you did me great good." 
 
 "Say that say it often," said Burley, earnestly; "it 
 makes my heart feel so light." 
 
 He had listened to Leonard's story with deep interest, 
 and was fond of talking to him of little Helen. He detected 
 the secret at the young man's heart, and cheered the hopes 
 that lay there, amidst hopes and sorrows. Burley never 
 talked seriously of his repentance ; it was not in his nature 
 to talk seriously of the things which he felt solemnly. But 
 his high animal spirits were quenched with the animal 
 power that fed them. Now, we go out of our sensual ex- 
 istence only when we are no longer enthralled by the Pres- 
 ent, in which the senses have their realm. The sensual be- 
 ing vanishes when we are in the Past or the Future. The 
 Present was gone from Burley ; he could no more be its 
 slave and its king. 
 
 It was most touching to see how the inner character 
 of this man unfolded itself, as the leaves of the outer char- 
 acter fell off and withered a character no one would have 
 guessed in him an inherent refinement that 'was almost 
 womanly ; and he had all a woman's abnegation of self. 
 He took the cares lavished on him so meekly. As the 
 features of the old man return in the stillness of death to 
 the aspect of youth the lines effaced, the wrinkles gone 
 so, in seeing Burley now, you saw what he had been in his 
 spring of promise. But he himself saw only what he had 
 failed to be powers squandered life wasted. " I once be- 
 held," he said, " a ship in a storm. It was a cloudy, fitful 
 day, and I could see the ship with all its masts fighting hard 
 for life and for death. Then carne night, dark as pitch, 
 and I could only guess that the ship fought on. Toward 
 the dawn the stars grew visible, and once more I saw the 
 ship it was a wreck it went down just as the stars shone 
 forth." 
 
 When he had made that allusion to himself, he sat very 
 still for some time, then he spread out his wasted hands, 
 and gazed on them, and on his shrunken limbs. " Good," 
 said he, laughing low ; "these hands were too large and 
 rude for handling the delicate webs of my own mechanism, 
 and these strong limbs ran away with me. If I had been 
 a sickly, puny fellow, perhaps my mind would have had 
 fair play. There was too much of the brute body here !
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 823 
 
 Look at this hand now ! you can see the light through it ! 
 Good, good ! " 
 
 Now, that evening, until he had retired to bed, Burley 
 had been unusually cheerful, and had talked with much 
 of his old eloquence, if with little of his old humor. 
 Amongst other matters, he had spoken with considerable 
 interest of some poems and other papers in manuscript 
 which had been left in the house by a former lodger, and 
 which, the reader may remember, that Mrs. Goodyer had 
 urged him in vain to read, in his last visit to her cottage. 
 But then he had her husband Jacob to chat with and the 
 spirit-bottle to finish, and the wild craving for excitement 
 plucked his thoughts back to his London revels. Now 
 poor Jacob was dead, and it was not brandy that the sick 
 man drank from the widow's cruse. And London lay far 
 amidst its fogs, like a world resolved back into nebulae. 
 So to please his -hostess and distract his thoughts, he had 
 condescended (just before Leonard found him out) to 
 peruse the memorials of a life obscure to the world, and 
 new to his own experience of coarse joys and woes. "I 
 have been making a romance, to amuse myself, from their 
 contents," said he. "They may be of use to you, brother 
 author. I have told Mrs. Goodyer to place them in your 
 room. Amongst those papers is a sort of journal a 
 woman's journal ; it moved me greatly. A man gets into 
 another world, strange to him as the orb of Sirius, if he 
 can transport himself into the centre of a woman's heart, 
 and see the life there, so wholly unlike our own. Things 
 of moment tons, to it so trivial ; things trifling to us, to 
 it so vast. There was this journal dn its dates reminding 
 me of stormy events in my own existence, and grand doings 
 in the world's. And those dates there, chronicling but the 
 mysterious unrevealed record of some obscure loving heart ! 
 And in that chronicle, O Sir Poet, there was as much 
 genius, vigor of thought, vitality of being, poured and 
 wasted, as ever kind friend will say was lavished on the 
 rude outer world by big John Burley ! Genius, genius ; 
 are we all alike, then, save when we leash ourselves to some 
 matter-of-fact material, and float over the roaring seas on a 
 wooden plank or a herring-tub ? " And after he had ut- 
 tered that cry of a secret anguish, John Burley' had begun 
 to show symptoms of growing fever and disturbed brain ; 
 and when they had got him into bed, he lay there mutter-
 
 824 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 ing to himself, until toward midnight, he had asked Leon- 
 ard to bring the light nearer to him. 
 
 So now he again was quiet with his face turned toward 
 the wall ; and Leonard stood by the bedside sorrowfully, 
 and Mrs. Goodyer, who did not heed Burley's talk, and 
 thought only of his physical state, was dipping cloths into 
 iced water to apply to his forehead. But as she approached 
 with these, and addressed him soothingly, Burley raised 
 himself on his arm, and waved aside the bandages. " I do 
 not need them," said he, in a collected voice. " I am better 
 now. I and that pleasant light understand one another, 
 and I believe all it tells me. Pooh, pooh, I do not rave." 
 He looked so smilingly and so kindly into her face, that 
 the poor woman, who loved him as her own son, fairly burst 
 into tears. He drew her toward him, and kissed her fore- 
 head. 
 
 " Peace, old fool," said he, fondly. " You shall tell anglers 
 hereafter how John Burley came to fish for the one-eyed 
 perch which he never caught ; and how, when he gave it up 
 at the last, his baits all gone, and the line broken amongst 
 the weeds, you comforted the baffled man. There are many 
 good fellows yet in the world who will like to know that 
 poor Burley did not die on a dunghill. Kiss me ! Come, 
 boy, you too. Now, God bless you, I should like to sleep." 
 His cheeks were wet with the tears of both his listeners, and 
 there was a moisture in his own eyes, which, nevertheless, 
 beamed bright through the moisture. 
 
 He laid himself down again, and the old woman would 
 have withdrawn the light. He moved uneasily. " Not 
 that," he murmured " light to the last ! " And putting 
 forth his wan hand, he drew aside the curtain, so that the 
 light might fall full on his face. In a few minutes he was 
 asleep, breathing calmly and regularly as an infant. 
 
 The old woman wiped her eyes, and drew Leonard 
 softly into the adjoining room, in which a bed had been 
 made up for him. He had not left the house since he had 
 entered it with Dr. Morgan. " You are young, sir," said 
 she with kindness, "and the young want sleep. Lie down 
 a bit ; I will call you when he wakes." 
 
 " No, I could not sleep," said Leonard. " I will watch 
 for you." 
 
 The old woman shook her head. " I must see the last 
 of him, sir ; but I know he will be angry when his eyes 
 open on me, for he has grown very thoughtful of others."
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 825 
 
 " Ah, if he had but been as thoughtful of himself ! " 
 murmured Leonard ; and he seated himself by the table, 
 on which, as he leaned his elbow, he dislodged some papers 
 placed there. They fell to the ground with a dumb, moan- 
 ing, sighing sound. 
 
 " What is that ? " said he, starting. 
 
 The old woman picked up the manuscrips and smoothed 
 them carefully. 
 
 " Ah, sir, he bade me place these papers here. He 
 thought they might keep you from fretting about him, in 
 case you would sit up and wake. And he had a thought of 
 me, too ; for I have so pined to find out the poor young 
 lady who left them years ago. She was almost as dear to 
 me as he is ; dearer perhaps until now when when I am 
 about to lose him ! " 
 
 Leonard turned from the papers, without a glance at 
 their contents ; they had no interest for him at such a 
 moment. 
 
 The hostess went on 
 
 "Perhaps she is gone to heaven before him; she did 
 not look like one long for this world. She left us so sud- 
 denly. Many things of hers besides these papers are still 
 here ; but I keep them aired and dusted, and strew lav- 
 ender over them, in case she ever come for them again. 
 You never heard tell of her, did you, sir ? " she added, with 
 great simplicity, and dropping a half-curtsey. 
 
 " Of her of whom ? " 
 
 "Did not Mr. John tell you her name dear dear ; Mrs. 
 Bertram." 
 
 Leonard started ; the very name so impressed upon his 
 memory by Harley L'Estrange. 
 
 " Bertram ! " he repeated. " Are you sure ? " 
 
 " Oh, yes, sir ! And many years after she had left us, 
 and we had heard no more of her, there came a packet ad- 
 dressed to her here, from over sea, sir. We took it in, and 
 kept it, and John would break the seal, to know if it would 
 tell us anything about her ; but it was all in a foreign lan- 
 guage like we could not read a word." 
 
 " Have you the packet ? Pray show it to me. It may 
 be of the greatest value. To-morrow will do I cannot 
 think of that just now. Poor Burley ! " 
 
 Leonard's manner indicated that he wished to talk no 
 more, and to be alone. So Mrs. .Goodyer left him, and 
 stole back to Burley's room on tiptoe. 
 
 .35*
 
 826 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 The young man remained in deep reverie for some mo- 
 ments. " Light," he murmured. " How often ' Light ' is 
 the last word of those round whom the shades are gather- 
 ing ! " * He moved, and straight on his view through the 
 cottage lattice there streamed light, indeed- not the miser- 
 able ray lit by a human hand but the still and holy efful- 
 gence of a moonlit heaven. It lay broad upon the humble 
 floors pierced across the threshold of the death-chamber, 
 and halted clear amidst its shadows. 
 
 Leonard stood motionless, his eye following the silvery 
 silent splendor. 
 
 " And," he said inly " and does this large erring nature, 
 marred by its genial faults this soul which should have 
 filled the land, as yon orb the room, with a light that linked 
 earth to heaven does it pass away into the dark, and leave 
 not a ray behind ? Nay, if the elements of light are ever 
 in the space, and when the flame goes out return to. the 
 vital air so thought, once kindled, lives for ever round and 
 about us, a part of our breathing atmosphere. Many a 
 thinker, many a poet, may yet illumine the world, from the 
 thoughts which yon genius, that will have no name, gave 
 forth to wander through air, and recombine again in some 
 new form of light." 
 
 Thus he went on in vague speculations, seeking, as youth 
 enamored of fame seeks too fondly, to prove that mind 
 never works, however erratically, in vain and to retain yet, 
 as an influence upon earth, the soul about to soar far be- 
 yond the atmosphere where the elements that make fame 
 abide. Not thus had the dying man interpreted the endu- 
 rance of light and thought. 
 
 Suddenly, in the midst of his reverie, a loud cry broke 
 on his ear. He shuddered as he heard, and hastened fore- 
 bodingly into the adjoining room. The old woman was 
 kneeling by the bedside, and chafing Burley's hand eagerly 
 looking into his face. A glance sufficed to Leonard. All 
 was over. Burley had died in sleep calmly, and without 
 a groan. 
 
 * Every one remembers that Goethe's last words are said to have been " More light ; " 
 and perhaps what has occurred in the text may be supposed a plagiarism from those words. 
 But, in fact, nothing is more common than the craving and demand for light a little before 
 death. Let any consult his own sad experience in the last moments of those whose gradual 
 close he has watched and tended. What more frequent than a prayer to open the shutters 
 and let in the sun ? What complaint more repeated, and more touching, than " that it is 
 growing dark ? " I once knew a sufferer who did not then seem in immediate danger, sud- 
 denly order the sick-room to be lit up as if for a gala. When this was told to the physician, 
 he said gravely, " No worse sign. "
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 827 
 
 The eyes were half-open, with that look of inexpressible 
 softness which death sometimes leaves ; and still they were 
 turned toward the light ; and the light burned clear. 
 ^Leonard closed tenderly the heavy lids ; and, as he covered 
 the face, the lips smiled a serene farewell. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 WE have seen Squire Hazeldean (proud of the contents 
 of his pocket-book, and his knowledge of the mercenary 
 nature of foreign women) set off on his visit to Beatrice di 
 Negra. Randal thus left, musing lone in the crowded 
 streets, revolved with astute complacency the probable 
 results of Mr. Hazeldean's bluff negotiation ; and, convin- 
 cing himself that one of his vistas toward Fortune was be- 
 coming more clear and clear, he turned, with the restless 
 activity of some founder of destined cities in a new settle- 
 ment, to lop the boughs that cumbered and obscured the 
 others. For truly, like a man in a vast Columbian forest, 
 opening entangled space, now with the ready axe, now with 
 the patient train that kindles the slower fire, this child of 
 civilized life went toiling on against surrounding obstacles, 
 resolute to destroy, but ever scheming to construct. And 
 now Randal has reached Levy's dainty business-room, and 
 is buried deep in discussion how to secure to himself, at the 
 expense of his patron, the representation of Lansmere, and 
 how to complete the contract which shall re-annex to his 
 forlorn inheritance some fragments of its ancient wealth. 
 
 Meanwhile, Chance fought on his side in the boudoir of 
 May Fair. The Squire had found the Marchesa at home, 
 briefly introduced himself and his business, told her she 
 was mistaken if she had fancied she had taken in a rich 
 heir in his son, that, thank Heaven, he could leave his 
 estates to his ploughman, should he so please, but that 
 he was willing to do things liberally ; and whatever she 
 thought Frank was worth, he was very ready to pay for. 
 
 At another time Beatrice would perhaps have laughed 
 at this strange address ; or she might, in some prouder 
 moment, have fired up with all a patrician's resentment, 
 and a woman's pride ; but now her spirit was crushed, her 
 nerves shattered ; the sense of her degraded position, of
 
 828 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 her dependence on her brother, combined with her supreme 
 unhappiness at the loss of those dreams with which Leon- 
 ard had for a while charmed her wearied, waking life all 
 came upon her. She listened, pale and speechless ; and the 
 poor Squire thought he was quietly advancing toward a 
 favorable result, when she suddenly burst into a passion of 
 hysterical tears ; and just at that moment Frank himself 
 entered the room. At the sight of his father, of Beatrice's 
 grief, his sense of filial duty gave way. He was maddened 
 by irritation by the insult offered to the woman he loved, 
 which a few trembling words from her explained to him ; 
 maddened yet more by the fear that the insult had lost her 
 to him warm words ensued between son and father, to 
 close with the peremptory command and vehement threat 
 of the last. 
 
 " Come away this instant, sir ! Come with me, or before 
 the day is over I strike you out of my will ! " 
 
 The son's answer was not to his father ; he threw him- 
 self at Beatrice's feet. 
 
 " Forgive him forgive us both " 
 
 " What ! you prefer that stranger to me to the inheri- 
 tance of Hazeldean ! " cried the Squire, stamping his foot. 
 
 " Leave your estates to whom you will ; all that I care 
 for in life is here ! " 
 
 The Squire stood still a moment or so, gazing on his 
 son, with a strange bewildered marvel at the strength of 
 that mystic passion, which none not laboring under its fear- 
 ful charm can comprehend, which creates the sudden idol 
 that no reason justifies, and sacrifices to its fatal shrine 
 alike the Past and the Future. Not trusting himself to 
 speak, the father drew his hand across his eyes, and dashed 
 away the bitter tear that sprang from a swelling indignant 
 heart ; then he uttered an inarticulate sound, and, finding 
 his voice gone, moved away to the door, and left the house. 
 
 He walked through the streets, bearing his head very 
 erect, as a proud man does when deeply wounded, and striv- 
 ing to shake off some affection that he deems a weakness ; 
 and his trembling, nervous fingers fumbled at the button of 
 his coat, trying to tighten the garment across his chest, as 
 if to confirm a resolution that still sought to struggle out 
 of the revolting heart. 
 
 Thus he went on, and the reader, perhaps, will wonder 
 whither, and the wonder may not lessen when he finds the
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 829 
 
 Squire come to a dead pause in Grosvenor Square, and at 
 the portico of his " distant brother's " stately house. 
 
 At the Squire's brief inquiry whether Mr. Egerton was 
 at home, the porter summoned the groom of the chambers ; 
 and the groom of the chambers, seeing a stranger, doubted 
 whether his master was not engaged, but w r ould take in the 
 stranger's card, and see. 
 
 "Ay, ay," muttered the Squire, " this is true relation- 
 ship ! my child prefers a stranger to me ; why should I 
 complain that I am a stranger in my brother's house ? Sir," 
 added the Squire, aloud, and very meekly" sir, please to 
 say to your master that I am William Hazeldean." 
 
 The servant bowed low, and without another word con- 
 ducted the visitor into the statesman's library, and announ- 
 cing Mr. Hazeldean, closed the door. 
 
 Audley was seated at his desk, the grim iron boxes still 
 at his feet, but they were now closed and locked. And the 
 ex-minister was no longer looking over official documents ; 
 letters spread open before him of far different nature ; in 
 his hand there lay a long lock of fair silken hair, on which 
 his eyes were fixed sadly and intently. He started at the 
 sound of his visitor's name, and the tread of the Squire's 
 stalwart footstep ; and mechanically thrust into his bosom 
 the relic of younger and warmer years, keeping his hand to 
 his heart, which beat loud with disease under the light pres- 
 sure of that golden hair. 
 
 The two brothers stood on the great man's lonely hearth, 
 facing each other in silence, and noting unconsciously the 
 change made in each during the long years in which they 
 had never met. 
 
 The Squire, with his portly size, his hardy sun-burnt 
 cheeks, the partial baldness of his unfurrowed, open fore- 
 head, looked his full age deep into middle life. Unmis- 
 takably he seemed ihe pater familias the husband and the 
 father the man of social domestic ties. But about Audley 
 (really some few years junior to the Squire), despite the 
 lines of care on his handsome face, there still lingered the 
 grace of youth. Men of cities retain youth longer than 
 those of the country a remark which Buffon has not failed 
 to make and to account for. Neither did Egerton betray 
 the air of the married man ; for ineffable solitariness seemed 
 stamped upon one whose private life had long been so stern 
 a solitude. No ray from the focus of Home played round 
 that reserved, unjoyous, melancholy brow. In a word, Aud-
 
 830 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 ley looked still the man for whom some young female heart 
 might fondly sigh ; and not the less because of the cold eye 
 and compressed lip, which challenged interest even while 
 seeming to repel it. 
 
 Audley was the first to speak, and to put forth the right 
 hand, which he stole slowly from its place at his breast, on 
 which the lock of hair still stirred to and fro at the heave 
 of the laboring heart. "William," said he, with his rich 
 deep voice, " this is kind. You are come to see me, now 
 that men say 1 am fallen. The minister you censured is no 
 more ; and you see again the brother." 
 
 The Squire was softened at once by this address. He 
 shook heartily the hand tendered to him ; and, then, turn- 
 ing away his head, with an honest conviction that Audley 
 ascribed to him a credit which he did not deserve, he said, 
 " No, no, Audley ; I am more selfish than you think me. I 
 have come I have come to ask your advice- no, not exactly 
 that your opinion. But you are busy ? " 
 
 " Sit down, William. Old days were coming over me 
 when you entered ; days earlier still return now days, too, 
 that leave no shadow when their suns are set." 
 
 The proud man seemed to think he had said too much. 
 His practical nature rebuked the poetic sentiment and 
 phrase. He recollected himself, and added, more coldly, 
 "You would ask my opinion? What on? Some public 
 matter some parliamentary bill that may affect your 
 property ? " 
 
 " Am I such a mean miser as that ? Property property ? 
 What does property matter, when a man is struck down at 
 his own hearth? Property, indeed! But you have no 
 child happy brother ! " 
 
 "Ay, ay ; as you say, I am a happy man ; childless ! Has 
 your son displeased you ? I have heard him well spoken 
 of, too." 
 
 " Don't talk of him. Whether his conduct be good or 
 ill, is my affair," resumed the poor father with a testy 
 voice jealous alike of Audley's praise or blame of his re- 
 bellious son. Then he rose a moment, and made a strong 
 gulp, as if for air ; and laying his broad brown hand on his 
 brother's shoulder, said " Randal Leslie tells me you are 
 wise a consummate man of the world. No doubt you are 
 so. And Parson Dale tells me that he is sure you have 
 warm feelings which I take to be a strange thing for one 
 who has lived so long in London, and has no wife and no
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 831 
 
 child a widower, and a Member of Parliament for a com- 
 mercial city, too. Never smile ; it is no smiling matter 
 with me. You know a foreign woman, called Negra, or 
 Negro not a blackymoor though, by any means at least 
 on the outside of her. Is she such a woman as a plain 
 country gentleman would like his only son to marry ay or 
 no ? " 
 
 " No, indeed," answered Audley, gravely ; " and I trust 
 your son will commit no action so rash. Shall I see him 
 or her ? Speak, my dear William. What would you have 
 me do ?" 
 
 " Nothing ; you have said enough," replied the Squire, 
 gloomily ; and his head sank on his breast. 
 
 Audley took his hand and pressed it fraternally. 
 "William," said the statesman, "we have been long 
 estranged ; but I do not forget that when we last met, at 
 at Lord Lansmere's house, and when I took you aside, 
 and said, ' William, if I lose this election, I must resign 
 all chance of public life ; my affairs are embarrassed I 
 would not accept money from you I would seek a pro- 
 fession, and you can help me there,' you divined my mean- 
 ing, and said ' Take orders ; the Hazeldean living is 
 just vacant. I will get some one to hold it till you are 
 ordained.' I do not forget that. Would that I had thought 
 earlier of so serene an escape from all that then tormented 
 me. My lot might have been far happier." 
 
 The Squire eyed Audley with a surprise that broke 
 forth from his more absorbing emotions. "Happier! 
 Why, all things have prospered with you ; and you are 
 rich enough now ; and you shake your head. Brother, is 
 it possible ! do you want money ? Pooh, not accept money 
 from your mother's son ! stuff." Out came the Squire's 
 pocket-book. Audley put it gently aside. 
 
 " Nay," said he, " I have enough for myself ; but since 
 you seek and speak with me thus affectionately, I will ask 
 you one favor. Should I die before I can provide for 
 my wife's kinsman, Randal Leslie, as I could wish, will you 
 see to his fortunes, so far as you can, without injury to 
 others to your own son ? " 
 
 " My son ! He is provided for..i He has the Casino 
 estate much good may it do him. You have touched on 
 the very matter that brought me here. This boy, Randal 
 Leslie, seems a praiseworthy lad, and has Hazeldean blood 
 in his veins. You have taken him up because he is con-
 
 832 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 nected wvth your late wife. Why should not I take him up, 
 too, when his grandmother was a Hazeldean ? My main 
 object in calling was to ask what you mean to do for him ; 
 for if you do not mean to provide for him, why, I will, as in 
 duty bound. So your request comes at the right time ; I 
 think of altering my will. I can put him into the entail, 
 besides a handsome legacy. You are sure he is a good lad 
 and it will please you too, Audley ! " 
 
 "But not at the expense of your son. And stay, 
 William as to this foolish marriage with Madame di 
 Ncgra, who told you Frank meant to take such a step ? " 
 
 " He told me himself ; but it is no matter. Randal and 
 I both did all we could to dissuade him ; and Randal ad- 
 vised me to come to you." 
 
 " He has acted generously, then, our kinsman Randal 
 I am glad to hear it," said Audley, his brow somewhat 
 clearing. " I have no influence with this lady ; but, at 
 least, I can counsel her. Do not consider the marriage 
 fixed because a young man desires it. Youth is ever hot 
 and rash." 
 
 "Your youth never was," retorted the Squire bluntly. 
 "You married well enough, I'm sure. I will say one thing 
 for you : you have been, to my taste, a bad politician beg 
 pardon but you were always a gentleman. You would 
 never have disgraced your family and married a " 
 
 " Hush ! " interrupted Egerton, gently. " Do not make 
 matters worse than they are. Madame di Negra is of high 
 birth in her own country ; and if scandal " 
 
 " Scandal ! " cried the Squire, shrinking and turning 
 pale. "Are you speaking of the wife of a Hazeldean ? At 
 least she shall never sit by the hearth at which now sits his 
 mother ; and whatever I may do for Frank, her children 
 shall not succeed. No mongrel cross-breed shall kennel in 
 English Hazeldean. Much obliged to you, Audley, for 
 your good feelings glad to have seen you ; and harkye, 
 you startled me by that shake of your head, when I spoke 
 of your wealth ; and, from what you say about Randal's 
 prospects, I guess that you London gentlemen are not so 
 thrifty as we are. You shall let me speak. I say again, that 
 I have some thousands quite at your service. And though 
 you are not a Hazeldean, still you are my mother's son ; and 
 now that I am about to alter my will, I can as well scratch 
 in the name of Egerton as that of Leslie. Cheer up, cheer
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 833 
 
 up ; you are younger than I am, and you have no child ; so 
 you will live longer than I shall." 
 
 " My dear brother," answered Audley, " believe me, I 
 shall never live to want your aid. And as to Leslie, add to 
 the ^5000 I mean to give him, an equal sum in your will, 
 and I shall feel that he has received justice." 
 
 Observing that the Squire, though he listened attentively, 
 made no ready answer, Audley turned the subject again to 
 Frank ; and with the adroitness of a man of the world, 
 backed by a cordial sympathy in his brother's distress, he 
 pleaded so well Frank's lame cause, urged so gently the 
 wisdom of patience and delay, and the appeal to filial feel- 
 ing rather than recourse to paternal threats, that the Squire 
 grew mollified in spite of himself, and left his brother's 
 house a much less angry, and less doleful man. 
 
 Mr. Hazeldean was still in the square, when he came 
 upon Randal himself, who was walking with a dark-whisk- 
 ered, showy gentleman, toward Egerton's house. Randal 
 and the gentleman exchanged a hasty whisper, and the for- 
 mer then exclaimed 
 
 " What, Mr. Hazeldean, have you just left your brother's 
 house ? Is it possible ? " 
 
 " Why, you advised me to go there, and I did. I scarcely 
 knew what I was about. I am very glad I did go. Hang 
 politics ! hang the landed interest ! what do I care for 
 either now ? " 
 
 " Foiled with Madame di Negra ? " asked Randal, draw- 
 ing the Squire aside. 
 
 " Never speak of her again ! " cried the Squire, fiercely. 
 "And as to that ungrateful boy but I don't mean to be- 
 have harshly to him he shall have money enough to keep 
 her if he likes keep her from coming to me keep him, 
 too, from counting on my death, and borrowing post-obits 
 on the Casino for he'll be doing that next no, I hope I 
 wrong him there ; I have been too good a father for him to 
 count on my death already. After all," continued the 
 Squire, beginning to relax, " as Audley says, the marriage 
 is not yet made ; and if the woman has taken him in, he is 
 young, and his heart is warm. Make yourself easy, my boy. 
 I don't forget how kindly you took his part; and before I 
 do anything rash, I'll at least consult with his poor mother." 
 
 Randal gnawed his pale lip, and a momentary cloud of 
 disappointment passed over his face. 
 
 * True, sir," said he gently ; " true, you must not be
 
 834 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 rash. Indeed, I was thinking of you and poor dear Frank 
 at the very moment I met you. It occurred to me whether 
 we might not make Frank's very embarrassments a reason 
 to induce Madame di Negra to refuse him ; and I was on 
 my way to Mr. Egerton, in order to ask his opinion, in com- 
 pany with the gentleman yonder." 
 
 " Gentleman yonder ! Why should he thrust his long 
 nose into my family affairs ? Who the devil is he ? " 
 
 " Don't ask, sir. Pray let me act." 
 
 But the Squire continued to eye askant the dark-whisk- 
 ered personage thus interposed between himself and his son, 
 and who waited patiently a few yards in the rear, carelessly 
 re-adjusting the camelia in his button-hole. 
 
 "He looks very outlandish. Is he a foreigner too?" 
 asked the Squire at last. 
 
 " No, not exactly. However, he knows all about Frank's 
 embarrassments ; and 
 
 " Embarrassments ! What, the debt he paid for that wo- 
 man ? How did he raise the money ? " 
 
 "I don't know," answered Randal, "and that is the rea- 
 son I asked Baron Levy to accompany me to Egerton's, 
 that he might explain in private what I have no rea- 
 son " 
 
 " Baron Levy ! " interrupted the Squire. " Levy, Levy 
 I have heard of a Levy who has nearly ruined my neigh- 
 bor Thornhill a money-lender. Zounds ! is that the man 
 who knows my son's affairs ! I'll soon learn, sir." 
 
 Randal caught hold of the Squire's arm. " Stop, stop ; 
 if you really insist upon learning more about Frank's debts, 
 you must not appeal to Baron Levy directly, and as Frank's 
 father ; he will not answer you. But if I present you to 
 him as a mere acquaintance of mine, and turn the conver- 
 sation, as if carelessly, upon Frank why, since, in the Lon- 
 don world, such matters are never kept secret, except from 
 the parents of young men I have no doubt he will talk out 
 openly." 
 
 " Manage it as you will," said the Squire. 
 
 Randal took Mr. Hazeldean's arm, and joined Levy " A 
 friend of mine from the country, Baron." Levy bowed 
 profoundly, and the three walked slowly on. 
 
 " By the bye," said Randal, pressing significantly upon 
 Levy's arm, "my friend lias come to town upon the some- 
 what unpleasant business of settling the debts of another 
 a young man of fashion a relation of his own. No one,
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 835 
 
 sir (turning to the Squire), could so ably assist you in such 
 arrangements as could Baron Levy." 
 
 BARON (modestly, and with a moralizing air). I have 
 some experience in such matters, and I hold it a duty to 
 assist the parents and relations of young men, who, from 
 want of reflection, often ruin themselves for life. I hope 
 the young gentleman in question is not in the hands of the 
 Jews? q.;ji 
 
 RANDAL. Christians are as fond of good interest for 
 their money as ever the Jews can be. 
 
 BARON. Granted, but they have not always so much 
 money to lend. The first thing, sir (addressing the Squire) 
 the first thing for you to do is to buy up such of your re- 
 lation's bills and notes of hand as may be in the market. 
 No doubt we can get them a bargain, unless the young man 
 is heir to some property that may soon be his in the course 
 of nature. 
 
 RANDAL. Not soon Heaven forbid ! His father is still 
 a young man a fine healthy man (leaning heavily on Levy's 
 arm) ; and as to the post-obits 
 
 BARON. Post-obits on sound security cost more to buy 
 up, however healthy the obstructing relative may be. 
 
 RANDAL. I should hope that there are not many sons 
 who can calculate, in cold blood, on the death of their fa- 
 thers. 
 
 BARON. Ha, ha he is young, our friend Randal; eh, 
 sir ? 
 
 RANDAL. Well, I am not more scrupulous than others, 
 I dare say ; and I have often been pinched hard for money, 
 but I would go barefoot rather than give security upon a 
 father's grave ! I can imagine nothing more likely to des- 
 troy natural feeling, nor to instil ingratitude and treachery 
 into the whole character, than to press the hand of a parent, 
 and calculate when that hand may be dust than to sit down 
 with strangers and reduce his life to the measure of an in- 
 surance-table than to feel difficulties gathering round one, 
 and mutter in fashionable slang, " But it will be all well if 
 the governor would but die." And he who has accustomed 
 himself to the relief of post-obits must gradually harden 
 his mind to all this. 
 
 The Squire groaned heavily ; and had Randal proceeded 
 another sentence in the same strain, the Squire would have 
 wept outright. " But," continued Randal, altering the tone 
 of his voice, " I think that our young friend, of whom we
 
 836 MY NOVEL; OX, 
 
 were talking just now, Levy, before this gentleman joined 
 us, has the same opinions as myself on this head. He may 
 accept bills, but he would never sign post-obits." 
 
 BARON (who with the apt docility of a managed charger 
 to the touch of a rider's hand, had comprehended and com- 
 plied with each quick sign of Randal's). Pooh ! the young 
 fellow we are talking of ? Nonsense. He would not be so 
 foolish as to give five times the percentage he otherwise 
 might. Not sign post-obits ! Of course he has signed one. 
 
 RANDAL. Hist you mistake, you mistake. 
 
 SQUIRE (leaving Randal's arm and seizing Levy's). 
 Were you speaking of Frank Hazeldean ? 
 
 BARON. My dear sir, excuse me ; I never mention 
 names before strangers. 
 
 SQUIRE. Strangers again ! Man, I am the boy's father ! 
 Speak out, sir ; and his hand closed on Levy's arm with 
 the strength of an iron vice. 
 
 BARON. Gently ; you hurt me, sir ; but I excuse your 
 feelings. Randal, you are to blame for leading me into this 
 indiscretion ; but I beg to assure Mr. Hazeldean, that though 
 his son has been a little extravagant 
 
 RANDAL. Owing chiefly to the arts of an abandoned 
 woman. 
 
 BARON. Of an abandoned woman ; still he has shown 
 more prudence than you would suppose ; and this very 
 post-obit is a proof of it. A simple act of that kind has 
 enabled him to pay off bills that were running on till they 
 would have ruined even the Hazeldean estate ; whereas a 
 charge on the reversion of the Casino 
 
 SQUIRE. He has done it then ? He has signed a post- 
 obit ? 
 
 RANDAL. No, no, Levy must be wrong. 
 
 BARON. My dear Leslie, a man of Mr. Hazeldean's 
 time of life cannot have your romantic boyish notions. He 
 must allow that Frank has acted in this like a lad of sense 
 very good head for business has my young friend Frank ! 
 And the best thing Mr. Hazeldean can do is quietly to buy 
 up the post-obit, and thus he will place his son henceforth 
 in his power. 
 
 SQUIRE. Can I see the deed with my own eyes ? 
 
 BARON. Certainly, or how could you be induced to buy 
 it up. But on one condition : you must not betray me to 
 your son. And, indeed, take my advice, and don't say a 
 word to him on the matter.
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 837 
 
 SQUIRE. Let me see it, let me see it with my own eyes. 
 His mother else will never believe it nor will I. 
 
 BARON. I can call on you this evening. 
 
 SQUIRE. Now, now. 
 
 BARON. You can spare me, Randal ; and you yourself 
 can open to Mr. Egerton the other affair respecting Lans- 
 mere. No time should be lost, lest L'Estrange suggest a 
 candidate. 
 
 RANDAL (whispering). Never mind me. This is more 
 important. (Aloud.) Go with Mr. Hazeldean. My dear 
 kind friend (to the Squire), do not let this vex you so much. 
 After all, it is what nine young men out of ten would do in 
 the same circumstances. And it is best you should know 
 it ; you may save Frank from farther ruin, and prevent, 
 perhaps, this very marriage. 
 
 "We will see," exclaimed the Squire, hastily. "Now, 
 Mr. Levy, come." 
 
 Levy and the Squire walked on, not arm in arm, but 
 side by side. Randal proceeded to Egerton's house. 
 
 " I am glad to see you, Leslie," said the ex-minister. 
 " What is it I have heard ? My nephew, Frank Hazeldean, 
 proposes to marry Madame di Negra against his father's 
 consent ? How could you suffer him to entertain an idea 
 so wild ? And how never confide it to me ?" 
 
 RANDAL. My dear Mr. Egerton, it is only to-day that I 
 was informed of Frank's engagement. I have already seen 
 him, and expostulated in vain ; till then, though I "knew 
 your nephew admired Madame di Negra, I could never 
 suppose he harbored a serious intention. 
 
 EGERTON. I must believe you, Randal. I will myself 
 see Madame di Negra, though I have no power, and no right, 
 to dictate to her. I have but little time for all such 
 private business. The dissolution of Parliament is so close 
 at hand. 
 
 RANDAL (looking down). It is on that subject that I 
 wished to speak to you, sir. You think of standing for 
 Lansmere. Well, Baron Levy has suggested to me an idea 
 that I could not, of course, even countenance, till I had 
 spoken to you. It seems that he has some acquaintance 
 with the state of parties in that borough. He is informed 
 that it is not only as easy to b/ing in two of our side, as to 
 carry one, but that it would make your election still more 
 safe not to fight single-handed against two opponents ; that 
 if canvassing for yourself alone, you could not carry a suffi-
 
 838 MY NOVEL; OK, 
 
 cient number of plumper votes ; that split votes would go 
 from you to one or other of the adversaries ; that, in a word, 
 it is necessary to pair you with a colleague. If it really be 
 so, you, of course, will learn best from your own commit- 
 tee ; but should they concur in the opinion Baron Levy has 
 formed do I presume too much on your kindness to 
 deem it possible that you might allow me to be the second 
 candidate on your side ? I should not say this, but that 
 Levy told me you had some wish to see me in Parliament, 
 amongst the supporters of your policy. And what other 
 opportunity can occur ? Here the cost of carrying two 
 would be scarcely more than that of carrying one. And 
 Levy says, the party would subscribe for my election ; you, 
 of course, would refuse all such aid for your own ; and, in- 
 deed, with your great name, and Lord Lansmere's interest, 
 there can be little beyond the strict legal expenses. 
 
 As Randal spoke thus at length, he watched anxiously 
 his patron's reserved, unrevealing countenance. 
 
 EGERTON (dryly). I will consider. You may safely 
 leave in my hands any matter connected with your ambi- 
 tion and advancement. I have before told you I hold it a 
 duty to do all in my power for the kinsman of my late wife 
 for one whose career I undertook to forward for one 
 whom honor has compelled to share in my own political 
 reverses. 
 
 Here Egerton rang the bell for his hat and gloves, and 
 walkhig into the hall, paused at the street-door. There 
 beckoning to Randal, he said, slowly, " You seem intimate 
 with Baron Levy ; I caution you against him a dangerous 
 acquaintance, first to the purse, next to the honor." 
 
 RANDAL. I know it, sir ; and am surprised myself at the 
 acquaintance that has grown up between us. Perhaps its 
 cause is in his respect for yourself. 
 
 EGERTON. Tut. 
 
 RANDAL. Whatever it be, he contrives to obtain a sin- 
 gular hold over one's mind, even where, as in my case, he 
 lias no evident interest to serve. How is this ? It puzzles 
 me ! 
 
 EGERTON. For his interest, it is most secured where 
 he suffers it to be least evident ; for his hold over the 
 mind, it is easily accounted .for. He ever appeals to two 
 temptations, strong with all men Avarice and Ambition. 
 Good day. 
 
 RANDAL. Are you going to Madame di Negra's? Shall
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 839 
 
 I not accompany you ? Perhaps I may be able to back 
 your own remonstrances. 
 
 EGERTON. No, I shall not require you. 
 
 RANDAL. I trust I shall hear the result of your inter- 
 view ? I feel so much interested in it. Poor Frank! 
 
 Audley nodded. " Of course, of course." 
 
 < i':'. '.'.'.ilSlii oi rfi Oil Wi-'Ufi 1 JU;J ;V/iuifJ'>Jl Y):t JlJlV.' '''til 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 ON entering the drawing-room of Madame di Negra, the 
 peculiar charm which the severe Audley Egerton had been 
 ever reputed to possess with women, would have sensibly 
 struck one who had hitherto seen him chiefly in his relations 
 with men in the business-like affairs of life. It was a charm 
 in strong contrast to the ordinary manners of those who are 
 emphatically called "Ladies' men." No artificial smile, no 
 conventional hollow blandness, no frivolous gossip, no 
 varnish either of ungenial gaiety or affected grace. The 
 charm was in a simplicity that unbent more into kindness 
 than it did with men. Audley's nature, whatever its faults 
 and defects, was essentially masculine ; and it was the sense 
 of masculine power that gave to his voice a music when 
 addressing the gentler sex, and to his manner a sort of 
 indulgent fenderness that appeared equally void of insince- 
 rity and presumption. 
 
 Frank had been gone about half an hour, and Madame 
 di Negra was scarcely recovered from the agitation into 
 which she had been thrown by the affront from the father 
 and the pleading of the son. 
 
 Egerton took her passive hand cordially, and seated 
 himself by her side. 
 
 " My dear Marchesa," said he, "are we then likely to be 
 near connections ? And can you seriously contemplate 
 marriage with my young nephew, Frank Hazeldean ? You 
 turn away. Ay, my fair friend, there are but two induce- 
 ments to a free woman to sign away her liberty at the altar. 
 I say a free woman, for widows are free, and girls are not. 
 These inducements are, first, wordly position ; secondly, 
 love. Which of these motives can urge Madame di Negra 
 to marry Mr. Frank Hazeldean?" 
 
 " There are other motives than those you speak of the
 
 840 MY NOVF.L; OR, 
 
 need of protection the sense of solitude the curse of 
 dependence gratitude for honorable affection. But you 
 men never know women ! " 
 
 " I grant that you are right there we never do ; ncithcr 
 do women ever know men. And yet each sex contrives to 
 dupe and to fool the other ! Listen to me. I have little 
 acquaintance with my nephew, but I allow he is a handsome 
 young gentleman, with whom a handsome young lady in her 
 teens might fall in love in a ball-room. But you, who have 
 known the higher order of our species you who have 
 received the homage of men, whose thoughts and mind 
 leave the small-talk of drawing-room triflers so poor and 
 bald you cannot look me in the face and say that it is any 
 passion resembling love which you feel for my nephew. 
 And as to position, it is right that I should inform you that 
 if he marry you he will have none. He may risk his inheri- 
 tance. You will receive no countenance from his parents. 
 You will be poor, but not free. You will not gain the inde- 
 pendence you seek for. The sight of a vacant discontented 
 face in that opposite chair will be worse than solitude. And 
 as to grateful affection," added the man of the world, "it is 
 a polite synonym for tranquil indifference." 
 
 " Mr. Egerton," said Beatrice, " people say you are 
 made of bronze. Did you ever feel the want of a home ? " 
 
 "I answer you frankly," replied the statesman ; "if I 
 had not felt it, do you think I should have been, and that 
 I should be to the last, the joyless drudge of public life ? 
 Bronze though you may call my nature, it would have mel- 
 ted away long since like wax in the fire, if I had sat idly 
 down and dreamed of a home ! " 
 
 "But we women," answered Beatrice, with pathos, 
 " have no public life, and we do idly sit down and dream. 
 Oh," she continued after a short pause, and clasping her 
 hands firmly together, " you think me worldly, grasping, 
 ambitious ; how different my fate had been, had I known a 
 home ! known one whom I could love and venerate 
 known one whose smiles would have developed the good 
 that was once within me, and the fear of whose rebuking or 
 sorrowful eye would have corrected what is evil." 
 
 " Yet," answered Audley, " nearly all women in the 
 great world have had that choice once in their lives, and 
 nearly all have thrown it away. How few of your rank 
 really think of home when they marry how few ask to 
 venerate as well as to love and how many, of every rank,
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 841 
 
 when the home has been really gained, have wilfully lost 
 its shelter ; some in neglectful weariness some from a 
 momentary doubt, distrust, caprice a wild fancy a pas- 
 sionate fit a trifle a straw a dream ! True, you women 
 are ever dreamers. Common sense, common earth, is above 
 or below your comprehension." 
 
 Both now are silent. Audley first roused himself with 
 a quick writhing movement. "We two," said he, smiling 
 half sadly, half cynically "we two must not longer waste 
 time in talking sentiment. We know both too well what 
 life, as it has been made for us by our faults or our mis- 
 fortunes, truly is. And once again, I entreat you to pause 
 before you yield to the foolish suit of my foolish nephew. 
 Rely on it, you will either command a higher offer for your 
 prudence to accept ; or, if you needs must sacrifice rank 
 and fortune, you, with your beauty and your romantic 
 heart, will see one who, at least for a fair holiday season (if 
 human love allows no more), can repay you for the sacrifice. 
 Frank Hazeldean never can." 
 
 Beatrice turned away to conceal the tears that rushed to 
 her eyes. 
 
 "Think over this well," said Audley, in the softest tones 
 of his mellow voice. " Do you remember that when you 
 first came to England, I told you that neither wedlock nor 
 love had any lures for me ? We grew friends upon that 
 rude avowal, and therefore I now speak to you like some 
 sage of old, wise because standing apart and aloof from all 
 the affections and ties that mislead our wisdom. Nothing 
 but real love (how rare it is ! has one human heart in a mil- 
 lion ever known it ?) nothing but real love can repay us for 
 the loss of freedom the cares and fears of poverty the 
 cold pity of the world that we both despise and respect. 
 And all these, and much more, follow the step you would 
 inconsiderately take an imprudent marriage." 
 
 " Audley Egerton," said Beatrice, lifting her dark, 
 moistened eyes, " you grant that real love does compensate 
 for an imprudent marriage. You speak as if you had 
 known such love you ! Can it be possible ?" 
 
 " Real love I thought that I knew it once. Looking 
 back with remorse, I should doubt it now but for one curse, 
 that only real love, when lost, has the power to leave ever- 
 more behind it." 
 
 "What is that?" 
 36
 
 842 My NOVEL; OR, 
 
 " A void here," answered Egerton, striking his heart. 
 " Desolation ! Adieu ! " 
 
 He rose and left the room. 
 
 " Is it," murmured Egerton, as he pursued his way 
 through the streets " is it that, as we approach death, all 
 the first fair feelings of young life come back to us mys- 
 teriously ? Thus I have heard, or read, that in some coun- 
 try of old, children scattering flowers preceded a funeral 
 bier." 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 AND so Leonard stood beside his friend's mortal clay, 
 and watched, in the ineffable smile of death, the last gleam 
 which the soul had left there ; and so, after a time, he crept 
 back to the adjoining room with a step as noiseless as if he 
 had feared to disturb the dead. Wearied as he was with 
 watching, he had no thought of sleep. He sat himself down 
 by the little table, and leaned his face on his hand, musing 
 sorrowfully. Thus time passed. He heard the clock from 
 below strike the hours. In the house of death the sound 
 of a clock becomes so solemn. The soul that we miss has 
 gone so far beyond the reach of time ! A cold superstitious 
 awe gradually stole over the young man. He shivered, 
 and lifted his eyes with a start, half-scornful, half-defying. 
 The moon was gone the gray comfortless dawn gleamed 
 through the casement, and carried its raw chilling light 
 through the open door-way into the death-room. And 
 there, near the extinguished fire, Leonard saw the solitary 
 woman, weeping low, and watching still. He returned to 
 say a word of comfort she pressed his hand, but waved 
 him away. He understood. She did not wish for other 
 comfort than her quiet relief of tears. Again, he returned 
 to his own chamber, and his eye this time fell upon the 
 papers which he had hitherto disregarded. What made his 
 heart stand still, and the blood then rush so quickly through 
 his veins? Why did he seize upon those papers with so 
 tremulous a hand then lay them down pause, as if to 
 nerve himself and look so eagerly again ? He recognized 
 the handwriting those fair, clear characters so peculiar 
 in their woman-like delicacy and grace the same as in the 
 wild, pathetic poems, the sight of which had made an era
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 843 
 
 in his boyhood. From these pages the image of the 
 mysterious Nora rose once more before him. He felt that 
 he was with a mother. He went back, and closed the door 
 gently, as if with a jealous piety, to exclude each ruder 
 shadow from the world of spirits, and be alone with that 
 mournful ghost. For a thought written in warm, sunny 
 life, and then suddenly rising up to us, with the hand that 
 traced, and the heart that cherished it, are dust is verily 
 as a ghost. It is a likeness struck off of the fond human 
 being, and surviving it. Far more truthful than bust or 
 portrait, it bids us see the tear flow, and the pulse beat. 
 What ghost can the church-yard yield to us like the writing 
 of the dead ? 
 
 The bulk of the papers had been once lightly sewn to 
 each other they had come undone, perhaps in Burley's 
 rude hands ; but their order was easily apparent. Leonard 
 soon saw that they formed a kind of journal not, indeed, 
 a regular diary, nor always relating to the things of the day. 
 There were gaps in time no attempt at successive narra- 
 tive. Sometimes, instead of prose, a hasty burst of verse, 
 gushing evidently from the heart sometimes all narrative 
 was left untold, and yet, as it were, epitomized by a single 
 burning line a single exclamation of woe or joy ! Every- 
 where you saw records of a nature exquisitely suceptible ; 
 and, where genius appeared, it was so artless, that you did 
 not call it genius, but emotion. At the onset the writer did 
 not speak of herself in the first person. The MS. opened 
 with descriptions and short dialogues, carried on by per- 
 sons to whose names only initial letters were assigned, all 
 written in a style of simple innocent freshness, and breath- 
 ing of purity and happiness, like a dawn of spring. Two 
 young persons, humbly born a youth and a girl the last 
 still in childhood, each chiefly self-taught, are wandering 
 on Sabbath evenings among green dewy fields near the 
 busy town, in which labor awhile is still. Few words pass 
 between them. You see at once, though the writer does 
 not mean to convey it, how far beyond the scope of her 
 male companion flies the heavenward imagination of the 
 girl. It is he who questions it is she who answers ; and 
 soon there steals upon you, as you read, the conviction that 
 the youth loves the girl, and loves in vain. All in this 
 writing, though terse, is so truthful ! Leonard, in the 
 youth, already recognizes the rude imperfect scholar the 
 village bard Mark Fairfield. Then, there is a gap in de-
 
 844 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 scription but there are short weighty sentences, which 
 show deepening thought, increasing years, in the writer. 
 And though the innocence remains, the happiness begins to 4 
 be less vivid on the page. 
 
 Now, insensibly, Leonard finds that there is a new phase 
 in the writer's existence. Scenes, no longer of humble 
 work-day rural life, surround her ; and a fairer and more 
 dazzling image succeeds to the companion of the Sabbath 
 eves. This image Nora evidently loves to paint it is akin 
 to her own genius -it captivates her fancy it is an image 
 that she (inborn artist, and conscious of her art) feels to be- 
 long to a brighter and higher school of the Beautiful. And 
 yet the virgin's heart is not awakened no trace of the heart 
 yet there ! The new image thus introduced is one of her 
 own years, perhaps ; nay, it may be younger still, for it is a 
 boy that is described, with his profuse fair curls, and eyes 
 new to grief, and confronting the sun as a young eagle's ; 
 with veins so full of the wine of life, that they overflow into 
 every joyous whim ; with nerves quiveringly alive to the 
 desire of glory ; with the frank, generous nature, rash in its 
 laughing scorn of the world, which it has not tried. Who 
 was this boy, it perplexed Leonard ; he feared to guess. 
 Soon, less told than implied, you saw that this companion- 
 ship, however it chanced, brings fear and pain on the 
 writer. Again, as before, with Mark Fairfield, there is love 
 on the one side and not on the other with her there is af- 
 fectionate, almost sisterly, interest, admiration, gratitude 
 but a something of pride or of terror that keeps back love. 
 
 Here Leonard's interest grew intense. There were 
 touches by which conjecture grew certainty ; and he re- 
 cognized, through the lapse of years, the boy-lover in his 
 own generous benefactor ! 
 
 Fragments of dialogue now began to reveal the suit of 
 an ardent, impassioned nature, and the simple wonder and 
 strange alarm of a listener who pitied, but could not sym- 
 pathize. Some great worldly distinction of rank between 
 the two became visible that distinction seemed to arm the 
 virtue and steel the affections of the lowlier born. Then a 
 few sentences, half-blotted out with tears, told of wounded 
 and humbled feelings some one invested with authority, 
 as if the suitor's parent, had interfered, questioned, re- 
 proached, counselled. And it was evident that the suit was 
 not one that dishonored it wooed to flight, but still to 
 marriage.
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE, 845 
 
 And now these sentences grew briefer still, as with the 
 decision of a strong resolve. And to these there followed 
 a passage so exquisite, that Leonard wept unconsciously as 
 he read. It was the ciescription of a visit spent at home 
 previous to some sorrowful departure. He caught the 
 glimpse of a proud and vain, but a tender wistful mother 
 of a father's fonder but less thoughtful love. And then 
 came a quiet soothing scene between the girl and her first 
 village lover, ending thus " So she put M.'s hand into her 
 sister's, and said : ' You loved me through the fancy, love 
 her with the heart,' and left them comprehending each 
 other, and betrothed." 
 
 Leonard sighed. He understood now how Mark Fair- 
 field saw, in the homely features of his unlettered wife, the 
 reflection of the sister's soul and face. 
 
 A few words told the final parting words that were a 
 picture. The long friendless highway, stretching on on 
 toward the remorseless city. And the doors of home open- 
 ing on the desolate thoroughfare and the old pollard tree 
 beside the threshold, with the ravens wheeling round it and 
 calling to their young. He too had watched that threshold 
 from the same desolate thoroughfare. He too had heard 
 the cry of the ravens. Then came some pages covered with 
 snatches of melancholy verse, or some reflections of dreamy 
 gloom. 
 
 The writer was in London, in the house of some high- 
 born patroness that friendless shadow of a friend which 
 the jargon of society calls "companion." And she was 
 looking on the bright storm of the world as through prison 
 bars. Poor bird, afar from the greenwood, she had need of 
 song it was her last link with freedom and nature. The 
 patroness seems to share in her apprehensions of the boy 
 suitor, whose wild rash prayers the fugitive had resisted ; 
 but to fear lest the suitor should be degraded, not the one 
 whom he pursues fear an alliance ill-suited to a high-born 
 heir. And this kind of fear stings the writer's pride, and 
 she grows harsh in her judgment of him who thus causes 
 but pain where he proffers love. Then there is a reference 
 to some applicant for her hand, who is pressed upon her 
 choice. And she is told that it is her duty so to choose, and 
 thus deliver a noble family from a dread that endures so 
 long as her hand is free. And of this fear, and of this ap- 
 plicant, there breaks out a petulant yet pathetic scorn. 
 After this the narrative, to judge by the dates, pauses for
 
 846 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 days and weeks, as if the writer had grown weary and list- 
 less suddenly to re-open in a new strain, eloquent with 
 hopes and with fears never known before. The first person 
 was abruptly assumed it was the living " I " that now 
 breathed and moved along the lines. How was this ? The 
 woman was no more a shadow and a secret unknown to her- 
 self ; she had assumed the intense and vivid sense of indi- 
 vidual being ; and love spoke loud in the awakened human 
 heart. 
 
 A personage not seen till then appeared on the page. 
 And ever afterward this personage was only named as "He" 
 as if the one and sole representative of all the myriads that 
 walk the earth. The first notice of this prominent character 
 on the scene showed the restless agitated effect produced 
 on the writer's imagination. He was invested with a 
 romance probably not his own. He was described in contrast 
 to the brilliant boy whose suit she had feared, pitied, and 
 now sought to shun described with a grave and serious, 
 but gentle mien a voice that imposed respect an eye and 
 lip that showed collected dignity of will. Alas ! the writer 
 betrayed herself, and the charm was in the contrast, not to 
 the character of the earlier lover, but her own. And now, 
 leaving Leonard to explore and guess his way through the 
 gaps and chasms of the narrative, it is time to place before 
 the reader what the narrative alone will not reveal to 
 Leonard. 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 NORA AVENEL had fled from the boyish love of Harley 
 L'Estrange recommended by Lady Lansmere to a valetu- 
 dinarian relative of her own, Lady Jane Horton, as a com- 
 panion. But Lady Lansmere could not believe it possible 
 that the low-born girl could long sustain her generous pride, 
 and reject the ardent suit of one who could offer to her the 
 prospective coronet of a countess. She continually urged 
 upon Lady Jane the necessity of marrying Nora to some one 
 of rank less disproportioned to her own, and empowered 
 that lady to assure any such wooer of a dowry far beyond 
 Nora's station. Lady Jane looked around, and saw in the 
 outskirts of her limited social ring, a young solicitor, a 
 peer's natural son, who was on terms of more than business-
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 847 
 
 like intimacy with the fashionable clients whose distresses 
 made the origin of his wealth. The young man was hand- 
 some, well-dressed, and bland. Lady Jane invited him to 
 her house ; and, seeing him struck with the rare loveliness 
 of Nora, whispered the hint of the dower. The fashionable 
 solicitor, who afterward ripened into Baron Levy, did not 
 need that hint ; for, though then poor, he celied on himself 
 for fortune, and unlike Randal, he had warm blood in his 
 veins. But Lady Jane's suggestions made him sanguine of 
 success ; and when he formally proposed, and was as for- 
 mally refused, his self-love was bitterly wounded. Vanity 
 in Levy was a powerful passion ; and with the vain, hatred 
 is strong, revenge is rankling. Levy retired, concealing his 
 rage ; nor did he himself know how vindictive that rage, 
 when it cooled into malignancy, could become, until the 
 arch-fiend OPPORTUNITY prompted its indulgence and sug- 
 gested its design. 
 
 Lady Jane was at first very angry with Nora for the re- 
 jection of a suitor whom she had presented as eligible. 
 But the pathetic grace of this wonderful girl had crept into 
 her heart, and softened it even against family prejudice ; and 
 she gradually owned to herself that Nora was worthy of 
 some one better than Mr. Levy. 
 
 Now, Harley had ever believed that Nora returned his 
 love, and that nothing but her own sense of gratitude to 
 his parents her own instincts of delicacy, made her deaf to 
 his prayers. To do him justice, wild and headstrong as he 
 then was, his suit would have ceased at once, had he really 
 deemed it persecution. Nor was his error unnatural ; for 
 his conversation, till it had revealed his own heart, could 
 not fail to have dazzled and delighted the child of genius ; 
 and her frank eyes would have shown the delight. How, at 
 his age, could he see the distinction between the Poetess 
 and the Woman ? The poetess was charmed with rare pro- 
 mise in a soul of which the very errors were the extrava- 
 gances of richness and beauty. But the woman no ! the 
 woman required some nature not yet developed, and all at 
 turbulent, if brilliant strife, with its own noble elements, 
 but a nature formed and full-grown. Harley was a boy, 
 and Nora was one of those women who must find or fancy 
 an Ideal that commands and almost awes them into love. 
 
 Harley discovered, not without difficulty, Nora's new 
 residence. He presented himself at Lady Jane's, and she, 
 with grave rebuke, forbade him the house. He found it
 
 848 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 impossible to obtain an interview with Nora. He wrote, 
 but he felt sure that his letters never reached her, since they 
 were unanswered. His young heart swelled with rage. He 
 dropped threats, which alarmed all the fears of Lady Lans- 
 mere, and even the prudent apprehensions of his friend, 
 Audley Egerton. At the request of the mother, and equally 
 at the wish of the son, Audley consented to visit at Lady 
 Jane's and make acquaintance with Nora. 
 
 "I have such confidence in you," said Lady Lansmere, 
 " that if you once know the girl, your advice will be sure to 
 have weight with her. You will show her how wicked it 
 would be to let Harley break our hearts and degrade his 
 station." 
 
 " I have such confidence in you," said young Harley, 
 " that if you once know rny Nora, you will no longer side 
 with my mother. You will recognize the nobility which 
 nature only can create you will own that Nora is worthy 
 a rank more lofty than mine ; and my mother so believes in 
 your wisdom, that, if you plead in my cause, you will con- 
 vince even her." 
 
 Audley listened to both with intelligent, half-incredulous 
 smile ; and wholly of the same opinion as Lady Lansmere, 
 and sincerely anxious to save Harley from an indiscretion 
 that his own notions led him to regard as fatal, he resolved 
 to examine this boasted pearl, and to find out its flaws. 
 Audley Egerton was then in the prime of his earnest, res- 
 olute, ambitious youth. The stateliness of his natural 
 manners had then a suavity and polish which, even in later 
 and busier life, it never wholly lost ; since, in spite of the 
 briefer words and the colder looks by which care and power 
 mark the official man, the Minister had ever enjoyed that 
 personal popularity which the indefinable, external some- 
 thing, that wins and pleases, can alone confer. But he had 
 even then, as ever, that felicitous reserve which Rochefou- 
 cauld has called the "mystery of the body" that thin yet 
 guardian veil which reveals but the strong outlines of char- 
 acter, and excites so much of interest by provoking so much 
 of conjecture. To the man who is born with this reserve, 
 which is wholly distant from shyness, the world gives credit 
 for qualities and talents beyond those that it perceives ; and 
 such characters are attractive to others in proportion as 
 these last are gifted with the imagination which loves to 
 divine the unknown. 
 
 At the first interview, the impression which this man
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 849 
 
 produced upon Nora Avenel was profound and strange. 
 She had heard of him before as the one whom Harley .most 
 loved and looked up to ; and she recognized at once in his 
 mien, his aspect, his words, the very tone of his deep tran- 
 quil voice, the power to which woman, whatever her intellect, 
 never attains ; and to which, therefore, she imputes a 
 nobility not always genuine viz., the power of deliberate 
 purpose, and self-collected, serene ambition. The effect 
 that Nora produced on Egerton was not less sudden. He 
 was startled by a beauty of face and form that belonged to 
 that rarest order, which we never behold but once or twice 
 in our lives. He was yet more amazed to discover that the 
 aristocracy of mind could bestow a grace that no aristocracy 
 of birth could surpass. He was prepared for a simple, 
 blushing village girl, and involuntarily he bowed low his 
 proud front at the first sight of that delicate bloom, and 
 that exquisite gentleness which is woman's surest passport 
 to the respect of man. Neither in the first, nor the second, 
 nor the third interview, nor, indeed, till after many inter- 
 views, could he summon up courage to commence his 
 mission, and allude to Harley. And when he did so at last, 
 his words faltered. But Nora's words were clear to him. 
 He saw that Harley was not loved ; and a joy, which he felt 
 as guilty, darted through his whole frame. From that inter- 
 view Audley returned home, greatly agitated, and at war 
 with himself. Often, in the course of this story, has it 
 been hinted that, under all Egerton's external coldness, and 
 measured self-control, lay a nature capable of strong and 
 stubborn passions. Those passions broke forth then. He 
 felt that love had already entered into the heart, which the 
 trust of his friend should have sufficed to guard. 
 
 " I will go there no more," said he, abruptly, to Harley. 
 
 " But why ? " 
 
 " The girl does not love you. Cease, then, to think of 
 her." 
 
 Harley disbelieved him, and grew indignant. But Aud- 
 ley had every worldly motive to assist his sense of honor. 
 He was poor, though with the reputation of wealth deeply 
 involved in debt resolved to rise in life tenacious of his 
 position in the world's esteem. Against a host of counter- 
 acting influences, love fought single-handed. Audley's was 
 a strong nature ; but, alas ! in strong natures, if resistance 
 to temptation is of granite, so the passions that they admit 
 are of fire. 
 
 3 6*
 
 850 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 Trite is the remark, that the destinies of our lives often 
 date from the impulses of unguarded moments. It was so 
 with this man, to an ordinary eye so cautious and so delib- 
 erate. Harley one day came to him in great grief ; he had 
 heard that Nora was ill ; he implored Audley to go once 
 more and ascertain. Audley went. Lady Jane Horton, 
 who was suffering under a disease which not long afterward 
 proved fatal, was too ill to receive him. He was shown in- 
 to the room set apart as Nora's. While waiting for her en- 
 trance, he turned mechanically over the leaves of an album 
 which Nora, suddenly summoned away to attend Lady Jane, 
 had left behind her on the table. He saw the sketch of his 
 own features ; he read words inscribed below it words of 
 such artless tenderness, and such unhoping sorrow words 
 written by one who had been accustomed to regard her 
 genius as her sole confidant, under Heaven ; to pour out to 
 it, as the solitary poet-heart is impelled to do, thoughts, 
 feelings, the confession of mystic sighs, which it would 
 never breathe to a living ear, and, save at such moments, 
 scarcely acknowledge to itself. Audley saw that he was be- 
 loved, rnd the revelation, with a sudden light, consumed all 
 the baraiers between himself and his ow r n love. And at that 
 moment Nora entered. She saw him bending over the book. 
 She uttered a cry sprang forward and then sank down, 
 covering her face with her hands. But Audley was at her 
 feet. He forgot his friend his trust ; he forgot ambition 
 he forgot the world. It was his own cause that he pleaded 
 his own love that burst forth from his lips. And when 
 the two that day parted, they were betrothed each to each. 
 Alas for them, and alas for Harley! 
 
 And now this man, who had hitherto valued himself as 
 the very type of gentleman whom all his young contem- 
 poraries had so regarded and so revered had to press the 
 hand of a confiding friend, and bid adieu to truth. He had 
 to amuse, to delay, to mislead his boy-rival to say that he 
 was already subduing Nora's hesitating doubts and that 
 with a little lime, she could be induced to consent to forget 
 Harley 's rank, and his parents' pride, and become his wife. 
 And Harley believed in Egerton, without one suspicion on 
 the mirror of his loyal soul. 
 
 Meanwhile, Audley, impatient of his own position im- 
 patient, as strong minds ever are, to hasten what they have 
 once resolved to terminate a suspense that every interview 
 with Harley tortured alike by jealousy and shame to pass
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 851 
 
 out of the reach of scruples, and to say to himself, " Right 
 or wrong, there is no looking back; the deed is done," 
 Audley, thus hurried on by the impetus of his own power 
 of will, pressed for speedy and secret nuptials secret, till 
 his fortunes, then wavering, were more assured his career 
 fairly commenced. This was not his strongest motive, 
 though it was one. He shrank from the discovery of his 
 wrong to his friend desired to delay the self-humiliation 
 of such announcement, until, as he persuaded himself, Har- 
 ley's boyish passion was over had yielded to the new al- 
 lurements that would naturally beset his way. Stifling his 
 conscience, Audley sought to convince himself that the day 
 would soon come when Harley could hear with indifference 
 that Nora Avenel was another's. " The dream of an hour, 
 at his age," murmured the elder friend ; " but at mine the 
 passion of a life ! " He did not speak of these latter mo- 
 tives for concealment to Nora. He felt that, to own the 
 extent of his treason to a friend, would lower him in her 
 eyes. He spoke therefore but slightingly of Harley 
 treated the boy's suit as a thing past and gone. He dwelt 
 only on reasons that compelled self-sacrifice on his side or 
 hers. She did not hesitate which to choose. And so, 
 where Nora loved, so submissively did she believe in the 
 superiority of the lover, that she would not pause to hear a 
 murmur from her own loftier nature, or question the pro- 
 priety of what he deemed wise and good. 
 
 Abandoning prudence in this arch affair of life, Audley 
 still preserved his customary caution in minor details. And 
 this indeed was characteristic of him throughout all his 
 career heedless in large things wary in small. He would 
 not trust Lady Jane Horton with his secret, still less Lady 
 Lansmere. He simply represented to the former, that Nora 
 was no longer safe from Harley's determined pursuit under 
 Lady Jane's roof, and that she had better elude the boy's 
 knowledge of her movements, and go quietly away for a 
 while, to lodge with some connection of her own. 
 
 And so, with Lady Jane's acquiescence, Nora went first 
 to the house of a very distant kinswoman of her mother's, 
 and afterward to one that Egerton took as their bridal home, 
 under the name of Bertram. He arranged all that might ren- 
 der their marriage most free from the chance of premature 
 discovery. But it so happened, on the very morning of 
 their bridal, that one of the witnesses he selected (a confi- 
 dential servant of his own) was seized with apoplexy. Con-
 
 852 MY NOVEL; OK, 
 
 sidering, in haste, where to find a substitute, Egerton 
 thought of Levy, his own private solicitor, his own fashion- 
 able money-lender, a man with whom he was then as inti- 
 mate as a fine gentleman is with the lawyer of his own age, 
 who knows all his affairs, and has helped, from pure friend- 
 ship, to make them as bad as they are ! Levy was thus 
 suddenly summoned. Egerton, who was in great haste, 
 did not at first communicate to him the name of the intended 
 bride ; but he said enough of the imprudence of the mar- 
 riage, and his reasons for secrecy, to bring on himself the 
 strongest remonstrances ; for Levy had always reckoned on 
 Egerton's making a wealthy marriage, leaving to Egerton 
 the wife, and hoping to appropriate to himself the wealth, 
 all in the natural course of business. Egerton did not lis- 
 ten to him, but hurried him on toward the place at which 
 the ceremony was to be performed ; and Levy actually saw 
 the bride before he had learned her name. The usurer 
 masked his raging emotions, and fulfilled his part in the 
 rites. His smile, when he congratulated the bride, might 
 have shot cold into her heart ; but her eyes were cast on the 
 earth, seeing there but a shadow from heaven, and her 
 heart was blindly sheltering itself in the bosom to which it 
 was given evermore. She did not perceive the smile of hate 
 that barbed the words of joy. Nora never thought it neces- 
 sary later to tell Egerton that Levy had been a refused 
 suitor. Indeed, with the exquisite tact of love, she saw that 
 such a confidence, the idea of such a rival, would have 
 wounded the pride of her high-bred, well-born husband. 
 
 And now, while Harley L'Estrange, frantic with the news 
 that Nora had left Lady Jane's roof, and purposely misled 
 into wrong directions, was seeking to trace her refuge in 
 vain now Egerton, in an assumed name, in a remote quar- 
 ter, far from the clubs in which his word was oracular far 
 from the pursuits, whether of pastime or toil, that had 
 hitherto engrossed his active mind, gave himself up, with 
 wonder at his own surrender, to the only vision of fairy-land 
 that ever weighs down the watchful eyelids of hard ambition. 
 The world for a while shut out, he missed it not. He knew 
 not of it. He looked into two loving eyes that haunted him 
 ever after, through a stern and arid existence, and said, 
 murmuringly, "Why, this, then, is real happiness ! " Often, 
 often, in the solitude of other years, he repeated to himself 
 the same words, save that for is, he then murmured was .' And 
 Nora, with her grand, full heart, all her luxuriant wealth of
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 853 
 
 fancy and of thought, child of light and of song, did she 
 then never discover that there was something comparatively 
 narrow and sterile in the nature to which she had linked her 
 fate ? Not there, could ever be sympathy in feelings, brilliant 
 and shifting as the tints of the rainbow. When Audley 
 pressed her heart to his own, could he comprehend one 
 liner throb of its beating ? Was all the iron of his mind 
 worth one grain of the gold she had cast away in Harley's 
 love ? 
 
 Did Nora already discover this ? Surely no. Genius 
 feels no want, no repining while the heart is contented. 
 Genius in her paused and slumbered ; it had been as the 
 ministrant of solitude ; it was needed no more. If a woman 
 love deeply some one below her own grade in the mental 
 and spiritual orders, how often we see that she uncon- 
 sciously quits her own rank, comes meekly down to the 
 level of the beloved, is afraid lest he should deem her the 
 superior she who would not even be the equal. Nora 
 knew no more that she had genius ; she only knew that she 
 had love. 
 
 And so here, the journal which Leonard was reading, 
 changed its tone, sinking into that quiet happiness which 
 is but quiet because it is so deep. This interlude in the 
 life of a man like Audley Egerton could never have been 
 long ; many circumstances conspired to abridge it. His 
 affairs were in great disorder ; they were all under Levy's 
 management. Demands that had before slumbered, or been 
 mildly urged, grew menacing and clamorous. Harley, too, 
 returned to London from his futile researches, and looked 
 out for Audley. Audley was forced to leave his secret 
 Eden, and reappear in the common world ; and thencefor- 
 ward it was only by stealth that he came to his bridal home 
 a visitor, no more the inmate. But more loud and fierce 
 grew the demands of his creditors, now when Egerton had 
 most need of all which respectability, and position, and be- 
 lief of pecuniary independence can do to raise the man who 
 has encumbered his arms, and crippled his steps toward 
 fortune. He was threatened with writs, with prison. Levy 
 said "that to borrow more would be but larger ruin," 
 shrugged his shoulders, and even recommended a voluntary 
 retreat to the King's Bench. " No place so good for fright- 
 ening one's creditors into compounding their claims ; but 
 why," added Levy, with covert sneer, "why not go to young 
 L' Estrange a boy made to be borrowed from ! "
 
 854 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 Levy, who had known from Lady Jane of Harley's pui- 
 suit of Nora, had learned already how to avenge himself on 
 F.gerton. Audley could not apply to the friend he had 
 betrayed. And as to the other friends, no man in town 
 had a greater number ; and no man in town knew better 
 that he should lose them all if he were once known to be 
 in want of their money. Mortified, harassed, tortured 
 shunning Harley yet ever sought by him fearful of each 
 knock at his door, Audley Egerton escaped to the mort- 
 gaged remnant of his paternal estate, on which there was a 
 gloomy manor-house, long uninhabited, and there applied 
 a mind, afterward renowned for its quick comprehension 
 of business, to the investigation of his affairs, with a view 
 to save some wreck from the flood that swelled momently 
 around him. 
 
 And now to condense as much as possible a record 
 that runs darkly on into pain and sorrow now Levy began 
 to practise his vindictive arts ; and the arts gradually pre- 
 vailed. On pretence of assisting Egerton in the arrange- 
 ments of his affairs which he secretly contrived, however, 
 still more to complicate he came down frequently to 
 Egerton Hall for a few hours, arriving by the mail, and 
 watching the effect which Nora's almost daily letters pro- 
 duced on the bridegroom, irritated by the practical cares of 
 life. He was thus constantly at hand to instil into the mind 
 of the ambitious man a regret for the imprudence of hasty 
 passion, or to embitter the remorse which Audley felt for 
 his treachery to L'Estrange. Thus ever bringing before 
 the mind of the harassed debtor images at war with love, 
 and with the poetry of life, he disattuned it (so to speak) 
 for the reception of Nora's letters, all musical as they were 
 with such thoughts as the most delicate fancy inspires to 
 the most earnest love. Egerton was one of those men who 
 never confide their affairs frankly to women. Nora, when 
 she thus wrote, was wholly in the dark as to the extent of 
 his stern prosaic distress. And so and so Levy always 
 near (type of the prose of life in its most cynic form) so 
 by degrees, all that redundant affluence of affection, with 
 its gushes of grief for his absence, prayers for his return, 
 sweet reproach if a post failed to bring back an answer to 
 the woman's yearning sighs all this grew, to the sensible, 
 positive man of real life, like sickly romantic exaggeration. 
 The bright arrows shot too high into heaven to hit the mark
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 855 
 
 set so near to the earth. Ah ; common fate of all superior 
 natures! What treasure, and how wildly wasted ! 
 
 " By the bye," said Levy one morning, as he was about 
 to take leave of Audley and return to town "by the bye, 
 I shall be this evening in the neighborhood of Mrs. 
 Egerton." 
 
 EGERTON. Say Mrs. Bertram ! 
 
 LEVY. Ay ; will she not be in want of some pecuniary 
 supplies ? 
 
 EGERTON. My wife ! Not yet. I must first be wholly 
 ruined before she can want ; and if I were so, do you think 
 I should not be by her side ? 
 
 LEVY. I beg pardon, my dear fellow ; your pride of 
 gentleman is so susceptible that it is hard for a lawyer not 
 to wound it unawares. Your wife, then, does not know the 
 exact state of your affairs ? 
 
 EGERTON. Of course not. Who would confide to a 
 woman things in which she could do nothing, except to 
 tease one the more ? 
 
 LEVY. True, and a poetess too ! I have prevented your 
 finishing your answer to Mrs. Bertram's last letter. Can I 
 take it it may save a day's delay that is, if you do not ob- 
 ject to my calling on her this evening. 
 
 EGERTON (sitting down to his unfinished letter). Ob- 
 ject ! no. 
 
 LEVY (looking at his watch). Be quick, or I shall lose 
 the coach. 
 
 EGERTON (sealing the letter).- There. And I should be 
 obliged to you if you woidd call ; and without alarming her 
 as to my circumstances, you can just say that you know I 
 am much harassed about important affairs at present, and 
 so soothe the effect of my very short answers 
 
 LEVY. To those doubly-crossed, very long letters I 
 will. 
 
 "Poor Nora," said Egerton, sighing, "she will think 
 this answer brief and churlish enough. Explain my ex- 
 cuses kindly, so that they will serve for the future. I really 
 have no time, and no heart for sentiment. The little I ever 
 had is well-nigh worried out of me. Still I love her fondly 
 and deeply." 
 
 LEVY. You must have done so. I never thought it in 
 you to sacrifice the world to a woman. 
 
 EGERTON. Nor I either ; but (added the strong man, 
 conscious of that power which rules the world infinitely
 
 856 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 more than knowledge conscious of tranquil courage)* 
 but I have not sacrificed the world yet. This right arm 
 shall bear up her and myself too. 
 
 LEVY. Well said ! but in the meanwhile, for heaven's 
 sake, don't attempt to go to London, nor to leave this 
 place ; for, in that case, I know you will be arrested, and 
 then adieu to all hopes of Parliament of a career. 
 
 Audley's haughty countenance darkened ; as the dog, in 
 his bravest mood, turns dismayed from the stone plucked 
 from the mire, so, when Ambition rears itself to defy man- 
 kind, whisper "disgrace and a gaol," and, lo, crestfallen, 
 it slinks away ! That evening Levy called on Nora, and 
 ingratiating himself into her favor by praise of Egerton, 
 with indirect humble apologetic allusions to his own former 
 presumption, he prepared the way to renewed visits ; she 
 was ?o lonely, and she so loved to see one who was fresh 
 from seeing Audley one who would talk to her of him ! 
 By degrees the friendly respectful visitor thus stole into 
 her confidence ; and then, with all his panegyrics on Aud- 
 ley's superior powers and gifts, he began to dwell upon the 
 young husband's worldly aspirations, and care for his ca- 
 reer; dwell on them so as vaguely to alarm Nora to imply 
 that, dear as she was, she was still but second to Ambition. 
 His way thus prepared, he next began to insinuate his re- 
 spectful pity at her equivocal position, dropped hints of 
 gossip and slander, feared that the marriage might be 
 owned too late to preserve reputation. And then what 
 would be the feelings of the proud Egerton if his wife were 
 excluded from that world, whose opinion he so prized ? In- 
 sensibly thus he led her on to express (though timidly) her 
 own fear her own natural desire, in her letters to Audley. 
 When could the marriage be proclaimed ? Proclaimed ! 
 Audley felt that to proclaim such a marriage, at such a 
 moment, would be to fling away his last cast for fame and 
 fortune. And Harley, too Harley still so uncured of his 
 frantic love ! Levy was sure to be at hand when letters 
 like these arrived. 
 
 And now Levy went further still in his determination to 
 alienate these two hearts. He contrived, by means of his 
 various agents, to circulate through Nora's neighborhood 
 the very slanders at which he had hinted. He contrived 
 that she should be insulted when she went abroad, outraged 
 at home by the sneers of her own servants, and tremble
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. . 857 
 
 with shame at her own shadow upon her abandoned bridal 
 hearth. 
 
 Just in the midst of this intolerable anguish, Levy reap- 
 peared. His crowning hour was ripe. He intimated his 
 knowledge of the humiliations Nora had undergone, ex- 
 pressed his deep compassion, offered to intercede with Eger- 
 ton "to do her justice." He used ambiguous phrases, that 
 shocked her ear and tortured her heart, and thus provoked 
 her on to demand him to explain ; and then, throwing her 
 into a wild state of indefinite alarm, in which he obtained 
 her solemn promise not to divulge to Audley what he was 
 about to communicate, he said, with villanous hypocrisy of 
 reluctant shame, " that her marriage was not strictly legal ; 
 that the forms required by the law had not been complied 
 with; that- Audley, unintentionally or purposely, had left 
 himself free to disown the rite and desert the bride." 
 While Nora stood stunned and speechless at a falsehood 
 which, with lawyer-like show, he contrived to make truth- 
 like to her inexperience, he hurried rapidly on, to re-awake 
 on her mind the impression of Audlev's pride, ambition, 
 and respect for worldly position. "These are your ob- 
 stacles," said he ; " but I think I may induce him to repair 
 the wrong, and right you at last." Righted at last oh in- 
 famy ! 
 
 Then Nora's anger burst forth. She believe such a stain 
 on Audley's honor ! 
 
 14 But where was the honor when he betrayed his friend ? 
 Did you not know that he was intrusted by Lord L'Estrange 
 to plead for him ? How did he fulfil the trust ?" 
 
 Plead for L'Estrange ! Nora had not been exactly 
 aware of this. In the sudden love preceding those sudden 
 nuptials, so little touching Harley (beyond Audley's first 
 timid allusions to his suit, and her calm and cold reply) had 
 been spoken by either. 
 
 Levy resumed. He dwelt fully on the trust and the 
 breach of it, and then said " In Egerton's world, man 
 holds it far more dishonor to betray a man than to dupe a 
 woman ; and if Egerton could do the one, why doubt that 
 he would do the other ? But do not look at me with those 
 indignant eyes. Put himself to the test ; write to him to 
 say that the suspicions amidst which you live have become 
 intolerable that they infect even yourself, despite your 
 reason that the secrecy of your nuptials, his prolonged 
 absence, his brief refusal, on unsatisfactory grounds, to pro-
 
 858 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 claim your tie, all distract you with a terrible doubt. Ask 
 him, at least (if he will not yet declare your marriage), to 
 satisfy you that the rites were legal." 
 . "I will go to him," cried Nora, impetuously. 
 
 " Go to him ! in his own house ! What a scene, what a 
 scandal ! Could he ever forgive you ? " 
 
 " At least, then, I will implore him to come here. I 
 cannot write such horrible words ; I cannot I cannot Go, 
 
 go-" 
 
 Levy left her, and hastened to two or three of Audley's 
 most pressing creditors men, in fact, who went entirely 
 by Levy's own advice. He bade them instantly surround 
 Audley's country residence with bailiffs*. Before Egerton 
 could reach Nora, he would thus be lodged in gaol. These 
 preparations made, Levy himself went down to Audley, and 
 arrived, as usual, an hour or two before the delivery of 
 the post. 
 
 And Nora's letter came ; and never was Audley's grave 
 brow more dark than when he read it. Still, with his usual 
 decision, he resolved to obey her wish rang the bell, and 
 ordered his servant to put up a change of dress, and send 
 for post-horses. 
 
 Levy then took him aside, and led him to the window. 
 
 " Look under yon tree. Do you see those men ? They 
 are bailiffs. This is the true reason why I come to you 
 to-day. You cannot leave this house." 
 
 Egerton recoiled. "And this frantic foolish letter at 
 such a time," he muttered, striking the open page, full of 
 love in the midst of terror, with his clenched hand. 
 
 O Woman, Woman ! if thy heart be deep, and its chords 
 tender, beware how thou lovest the man with whom all 
 that plucks him from the hard cares of the work-day world 
 is a frenzy or a folly ! He will break thy heart, he will 
 shatter its chords, he will trample out from its delicate 
 framework every sound that now makes musical the com- 
 mon air, and swells into unison with the harps of angels. 
 
 " She has before written to me," continued Audley, pac- 
 ing the room with angry disordered strides, " asking me 
 when our marriage can be proclaimed, and I thought my 
 replies would have satisfied any reasonable woman. But 
 now, now this is worse, immeasurably worse she actually 
 doubts my honor! I, who have made such sacrifices 
 actually doubts whether I, Audley Egerton, an English 
 gentleman, could have been base enough to "
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 859 
 
 "What?" interrupted Levy, "to deceive your friend 
 L'Estrange ? Did not she know that? " 
 
 " Sir ! " exclaimed Egerton, turning white. 
 
 " Don't be angry all's fair in love as in war ; and 
 L'Estrange will live yet to thank you for saving him from 
 such a mesalliance. But you are seriously angry ; pray 
 forgive me." 
 
 With some difficulty, and much fawning, the usurer ap- 
 peased the storm he had raised in Audley's conscience. 
 And he then heard, as if with surprise, the true purport of 
 Nora's letter. 
 
 " It is beneath me to answer, much less to satisfy, such 
 a doubt," said Audley. " I could have seen her, and a look 
 of reproach would have sufficed ; but to put my hand to 
 paper, and condescend to write, ' I am not a villain, and I 
 will give you the proofs that I am not,' never." 
 
 "You are quite right ; but let ue see if we cannot re- 
 concile matters between your pride and her feelings. Write 
 simply this : ' All that you ask me to say or to explain, I 
 have instructed Levy, as my solicitor, to say and explain 
 for me ; and you may believe him as you would myself." 
 
 " Well, the poor fool, she deserves to be punished ; and 
 I suppose that answer will punish her more than a lengthier 
 rebuke. My mind is so distracted, I cannot judge of these 
 trumpery woman-fears and whims ; there, I have written 
 as you suggest. Give her all the proof she needs, and tell 
 her that in six months at farthest, come what will, she shall 
 bear the name of Egerton, as henceforth she must share his 
 fate." 
 
 " Why say six months ? " 
 
 " Parliament must be dissolved, and there must be a 
 general election before then. I shall either obtain a seat, 
 be secure from a gaol, have won a field for my energies, 
 or " 
 
 " Or what ? " 
 
 " I shall renounce ambition altogether ask my bro- 
 ther to assist me toward whatever debts remain when all 
 my property is fairly sold they cannot be much. He 
 has a living in his gift the incumbent is old, and, I hear, 
 very ill, I can take orders." 
 
 " Sink into a country parson ! " 
 
 " And learn content. I have tasted it already. She was 
 then by my side. Explain all to her. This letter, I fear, is 
 too unkind but to doubt me thus ! "
 
 860 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 Levy hastily placed the letter in his pocket-book ; and, 
 for fear it should be withdrawn, took his leave. 
 
 And of that letter he made such use, that the day after 
 he had given it to Nora, she had left the house the neigh- 
 borhood ; fled, and not a trace ! Of all the agonies in life, 
 that which is most poignant and harrowing that which for 
 the time most annihilates reason, and leaves our whole 
 organization one lacerated, mangled heart is the conviction 
 that we have been deceived where we placed all the trust of 
 love. The moment the anchor snaps, the storm comes on 
 the stars vanish behind the cloud. 
 
 When Levy returned, filled with the infamous hope 
 which had stimulated his revenge the hope that if he 
 could succeed in changing into scorn and indignation 
 Nora's love for Audley, he might succeed also in replacing 
 that broken and degraded Idol his amaze and dismay were 
 great on hearing of her departure. For several days he 
 sought her traces in vain. He went to Lady Jane Horton's 
 Nora had not been there. He trembled to go back to Eger- 
 ton. Surely Nora would have written to her husband, and, 
 in spite of her promise, revealed his own falsehood ; but as 
 days passed and not a clue was found, he had no option but 
 to repair to Egerton Hall, taking care that the bailiffs still 
 surrounded it. Audley had received no line from Nora. 
 The young husband was surprised, perplexed, uneasy but 
 had no suspicion of the truth. 
 
 At length Levy was forced to break to Audley the 
 intelligence of Nora's flight. He gave his own color to it. 
 Doubtless she had gone to seek her own relations, and, 
 by their advice, take steps to make her marriage publicly 
 known. This idea changed Audley's first shock into deep 
 and stern resentment. His mind so little comprehended 
 Nora's, and was ever so disposed to what is called the 
 common-sense view of things, that he saw no other mode to 
 account for her flight and her silence. Odious to Egerton 
 as such a proceeding would be, he was far too proud to take 
 any steps to guard against it. "Let her do her worst," 
 said he, coldly, masking emotion with his usual self- 
 command ; " it will be but a nine days' wonder to the world 
 a fiercer rush of my creditors on their hunted prey " 
 
 "And a challenge from Lord L'Estrange." 
 
 "So be it," answered Egerton, suddenly placing his hand 
 at his heart. 
 
 " What is the matter ? Arc you ill ? "
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 86 1 
 
 " A strange sensation here. My father died of a com- 
 plaint of the heart, and I myself was once told to guard, 
 through life, against excess of emotion. I smiled at such a 
 warning then. Let us sit down to business." 
 
 But when Levy had gone, and solitude reclosed round 
 that Man of the Iron Mask, there grew upon him more and 
 more the sense of a mighty loss. Nora's sweet loving face 
 started from the shadows of the forlorn walls. Her docile, 
 yielding temper her generous, self-immolating spirit 
 came back to his memory, to refute the idea that wronged 
 her. His love, that had been suspended for awhile by busy 
 cares, but which, if without much refining sentiment, was 
 still the master passion of his soul, flowed back into all his 
 thoughts circumfused the very atmosphere with a fearful 
 softening charm. He escaped under cover of the night 
 from the watch of the bailiffs. He arrived in London. He 
 himself sought everywhere he could think of for his miss- 
 ing bride. Lady Jane Horton was confined to her bed, 
 dying fast incapable even to receive and reply to his letter. 
 He secretly sent down to Lansmere, to ascertain if Nora 
 had gone back to her parents. She was not there. The 
 Avenels believed her still with Lady Jane Horton. 
 
 He now grew most seriously alarmed ; and in the midst 
 of that alarm, Levy secretly contrived that he should be ar- 
 rested for debt ; but he was not detained in confinement 
 many days. Before the disgrace got wind, the writs were 
 discharged Levy baffled. He was free. Lord L'Estrange 
 had learned from Audley's servant what Audley would have 
 concealed from him out of all the world. And the gener- 
 ous boy, who, besides the munificent allowance he re- 
 ceived from the Earl, was" heir to an independent and con- 
 siderable fortune of his own, when he should attain his 
 majority hastened to borrow the money and discharge all 
 the obligations of his friend. The benefit was conferred 
 before Audley knew of it, or could prevent. Then a new 
 emotion, and perhaps scarce less stinging than the loss of 
 Nora, tortured the man who had smiled at the warning of 
 science ; and the strange sensation at the heart was felt 
 again and again. 
 
 And Harley, too, was still in search of Nora would talk 
 of nothing but her and looked so haggard and grief-worn. 
 The bloom of the boy's youth was gone. Could Audley 
 then have said, " She you seek is another's ; your love is 
 razed out of your life ; and, for consolation, learn that your
 
 862 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 friend has betrayed you?" Could Audley say this ? He 
 did not dare. Which of the two suffered the most ? 
 
 And these two friends, of characters so different, were 
 so singularly attached to ea"ch other. Inseparable at school 
 thrown together in the world, with a wealth of frank con- 
 fidences between them, accumulated since childhood. And 
 now, in the midst of all his own anxious sorrow, Harley 
 still thought and planned for Egerton. And self-accusing 
 remorse, and all the sense of painful gratitude, deepened 
 Audley's affection for Harley into a devotion as to a super- 
 ior, while softening it into a reverential pity that yearned 
 to relieve, to atone ; but how oh, how ? 
 
 A general election was now at hand, still no news of 
 Nora. Levy kept aloof from Audley, pursuing his own si- 
 lent search. A seat for the borough of Lansmere was pressed 
 upon Audley, not only by Harley, but his parents, especially 
 by the Countess, who tacitly ascribed to Audley's wise coun- 
 sels Nora's mysterious disappearance. 
 
 Egerton at first resisted the thought of a new obligation 
 to his injured friend ; but he burned to have it, some day, 
 in his power fo repay at least his pecuniary debt ; the sense 
 of that debt humbled him more than all else. Parliamentary 
 success might at last obtain for him some lucrative situation 
 abroad, and thus enable him gradually to remove this load 
 from his heart and his honor. No other chance of repay- 
 ment appeared open to him. He accepted the offer, and 
 went down to Lansmere. His brother, lately married, was 
 asked to meet him ; and there, also, was Miss Leslie the 
 heiress, whom Lady Lansmere secretly hoped her son Harley 
 would admire, but who had long since, no less secretly, given 
 her heart to the unconscious Egerton. 
 
 Meanwhile, the miserable Nora, deceived by the arts 
 and representations of Levy acting on the natural impulse 
 of a heart so susceptible to shame flying from a home 
 which she deemed dishonored flying from a lover whose 
 power over her she knew to be so great, that she dreaded 
 lest he might reconcile her to dishonor itself had no 
 thought save to hide herself for ever from Audley's eye. 
 She would not go to her relations to Lady Jane ; that were 
 to give the clue, and invite the pursuit. An Italian lady of 
 high rank had visited at Lady Jane's taken a great fancy 
 to Nora and the lady's husband, having been obliged to 
 precede her return to Italy, had suggested the notion of en- 
 gaging some companion the lady had spoken of this to
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 863 
 
 Nora and to Lady Jane Horton, who had urged Nora to ac- 
 cept the offer, elude Harley's pursuit, and go abroad for a 
 time. Nora then had refused ; for she then had seen Aud- 
 ley Egerton. 
 
 To this Italian lady she now went, and the offer was re- 
 newed with the most winning kindness, and grasped at 
 in the passion of despair. But the Italian had accepted in- 
 vitations to English country-houses before she finally de- 
 parted for the Continent. Meanwhile, Nora took refuge 
 in a quiet lodging in a sequestered suburb, which an Eng- 
 lish servant in the employment of the fair foreigner recom- 
 mended. Thus had she first come to the cottage in which 
 Burley died. Shortly afterward, she left England with her 
 new companion, unknown to all to Lady Jane as to her 
 parents. 
 
 All this time the poor girl was under a moral delirium 
 a confused fever haunted by dreams from which she sought 
 to fly. Sound physiologists agree that madness is rarest 
 among persons of the finest imagination. But those persons 
 are, of all others, liable to a temporary state of mind in 
 which judgment sleeps imagination alone prevails with a 
 dire and awful tyranny. A single idea gains ascendency 
 expels all others presents itself every where with an intoler- 
 able blinding glare. Nora was at that time under the dread 
 one idea to fly from shame ! 
 
 But, when the seas rolled, and the dreary leagues in- 
 terposed between her and her lover when new images 
 presented themselves when the fever slaked, and reason 
 returned doubt broke upon the previous despair. Had she 
 not been too credulous, too hasty ? Fool, fool ! Audley 
 have been so poor a traitor ! How guilty was she, if she 
 had wronged him. And in the midst of this revulsion of 
 feeling, there stirred within her another life. She was 
 destined to become a mother. At that thought her high 
 nature bowed ; the last struggle of pride gave way ; she 
 would return to England, see Audley, learn from his lips 
 the truth, and even if the truth were what she had been 
 taught to believe, plead, not for herself, but for the false 
 one's child. 
 
 Some delay occurred in the then warlike state of affairs 
 on the Continent, before she could put this purpose into 
 execution ; and on her journey back, various obstructions 
 lengthened the way. But she returned at last, and resought 
 the suburban cottage in which she had last lodged before
 
 864 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 quitting England. At night, she went to Audley's London 
 house ; there was only a woman in charge of it. Mr. Egerton 
 was absent electioneering somewhere Mr. Levy, his 
 lawyer, called every day for any letters to be forwarded to 
 him. Nora shrank from seeing Levy, shrank from writing 
 even a letter that would pass through his hands. If she had 
 been deceived, it had been by him, and wilfully. But 
 Parliament was already dissolved ; the election would soon 
 be over ; Mr. Egerton was expected to return to town within 
 a week. Nora went back to Mrs. Goodyer's and resolved to 
 wait, devouring her own heart in silence. But the news- 
 papers might inform her where Audley really was ; the 
 newspapers were sent for and conned daily. 
 
 And one morning this paragraph met her eye : 
 "The Earl and Countess of Lansmere are receiving a 
 distinguished party at their country-seat. Among the guests 
 is Miss Leslie, whose wealth and beauty have excited such 
 sensation in the fashionable world. To the disappointment 
 of numerous aspirants among our aristocracy, we hear that 
 this lady has, however, made her distinguished choice in 
 Mr. Audley Egerton. That gentleman is now a candidate 
 for the borough of Lansmere, as a supporter of the Govern- 
 ment ; his success is considered certain, and, according fo 
 the report of a large circle of friends, few new members will 
 prove so valuable an addition to the Ministerial ranks; a 
 great career may, indeed, be predicted for a young man so 
 esteemed for talent and character, aided by a fortune so 
 immense as that which he will shortly receive with the hand 
 of the accomplished heiress." 
 
 Again the anchor snapped again the storm descended 
 again the stars vanished. Nora was now once more un- 
 der the dominion of a single thought, as she had been when 
 she fled from her bridal home. Then, it was to escape from 
 her lover now, it was to see him. As the victim stretched 
 on the rack implores to be led at once to death, so there 
 are moments when the annihilation of hope seems more 
 merciful than the torment of suspense.
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 865 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 WHEN the scenes in some long diorama pass slowly be- 
 fore us, there is sometimes one solitary object, contrasting, 
 perhaps, the view of stately cities or the march of a mighty 
 river, that halts on the eye for a moment, and then glides 
 away, leaving on the mind a strange, comfortless, undefined 
 impression. 
 
 Why was the object presented to us ? In itself it seemed 
 comparatively insignificant. It may have been but a broken 
 column a lonely pool with a star-beam on its quiet surface 
 yet it awes us. We remember it when phantasmal pict- 
 ures of bright Damascus, or of colossal pyramids of ba- 
 zaars in Stamboul, or lengthened caravans that defile slow 
 amidst the sands of Araby have sated the wondering gaze. 
 Why were we detained in the shadowy procession by a 
 thing that would have been so commonplace had it not 
 been so lone ? Some latent interest must attach to it. Was 
 it there that a vision of woe had lifted the wild hair of a 
 Prophet ? there where some Hagar had stilled the wail of 
 her child on her indignant breast ? We would fain call 
 back the pageantry procession fain see again the solitary 
 thing that seemed so little worth the hand of the artist and 
 ask, " Why art thou here, and wherefore dost thou haunt 
 us?" 
 
 Rise up rise up once more by the broad great thor- 
 oughfare that stretches onward to the remorseless London 
 Rise up rise up, O solitary tree with the green leaves 
 on thy bough, and the deep rents in thy heart ; and the 
 ravens, dark birds of omen and sorrow, that build their 
 nest amidst the leaves of the bough, and drop with noiseless 
 plumes down through the hollow rents of the heart or are 
 heard, it may be, in the growing shadows of twilight, call- 
 ing out to their young ! 
 
 Under the old pollard tree, by the side of John Avenel's 
 house, there cowered, breathless and listening, John Ave- 
 nel's daughter Nora. Now, when that fatal newspaper 
 paragraph, which lied so like tnith, met her eyes, she 
 obeyed the first impulse of her passionate heart she tore 
 the wedding ring from her finger she inclosed it, with the 
 
 37
 
 866 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 paragraph itself, in a letter to Audley a letter that she de- 
 signed to convey scorn and pride ; alas ! it expressed only 
 jealously and love. She could not rest till she had put this 
 letter into the post with her own hand, addressed to Aud- 
 ley, at Lord Lansmere's. Scarce had it left her, ere she re- 
 pented. What had she done ? resigned the birthright of 
 the child she was so soon to bring into the world resigned 
 her last hope in her lover's honor given up her life of life 
 and from belief in what ?- a report in a newspaper ! No, 
 no ; she would go herself to Lansmere to her father's 
 home she could contrive to see Audley before that letter 
 reached his hand. The thought was scarcely conceived be- 
 fore obeyed. She found a vacant place in a coach that 
 started from London some hours before the mail, and went 
 within a few miles of Lansmere ; those last miles she 
 travelled on foot. Exhausted fainting she gained, at 
 last, the sight of home, and there halted for in the little 
 garden in front she saw her parents seated. She heard the 
 murmur of their voices, and suddenly she remembered her 
 altered shape, her terrible secret. How answer the ques- 
 tion, " Daughter, where and who is thy husband ? " Her 
 heart failed her ; she crept under the old pollard tree, to 
 gather up resolve, to watch and to listen. She saw the 
 rigid face of the thrifty, prudent mother, with the deep 
 lines that told of the cares of an anxious life, and the chafe of 
 excitable temper and warm affections against the restraint 
 of decorous sanctimony and resolute pride. The dear, 
 stern face never seemed to her more dear and more stern. 
 She saw the comely, easy; indolent, good-humored father ; 
 not then the poor paralytic sufferer, who could yet -recog- 
 nize Nora's eyes under the lids of Leonard, but stalwart 
 and jovial first bat in the Cricket Club, first voice in the 
 Glee Society, the most popular canvasser of the Lansmere 
 Constitutional True Blue Party, and the pride and idol of 
 the Calvinistical prim wife ; never from those pinched lips 
 of hers had come forth even one pious rebuke to the care- 
 less, social man. As he sat, one hand in his vest, his pro- 
 file turned to the road, the light smoke curling playfully up 
 from the pipe, over which his lips, accustomed to bland 
 smile and hearty laughter, closed as if reluctant to be 
 closed at all, he was the very model of the respectable re- 
 tired trader in easy circumstances, and released from the 
 toil of making money while life could yet enjoy the delight 
 of spending it.
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 867 
 
 " Well, old woman," said John Avenel, " I must be off 
 presently to see to those three shaky voters in Fish Lane ; 
 they will have done their work soon, and I shall catch 
 'em at home. They do say as how we may have an op- 
 position ; and I know that old Smikes has gone to Lon- 
 non in search of a candidate. We can't have the Lans- 
 mere Constitutional Blues beat by a Lonnoner! Ha, ha, 
 ha!" 
 
 " But you will be home before Jane and her husband 
 Mark come ? How ever she could marry a common car- 
 penter ! " 
 
 " Yes," said John, " he is a carpenter ; but he has a 
 vote, and that strengthens the family interest. If Dick 
 was not gone to Amerikay, there would be three on us. 
 But Mark is a real good Blue ! A Lonnoner, indeed ! a 
 Yellow from Lonnon beat my Lord and the Blues ! Ha, 
 ha!" 
 
 " But, John, this Mr. Egerton is a Lonnoner ! " 
 
 " You don't understand things, talking such nonsense. 
 Mr. Egerton is the Blue candidate, and the Blues are the 
 County Party ; therefore, how can he be a Lonnoner ? An 
 uncommon clever, well-grown, handsome young man, eh! 
 and my young lord's particular friend." 
 
 Mrs. Avenel sighed. 
 
 " What are you sighing and shaking your head for ? " 
 
 " I was thinking of our poor, dear, dear Nora ! " 
 
 " God bless her ! " cried John, heartily. 
 
 There was a rustle under the boughs of the old hollow- 
 hearted pollard tree. 
 
 " Ha ! ha ! Hark ! I said that so loud, that I have 
 startled the ravens ! " 
 
 " How he did love her ! " said Mrs. Avenel, thought- 
 fully. " I am sure he did ; and no wonder, for she looks 
 every inch a lady ; and why should not she be my lady, 
 after all ? " 
 
 " He ? Who ? Oh, that foolish fancy of yours about my 
 young lord? A prudent woman like you! stuff! I am 
 glad my little beauty is gone to Lonnon, out of harm's 
 way." 
 
 " John John John ! No harm could ever come to my 
 Nora. She's too pure and too good, and has too proper a 
 pride in her, to " 
 
 " To listen to any young lords, I hope," said John ; 
 " though," he added, after a pause, " she might well be a
 
 868 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 lady, too. My lord, the young one, took me by the hand 
 so kindly the other day, and said, ' Have not you heard 
 from her I mean Miss Avenel lately?' and those 
 bright eyes of his were as full of tears as as as yours are 
 now." 
 
 " Well, John, well ; go on." 
 
 " That is all. My lady came up and took me away to 
 talk about the election ; and just as I was going, she whis- 
 pered, ' Don't let my wild boy talk to you about that sweet 
 girl of yours. We must both see that she does not come to 
 disgrace.' ' Disgrace ! ' that word made me very angry for 
 the moment. But my lady has such a way with her, that 
 she soon put me right again. Yet, I do think Nora must 
 have loved my young lord, only she was too good to 
 show it. What do you say ? " and the father's voice was 
 thoughtful. 
 
 " I hope she'll never love any man till she's married to 
 him ; it is not proper, John," said Mrs. Avenel, somewhat 
 starchly, though very mildly. 
 
 "Ha! ha!" laughed John, chucking his prim wife un- 
 der the chin, "you did not say that to me when I stole your 
 first kiss under that very pollard tree no house near it 
 then ! " 
 
 " Hush, John, hush ! " and the prim wife blushed like a 
 girl. 
 
 " Pooh," continued John, merrily, " I don't see why we 
 plain folks should pretend to be more saintly and prudish- 
 like than our betters. There's that handsome Miss Leslie, 
 Avho is to marry Mr. Egerton easy enough to see how 
 much she is in love with him could not keep her eyes off 
 from him even in church, old girl ! Ha, ha ! What the 
 deuce is the matter with the ravens ? " 
 
 "They'll be a comely couple, John. And I hear tell she 
 has a power of money. When is the marriage to be ?" 
 
 " Oh, they say as soon as ever the election is over. A 
 fine wedding we shall have of it ! I dare say my young lord 
 will be bridesman. We'll send for our little Nora, to see 
 the gay doings ! " 
 
 Out from the boughs of the old tree came the shriek of a 
 lost spirit one of those strange appalling sounds of human 
 agony, which, once heard, are never forgotten. It is as the 
 wail of Hope, when SHE, too, rushes forth from the Coffer 
 of Woes, and vanishes into viewless space ; it is the dread 
 cry of Reason parting from clay and of Soul that would
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 869 
 
 wrench itself from life ! For a moment all was still and 
 then a dull, dumb, heavy fall ! 
 
 The parents gazed on each other, speechless ; they stole 
 close to the pales and looked over. Under the boughs, at 
 the gnarled roots of the oak, they saw gray and indistinct 
 a prostrate form. John opened the gate and went round ; 
 the mother went to the roadside, and there stood still. 
 
 "Oh, wife, wife!" cried John Avenel, from under the 
 green bough, " it is our child Nora ! Our child our child ! " 
 
 And, as he spoke, out from the green boughs started the 
 dark ravens, wheeling round and round, and calling to their 
 young. 
 
 And when they had laid her on the bed, Mrs. Avenel 
 whispered John to withdraw a moment ; and, with set lips 
 but trembling hands, began to unlace the dress, under 
 the pressure of which Nora's heart heaved convulsively. 
 And John went out of the room bewildered and sat himself 
 down on the landing-place, and wondered whether he 
 was awake or sleeping ; and a cold numbness crept over 
 one side of him, and his head felt very heavy, with a loud, 
 booming noise in his ears. Suddenly his wife stood by his 
 side, and said, in a very low voice 
 
 " John, run for Mr. Morgan make haste. But mind 
 don't speak to any one on the way. Quick, quick !" 
 
 " Is she dying?" 
 
 " I don't know. Why not die before ? " said Mrs. Ave- 
 nel between her teeth. " But Mr. Morgan is a discreet, 
 friendly man." 
 
 "A true Blue !" muttered poor John, as if his mind 
 wandered ; and rising with difficulty, he stared at his wife a 
 moment, shook his head, and was gone. 
 
 An hour or two later, a little covered taxed-cart stopped 
 at Mr. Avenel's cottage, out of which stepped a young man 
 with pale face and spare form, dressed in the Sunday suit 
 of a rustic craftsman ; then a homely, but pleasant, honest 
 face, bent down to him smilingly ; and two arms emerging 
 from under covert of a red cloak, extended an infant which 
 the young man took tenderly. The baby was cross and 
 very sickly ; it began to cry. The father hushed and rocked, 
 and tossed it, with the air of one to whom such a charge 
 was familiar. 
 
 "He'll be good when we get in, Mark," said the young
 
 870 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 woman, as she extracted from the depths of the cart a large 
 basket containing poultry and home-made bread. 
 
 " Don't forget the flowers that the Squire's gardener 
 gave us," said Mark the Poet. 
 
 Without aid from her husband, the wife took down bas- 
 ket and nosegay, settled her cloak, smoothed her gown, and 
 said, "Very odd! they don't seem to expect us, Mark. 
 How still the house is ! Go and knock ; they can't ha' gone 
 to bed yet." 
 
 Mark knocked at the door no answer. A light passed 
 rapidly across the windows on the upper floor, but still no 
 one came to his summons. Mark knocked again. A gen- 
 tleman, dressed in clerical costume, now coming from Lans- 
 mere Park, on the opposite side of the road, paused at the 
 sound of Mark's second and more impatient knock, and 
 said, civilly 
 
 " Are you not the young folks my friend John Avenel 
 told me this morning he expected to visit him ?" 
 
 "Yes, please, Mr. Dale," said Mrs. Fairfield, dropping 
 her curtsey. " You remember me ! and this is my dear 
 good man ! " 
 
 "What! Mark the Poet?" said the curate of Lansmere 
 with a smile. " Come to write squibs for the election ?" 
 
 " Squibs, sir ! " cried Mark, indignantly. 
 
 " Burns wrote squibs," said the curate, mildly. 
 
 Mark made no answer, but again knocked at the door. 
 
 This time, a man, whose face, even seen by the starlight, 
 was much flushed, presented himself at the threshold. 
 
 " Mr. Morgan ! " exclaimed the curate, in benevolent 
 alarm ; "no illness here, I hope ?" 
 
 " Cott ! it is you, Mr. Dale ! Come in, come in ; I want 
 a word with you. But who the teuce are these people ? " 
 
 "Sir," said Mark, pushing through the doorway, "my 
 name is Fairfield, and my wife is Mr. Avenel's daughter!" 
 
 " Oh, Jane and her baby too ! Good cood ! Come 
 in ; but be quiet, can't you ? Still, still still as death ! " 
 
 The party entered, the door closed ; the moon rose, and 
 shone calmly on the pale silent house, on the sleeping flow- 
 ers of the little garden, on the old pollard with its hollow 
 core. The horse in the taxed-cart dozed, unheeded ; the 
 light still at times flitted across the upper windows. These 
 were the only signs of life, except when a bat, now and 
 then attracted by the light that passed across the windows,
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 871 
 
 brushed against the panes, and then, dipping downward, 
 struck up against the nose of the slumbering horse, and 
 darted merrily after the moth that fluttered round the 
 raven's nest in the old pollard. 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 ALL that day Harley L'Estrange had been more than 
 usually mournful and dejected. Indeed, the return to scenes 
 associated with Nora's presence increased the gloom that 
 had settled on his mind since he had lost sight and trace of 
 her. Audley, in the remorseful tenderness he felt for his 
 injured friend, had induced L'Estrange toward evening to 
 leave the Park, and go into a district some miles off, on 
 pretence that he required Harley's aid there to canvass 
 certain important outvoters ; the change of scene might 
 rouse him from his reveries. Harley himself was glad to 
 escape from the guests at Lansmere. He readily consented 
 to go. He would not return that night. The outvoters 
 lay remote and scattered he might be absent for a day or 
 two. When Harley was gone, Egerton himself sank into 
 deep thought. There was rumor of some unexpected op- 
 position. His partisans were alarmed and anxious. It was 
 clear that the Lansmere interest, if attacked, was weaker 
 than the Earl would believe ; Egerton might lose his elec- 
 tion. If so, what would become of him ? How support his 
 wife, whose return to him he always counted on, and whom 
 it would then become him at all hazards to acknowledge ? 
 It was that day that he had spoken to William Hazeldean 
 as to the family living. " Peace at least," thought the am- 
 bitious man " I shall have peace ! " And the Squire had 
 promised him the rectory if needed ; not without a secret 
 pang, for his Harry was already using her conjugal influ- 
 ence in favor of her old school-friend's husband, Mr. Dale ; 
 and the Squire thought Audley would be but a poor coun- 
 try parson, and Dale if he would only grow a little plumper 
 than his curacy would permit him to be would be a parson 
 in ten thousand. But while Audley thus prepared for the 
 worst, he still brought his energies to bear on the more 
 brilliant option ; and sat with his committee, looking into 
 canvass-books, and discussing the characters, politics, and
 
 872 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 local interests of every elector, until the night was well- 
 nigh gone. When he gained his room, the shutters were 
 unclosed, and he stood a few moments at the window gaz- 
 ing on the moon. At that sight, the thought of Nora, lost 
 and afar, stole over him. The man, as we know, had in his 
 nature little of romance and sentiment. Seldom was it his 
 wont to gaze upon moon or stars. But whenever some 
 whisper of romance did soften his hard, strong mind, or 
 whenever moon or stars did charm his gaze from earth, 
 Nora's bright Muse-like face Nora's sweet loving eyes, 
 were seen in moon and starbeam Nora's low tender voice, 
 heard in the whisper of that which we call romance, and 
 which is but the sound of the mysterious poetry that is 
 ever in the air, would we but deign to hear it ! He turned 
 with a sigh, undressed, threw himself on his bed, and ex- 
 tinguished his light. But the light of the moon would fill 
 the room. It kept him awake for a little time ; he turned 
 his face from the calm heavenly beam, resolutely toward 
 the dull blind wall, and fell asleep. And, in the sleep, he 
 was with Nora ; again in the humble bridal-home. Never 
 in his dreams had she seemed to him so distinct and life-like 
 her eyes upturned to his her hands clasped together, 
 and resting on his shoulder, as had been her graceful wont 
 her voice murmuring meekly, " Has it, then, been my 
 fault that we parted ? forgive, forgive me ! " 
 
 And the sleeper imagined that he answered, " Never 
 part from me again never, never ! " and that he bent down 
 to kiss the chaste lips that so tenderly sought his own. And 
 suddenly he heard a knocking sound, as of a hammer 
 regular, but, soft, subdued. Did you ever, O reader, hear 
 the sound of the hammer on the lid of a coffin in a house 
 of woe, when the undertaker's decorous hireling fears that 
 the living may hear how he parts them from the dead ? 
 Such seemed the sound to Audley the dream vanished 
 abruptly. He woke, and again heard the knock ; it was at 
 his door. He sat up wistfully the moon was gone it was 
 morning. " Who is there ? " he cried, peevishly. 
 
 A low voice from without answered, " Hush, it is I ; 
 dress quick ; let me see you." 
 
 Egerton recognized Lady Lansmere's voice. Alarmed 
 and surprised, he rose, dressed in haste, and went to the 
 door. Lady Lansmere was standing without, extremely 
 pale. She put her finger to her lip, and beckoned him to 
 follow her. He obeyed mechanically. They entered her
 
 VARIETIES IN 1 ENGLISH LIFE. 873 
 
 dressing-room, a few doors from his own chamber, and 
 the Countess closed the door. 
 
 Then laying her slight firm hand on his shoulder, she 
 said, in suppressed and passionate excitement 
 
 " Oh, Mr. Egerton, you must serve serve me, and at 
 once Harley Harley save my Harley go to him pre- 
 vent his coming back here ; stay with him give up the 
 election it is but a year or two lost in your life you will 
 have other opportunities make that sacrifice to your 
 friend." 
 
 " Speak what is the matter ? I can make no sacrifice 
 too great for Harley ! " 
 
 "Thanks I was sure of it. Go then, I say, at once, 
 to Harley ; keep him away from Lansmere on. any excuse 
 you can invent, until you can break the sad news to him 
 gently, gently. Oh, how will he bear it- how recover the 
 shock ? My boy, my boy ! " 
 
 " Calm yourself ! Explain ! Break what news ? re- 
 cover what shock ? " 
 
 " True, you do not know you have not heard. Nora 
 Avenel lies yonder, in her father's house dead dead ! " 
 
 Audley staggered back, clapping his hand to his heart, 
 and then dropping on his knee as if bowed down by the 
 stroke of Heaven. 
 
 " My bride, my wife ! " he muttered. " Dead it cannot 
 be!" 
 
 Lady Lansmere was so startled at this exclamation, so 
 stunned by a confession wholly unexpected, that she re- 
 mained unable to soothe to explain, and utterly unpre- 
 pared for the fierce agony that burst from the man she had 
 ever seen so dignified and cold when he sprang to his 
 feet, and all the sense of his eternal loss rushed upon his 
 heart. 
 
 At length he crushed back his emotions, and listened in 
 apparent calm, and in a silence broken but by quick gasps 
 for breath, to Lady Lansmere's account. 
 
 One of the guests in the house, a female relation of 
 Lady Lansmere's, had been taken suddenly ill about an 
 hour or two before! the house had been disturbed, the 
 Countess herself aroused, and Mr. Morgan summoned as 
 the family medical practitioner. From him she had learned 
 that Nora Avenel had returned to her father's house late 
 on the previous evening ; had been seized with brain fever, 
 and died in a few hours. 
 37*
 
 874 MY HOVEL; OR, 
 
 Audley listened, and turned to the door, still in silence. 
 
 Lady Lansmere caught him by the arm "Where are 
 you going ? Ah, can I now ask you to save my son from 
 the awful news, you yourself the sufferer ? And yet yet 
 you know his haste, his vehemence, if he learnt that you 
 were his rival her husband ; you whom he so trusted ! 
 What, what would be the result ? I tremble ! " 
 
 " Tremble not I do not tremble ! Let me go I will 
 be back soon and then (his lips writhed) then we will talk 
 of Harley." 
 
 Egerton went forth, stunned and dizzy. Mechanically he 
 took his way across the park to John Avenel's house. He 
 had been forced to enter that house, formally, a day or two 
 before, in the course of his canvass ; and his wordly pride 
 had received a shock when the home, the birth, and the 
 manners, of his bride's parents had been brought before 
 him. He had even said to himself, " And is it the child of 
 these persons that I, Audley Egerton, must announce to 
 the world as wife ! " Now, if she had been the child of a 
 beggar nay, of a felon now, if he could but recall her to 
 life, how small and mean would all that dreaded world ap- 
 pear to him ! Too late too late ! The dews were glisten- 
 ing in the sun the birds were singing over-head life 
 waking all around him and his own heart felt like a char- 
 nel-house. Nothing but death and the dead there noth- 
 ing ! He arrived at the door; it was open; he called, no 
 one answered ; he walked up the narrow stairs, undisturbed, 
 unseen ; he came into the chamber of death. At the oppo- 
 site side of the bed was seated John Avenel ; but he seemed 
 in a heavy sleep. In fact, paralysis had smitten him ; but 
 he knew it not ; neither did any one. Who could heed the 
 strong hearty man in such a moment ? Not even the poor 
 anxious wife ! He had been left there to guard the house, 
 and watch the dead an unconscious man ; numbed, him- 
 self, by the invisible icy hand ! Audley stole to the bed- 
 side ; he lifted the coverlid thrown over the pale still face. 
 What passed within him, during the minute he stayed there, 
 who shall say ? But when he left the room, and slowly des- 
 cended the stairs, he left behind him love and youth, all the 
 sweet hopes and joys of the household human life for 
 ever and ever ! 
 
 He returned to Lady Lansmere, who awaited his coming 
 with the most nervous anxiety.
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 875 
 
 " Now," said he, dryly, " I will go to Harley, and I will 
 prevent his returning hither." 
 
 " You have seen the parents. Good heavens ! do they 
 know of your marriage ? " 
 
 " No ; to Harley I must own it first. Meanwhile, 
 silence !" 
 
 " Silence ! " echoed Lady Lansmere ; and her burning 
 hand rested in Audley's, and Audley's was as ice. 
 
 In another hour Egerton had left the house, and before 
 noon he was with Harley. 
 
 It is necessary now to explain the absence of all the 
 Avenel family except the poor stricken father. 
 
 Nora had died in giving birth to a child died delirious. 
 In her delirium she had spoken of shame of disgrace ; 
 there was no holy nuptial ring on her finger ! Through all 
 her grief, the first thought of Mrs. Avenel was to save the 
 good name of her lost daughter the unblemished honor of 
 all the living Avenels. No matron, long descended from 
 knights or kings, had keener pride in name and character, 
 than the poor punctilious Calvinistic trader's wife. " Sor- 
 row later, honor now ! " With hard dry eyes she mused 
 and mused, and made out her plan. Jane Fairfield should 
 take away the infant at once, before the day dawned, and 
 nurse it with her own. Mark should go with her, for Mrs. 
 Avenel dreaded the indiscretion of his wild grief. She 
 would go with them herself part of the way, in order to 
 command or reason them into guarded silence. But they 
 could not go back to Hazeldean with another infant ; Jane 
 must go where none knew her ; the two infants might pass 
 as twins. And Mrs. Avenel, though naturally a humane, 
 kindly woman, and with a mother's heart to infants, looked 
 with almost a glad sternness at Jane's puny babe, and 
 thought to herself, "All difficulty would be over should 
 there be only one! Nora's child could thus pass through- 
 out life for Jane's ! " 
 
 Fortunately for the preservation of the secret, the Ave- 
 nels kept no servant only an occasional drudge, who came 
 a few hours in the day, and went home to sleep. Mrs. Ave- 
 nel could count on Mr. Morgan's silence as to the true 
 cause of Nora's death. And Mr. Dale, why should he re- 
 veal the dishonor of a family ? That very day, or the next 
 at farthest, she could induce her husband to absent himself, 
 lest he should blab out the tale while his sorrow was greater 
 than his pride. She alone would then stay in the house of
 
 876 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 death until she could feel assured that all else were hushed 
 into prudence. Ay, she felt, that with due precautions, the 
 name was still safe. And so she awed and hurried Mark 
 and his wife away, and went with them in the covered cart 
 that hid the faces of all three leaving for an hour or two 
 the house and the dead to her husband's charge, with many 
 an admonition, to which he nodded his head, and which he 
 did not hear ! Do you think this woman was unfeeling and 
 inhuman ? Had Nora looked from heaven into her moth- 
 er's heart, Nora would not have thought so. A good name 
 when the burial-stone closes over dust, is still a possession 
 upon the earth ; on earth it is indeed our only one ! Better 
 for our friends to guard for us that treasure, than to sit 
 down and weep over perishable clay. And weep ! Oh ! 
 stern mother, long years were left to thee for weeping ! No 
 tears shed for Nora made such deep furrows on the cheeks 
 as thine did ! Yet who ever saw them flow ? 
 
 Harley was in great surprise to see Egerton ; more sur- 
 prised when Egerton told him that he found he was to be 
 opposed that he had no chance of success at Lansmere, 
 and had, therefore, resolved to retire from the contest. He 
 wrote to the Earl to that effect ; but the Countess knew the 
 true cause, and hinted it to the Earl ; so that, as we saw at 
 the commencement of this history, Egerton's cause did not 
 suffer when Captain Dashmore appeared in the borough ; 
 and thanks to Mr. Hazeldean's exertions and oratory, Aud- 
 ley came in by two votes the votes of John Avenel and 
 Mark Fairfield. For though the former had been removed 
 a little way from the town, and by medical advice and 
 though, on other matters, the disease that had smitten him 
 left him docile as a child (and he had but vague indistinct 
 ideas of all the circumstances connected with Nora's return, 
 save the sense of her loss) yet he still would hear how the 
 Blues went on, and would get out of bed to keep his word ; 
 and even his wife said, " He is right ; better die of it, than 
 break his promise ! " The crowd gave way as the broken 
 man they had seen a few days before so jovial and healthful 
 was brought up in a chair to the poll, and said, with his 
 tremulous, quavering voice, " I'm a true Blue Blue for 
 ever ! " 
 
 Elections are wondrous things ! No man who has not 
 seen can guess how the zeal in them triumphs over sickness, 
 sorrow, the ordinary private life of us ! 
 
 There was forwarded to Audley from Lansmere Park,
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 877 
 
 Nora's last letter. The postman had left it there an hour or 
 two after he himself had gone. The wedding-ring fell on 
 the ground, and rolled under his feet. And those burning 
 passionate reproaches all that anger of the wounded dove 
 explained to him the mystery of her return her unjust 
 suspicions the cause of her sudden death, which he still 
 ascribed to brain fever, brought on by excitement and 
 fatigue. For Nora did not speak of the child about to be 
 born ; she had not remembered it when she wrote, or she 
 would not have written. On the receipt of this letter, Eger- 
 ton could not remain in the dull village district alone, too, 
 with Harley. He said, abruptly, that he must go to London 
 prevailed on L'Estrange to accompany him ; and there, 
 when he heard from Lady Lansmere that the funeral was 
 over, he broke to Harley, with lips as white as the dead, and 
 his hand pressed to his heart, on which his hereditary dis- 
 ease was fastening quick and fierce, the dread truth that 
 Nora was no more. The effect upon the boy's health and 
 spirits was even more crushing than Audley could antici- 
 pate. He only woke from grief to feel remorse. " For," 
 said the noble Harley, "had it not been for my passion 
 my rash pursuit would she ever have left her safe asylum 
 ever even have left her native town-? And then and 
 then the struggle between her sense of duty and her love 
 to me ! I see it all all ! But for me she were living still ! " 
 
 "Oh, no !" cried Egerton his confession now rushing 
 to his lips. " Believe me, she never loved you as you think. 
 Nay nay hear me ! Rather suppose that she loved 
 another fled with him was perhaps married to him, 
 and " 
 
 " Hold ! " exclaimed Harley, with a terrible burst of 
 passion "you kill her twice to me if you say that ! I can 
 still feel that she lives lives here, in my heart while I 
 dream that she loved me or, at least, that no other lip ever 
 knew the kiss that was denied to mine ! But if you tell me 
 to doubt that; you you!" The boy's anguish was too 
 great for his frame ; he fell suddenly back into Audley's 
 arms ; he had broken a blood-vessel. For several days he 
 was in great danger ; but his eyes were constantly fixed on 
 Audley's with wistful intense gaze. " Tell me," he muttered, 
 at the risk of re-opening the ruptured veins, and of the in- 
 stant loss of life "tell me you did not mean that! Tell 
 me you have no cause to think she loved another was 
 another's ! "
 
 878 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 " Hush, hush no cause none none. I meant but to 
 comfort you, as I thought fool that I was that is all ! " 
 cried the miserable friend. And from that hour Atidley 
 gave up the idea of righting himself in his own eyes, and sub- 
 mitted still to be the living lie he, the haughty gentle man ! 
 
 Now, while Harley was still very weak and suffering, 
 Mr. Dale came to London and called on Egerton. The 
 curate, in promising secrecy to Mrs. Avenel, had made one 
 condition, that it should not be to the positive injury of 
 Nora's living son. What if Nora were married, after all ? 
 And would it not be right, at least, to learn the name of the 
 child's father ? Some day he might need a father. Mrs. 
 Avenel was obliged to content herself with these reserva- 
 tions. However, she implored Mr. Dale not to make in- 
 quiries. What could they do ? If Nora were married, her 
 husband Avould naturally, of his own accord, declare him- 
 self ; if seduced and forsaken, it would but disgrace her 
 memory (now saved from stain) to discover the father to a 
 child of whose very existence the world as yet knew no- 
 thing. These arguments perplexed the good curate. But 
 Jane Fairfield had a sanguine belief in lier sister's innocence ; 
 and all her suspicions naturally pointed to Lord L'Estrange. 
 So, indeed, perhaps, did Mrs. Avenel's, though she never 
 owned them. Of the correctness of these suspicions Mr. 
 Dale was fully convinced ; the young lord's admiration, 
 Lady Lansmere's fears, had been too evident to one who 
 had often visited at the Park Harley's abrupt departure 
 just before Nora's return home Egerton's sudden resigna- 
 tion of the borough before even opposition was declared, 
 in order to rejoin his friend, the very day of Nora's death 
 all confirmed his ideas that Harley was the betrayer or the 
 husband. Perhaps there might have been a secret marriage 
 possibly abroad since Harley wanted some years of his 
 majority. He would, at least, try to see and to sound Lord 
 L'Estrange. Prevented this interview by Harley's illness, 
 the curate resolved to ascertain how far he could penetrate 
 into the mystery by a conversation with Egerton. There 
 was much in the grave repute which the latter had ac- 
 quired, and the singular and pre-eminent character for truth 
 and honor with which it was accompanied, that made the 
 curate resolve upon this step. Accordingly, he saw Eger- 
 ton, meaning only diplomatically to extract from the new 
 member for Lansmere what might benefit the family of 
 the voters who had given him his majority of two.
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 879 
 
 He began by mentioning, as a touching fact, how poor 
 John Avenel, bowed down by the loss of his child, and the 
 malady which had crippled his limbs and enfeebled his 
 mind, had still risen from his bed to keep his word. And 
 Audley's emotions seemed to him so earnest and genuine, 
 to show so good a heart, that out by little and little came 
 more ; first, his suspicions that poor Nora had been be- 
 trayed ; then his hopes that there might have been a private 
 marriage ; and as Audley, with his iron self-command, 
 showed just the proper degree of interest, and no more, he 
 went on, till Audley knew that he had a child. 
 
 " Inquire no further ! " said the man of the world. " Re- 
 spect Mrs. Avenel's feelings and wishes, I entreat you ; they 
 are the right ones. Leave the rest to me. In my position 
 I mean as a resident of London I can quietly and easily 
 ascertain more than you could, and provoke no scandal ! 
 If I can right this this poor [his voice trembled] right 
 the lost mother, or the living child sooner or later you 
 will hear from me ; if not, bury this secret where it now 
 rests-, in a grave which slander has not reached. But the 
 child give me the address where it is to be found in case 
 I succeed in finding the father, and touching his heart." 
 
 " Oh, Mr. Egerton, may I not say where you may find 
 that father who he is ? " 
 
 "Sir!" 
 
 " Do not be angry ; and after all, I cannot ask you to be- 
 tray any confidence which a friend may have placed in you. 
 I know what you men of high honor are to each other 
 even in sin. No, no I beg pardon ; I leave all in your 
 hands. I shall hear from you then ? " 
 
 " Or if not why, then, believe that all search is hope- 
 less. My friend ! if you mean Lord L'Estrange, he is in- 
 nocent. I I I [the voice faltered] am convinced of it." 
 
 The curate sighed, but made no answer. " Oh, ye men 
 of the world ! " thought he. He gave the address which 
 the member of Lansmere had asked for, and went his \vay, 
 and never heard again from Audley Egerton. He was con- 
 vinced that the man who had shown such deep feeling had 
 failed in his appeal to Harley's conscience, or had judged 
 it best to leave Nora's name in peace, and her child to her 
 own relations and the care of Heaven. 
 
 Harley L'Estrange, scarcely yet recovered, hastened to 
 join our armies on the continent, and seek the Death which, 
 like its half-brother, rarely comes when we call it.
 
 88o MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 As soon as Harley was gone, Egerton went to the vil- 
 lage to which Mr. Dale had directed him, to seek for Nora's 
 child. But here he was led into a mistake which materi- 
 ally affected the tenor of his own life, and Leonard's future 
 destinies. Mrs. Fairfield had been naturally ordered by 
 her mother to take another name in the village to which 
 she had gone with the two infants, so that her connection 
 with the Avenel family might not be traced, to the provo- 
 cation of inquiry and gossip. The grief and excitement 
 through which she had gone, dried the source of nutriment 
 in her breast. She put Nora's child out to nurse at the 
 house of a small farmer, at a little distance from the village, 
 and moved from her first lodging to be nearer to the infant. 
 Her own child was so sickly and ailing, that she could not 
 bear to entrust it to the care of another. She tried to 
 bring it up by hand ; and the poor child soon pined away 
 and died. She and Mark could not endure the sight of 
 their baby's grave ; they hastened to return to Hazeldean, 
 and took Leonard with them. From that time Leonard 
 passed for the son they had lost. 
 
 When Egerton arrived at the village, and inquired for 
 the person whose address had been given to him, he was re- 
 ferred to the cottage in which she had last lodged, and was 
 told that she had been gone some days the day after her 
 child was buried. Her child buried ! Egerton stayed to in- 
 quire no more ; thus he heard nothing of the infant that had 
 been put out to nurse. He walked slowly into the church- 
 yard, and stood for some minutes gazing on the small new 
 mound ; then, pressing his hand on the heart to which all 
 emotion had been forbidden, he re-entered his chaise and re- 
 turned to London. The sole reason for acknowledging his 
 marriage seemed to him now removed. Nora's name had 
 escaped reproach. Even had his painful position with re- 
 gard to Harley not constrained him to preserve his secret, 
 there was every motive to the World's wise and haughty son 
 not to acknowledge a derogatory and foolish marriage, now 
 that none lived whom concealment could wrong. 
 
 Audley mechanically resumed his former life, sought to 
 resettle his thoughts on the grand objects of ambitious men. 
 His poverty still pressed on him ; his pecuniary debt to 
 Harley stung and galled his peculiar sense of honor. He 
 saw no way to clear his estates, to repay his friend, but by 
 some rich alliance. Dead to love, he faced this prospect 
 first with repugnance, then with apathetic indifference.
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 881 
 
 Levy, of whose treachery toward himself and Nora he was 
 unaware, still held over him the power that the money- 
 lender never loses over the man that has owed, owes, or may 
 owe again. Levy was ever urging him to propose to the 
 rich Miss Leslie ; Lady Lansmere, willing to atone, as she 
 thought, for his domestic loss, urged the same ; Harley, 
 influenced by his mother, wrote from the Continent to the 
 same effect. 
 
 " Manage it as you will," at last said Egerton to Levy, 
 "so that I am not a wife's pensioner." 
 
 " Propose forme, if you will," he said to Lady Lansmere 
 " I cannot woo I cannot talk of love." 
 
 Somehow or other the marriage, with all its rich advan- 
 tages to the ruined gentleman, was thus made up. And 
 Egerton, as we have seen, was the polite and dignified hus- 
 band before the world married to a woman who adored 
 him. It is the common fate of men like him to be loved 
 too well ! 
 
 On her death-bed his heart was touched by his wife's 
 melancholy reproach " Nothing I could do has ever made 
 you love me ! " " It is true," answered Audley, with tears 
 in his voice and eyes " Nature gave me but a small fund of 
 what women like you call ' love,' and I lavished it all away." 
 And he then told her, though with reserve, some portion of 
 his former history ; and that soothed her ; for when she saw 
 that he had loved, and could grieve, she caught a glimpse of 
 the human heart she had not seen before. She died, for- 
 giving him, and blessing. 
 
 Audley's spirits were much affected by this new loss. 
 He inly resolved never to marry again. He had a vague 
 thought at first of retrenching his expenditures, and making 
 young Randal Leslie his heir. But when he first saw the 
 clever Eton boy, his feelings did not warm to him, though 
 his intellect appreciated Randal's quick, keen talents. He 
 contented himself with resolving to push the boy ; to do 
 what was merely just to the distant kinsman of his late wife. 
 Always careless and lavish in money matters, generous and 
 princely, not from the delight of serving others, but from a 
 grand seigneur's sentiment of what was due to himself and his 
 station, Audley had a mournful excuse for the lordly waste 
 of the large fortune at his control. The morbid functions 
 of the heart had become organic disease. True, he might 
 live many years, and die at last of some other complaint in 
 the course of nature ; but the progress of the disease would
 
 88a MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 quicken with all emotional excitement ; he might die sud- 
 denly any day in the very prime, and, seemingly, in the 
 full vigor of his life. And the only physician in whom he 
 confided what he wished to keep concealed from the world 
 (for ambitious men would fain be thought immortal), told 
 him frankly that it was improbable that, with the wear and 
 tear of political strife and action, he could advance far into 
 middle age. Therefore, no son of his succeeding his 
 nearest relations all wealthy Egerton resigned himself to 
 his constitutional disdain of money ; he could look into no 
 affairs, provided the balance in his banker's hands were 
 such as became the munificent commoner. All else he left 
 to his steward and to Levy. Levy grew rapidly rich very, 
 very rich and the steward thrived. 
 
 The usurer continued to possess a determined hold over 
 the imperious great man. He knew Audley's secret ; he 
 could reveal that secret to Harley. And the one soft and 
 tender side of the statesman's nature the sole part of 
 him not dipped in the ninefold Styx of practical prosaic 
 life, which renders man so invulnerable to affection was 
 his remorseful love for the school-friend whom he still 
 deceived. 
 
 Here, then, you have the key to the locked chambers of 
 Audley Egerton's character, the fortified castle of his mind. 
 The envied minister the joyless man -.; the oracle on the 
 economies of an empire the prodigal in a usurer's hands ; 
 the august, high-crested gentleman, to whom princes would 
 refer for the casuistry of honor the culprit, trembling lest 
 the friend he best loved on earth should detect his lie ! 
 Wrap thyself in the decent veil that the Arts or the Graces 
 weave for thee, O Human nature ! It is only the statue of 
 marble whose nakedness the eye can behold without shame 
 and offence. 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 OF the narrative just placed before the reader, it is clear 
 that Leonard could gather only desultory fragments. He 
 could but see that his ill-fated mother had been united to a 
 man she had loved with surpassing tenderness ; had been 
 led to suspect that the marriage was fraudulent ; and gone 
 abroad in despair, returned repentant and hopeful ; had
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 883 
 
 gleamed some intelligence that her lover was about to be 
 married to another, and there the manuscript closed with 
 the blisters left on the page by agonizing tears. The mourn- 
 ful end of Nora her lonely return to die under the roof of 
 her parents this he had learned before from the narrative 
 of Dr. Morgan. 
 
 But even the name of her supposed husband was not re- 
 vealed. Of him Leonard could form no conjectures, except 
 that he was evidently of higher rank than Nora. Harley 
 I/Estrange seemed clearly indicated in the early boy-lover. 
 If so, Harley must know all that was left dark to Leonard, 
 and to him Leonard resolved to confide the manuscript. 
 With this resolution he left the cottage, resolving to return 
 and attend the funeral obsequies of his departed friend. 
 Mrs. Goodyer willingly permitted him to take away the 
 papers she had lent him, and added to them the packet 
 which had been addressed to Mrs. Bertram from the Con- 
 tinent. 
 
 Musing in anxious gloom over the record he had read 
 Leonard entered London on foot, and bent his way -toward 
 Harley's hotel ; when, just as he had crossed into Bond 
 Street, a gentleman in company with Baron Levy, and who 
 seemed, by the flush om his brow and the sullen tone of his 
 voice, to have had rather an irritating colloquy with the 
 fashionable usurer, suddenly caught sight of Leonard, and, 
 abruptly quitting Levy, seized the young man by the 
 arm. 
 
 " Excuse me, sir," said the gentleman, looking hard into 
 Leonard's face ; "but unless these sharp eyes of mine are 
 mistaken, which they seldom are, I see a nephew whom, 
 perhaps, I behaved to rather too harshly, but who still has 
 no right to forget Richard Avenel." 
 
 "My dear uncle," exclaimed Leonard, "this is indeed a 
 joyful surprise ; at a time, too, when I needed joy. No ; I 
 have never forgotten your kindness, and always regretted 
 our estrangement." 
 
 " That is well said ; give us your fist again. Let me 
 look at you quite the gentleman, I declare ! still so good- 
 looking too. We Avenels always were a handsome family. 
 Good-bye, Baron Levy. Need not wait for me ; I am not 
 going to run away. I shall see you again." 
 
 " But," whispered Levy, who had followed Avenel across 
 the street, and eyed Leonard with a quick, curious, search- 
 ing glance ' but it must be as I say with regard to the
 
 884 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 borough ; or (to be plain) you must cash the bills on the 
 day they are due." 
 
 "Very well, sir very well. So you think to put the 
 screw upon me, as if I were a poor little householder. I 
 understand my money or my borough ? " 
 
 " Exactly so," said the Baron, with a soft smile. 
 
 " You shall hear from me. [Aside, as Levy strolled away.] 
 D d tarnation rascal ! " 
 
 Dick Avenel then linked his arm in his nephew's, and 
 strove for some minutes to forget his own troubles, in the 
 indulgence of that curiosity in the affairs of another which 
 was natural to him, and in this instance, increased by the 
 real affection which he had felt for Leonard. But still his 
 curiosity remained unsatisfied ; for long before Leonard 
 could overcome his habitual reluctance to speak of his 
 success in literature, Dick's mind wandered back to his 
 rival at Screwstown and the curse of "over-competition," 
 to the bills which Levy had discounted, in order to en- 
 able Dick to meet the crushing force of a capitalist larger 
 than himself and the " tarnation rascal " who now wished 
 to obtain two seats at Lansmere, one for Randal Leslie, 
 one for a rich Nabob whom Levy had just caught as a 
 client ; and Dick, though willing to aid Leslie, had a mind 
 to the other seat for himself. Therefore Dick soon broke 
 in upon the hesitating confessions of Leonard, with excla- 
 mations far from pertinent to the subject, and rather for 
 the sake of venting his own griefs and resentment, than 
 with any idea that the sympathy or advice of his nephew 
 could serve him. 
 
 " Well, well," said Dick, " another time for your history. 
 I see you have thrived, and that is enough for the present. 
 Very odd ; but just now I can only think of myself. I'm 
 in a regular fix, sir. Screwstown is not the respectable 
 Screwstown that you remember it all demoralized and 
 turned topsy-turvy by a demoniacal monster capitalist, with 
 steam-engines that might bring the falls of Niagara into 
 your back parlor, sir ! And as if that was not enough to 
 destroy and drive into almighty shivers a decent fair-play 
 Britisher like myself, I hear he is just in treaty for some 
 patent infernal invention that will make his engines do 
 twice as much work with half as many hands ! That's the 
 way those unfeeling ruffians increase our poor-rates ! But 
 I'll get up a riot against him I will ! Don't talk to me of 
 the law ! What the devil is the good of the law, if it don't
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 885 
 
 protect a man's industry a liberal man, too, like me ! " 
 Here Dick burst into a storm of vituperation against the 
 rotten old country in general, and Mr. Dyce, the monster 
 capitalist of Screwstown, in particular. 
 
 Leonard started ; for Dick now named, in that monster 
 capitalist, the very person who was in treaty for Leonard's 
 own mechanical improvement on the steam-engine. 
 
 " Stop, uncle stop ! Why, then, if this man were to 
 buy the contrivance you speak of, it would injure you ? " 
 
 " Injure me, sir ! I should be a bankrupt that is, if it 
 succeeded ; but I dare say it is all a humbug." 
 
 " No, it will succeed I'll answer for that ! " 
 
 " You ! You have seen it ? " 
 
 "Why, I invented it." 
 
 Dick hastily withdrew his arm from Leonard's. 
 
 " Serpent's tooth ! " he said, falteringly ; " so it is you, 
 whom I warmed at my hearth, who are to ruin Richard 
 Avenel ? " 
 
 " No but to save him ! Come into the city and look at 
 my model. If you like it, the patent shall be yours ! " 
 
 "Cab cab cab," cried Dick Avenel, stopping a "Han- 
 som ;" -"jump in, Leonard jump in. I'll buy your patent 
 that is, if it be worth a straw ; and as for payment " 
 
 " Payment ! Don't talk of that ! " 
 
 "Well, I won't," said Dick, mildly; "for 'tis not the 
 topic of conversation I should choose myself, just at pre- 
 sent. And as for that black-whiskered alligator, the Baron, 
 let me first get out of those rambustious, unchristian, filbert- 
 shaped claws of his, and then But jump in jump in and 
 tell the man where to drive ! " 
 
 A very brief inspection of Leonard's invention sufficed 
 to show Richard Avenel how invaluable it would be to him. 
 Armed with a patent, of which the certain effects in the 
 increase of power and diminution of labor were obvious to 
 any practical man, Avenel felt that he should have no diffi- 
 culty in obtaining such advances of money as he required, 
 whether to alter his engines, meet the bills discounted by 
 Levy, or carry on the war with the monster capitalist. It 
 might be necessary to admit into partnership some other 
 monster capitalist What then ? Any partner better than 
 Levy. A bright idea struck him. 
 
 " If I can just terrify and whop that infernal intruder on 
 my own ground, for a few months, he may offer, himself, to
 
 S86 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 enter into partnership make the two concerns a joint-stock 
 friendly combination, and then we shall flog the world." 
 
 His gratitude to Leonard became so lively, that Dick 
 offered to bring his nephew in for Lansmere instead of him- 
 self ; and when Leonard declined the offer, exclaimed, 
 " Well, then, any friend of yours ; I'm all for reform against 
 those high and mighty right honorable borough-mongers ; 
 and what with loans and mortgages on the small house- 
 holders, and a long course of ' Free and Easies ' with the 
 independent freemen, I carry one seat certain, perhaps both 
 seats of the town of Lansmere, in my breeches-pocket." 
 Dick, then, appointing an interview with Leonard at his 
 lawyer's, to settle the transfer of the invention, upon terms 
 which he declared " should be honorable to both parties," 
 hurried off, to search amongst his friends in the city for 
 some monster capitalist, who might be induced to extricate 
 him from the jaws of Levy, and the engines of his rival at 
 Screwstown. " Mullins is the man, if I can but catch him," 
 said Dick. "You have heard of Mullins? A wonderful 
 great man ; you should see his nails ; he never cuts them ! 
 Three millions, at least, he has scraped together with those 
 nails of his, sir. And in this rotten old country, a man must 
 have nails a yard long to fight with a devil like Levy ! 
 Good-bye good-^, GOOD-bye, my DEAR nephew ! " 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 HARLEY L'ESTRANGE was seated alone in his apartments. 
 He had just put down a volume of some favorite classic au- 
 thor, and he was resting his hand firmly clenched upon the 
 book. Ever since Harley's return to England, there had 
 been a perceptible change in the expression of his counten- 
 ance, even in the very bearing and attitudes of his elastic 
 youthful figure. But this change had been more marked 
 since that last interview with Helen which has been re- 
 corded. There was a compressed, resolute firmness in the 
 lips a decided character in the brow. To the indolent, 
 careless grace of his movements had succeeded a certain 
 indescribable energy, as quiet and self-collected as that 
 which distinguished the determined air of Audley Egerton 
 himself. In fact, if you could have looked into his heart,
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 887 
 
 you would have seen that Harley was, for the first time, 
 making a strong effort over his passions and his humors ; 
 that the whole man was nerving himself to a sense of duty. 
 " No," he muttered "no I will think only of Helen; I 
 will think only of real life ! And what (were I not engaged 
 to another) would that dark-eyed Italian girl be to me ? 
 What a mere fool's fancy is this ! I love again ! I, who 
 through all the fair spring of my life, have clung with such 
 faith to a memory and a grave ! Come, come, come, Har- 
 ley L'Estrange, act thy part as man amongst men at last ! 
 Accept regard ; dream no more of passion. Abandon false 
 ideals. Thou art no poet why deem that life itself can be 
 a poem ?" 
 
 The door opened, and the Austrian Prince, whom Harley 
 had interested in the cause of Violante's father, entered with 
 the familiar step of a friend. 
 
 " Have you discovered those documents yet ? " said 
 the Prince. " I must now return to Vienna within a few 
 days. And unless you can arm me with some tangible 
 proof of Peschiera's ancient treachery, or some more unan- 
 swerable excuse for his noble kinsman, I fear that there is 
 no other hope for the exile's recall to this country than 
 what lies in the hateful option of giving his daughter to his 
 perfidious foe." 
 
 " Alas ! " said Harley, " as yet all researches have been 
 in vain ; and I know not what other steps to take, without 
 arousing Peschiera's vigilance, and setting his crafty brains 
 at work to counteract us. My poor friend, then, must rest 
 contented with exile. To give Violante to the Count were 
 dishonor. But I shall soon be married ; soon have a home, 
 not quite unworthy of their due rank, to offer both to father 
 and to child." 
 
 "Would the future Lady L'Estrange feel no jealousy of 
 a guest so fair as you tell me this young signorina is ? And 
 would you be in no danger yourself, my poor friend ? " 
 
 "Pooh !" said Harley, coloring. "My fair guest would 
 have two fathers ; that is all. Pray do not jest on a thing so 
 grave as honor." 
 
 Again the door opened, and Leonard appeared. 
 
 " Welcome," cried Harley, pleased to be no longer alone 
 under the Prince's penetrating eye "welcome. This is 
 the noble friend who shares our interest for Riccabocca, 
 and who could serve him so well, if we could but discover 
 the document of which I have spoken to you."
 
 888 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 " It is here," said Leonard, simply ; " may it be all that 
 you require ! " 
 
 Harley eagerly grasped at the packet, which had been 
 sent from Italy to the supposed Mrs. Bertram, and, leaning 
 his face on his hand, rapidly hurried through the contents. 
 
 " Hurrah ! " he cried at last, with his face lighted up, 
 and a boyish toss of his right hand. " Look, look, Prince, 
 here are Peschiera's own letters to his kinsman's wife ; his 
 avowal of what he calls his ' patriotic designs ; ' his entreat- 
 ies to her to induce her husband to share them. Look, 
 look, how he wields his influence over the woman he had 
 once wooed ; look how artfully he combats her objections ; 
 see how reluctant our friend was to stir, till wife and kins- 
 man both united to urge him." 
 
 " It is enough quite enough," exclaimed the Prince, 
 looking at the passages in Peschiera's letters which Harley 
 pointed out to him. 
 
 " No, it is not enough," shouted Harley, as he continued 
 to read the letters with his rapid sparkling eyes. " More 
 still ! O villain, doubly damned ! Here, after our friend's 
 flight, here is Peschiera's avowal of guilty passion ; here 
 he swears that he had intrigued to ruin his benefactor, in 
 order to pollute the home that had sheltered him. Ah ! 
 see how she answers ; thank Heaven, her own eyes were 
 opened at last, and she scorned him before she died. She 
 was innocent ! I said so ! Violante's mother was pure. 
 Poor lady ! this moves me. Has your Emperor the heart 
 of a man ? " 
 
 " I know enough of our Emperor," answered the Prince, 
 warmly, " to know that the moment these papers reach him, 
 Peschiera is ruined, and your friend is restored to his hon- 
 ors. You will live to see the daughter, to whom you would 
 have given a child's place at your hearth, the wealthiest 
 heiress of Italy the bride of some noble lover, with rank 
 only below the supremacy of kings ! " 
 
 " Ah ! " said Harley, in a sharp accent, and turning very 
 pale " ah, I shall not see her that ! I shall never visit 
 Italy again ! never see her more never, after she has once 
 quitted this climate of cold iron cares and formal duties 
 never, never ! " He turned his head for a moment, and 
 then came with quick step to Leonard. " But you, O 
 happy poet ! No Ideal can ever be lost to you. You are 
 independent of real life. Would that I were a poet ! " He 
 smiled sadly.
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 889 
 
 " You would not say so, perhaps, my dear lord," an- 
 swered Leonard, with equal sadness, " if you knew how 
 little what you call 'the Ideal,' replaces to a poet the loss 
 of one affection in the genial human world. Independent 
 of real life ! Alas ! no. And I have here the confessions 
 of a true poet-soul, which I will entreat you to read' at 
 leisure ; and when you have read, say if you would still be 
 a poet ! " 
 
 He took forth Nora's manuscripts as he spoke. 
 
 " Place them yonder, in my escritoire, Leonard ; I will 
 read them later." 
 
 " Do so, and with heed ; for to me there is much here 
 that involves my own life much that is still a mystery, 
 and which I think you can unravel ! " 
 
 " I ! " exclaimed Harley ; and he was moving toward 
 the escritoire, in a drawer of which Leonard had carefully 
 deposited the papers, when, once more, but this time vio- 
 lently, the door was thrown open, and Giacomo rushed into 
 the room, accompanied by Lady Lansmere. 
 
 " Oh, my lord, my lord ! " cried Giacomo, in Italian, 
 "the signorina ! the signorina ! Violante ! " 
 
 "What of her? Mother, mother! what of her? Speak, 
 speak ! " 
 
 " She has gone left our house ! " 
 
 " Left ! No, no ! " cried Giacomo. " She must have 
 been deceived or forced away. The Count! the Count! Oh, 
 my good lord, save her, as you once saved her father !" 
 
 " Hold ! " cried Harley. " Give me your arm, mother. 
 A second such blow in life is beyond the strength of man 
 at least it is beyond mine. So, so ! I am better now ! 
 Thank you, mother. Stand back, all of you give me air. 
 So the Count has triumphed, and Violante has fled with 
 him ! Explain all, I can bear it ! " 
 
 38
 
 890 MY NOVEL; UR, 
 
 BOOK TWELFTH. 
 
 INITIAL CHAPTER. 
 
 WHEREIN THE CAXTON FAMILY REAPPEAR. 
 
 "AGAIN," quoth my father "again behold us! We who 
 greeted the commencement of your narrative, who absented 
 ourselves in the mid-course when we could but obstruct the 
 current of events, and jostle personages more important 
 we now gather round the close. Still, as the chorus to the 
 drama, we circle round the altar with the solemn but dubi- 
 ous chant which prepares the audience for the completion 
 of the appointed destinies ; though still, ourselves, unaware 
 how the skein is to be unravelled, and where the shears are 
 to descend." 
 
 So there they stood, the Family of Caxton all group- 
 ing round me all eager officiously to question some over- 
 anxious prematurely to criticise. 
 
 "Violante can't have voluntarily gone off with that 
 horrid Count," said rny mother; "but perhaps she was 
 deceived, like Eugenia by Mr. Bellamy, in the novel of 
 ' CAMILLA.' " 
 
 " Ha ! " said my father, " and in that case it is time yet 
 to steal a hint from Clarissa Harlowe, and make Violante 
 die less of a broken heart than a sullied honor. She is one 
 of those girls who ought to be killed ! All things about her 
 forebode an early tomb ! " 
 
 " Dear, dear ! " cried Mrs. Caxton, " I hope not ! " 
 
 " Pooh, brother," said the Captain, " we have had enough 
 of the tomb in the history of poor Nora. The whole story 
 grows out of a grave, and if to a grave it must return if, 
 Pisistratus, you must kill somebody, kill Levy." 
 
 " Or the Count," said my mother, with unusual trucu- 
 lence.
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 891 
 
 "Or Randal Leslie," said Squills. "I should like to 
 have a post-mortem cast of his head it would be an instruct- 
 ive study." 
 
 Here there was a general confusion of tongues, all pres- 
 ent conspiring to bewilder the unfortunate author with their 
 various and discordant counsels how to wind up his story 
 and dispose of his characters. 
 
 " Silence ! " cried Pisistratus, clapping his hands to both 
 cars. " I can no more alter the fate allotted to each of the 
 personages whom you honor with your interest than I can 
 change your own ; like you, they must go where events 
 lead them, urged on by their own characters and the agen- 
 cies of others. Providence so pervadingly governs the uni- 
 verse, that you cannot strike it even out of a book. The 
 author may beget a character, but the moment the charac- 
 ter comes into action, it escapes from his hands plays its 
 own part, and fulfils its own inevitable doom." 
 
 " Besides," said Mr. Squills, "it is easy to see, from the 
 phrenological development of the organs in those several 
 heads which Pisistratus has allowed us to examine, that we 
 have seen no creations of mere fiction, but living persons, 
 whose true history has set in movement their various bumps 
 of-Amativeness, Constructiveness, Acquisitiveness, Ideality, 
 Wonder, Comparison, etc. They must act, and they must 
 end, according to the influences of their crania. Thus we 
 find in Randal Leslie the predominant organ of Construct- 
 iveness, Secretiveness, Comparison, and Eventuality while 
 Benevolence, Conscientiousness, Adhesiveness, are utterly 
 nil. Now, to divine how such a man must end, we must 
 first see what is the general composition of the society in 
 which he moves, in short, what other gases are brought 
 into contact with his phlogiston. As to Leonard, and Har- 
 ley, and Audley Egerton, surveying them phrenologically, 
 I should say that " 
 
 "Hush!" said my father, "Pisistratus has dipped his 
 pen in the ink, and it seems to me easier for the wisest man 
 that ever lived to account for what others have done, than 
 to predict what they should do. Phrenologists discovered 
 that Mr. Thurtell had a very fine organ of Conscientious- 
 ness, yet, somehow or other, that erring personage con- 
 trived to knock the brains out of his friend's organ of In- 
 dividuality. Therefore I rise to propose a Resolution that 
 this meeting be adjourned till Pisistratus has completed his 
 narrative, and we shall then have the satisfaction of know-
 
 892 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 ing that it ought, according to every principle of nature, 
 science, and art, to have been completed differently. Why 
 should we deprive ourselves of that pleasure ?" 
 
 " I second the motion," said the Captain ; " but if Levy 
 be not hanged, I shall say that there is an end of all poeti- 
 cal justice." 
 
 " Take care of poor Helen," said Blanche, tenderly ; 
 " not that I would have you forget Violante." 
 
 " Pish ! and sit down, or they shall both die old maids." 
 
 Frightened at that threat, Blanche, with a deprecating 
 look, drew her stool quietly near me, as if to place her two 
 protegees in an atmosphere mesmerized to matrimonial at- 
 tractions ; and my mother set hard to work at a new frock 
 for the baby. Unsoftened by these undue female influ- 
 ences, Pisistratus wrote on at the dictation of the relentless 
 Fates. His pen was of iron, and his heart was of granite. 
 He was as insensible to the existence of wife and baby, as 
 if he had never paid a house-bill, nor rushed from a nur- 
 sery at the sound of an infant squall. O blessed privilege 
 of Authorship ! 
 
 " O testudinis aurese 
 
 Dulcem quoe strepitum, Fieri, temperas ! 
 O mutis quoque piscibus 
 
 Donatura cycni, si libeat, sonum ! " * 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 IT is necessary to go somewhat back in the course of 
 this narrative, and account to the reader for the disappear 
 ance of Violante. 
 
 It may be remembered that Peschiera, scared by the sud- 
 den approach of Lord L'Estrange, had little time for far- 
 ther words to the young Italian than those which expressed 
 his intention to renew the conference, and press for her de- 
 cision. But the next day, when he re-entered the garden 
 secretly and stealthily, as before, Violante did not appear. 
 And after watching round the precincts till dusk, the Count 
 retreated, with an indignant conviction that his arts had 
 failed to enlist on his side either the heart or the imagina- 
 
 * O Muse, who dost temper the sweet sound of the golden shell of the tortoise, and 
 iMiildst give, were it needed, to silent fishes the song of the swan !
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 893 
 
 tion of his intended victim. He began now to revolve, and 
 to discuss with Levy, the possibility of one of those bold 
 and violent measures, which were favored by his reckless 
 daring and desperate condition. But Levy treated with 
 such just ridicule any suggestion to abstract Violante by 
 force from Lord Lansmere's house so scouted the notions 
 of nocturnal assault, with the devices of scaling windows 
 and rope ladders, that the Count reluctantly abandoned 
 that romance of villany so unsuited to our sober capital, 
 and which would no doubt have terminated in his capture 
 by the police, with the prospect of committal to the House 
 of Correction. 
 
 Levy himself found his invention at fault, and Randal 
 Leslie was called into consultation. The usurer had con- 
 trived that Randal's schemes of fortune and advancement 
 were so based upon Levy's aid and connivance, that the 
 young man, with all his desire rather to make instruments 
 of other men, than to be himself their instrument, found his 
 superior intellect as completely a slave to Levy's more ex- 
 perienced craft, as ever subtle Genius of air was subject to 
 the vulgar Sorcerer of earth. 
 
 His acquisition of the ancestral acres, his anticipated 
 seat in parliament,- his chance of ousting Frank from the 
 heritage of Hazeldean, were all as strings that pulled him 
 to and fro, like the puppet in the sleek filbert-nailed fingers 
 of the smiling showman, who could exhibit him to the ad- 
 miration of a crowd, or cast him away into dust and lumber. 
 
 Randal gnawed his lip in the sullen wrath of a man who 
 bides his hour of future emancipation, and lent his brain to 
 the hire of the present servitude, in mechanical acquies- 
 cence. The inherent superiority of the profound young 
 schemer became instantly apparent over the courage of 
 Peschiera, and the practised wit of the Baron. 
 
 "Your sister," said Randal to the former, "must be the 
 active agent in the first and most difficult part of your enter- 
 prise. Violante cannot be taken by force from Lord Lans- 
 mere's she must be induced to leave it with her own con- 
 sent. A female is needed here. Woman c*an best decoy 
 woman." 
 
 "Admirably said," quoth the Count ; "but Beatrice has 
 grown restive, and though her dowry, and therefore her 
 very marriage with that excellent young Hazeldean, depend 
 on my own alliance with my fair kinswoman, she has grown 
 so indifferent to my success, that I dare not reckon on her
 
 894 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 aid. Between you and me, though she was once very eager 
 to be married, she now seems to shrink from the notion ; 
 and I have no other hold over her." 
 
 " Has she not seen some one, and lately, whom she pre- 
 fers to poor Frank ? " 
 
 " I suspect that she has ; but I know not whom, unless it 
 be that detested L'Estrange." 
 
 " Ah well, well. Interfere with her no farther yourself, 
 but have all in readiness to quit England, as you had before 
 proposed, as soon as Violante be in your power." 
 
 " All is in readiness," said the Count. " Levy has agreed 
 to purchase a famous sailing-vessel of one of his clients. I 
 have engaged a score or so of determined outcasts, accus- 
 tomed to the sea Genoese, Corsicans, Sardinians ex-Car- 
 bonari of the best sort, no silly patriots, but liberal cosmo- 
 politans, who have iron at the disposal of any man's gold. 
 I have a priest to perform the nuptial service, and deaf to 
 any fair lady's 'No.' Once at sea, and wherever I land, 
 Violante will lean on my arm as Countess di Peschiera." 
 
 " But Violante," said Randal, doggedly, determined not to 
 yield to the disgust with which the Count's audacious cyni- 
 cism filled even him " but Violante cannot be removed in 
 broad daylight at once to such a vessel, nor from a quarter 
 so populous as that in which your sister resides." 
 
 " I have thought of that too," said the Count ; " my 
 emissaries have found me a house close by the river, and 
 safe for our purpose as the dungeons of Venice." 
 
 " I wish not to know all this," answered Randal, quickly ; 
 "you will instruct Madame di Negra where to take Violante 
 my task limits itself to the fair inventions that belong to 
 intellect ; what belongs to force is not in my province. I 
 will go at once to your sister, whom I think I can influence 
 more effectually than you can ; though later I may give 
 you a hint to guard against the chance of her remorse. 
 Meanwhile as, the moment Violante disappears, suspicion 
 would fall upon you, show yourself constantly in public 
 surrounded by your friends. Be able to account for every 
 hour of your time " 
 
 " An alibi? " interrupted the ci-devant solicitor. 
 
 "Exactly so, Baron. Complete the purchase of the 
 vessel, and let the Count man it as he proposes. I will 
 communicate with you both as soon as I can put you into 
 action. To-day I shall have much to do ; it will be done." 
 
 As Randal left the room, Levy followed him.
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 895 
 
 "What you propose to do will be well done, no doubt,' 
 quoth the usurer, linking his arm in Randal's ; " but take 
 care that you don't get yourself into a scrape, so as to 
 damage your character. I have great hopes of you in public 
 life ; and in public- life character is necessary that is, so 
 far as honor is concerned." 
 
 " I damage my character ! and for a Count Peschiera ! " 
 said Randal, opening his eyes. " I ! What do you take me 
 for ? " 
 
 The Baron let go his hold. 
 
 " This boy ought to rise very high," said he to himself, 
 as he turned back to the Count. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 RANDAL'S acute faculty of comprehension had long since 
 surmised the truth that Beatrice's views and temper of mind 
 had been strangely and suddenly altered by some such 
 revolution as passion only can effect ; that pique or disap- 
 pointment had mingled with the motive which had induced 
 her to accept the hand of his rash young kinsman ; and 
 that, instead of the resigned indifference with which she 
 might at one time have contemplated any marriage that 
 could free her from a position that perpetually galled her 
 pride, it was now with a repugnance, visible to Randal's 
 keen eye, that the shrank from the performance of that 
 pledge which Frank had so dearly bought. The temptations 
 which the Count could hold out to her to become his 
 accomplice in designs of which the fraud and perfidy would 
 revolt her better nature, had ceased to be of avail. A dowry 
 had grown valueless since it would but hasten the nuptials 
 from which she recoiled. Randal felt that he could not 
 secure her aid, except by working on a passion so turbulent 
 as to confound her judgment. Such a passion he recognized 
 in jealousy. He had once doubted if Harley were the object 
 of her love ; yet, after all, was it not probable ? He knew, 
 at least, of no one else to suspect. If so, he had but to 
 whisper, "Violante is your rival. Violante removed, your 
 beauty may find its natural effect ; if not, you are an Italian, 
 and you will be at least avenged." He saw still more reason 
 to suppose that Lord L'Estrange was indeed the one by
 
 8 9 6 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 whom he could rule Beatrice, since, the last time he had 
 seen her, she had questioned him with much earnestness as 
 to the family of Lord Lansmere, especially as to the female 
 part of it. Randal had then judged it prudent to avoid 
 speaking of Violante, and feigned ignorance ; but promised 
 to ascertain all particulars by the time he next saw the 
 Marchesa. It was the warmth with which she had thanked 
 him, that had set his busy mind at work to conjecture the 
 cause of her curiosity so earnestly aroused, and to ascribe 
 that cause to jealousy. If Harley loved Violante (as Randal 
 himself had before supposed), the little of passion that the 
 young man admitted to himself was enlisted in aid of 
 Peschiera's schemes. For though Randal did not love 
 Violante, he cordially disliked L'Estrange, and would have 
 gone as far to render that dislike vindictive as a cold reasoner, 
 intent upon worldly fortunes, will ever suffer mere hate to 
 influence him. 
 
 "At the worst," thought Randal, "if it be not Harley, 
 touch the chord of jealousy, and its vibration will direct me 
 right." 
 
 Thus soliloquizing, he arrived at Madame di Negra's. 
 
 Now, in reality, the Marchesa's inquiries as to Lord 
 Lansmere's family had their source in the misguided, rest- 
 less, despairing interest with which she still clung to the 
 image of the young poet, whom Randal had no reason to 
 suspect. That interest had become yet more keen from the 
 impatient misery she had felt ever since she had plighted 
 herself to another. A wild hope that she might yet escape 
 a vague regretful thought that she had been too hasty in 
 dismissing Leonard from her presence that she ought 
 rather to have courted his friendship, and contended against 
 her unknown rival, at times drew her wayward mind wholly 
 from the future to which she had consigned herself. And, 
 to do her justice, though her sense of duty was so defective, 
 and the principles which should have guided her conduct 
 were so lost to her sight, still her feelings toward the gen- 
 erous Hazeldean were not so hard and blunted but what 
 her own ingratitude added to her torment ; and it seemed 
 as if the sole atonement she could make to him was to find 
 an excuse to withdraw her promise, and save him from 
 herself. She had caused Leonard's steps to be watched ; 
 she had found that he visited at Lord Lansmere's ; that he 
 had gone there often, and stayed there long. She had 
 learned in the neighborhood that Lady Lansmere had one
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 897 
 
 or two young female guests staying with her. Surely this 
 was the attraction here was the rival ! 
 
 Randal found Beatrice in a state of mind that favored 
 his purpose. And first turning his conversation on Harley, 
 and noting that her countenance did not change, by little 
 and little he drew forth her secret. 
 
 Then said Randal, gravely, " If one whom you honor 
 with a tender thought visits at Lord Lansmere's house, you 
 have, indeed, cause to fear for yourself, to hope for your 
 brother's success in the object which has brought him to 
 England for a girl of surpassing beauty is a guest in Lord 
 Lansmere's house ; and I will now tell you that that girl is 
 she whom Count Peschiera would make his bride." 
 
 As Randal thus spoke, and saw how his listener's brow 
 darkened and her eye flashed, he felt that his accomplice 
 was secured. Violante ! Had not Leonard spoken of 
 Violante, and with such praise ? Had not his boyhood 
 been passed under her eyes ? Who but Violante could be 
 the rival ? Beatrice's abrupt exclamations, after a mo- 
 ment's pause, revealed to Randal the advantage he had 
 gained. And partly by rousing her jealousy into revenge 
 partly by flattering her love with assurances that, if 
 Violante were fairly removed from England, were the 
 wife of Count Peschiera it would be' impossible that 
 Leonard could remain insensible to her own attractions 
 that he, Randal, would undertake to free her honourably 
 from her engagement to Frank Hazeldean, and obtain from 
 her brother the acquittal of the debt which had first fet- 
 tered her hand to that confiding suitor he did not quit 
 the Marchesa, until she had not only promised to do all 
 that Randal might suggest, but impetuously urged him to 
 mature his plans, and hasten the hour to accomplish them. 
 Randal then walked some minutes musing and slow along 
 the streets, revolving the next meshes in his elaborate and 
 most subtle web. And here his craft luminously devised 
 its masterpiece. 
 
 It was necessary, during any interval that might elapse 
 between Violante's disappearance and her departure from 
 England, in order to divert suspicion from Peschiera (who 
 might otherwise be detained), that some cause for her vol- 
 untary absence from Lord Lansmere's should be at least 
 assignable ; it was still more necessary that Randal himself 
 should stand wholly clear from any surmise that he could 
 have connived at the Count's designs, even should their act-
 
 898 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 ual perpetrator be discovered or conjectured. To effect 
 these objects, Randal hastened to Norwood, and obtained an 
 interview with Riccabocca. In seeming agitation and alarm, 
 he informed the exile that he had reason to know that Pes- 
 chiera had succeeded in obtaining a secret interview with 
 Violante, and he feared had made a certain favorable im- 
 pression on her mind ; and speaking as if with the jealousy 
 of a lover, he entreated Riccabocca to authorize Randal's 
 direct proposals to Violante, and to require her consent to 
 their immediate nuptials. 
 
 The poor Italian was confounded with the intelligence 
 conveyed to him ; and his almost superstitious fears of his 
 brilliant enemy, conjoined with his opinion of the suscept- 
 ibility to outward attractions common to all the female sex, 
 made him not only implicitly credit, but even exaggerate, 
 the dangers that Randal intimated. The idea of his daugh- 
 ter's marriage with Randal, toward which he had lately 
 cooled, he now gratefully welcomed. 
 
 But his first natural suggestion was to go, or send, for 
 Violante, and bring her to his own house. This, however, 
 Randal artfully opposed. 
 
 "Alas! I know," said he, "that Peschiera has dis- 
 covered your retreat ; and surely she would be far less safe 
 here than where she is now ! " 
 
 " But, diavolo ! you say the man has seen her where she 
 is now, in spite of all Lady Lansmere's promises and Har- 
 ley's precautions." 
 
 " True. Of this, Peschiera boasted to me. He effected 
 it not, of course, openly, but in some disguise. I am suffi- 
 ciently, however, in his confidence (any man may be that 
 with so audacious a braggart) to deter him from renewing 
 his attempt for some days. Meanwhile, I or yourself will 
 have discovered some surer home than this, to which you 
 can remove, and then will be the proper time to take back 
 your daughter. And for the present, if you will send by 
 me a letter to enjoin her to receive me as her future bride- 
 groom, it will necessarily divert all thought at once from 
 the Count ; I shall be able to detect, by the manner in 
 which she receives me, how far the Count has over-stated 
 the effect he pretends to have produced. You can give me 
 also. a letter to Lady Lansmere, to prevent your daughter 
 coming hither. O, sir, do not reason with me. Have in- 
 dulgence for my lover's fears. Believe that I advise for 
 the best. Have I not the keenest interest to do so ?"
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 899 
 
 Like many a man who is wise enough with pen and 
 paper before him, and plenty of time wherewith to get up 
 his wisdom; Riccabocca was flurried, nervous, and confused, 
 when that wisdom was called upon for any ready exertion. 
 From the tree of knowledge he had taken grafts enough to 
 serve for a forest ; but the whole forest could not spare him 
 a handy walking-stick. The great folio of the dead Machia- 
 velli lay useless before him the living Machiavelli of 
 daily life stood all puissant by his side. The Sage was as 
 supple to the Schemer as the Clairvoyant is to the Mesmer- 
 ist. And the lean, slight fingers of Randal actually dic- 
 tated almost the very words that Riccabocca wrote to his 
 child and her hostess. 
 
 The philosopher would have liked to consult his wife ; 
 but he was ashamed to confess that weakness. Suddenly 
 he remembered Harley, and said, as Randal took up the 
 letters which Riccabocca had indited 
 
 " There that will give us time ; and I will send to Lord 
 L'Estrange and talk to him." 
 
 " My noble friend," replied Randal, mournfully, " may I 
 entreat you not to see Lord L'Estrange until at least I have 
 pleaded my cause to your daughter until, indeed, she is 
 no longer under his father's roof ? " 
 
 "And why ?" 
 
 " Because I presume that you are sincere when you 
 deign to receive me as a son-in-law, and because I am sure 
 that Lord L'Estrange would hear with distaste of your dis- 
 position in my favor. Am I not right ? " 
 
 Riccabocca was silent. 
 
 " And though his arguments would fail with a man of 
 your honor and discernment, they might have more effect 
 on the young mind of your child. Think, I beseech you, 
 the more she is set against me, the more accessible she may 
 be to the arts of Peschiera. Speak not, therefore, I im- 
 plore you, to Lord L'Estrange till Violante has accepted my 
 hand, or at least until she is again under your charge ; 
 otherwise take back your letter it would be of no avail." 
 
 " Perhaps you are right. Certainly Lord L'Estrange is 
 prejudiced against you ; or rather, he thinks too much of 
 what I have been too little of what I am." 
 
 "Who can see you, and not do so ? I pardon him." 
 After kissing the hand which the exile modestly sought to 
 withdraw from that act of homage, Randal pocketed the
 
 900 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 letters ; and, as if struggling with emotion, rushed from the 
 house. 
 
 Now, O curious reader, if thou wilt needfully observe to 
 what uses Randal Leslie put those letters what speedy and 
 direct results he drew forth from devices which would seem 
 to an honest, simple understanding the most roundabout 
 wire-drawn wastes of invention I almost fear that in thine 
 admiration for his cleverness, thou mayest half forget thy 
 contempt for his knavery. 
 
 But when the head is very full, it does not do to have 
 the heart very empty ; there is such a thing as being top- 
 heavy ! 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 HELEN and Violante had been conversing together, and 
 Helen had obeyed her guardian's injunction, and spoken, 
 though briefly, of her positive engagement to Harley. 
 However much Violante had been prepared for the confi- 
 dence, however clearly she had divined that engagement, 
 however before persuaded that the dream of her childhood 
 was fled for ever, still the positive truth, coming from 
 Helen's own lips, was attended with that anguish which 
 proves how impossible it is to prepare the human heart for 
 the final verdict which slays its future. She did not, how- 
 ever, betray her emotion to Helen's artless eyes ; sorrow, 
 deep-seated, is seldom self-betrayed. But, after a little while, 
 she crept away ; and, forgetful of Peschiera, of all things 
 that could threaten danger (what danger could harm her 
 more !), she glided from the house, and went her desolate 
 way under the leafless wintry trees. Ever and anon she 
 paused ever and anon she murmured the same words : " If 
 she loved him, I could be consoled; but she does not ! or 
 how could she have spoken to me so calmly ! how could her 
 very looks have been so sad ! Heartless ! heartless ! " 
 
 Then there came on her a vehement resentment against 
 poor Helen, that almost took the character of scorn or hate 
 its excess startled herself. "Am I grown so mean ?" she 
 said ; and tears that humbled her, rushed to her eyes. 
 " Can so short a time alter one thus ? Impossible ! " 
 
 Randal Leslie rang at the front gate, inquired for Vio- 
 lante, and, catching sight of her form as he walked toward
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 901 
 
 the house, advanced bodly and openly. His voice startled 
 her as she leant against one of the dreary trees, still mutter- 
 ing to herself forlorn. " I have a letter to you from your 
 father, signorina," said Randal. "But, before I give it to 
 your hands, some explanation is necessary Condescend, 
 then, to hear me." Violante shook her head impatiently, and 
 stretched forth her hand for the letter. Randal observed 
 her countenance with his keen, cold, searching eye ; but 
 he still withheld the letter, and continued, after a pause 
 
 " I know that you were born to princely fortunes ; and the 
 excuse for my addressing you now is, that your birth-right 
 is lost to you, at least unless you can consent to a union 
 with the man who has despoiled you of your heritage a 
 union which your father would deem dishonor to yourself 
 and him. Signorina, I might have presumed to love you ; 
 but I should not have named that love, had your father not 
 encouraged me by his assent to my suit." 
 
 Violante turned to the speaker, her face eloquent with 
 haughty surprise. Randal met the gaze unmoved. He 
 continued, without warmth, and in the tone of one who 
 reasons calmly, rather than of one who feels acutely 
 
 " The man of whom I spoke is in pursuit of you. I 
 have cause to believe that this person has already intruded 
 himself upon you. Ah ! your countenance owns it ; you 
 have seen Peschiera? This house is, then, less safe than 
 your father deemed it. No house is safe for you but a hus- 
 band's. I offer to you my name it is a gentleman's ; my 
 fortune, which is small ; the participation in my hopes of 
 the future, which are large. I place now your father's let- 
 ter in your hand, and await your answer." Randal bowed 
 slightly, gave the letter to Violante, and retired a few paces. 
 
 It was not his object to conciliate Violante's affection, 
 but rather to excite her repugnance, or at least her terror 
 we must wait to discover why ; so he stood apart, seemingly 
 in a kind of self-confident indifference, while the girl read 
 the following letter : 
 
 " My child, receive with favor Mr. Leslie. He has my 
 consent to adress you as a suitor. Circumstances, of which 
 it is needless now to inform you, render it essential to my 
 very peace and happiness that your marriage should be im- 
 mediate. In a word, I have given my promise to Mr. Les- 
 lie, and I confidently leave it to the daughter of my house 
 to redeem the pledge of her anxious and tender father."
 
 902 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 The letter dropped from Violante's hand. Randal ap- 
 proached and restored it to her. Their eyes met. Violante 
 recoiled. 
 
 " I cannot marry you," said she, passionately. 
 
 " Indeed ! " answered Randal, dryly. " Is it because you 
 cannot love me ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " I did not expect that you would as yet, and I still per- 
 sist in my suit. I have promised to your father that I 
 would not recede before your first unconsidered refusal." 
 
 " I will go to my father at once." 
 
 " Does he request you to do so in his letter ? Look 
 again. Pardon me, but he foresaw your impetuosity ; and 
 I have another note for Lady Lansmere, in which he begs 
 her ladyship not to sanction your return to him (should you 
 so wish) until he come or send for you himself. He will do 
 so whenever your word has redeemed his own." 
 
 "And do you dare to talk to me thus, and yet pretend 
 to love me ? " 
 
 Randal smiled ironically. 
 
 " I pretend but to wed you. Love is a subject on which 
 I might have spoken formerly, or may speak hereafter. I 
 give you some little time to consider. When I next call, 
 let me hope that we may fix the day for our wedding." 
 
 " Never ! " 
 
 " You will be, then, the first daughter of your house 
 who disobeyed a father ; and you will have this additional 
 crime, that you disobeyed him in his sorrow, his exile, and 
 his fall." 
 
 Violante wrung her hands. 
 
 " Is there no choice no escape ? " 
 
 " I see none for either. Listen to me. I love you, it is 
 true ; but it is not for my happiness to marry one who dis- 
 likes me, nor for my ambition to connect myself with one 
 whose property is greater than my own. I marry but to 
 keep my plighted faith with your father, and to save you 
 from a villain you would hate more than myself, and from 
 whom no walls are a barrier, no laws a defence. One per- 
 son, indeed, might perhaps have preserved you from the 
 misery you seem to anticipate with me ; that person might 
 defeat the plans of your father's foe effect, it might be, 
 terms which could revoke his banishment, and restore his 
 honors ; that person is " 
 
 " Lord L'Estrange ? "
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 903 
 
 " Lord L'Estrange ! " repeated Randal, sharply, and 
 watching her pale parted lips and her changing color ; 
 " Lord L'Estrange ! What could he do ? Why did you 
 name him ?" 
 
 Violante turned aside. " He saved my father once," 
 said she, feelingly. 
 
 " And has interfered, and trifled, and promised, Heaven 
 knows what, ever since yet to what end ? Pooh ! The 
 person I speak of your father would not consent to see 
 would not believe if he saw her ; yet she is generous, noble 
 could sympathize with you both. She is the sister of 
 your father's enemy the Marchesa di Negra. I am con- 
 vinced that she has great influence with her brother that 
 she has known enough of his secrets to awe him into re- 
 nouncing all designs on yourself ; but it is idle now to 
 speak of her." 
 
 " No, no," exclaimed Violante. " Tell me where she 
 lives I will see her." 
 
 " Pardon me, I cannot obey you ; and, indeed, her own 
 pride is now aroused by your father's unfortunate preju- 
 dices against her. It is too late to count upon her aid. 
 You turn from me my presence is unwelcome. I rid you 
 of it now. But welcome or unwelcome, later, you must en- 
 dure it and for life." 
 
 Randal again bowed with formal ceremony, walked 
 toward the house, and asked for Lady Lansmere. The 
 countess was at home. Randal delivered Riccabocca's note, 
 which was very short, implying that he feared Peschiera 
 had discovered his retreat and requesting Lady Lansme're 
 to retain Violante, whatever her own desire, till her lady- 
 ship heard from him again. 
 
 The Countess read, and her lip curled in disdain. 
 " Strange ! " said she, half to herself. 
 
 " Strange ! " said Randal, " that a man like your corre- 
 spondent should fear one like the Count di Peschiera. Is 
 that it ? " 
 
 "Sir," said the Countess, a little surprised "strange 
 that any man should fear another in a country like ours ! " 
 
 " I don't know," said Randal, with his low soft laugh ; 
 " I fear many men, and I know many who ought to fear 
 me ; yet at every turn of the street one meets a police- 
 man ! " 
 
 "Yes," said Lady Lansmere. " But to suppose that this 
 profligate foreigner could carry away a girl like Violante
 
 904 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 against her will a man she has never seen, and whom she 
 must have been taught to hate ! " 
 
 " Be on your guard, nevertheless, I pray you, madam ; 
 ' where there's a will there's a way.' " 
 
 Randal took his leave, and returned to Madame di Ne- 
 gra's. He stayed with her an hour, revisited the Count, 
 and then strolled to Limner's. 
 
 " Randal," said the Squire, who looked pale and worn, 
 but who scorned to confess the weakness with which he 
 still grieved and yearned for his rebellious son "Randal, 
 you have nothing now to do in London ; can you come and 
 stay with me, and take to farming ? I remember that you 
 showed a great deal of sound knowledge about thin sowing." 
 
 " My dear sir, I will come to you as soon as the general 
 election is over." 
 
 "What the deuce have you got to do with the general 
 election ? " 
 
 " Mr. Egerton has some wish that I should enter Par- 
 liament ; indeed, negotiations for that purpose are now on 
 foot." 
 
 The Squire shook his head. " I don't like my half- 
 brother's politics." 
 
 " I shall be quite independent of them," cried Randal, 
 loftily ; " that independence is the condition for which I 
 stipulate." 
 
 " Glad to hear it ; and if you do come into Parliament, 
 I hope you'll not turn your back on the land ? " 
 
 " Turn my back on the land ! " cried Randal, with de- 
 vout horror. " Oh, sir ! I am not so unnatural ! " 
 
 " That's the right way to put it," quoth the credulous 
 Squire ; " it is unnatural ! It is turning one's back on one's 
 own mother. The land is a mother " 
 
 "To those who live by her, certainly a mother," said 
 Randal, gravely. "And though, indeed, my father starves 
 by her rather than lives, and Rood Hall is not like Hazel- 
 dean, still I 
 
 " Hold your tongue," interrupted the Squire ; " I want 
 to talk to you. Your grandmother was a Hazeldean." 
 
 " Her picture is in the drawing-room at Rood. People 
 think me very like her." 
 
 " Indeed !" said the Squire. " The Hazeldeans are gen- 
 erally inclined to be stout and rosy, which you are certainly 
 not. But no fault of yours. We are all as Heaven made 
 us ! However, to the point. I am going to alter my will-
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 905 
 
 [said with a choking gulp]. This is the rough draft for 
 the lawyers to work upon." 
 
 " Pray pray, sir, do not speak to me on such a subject. 
 I cannot bear to contemplate even the possibility of 
 of " 
 
 "My death ? Ha ! ha ! Nonsense. My own son calcu- 
 lated on the date of it by the insurance tables. Ha, ha, ha ! 
 A very fashionable son eh ! Ha, ha ! " 
 
 " Poor Frank ! do not let him suffer for a momentary 
 forgetfulness of right feeling. When he comes to be mar- 
 ried to that foreign lady, and be a father himself, he- " 
 
 " Father himself ! " burst forth the Squire. " Father to 
 a swarm of sallow-faced Popish tadpoles ! No foreign frogs 
 shall hop about my grave in Hazeldean churchyard. No, 
 no. But you need not look so reproachful I'm not going 
 to disinherit Frank." 
 
 "Of course not," said Randal, with a bitter curve in the 
 lip that rebelled against the joyous smile which he sought 
 to impose on it. 
 
 " No I shall leave him the life-interest in the greater 
 part of the property ; but if he marry a foreigner, her 
 children will not succeed you will stand after him in that 
 case. But (now don't interrupt me) but Frank looks as 
 if he would live longer than you^so small thanks to me for 
 my good intentions, you may say. I mean to do more for 
 you than a mere barren place in the entail. What do you 
 say to marrying ? " 
 
 "Just as you please," said Randal, meekly. 
 
 " Good. There's Miss Sticktorights disengaged great 
 heiress. Her lands run on to Rood. At one time I thought 
 of her for that graceless puppy of mine. But I can manage 
 more easily to make up the match for you. There's a mort- 
 gage on the property ; old Sticktorights would be very glad 
 to pay it off. I'll pay it out of the Hazeldean estate, and 
 give up the right of way into the bargain. You understand ? 
 So come down as soon as you can, and court the young 
 lady yourself." 
 
 Randal expressed his thanks with much grateful elo- 
 quence ; and he then delicately insinuated, that if the Squire 
 ever did mean to bestow upon him any pecuniary favors 
 (always without injury to Frank), it would gratify him more 
 to win back some portions of the old estate of Rood, than 
 to have all the acres of the Sticktorights, however free from 
 any other incumbrance than the amiable heiress.
 
 906 My NOVEL; OR, 
 
 The Squire listened to Randal with benignant attention. 
 This wish the country gentleman could well understand and 
 sympathize with. He promised to inquire into the matter, 
 and to see what could be done with old Thornhill. 
 
 Randal here let out that Mr. Thornhill was about to 
 dispose of a large slice of the ancient Leslie estate through 
 Levy, and that he, Randal, could thus get it at a more 
 moderate price than would be natural if Mr. Thornhill 
 knew that his neighbor the Squire would bid for the pur- 
 chase. 
 
 " Better sav nothing about it either to Levy or Thorn- 
 hill." 
 
 " Right," said the Squire. " No proprietor likes to sell 
 to another proprietor, in the same shire, as largely acred as 
 himself ; it spoils the balance of power. See to the busi- 
 ness yourself ; and if I can help you with the purchase (af- 
 ter that boy is married I can attend to nothing before), why, 
 I will." 
 
 Randal now went to Egerton's. The statesman was in 
 his library, settling the accounts of his house-steward, and 
 giving brief orders for the reduction of his establishment to 
 that of an ordinary private gentleman. 
 
 " I may go abroad if I lose my election," said Egerton, 
 condescending to assign to his servant a reason for his eco- 
 nomy ; and if I do not lose it, still, now I am out of office, I 
 shall live much in private." 
 
 "Do I disturb you, sir ?" said Randal, entering. 
 
 " No I have just done." 
 
 The house-steward withdrew, much surprised and dis- 
 gusted, and meditating the resignation of his own office 
 in order, not like Egerton, to save, but to spend. The 
 house-steward had private dealings with Baron Levy, and 
 was in fact the veritable X. Y. of the Times, for whom Dick 
 Avenel had been mistaken. He invested his wages and 
 perquisites in the discount of bills ; and it was part of his 
 own money that had (though unknown to himself) swelled 
 the last five thousand pounds which Egerton had borrowed 
 from Levy. 
 
 " I have settled with our committee ; and, with Lord 
 Lansmere's consent," said Egerton, briefly, " you will stand 
 for the borough, as we proposed, in conjunction with my- 
 self. And should any accident happen to me that is, 
 should I vacate this seat from any cause, you may succeed 
 to it very shortly, perhaps. Ingratiate yourself with the
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 907 
 
 electors, and speak at the public-houses for both of us. I 
 shall stand on my dignity, and leave the work of the election 
 to you. No thanks you know how I hate thanks. Good 
 night." 
 
 "I never stood so near to fortune and to power," said 
 Randal, as he slowly undressed. " And I owe it but to know- 
 ledge knowledge of men life of all that books can teach 
 us." 
 
 So his slight thin fingers dropped the extinguisher on 
 the candle, and the prosperous schemer laid himself down 
 to rest in the dark. Shutters closed, curtains down never 
 was rest more quiet, never was room more dark ! 
 
 That evening, Harley had dined at his father's. He spoke 
 much to Helen scarcely at all to Violante. But it so hap- 
 pened that when later, and a little while before he took his 
 leave, Helen, at his request, was playing a favorite air of 
 his ; Lady Lansmere, who had been seated between him 
 and Violante, left the room, and Violante turned quickly 
 toward Harley. 
 
 " Do you know the Marchesa di Negra ? " she asked, in 
 a hurried voice. 
 
 " A little. Why do you ask ? " 
 
 " That is my secret," answered Violante, trying to smile 
 with her old frank, child-like archness. " But, tell me, do 
 you think better of her than of her brother ? " 
 
 " Certainly. I believe her heart to be good, and that 
 she is not without generous qualities." 
 
 " Can you not induce my father to see her ? Would you 
 not counsel him to do so ?" 
 
 "Any wish of yours is a law to me," answered Harley, 
 gallantly. " You wish your father to see her ? I will try 
 and persuade him to do so. 'Now, in return, confide to me 
 your secret. What is your object ? " 
 
 ' ; Leave to return to my Italy. I care not for honors 
 for rank ; and even my father has ceased to regret their 
 loss. But the land, the native land Oh, to see it once 
 more ! Oh, to die there ! " 
 
 " Die ! You children have so lately left heaven, that yc 
 talk as if ye could return there, without passing through 
 the gates of sorrow, infirmity, and age ! But I thought 
 you were content with England. Why so eager to leave it ? 
 Violante, you are unkind to us to Helen, who already 
 loves you so well." 
 
 As Harley spoke, Helen rose from the piano, and ap-
 
 908 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 preaching Violante, placed her hand caressingly on the 
 Italian's shoulder. Violante shivered, and shrunk away. 
 The eyes both of Harley and Helen followed her. Harley's 
 eyes were very grave and thoughtful. 
 
 " Is she not changed your friend ? " said he, looking 
 down. 
 
 "Yes, lately much changed. I fear there is something 
 on her mind I know not what." 
 
 " Ah ! " muttered Harley, " it may be so ; but at your 
 age and hers, nothing rests on the mind long. Observe, I 
 say the mind the heart is more tenacious." 
 
 Helen sighed softly, but deeply. 
 
 "And therefore," continued Harley, half to himself, 
 "we can detect when something is on the mind some care, 
 some fear, some trouble. But when the heart closes over 
 its own more passionate sorrow, who can discover ? who 
 conjecture ? Yet you at least, my pure, candid Helen you 
 might subject mind and heart alike to the fabled window of 
 glass." 
 
 " Oh, no ! " cried Helen, involuntarily. 
 
 " Oh, yes ! Do not let me think that you have one 
 secret I may not know, or one sorrow I may not share. 
 For, in our relationship, that would be deceit." 
 
 He pressed her hand with more than usual tenderness as 
 he spoke, and shortly afterward left the house. 
 
 And all that night Helen felt like a guilty thing more 
 wretched even than Violante. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 EARLY the next morning, while Violante was still in her 
 room, a letter addressed to her came by the post. The 
 direction was in a strange hand. She opened it, and read, 
 in Italian, what is thus translated : 
 
 "I would gladly see you, but I cannot call openly at the 
 house in which you live. Perhaps I may have it in my 
 power to arrange family dissensions to repair any wrongs 
 your father may have sustained. Perhaps I may be enabled 
 to render yourself an essential service. But for all this, it 
 is necessary that we should meet and confer frankly.
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 909 
 
 Meanwhile time presses delay is forbidden. Will you 
 meet me, an hour after noon, in the lane, just outside the 
 private gate of your gardens ? I shall be alone, and you 
 cannot fear to meet one of your own sex and a kinswoman. 
 Ah, I so desire to see you ! Come, I beseech you. 
 
 " BEATRICE." 
 
 Violante read, and her decision was taken. She was 
 naturally fearless, and there was little that she would not 
 have braved for the chance of serving her father. And 
 now all peril seemed slight in comparison with that which 
 awaited her in Randal's suit, backed by her father's ap- 
 proval. Randal had said that Madame di Negra alone 
 could aid her in escape from himself. Harley had said 
 that Madame di Negra had generous qualities ; and who 
 but Madame di Negra would write herself a kinswoman, 
 and sign herself Beatrice ? 
 
 A little before the appointed hour, she stole unobserved 
 through the trees, opened the little gate, and found herself 
 in the quiet solitary lane. In a few minutes, a female figure 
 came up, with a quick, light step ; and throwing aside her 
 veil, said, with a sort of wild, suppressed energy, " It is 
 you ! I was truly told. Beautiful ! beautiful ! And, oh ! 
 what youth and what bloom ! " 
 
 The voice dropped mournfully ; and Violante, surprised 
 by the tone, and blushing under the praise, remained a 
 moment silent ; then she said, with some hesitation 
 
 "You are, I presume, the Marchesa di Negra? And I 
 have heard of you enough to induce me to trust you." 
 
 ' Of me ! From whom ? " asked Beatrice, almost fiercely. 
 ' From Mr. Leslie, and and " 
 
 ' Go on why falter ? " 
 ' From Lord L'Estrange." 
 ' From no one else ? " 
 
 ' Not that I remember." 
 
 Beatrice sighed heavily, and let fall her veil. Some 
 foot-passengers now came up the lane ; and seeing two 
 ladies of mien so remarkable, turned round, and gazed 
 curiously. 
 
 "We cannot talk here," said Beatrice, impatiently; 
 "and I have so much to say so much to know. Trust me 
 yet more ; it is for yourself I speak. My carriage waits 
 yonder. Come home with me I will not detain you an 
 hour ; and I will bring you back."
 
 9 io MY NOVEL; OK, 
 
 This proposition startled Violantc. She retreated to- 
 ward the gate with a gesture of dissent. Beatrice laid 
 her hand on the girl's arm, and again lifting her veil, gazed 
 at her with a look, half of scorn, half of admiration. 
 
 "I, too, would once have recoiled from one step beyond 
 the formal line by which the world divides liberty from 
 woman. Now see how bold I am. Child, child, do not trifle 
 with your destiny. You may never again have the same 
 occasion offered to you. It is not only to meet you that I 
 am here ; I must know something of you something of 
 your heart. Why shrink ? is not the heart pure ? " 
 
 Violante made no answer ; but her smile, so sweet and 
 so lofty, humbled the questioner it rebuked. 
 
 " I may restore to Italy your father," said Beatrice, 
 with an altered voice. " Come ! " 
 
 Violante approached, but still hesitatingly. 
 
 " Not by union with your brother ?" 
 
 " You dread that so much then ? " 
 
 " Dread it ? No ! Why should I dread what is in my 
 power to reject. But if you can really restore my father, 
 and by nobler means, you may save me for " 
 
 Violante stopped abruptly ; the Marchesa's eyes spark- 
 led. 
 
 " Save you for ah ! I can guess what you leave un- 
 said. But come, come more strangers see ; you shall 
 tell me all at my own house. And if you can make one 
 sacrifice, why, I will save you all else. Come, or farewell 
 for ever ! " 
 
 Violante placed her hand in Beatrice's, with a frank 
 confidence that brought the accusing blood into the Mar- 
 chesa's cheek. 
 
 " We are women both," said Violante, " we descend from 
 the same noble house ; we have knelt alike to the same 
 Virgin Mother ; why should I not believe and trust you ? " 
 
 "Why not?" muttered Beatrice, feebly ; and she moved 
 on, with her head bowed on her breast, and all the pride of 
 her step was gone. 
 
 They reached a carriage that stood by the angle of the 
 road. Beatrice spoke a word apart to the driver, who was 
 an Italian, in the pay of the Count ; the man nodded, and 
 opened the carriage door. The ladies entered. Beatrice 
 pulled down the blinds ; the man remounted his box, and 
 drove on rapidly. 
 
 Beatrice, leaning back, groaned aloud. Violante drew
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 9 u 
 
 nearer to her side. " Are you in pain ?" said she, with her 
 tender, melodious voice ; " or can I serve you as you would 
 serve me ? " 
 
 "Child, give me your hand and be silent while I look 
 at you. Was I ever so fair as this ? Never ! And what 
 deeps what deeps roll between her and me ! " 
 
 She said this as of some one absent, and again sank into 
 silence ; but continued still to gaze on Violante, whose eyes, 
 veiled by their long fringes, drooped beneath the gaze. 
 
 Suddenly Beatrice started, exclaiming, " No, it shall not 
 be ! " and placed her hand on the check-string. 
 
 " What shall not be ? " asked Violante, surprised by the 
 cry and the action. Beatrice paused her breast heaved 
 visibly under her dress. 
 
 "Stay, "she said, slowly. "As you say, we are both 
 women of the same noble house ; you would reject the suit 
 of my brother, yet you have seen him ; his the form to 
 please the eye his the arts that allure the fancy. He 
 offers to you rank, wealth, your father's pardon and recall. 
 If I could remove the objections which your father enter- 
 tains prove that the Count has less wronged him than he 
 deems, would you still reject the rank, and the wealth, and 
 the hand of Giulio Franzini ? " 
 
 " Oil yes, yes, were his hand a king's ! " 
 
 " Still, then, as woman to woman botli as you say, 
 akin, and sprung from the same lineage still, then, answer 
 me answer me, for you speak to one who has loved Is it 
 not that you love another? Speak." 
 
 " I do not know. Nay, not love it was a romance ; it 
 is a thing impossible. Do not question I cannot answer." 
 And the broken words were choked by sudden tears. 
 
 Beatrice's face grew hard and pitiless. Again she low- 
 ered her veil, and withdrew her hand from the check- 
 string ; but the coachman had felt the touch, and halted. 
 " Drive on," said Beatrice, " as you were directed." 
 
 Both were now long silent Violante with great diffi- 
 culty recovering from her emotion, Beatrice breathing hard, 
 and her arms folded firmly across her breast. 
 
 Meanwhile the carriage had entered London it passed 
 the quarter in which Madame di Negra's house was situ- 
 ated it rolled fast over a bridge it whirled through a. 
 broad thoroughfare, then through defiles of lanes, with tall 
 blank dreary houses on either side. On it went, and on, 
 till Violante suddenly took alarm. "Do you live so far?"
 
 9 i2 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 she said, drawing up the blind, and gazing in dismay on the 
 strange, ignoble suburd. " I shall be missed already. Oh, 
 let us turn back, I beseech you ! " 
 
 "We are nearly there now. The driver has taken this 
 road in order to avoid those streets in which we might have 
 been seen together perhaps by my brother himself. Lis- 
 ten to me, and talk of of the lover whom you rightly 
 associate with a vain romance. ' Impossible/ yes, it is 
 impossible ! " 
 
 Violante clasped her hands before her eyes, and bowed 
 down her head. "Why are you so cruel ? " said she. " This 
 is not what you promised. How are you to serve my 
 father how restore him to his country ? This is what you 
 promised ! " 
 
 " If you consent to one sacrifice, I will fulfil that pro- 
 mise. We are arrived." 
 
 The carriage stopped before a tall dull house, divided 
 from other houses by a high wall that appeared to enclose 
 a yard, and standing at the end of a narrow lane, which was 
 bounded on the one side by the Thames. In that quarter 
 the river was crowded with gloomy, dark-looking vessels 
 and craft, all lying lifeless under the wintry sky. 
 
 The driver dismounted and rang the bell. Two swarthy 
 Italian faces presented themselves at the threshold. 
 
 Beatrice descended lightly, and gave her hand to Vio- 
 lante. " Now, here we shall be secure," said she ; and here 
 a few minutes may suffice to decide your fate." 
 
 As the door closed on Violante who now waking to 
 suspicion, to alarm, looked fearfully round the dark and 
 dismal hall Beatrice turned : " Let the carriage wait." 
 
 The Italian who received the order bowed and smiled ; 
 but when the two ladies had ascended the stairs, he re- 
 opened the street-door and said to the driver, " Back to the 
 Count, and say 'all is safe.' " 
 
 The carriage drove off. The man who had given this 
 order barred and locked the door, and, taking with him the 
 huge key, plunged into the mystic recesses of the basement 
 and disappeared. The hall, thus left solitary, had the grim 
 aspect of a prison ; the strong door sheeted with iron the 
 rugged stone stairs, lighted by a high window grimed with 
 the dust of years, and jealously barred and the walls them- 
 selves abutting out rudely here and there, as if against 
 violence even from within.
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 913 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 IT was, as we have seen, without taking counsel of the 
 faithful Jemima, that the sage recluse of Norwood had 
 yielded to his own fears, and Randal's subtle suggestions, 
 in the concise and arbitrary letter which he had written to 
 Violante ; but at night, when churchyards give up the 
 dead, and conjugal hearts the secrets hid by day from each 
 other, the wise man informed his wife of the step he had 
 taken. And Jemima then, who held English notions, very 
 different from those which prevail in Italy, as to the right 
 of fathers to dispose of their daughters without reference 
 to inclination or repugnance so sensibly yet so mildly 
 represented to the pupil of Machiavelli that he had not 
 gone exactly the right way to work, if he feared that the 
 handsome Count had made some impression on Violante, 
 and if he wished her to turn with favor to the suitor he 
 recommended that so abrupt a command could only chill 
 the heart, revolt the will, and even give to the audacious 
 Peschiera some romantic attraction which he had not before 
 possessed as effectually to destroy Riccabocca's sleep that 
 night. And the next day he sent Giacomo to Lady Lans- 
 mere's with a very kind letter to Violante and a note to the 
 hostess, praying the latter to bring his daughter to Nor- 
 wood for a few hours, as he much wished to converse with 
 both. It was on Giacomo's arrival at Knightsbridge that 
 Violante's absence was discovered. Lady Lansmere, ever 
 proudly careful of the world and its gossip, kept Giacomo 
 from betraying his excitement to her servants, and stated 
 throughout the decorous household that the young lady 
 had informed her she was going to visit some friends that 
 morning, and had no doubt gone through the garden gate, 
 since it.was found open ; the way was more quiet there than 
 by the high-road, and her friends might have therefore 
 walked to meet her by the lane. Lady Lansmere ob- 
 served that her only surprise was that Violante had gone 
 earlier than she had expected. Having said this with a com- 
 posure that compelled belief, Lady Lansmere ordered the 
 carriage, and, taking Giacomo with her, drove at once to 
 consult her son. 
 
 39
 
 pi 4 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 Harley's quick intellect had scarcely recovered from the 
 shock upon his emotions, before Randal Leslie was an- 
 nounced. 
 
 " Ah," said Lady Lansmere, " Mr. Leslie may know 
 something. He came to her yesterday with a note from her 
 father. Pray let him enter." 
 
 The Austrian Prince approached Harley. " I will wait 
 in the next room," he whispered. "You may want me, if 
 you have cause to suspect Peschiera in all this." 
 
 Lady Lansmere was pleased with the Prince's delicacy, 
 and, glancing at Leonard, said, " Perhaps you too, sir, may 
 kindly aid us, if you would retire with the Prince. Mr. 
 Leslie may be disinclined to speak of affairs like these ex- 
 cept to Harley and myself." 
 
 " True, madam ; but beware of Mr. Leslie." 
 
 As the door at one end of the room closed on the Prince 
 and Leonard, Randal entered at the other, seemingly much 
 agitated. 
 
 " I have just been to your house, Lady Lansmere. I 
 heard you were here ; pardon me if I have followed you. 
 I had called at Knightsbridge to see Violante learned that 
 she had left you. I implore you to tell me how or where- 
 fore. I have the right to ask ; her father has promised me 
 her hand." 
 
 Harley's falcon eye had brightened up at Randal's en- 
 trance. It watched steadily the young man's face. It was 
 clouded for a moment by his knitted brows at Randal's 
 closing words. But he left it to Lady Lansmere to reply 
 and explain. This the Countess did briefly. 
 
 Randal clasped his hands. " And she not gone to her 
 father's ? Are you sure of that ? " 
 
 " Her father's servant has just come from Norwood." 
 
 " Oh, I am to blame for this ! It is my rash suit her 
 fear of it her aversion. I see it all ! " Randal's voice was 
 hollow with remorse and despair. " To save her from 
 Peschiera, her father insisted on her immediate marriage 
 with myself. His orders were too abrupt, my own wooing 
 too unwelcome. I know her high spirit ; she has fled to 
 escape from me. But whither, if not to Norwood ? oh, 
 whither ? What other friends has she what relations ? 
 
 "You throw a new light on this mystery," said Lady 
 Lansmere ; perhaps she may have gone to her father's after 
 all, and the servant may have crossed, but missed her on 
 the way. I will drive to Norwood at once."
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 91$ 
 
 " Do so do ; but if she be not there, be careful not to 
 alarm Riccabocca with the news of her disappearance. 
 Caution Giacomo not to do so. He would only suspect 
 Peschiera, and be hurried to some act of violence." 
 
 "Do not you, then, suspect Peschiera, Mr. Leslie?" 
 asked Harley, suddenly. 
 
 " Ha ! is it possible ? Yet, no. I called on him this 
 morning with Frank Hazeldean, who is to marry his sister ; 
 I was with him till I went on to Knightsbridge, at the very 
 time of Violante's disappearance. He could not then have 
 been a party to it." 
 
 "You saw Violante yesterday. Did you speak to her of 
 Madame di Negra?" asked Harley, suddenly, recalling the 
 questions respecting the Marchesa which Violante had ad- 
 dressed to him. 
 
 In spite of himself, Randal felt that he changed coun- 
 tenance. " Of Madame di Negra ? I do not think so. Yet 
 I might. Oh, yes, I remember now. She asked me the 
 Marchesa's address ; I would not give it" 
 
 " The address is easily found. Can she have gone to the 
 Marchesa's house ?" 
 
 " I will run there, and see," cried Randal, starting up. 
 
 "And I with you. Stay, my dear mother. Proceed, as 
 you propose, to Norwood, and take Mr. Leslie's advice. 
 Spare our friend the news of his daughter's loss if lost she 
 be till she is restored to him. He can be of no use mean- 
 while. Let Giacomo rest here ; I may want him." 
 
 Harley then passed into the next room, and entreated 
 the Prince and Leonard to await his return, and allow Gia- 
 como to stay in the same room. 
 
 He then went quickly back to Randal. Whatever might 
 be his fears or emotions, Harley felt that he had need of all 
 his coolness of judgment and presence of mind. The occa- 
 sion made abrupt demand upon powers which had slept 
 since boyhood, but which now woke with a vigor that would 
 have made even Randal tremble, could he have detected the 
 wit, the courage, the electric energies, masked under that 
 tranquil self-possession. Lord L'Estrange and Randal soon 
 reached the Marchesa's house, and learned that she had 
 been out since morning in one of Count Peschiera's car- 
 riages. Randal stole an alarmed glance at Harley's face. 
 Harley did not seem to notice it. 
 
 " Now, Mr. Leslie, what do you advise next ? " 
 
 " I am at a loss. Ah, perhaps, afraid of her father
 
 9 i6 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 knowing how despotic in his belief in paternal rights, and 
 how tenacious he is of his word once passed, as it has been 
 to me, she may have resolved to take refuge in the country 
 perhaps at the Casino, or at Mrs. Dale's, or Mrs. Hazel- 
 dean's. I will hasten to inquire at the coach-office. Mean- 
 while, you " 
 
 " Never mind me, Mr. Leslie. Do what you think best. 
 But, if your surmises be just, you must have been a very 
 rude wooer to the high-born lady you aspired to win." 
 
 " Not so ; but perhaps an unwelcome one. If she has 
 indeed fled from me, need I say that my suit will be with- 
 drawn at once ? I am not a selfish lover, Lord L'Estrange." 
 
 " Nor I a vindicative man. Yet, could I discover who 
 has conspired against this lady, a guest under my father's 
 roof, I would crush him into the mire as easily as I set my 
 foot upon this glove. Good day to you, Mr. Leslie." 
 
 Randal stood still for a few moments as Harley strided 
 on ; then his lip sneered as it muttered " Insolent ! But 
 does he love her ? If so, I am avenged already." 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 HARLEY went straight to Peschiera's hotel. He was told 
 that the Count had walked out with Mr. Frank Hazeldean 
 and some other gentlemen who had breakfasted with him. 
 He had left word, in case any one called, that he had gone 
 to Tattersall's to look at some horses that were for sale. To 
 Tattersall's went Harley. The Count was in the yard lean- 
 ing against a pillar, and surrounded by fashionable friends. 
 Lord L'Estrange paused, and, with an heroic effort at self- 
 mastery, repressed his rage. " I may loose all if I show 
 that I suspect him ; and yet I must insult and fight him 
 rather than leave his movements free. Ah, is that young 
 Hazeldean ? A thought strikes me ! " Frank was standing 
 apart from the group round the Count, and looking very 
 absent and very sad. Harley touched him on the shoulder, 
 and drew him aside unobserved by the Count 
 
 " Mr. Hazeldean, your uncle Eagerton is my dearest 
 friend. Will you be a friend to me ? I want you." 
 
 " My lord "
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 917 
 
 " Follow me. Do not let Count Peschiera see us talk- 
 ing together." 
 
 Harley quitted the yard, and entered St. James's Park 
 by the little gate close by. In a very few words he informed 
 Frank of Violante's disappearance, and of his reasons for 
 suspecting the Count. Frank's first sentiment was that of 
 indignant disbelief that the brother of Beatrice could be so 
 vile ; but as he gradually called to mind the cynical and 
 corrupt vein of the Count's familiar conversation the hints 
 to Peschiera's prejudice that had been dropped by Beatrice 
 herself and the general character for brilliant and daring 
 profligacy which even the admirers of the Count ascribed 
 to him Frank was compelled to reluctant acquiescence in 
 Harley's suspicions ; and he said, with an earnest gravity 
 very rare to him " Believe me, Lord L'Estrange, if I can 
 assist you in defeating a base and mercenary design against 
 this poor young lady, you have but to show me how. One 
 thing is clear Peschiera was not personally engaged in 
 this abduction, since I have been with him all day ; and 
 now I think of it I begin to hope that you wrong him ; for 
 he has invited a large party of us to make an excursion with 
 him to Boulogne next week, in order to try his yacht, which 
 he could scarcely do if 
 
 " Yacht, at this time of the year ! a man who habitually 
 resides at Vienna a yacht ! " 
 
 " Spendquick sells it a bargain, on account of the time 
 of year and other reasons ; and the Count proposes to 
 spend next summer in cruising about the Ionian Isles. 
 He has some property on those isles, which he has never 
 yet visited." 
 
 " How long is it since he bought this yacht ?" 
 
 " Why, I am not sure that it is already bought that 
 is, paid for. Levy was to meet Spendquick this very morn- 
 ing to arrange the matter. Spendquick complains that Levy 
 screws him." 
 
 " My dear Mr. Hazeldean, you are guiding me through 
 the maze. Where shall I find Lord Spendquick ? " 
 
 "At this hour, probably in bed. Here is his card." 
 
 " Thanks. And where lies the vessel ? " 
 
 " It was off Blackwall the other day. I went to see it 
 'The Flying Dutchman ' a fine vessel, and carries guns." 
 
 " Enough. Now heed me. There can be no immediate 
 danger to Violante, so long as Peschiera does not meet her 
 so long as we know his movements. You are about to
 
 iS MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 marry his sister. Avail yourself of that privilege to keep 
 close by his side. Refuse to be shaken off. Make what 
 excuses for the present your invention suggests. I will 
 give you an excuse. Be anxious and uneasy to know where 
 you can find Madame di Negra." 
 
 " Madame di Negra ! " cried Frank. "What of her ? Is 
 she not in Curzon Street ? " 
 
 " No ; she has gone out in one of the Count's carriages. 
 In all probability the driver of that carriage, or some ser- 
 vant in attendance on it, will come to the Count in the 
 course of the day ; and, in order to get rid of you, the 
 Count will tell you to see this servant, and ascertain your- 
 self that his sister is safe. Pretend to believe what the man 
 says, but make him come to your lodgings on pretence of 
 writing there a letter for the Marchesa. Once at your 
 lodgings, and he will be safe ; for I shall see that the offi- 
 cers of justice secure him. The moment he is there, send 
 an express for me to my hotel." 
 
 "But," said Frank, a little bewildered, "if I go to my 
 lodgings, how can I watch the Count ? " 
 
 " It will not then be necessary. Only get him to ac- 
 company you to your lodgings, and part with him at the door." 
 
 " Stop, stop you cannot suspect Madame di Negra of 
 connivance in a scheme so infamous. Pardon me, Lord 
 L'Estrange ; I cannot act in this matter cannot even hear 
 you except as your foe, if you insinuate a word against the 
 honor of the woman I love." 
 
 " Brave gentleman, your hand. It is Madame di Negra 
 I would save, as well as my friend's young child. Think 
 but of her, while you act as I entreat, and all will go well. 
 I confide in you. Now return to the Count." 
 
 Frank walked back to join Peschiera, and his brow was 
 thoughtful^ and his lips closed firmly. Harley had that 
 gift which belongs to the genius of Action. He inspired 
 others with the light of his own spirit and the force of his 
 own will. Harley next hastened to Lord Spendquick, re- 
 mained with that young gentleman some minutes, then re- 
 paired to his hotel, where Leonard, the Prince, and Giacomo 
 still awaited him. 
 
 " Come with me, both of you. You too, Giacomo. I 
 must now seek the police. We may then divide upon sepa- 
 rate missions." 
 
 "Oh, my dear lord," cried Leonard, "you must have had 
 good news. You seem cheerful and sanguine."
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 9ig 
 
 " Seem ! Nay, I am so ! If I once paused to despond 
 even to doubt I should go mad. A foe to baffle, and an 
 angel to save ! Whose spirits would not rise high whose 
 wits would not move quick to the warm pulse of his 
 heart ? " 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 TWILIGHT was dark in the room to which Beatrice had 
 conducted Violante. A great change had come over Bea- 
 trice. Humble and weeping, she knelt beside Violante, 
 hiding her face, and imploring pardon. And Violante, 
 striving to resist the terror for which she now saw such 
 cause as no woman-heart can defy, still sought to soothe, 
 and still sweetly assured forgiveness. 
 
 Beatrice had learned after quick and fierce questions 
 which at last compelled the answers that cleared away 
 every doubt that her jealousy had been groundless that 
 she had no rival in Violante. From that moment the pas- 
 sions that had made her the tool of guilt abruptly vanished, 
 and her conscience startled her with the magnitude of her 
 treachery. Perhaps had Violante's heart been wholly free, 
 or she had been of that mere commonplace, girlish charac- 
 ter, which women like Beatrice are apt to despise, the Mar- 
 chesa's affection for Peschiera, and her dread of him, might 
 have made her try to persuade her young kinswoman at 
 least to receive the Count's visit at least to suffer him to 
 make his own excuses, and plead his own cause. -But there 
 had been a loftiness of spirit in which Violante had first 
 defied the Marchesa's questions, followed by such generous, 
 exquisite sweetness, when the girl perceived how that wild 
 heart was stung and maddened, and such purity of mourn- 
 ful candor when she had overcome her own virgin bashful- 
 ness sufficiently to undeceive the error she detected, and 
 confess where her own affections were placed, that Beatrice 
 bowed before her as mariner of old to some fair saint that 
 had allayed the storm. 
 
 "I have deceived you!" she cried, through her sobs; 
 "but I will'now save you at any cost. Had you been as I 
 deemed the rival who had despoiled all the hopes of my 
 future life I could, without remorse, have been the accom- 
 plice I am pledged to be. But now you ! oh, you so good
 
 920 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 and so noble you can never be the bride of Peschiera. 
 Nay, start not ; he shall renounce his designs for ever, or I 
 will go myself to our Emperor, and expose the dark secrets 
 of his life. Return with me quick to the home from which 
 I ensnared you." 
 
 Beatrice's hand was on the door while she spoke. Sud- 
 denly her face fell her lips grew white ; the door was 
 locked from without. She called no one answered ; the 
 bell -pull in the room gave no sound ; the windows were 
 high and barred they did not look on the river, nor the 
 street, but on a close, gloomy, silent yard high blank walls 
 all around it no one to hear the cry of distress, rang it 
 ever so loud and sharp. 
 
 Beatrice divined that she herself had been no less en- 
 snared than her companion ; that Peschiera, distrustful of 
 her firmness in evil, had precluded her from the power of 
 reparation. She was in a house only tenanted by his hire- 
 lings. Not a hope to save Vioiante from a fate that now 
 appalled her, seemed to remain. Thus, in incoherent self- 
 reproaches and frenzied tears, Beatrice knelt beside her 
 victim, communicating more and more the terrors that she 
 felt, as the hours rolled on, and the room darkened, till it 
 was only by the dull lamp which gleamed through the 
 grimy windoms from the yard without, that each saw the 
 face of the other. 
 
 Night came on ; they heard a clock from some distant 
 church strike the hours. The dim fire had long since burnt 
 out, and the air became intensely cold. No one broke 
 upon their solitude not a voice was heard in the house. 
 They felt neither cold nor hunger they felt but the soli- 
 tude, and the silence, and the dread of something that was 
 to come. 
 
 At length, about midnight, a bell rang at the street 
 door ; then there was the quick sound of steps of sullen 
 bolts withdrawn of low, murmured voices. Lights 
 streamed through the chinks of the door to the apartment 
 the door itself opened. Two Italians bearing tapers en- 
 tered, and the Count di Peschiera followed. 
 
 Beatrice sprang up, and rushed toward her brother. 
 He laid his hand gently on her lips, and motioned to the 
 Italians to withdraw. They placed the lights on the table, 
 and vanished without a word. 
 
 Peschiera then, putting aside his sister, approached Vio- 
 iante.
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 92 1 
 
 " Fair kinswoman," said he, with an air of easy but 
 resolute assurance, " there are things which no man can 
 excuse, and no woman can pardon, unless that love, which 
 is beyond all laws, suggests excuse for the one, and obtains 
 pardon for the other. In a word, I have sworn to win you, 
 and I have had no opportunities to woo. Fear not ; the 
 worst that can befall you is to be my bride. Stand aside, 
 my sister, stand aside." 
 
 " Giulio, no ! Giulio Franzini, I stand between you and 
 her ; you shall strike me to the earth before you can touch 
 even the hem of her robe." 
 
 " What, my sister ! you turn against me ? " 
 
 "And unless you instantly retire, and leave her free, I 
 will unmask you to the Emperor." 
 
 "Too late! mon enfant! You will sail with us. The 
 effects you may need for the voyage are already on board. 
 You will be witness to our marriage, and by a holy son 
 of the Church. Then tell the Emperor what you will." 
 
 With a light and sudden exertion of his strength, the 
 Count put away Beatrice, and fell on his knees before 
 Violante, who, drawn to her full height, death-like pale, 
 but untrembling, regarded him with unutterable disdain. 
 
 "You scorn me now," said he, throwing into his features 
 an expression of humility and admiration ; " and I cannot 
 wonder at it. But, believe me, that until the scorn yield to 
 a kinder sentiment, I will take no advantage of the power I 
 have gained over your fate." 
 
 " Power ! " said Violante, haughtily. " You have en- 
 snared me into this house you have gained the power of a 
 day ; but the power over my fate no ! " 
 
 " You mean that your friends have discovered your dis- 
 appearance, and are on your track. Fair one, I provide 
 against your friends, and I defy all the laws and police of 
 England. The vessel that will bear you from these shores 
 waits in the river hard by. Beatrice, I warn you be still 
 unhand me. In that vessel will be a priest who shall join 
 our hands, but not before you will recognize the truth, that 
 she who flies with Giulio Peschiera must become his wife, 
 or quit him as the disgrace of her house, and the scorn of 
 her sex." 
 
 " Oh, villain ! villain ! " cried Beatrice. 
 
 " Peste, my sister, gentler words. You, too, would 
 marry. I tell no tales of you. Signorina, I grieve to 
 threaten force. Give me your hand ; we must be gone." 
 
 39*
 
 922 MY NO TEL; OR, 
 
 Violante eluded the clasp that would have profaned her, 
 and darting across the room, opened the door, and closed it 
 hastily behind her. Beatrice clung firmly to the Count to 
 detain him from pursuit. But just without the door, close, 
 as if listening to what passed w r ithin, stood a man wrapped 
 from head to foot in a large boat-cloak. The rays of the 
 lamp that beamed on the man glittered on the barrel of a 
 pistol which he held in his right hand. 
 
 " Hist ! " whispered the man, in English, and passing his 
 arm around her "in this house you are in that ruffian's 
 power ; out of it, safe. Ah ! I am by your side- I, Violante ! " 
 
 The voice thrilled to Violante's heart. She started 
 looked up, but nothing was seen of the man's face, what 
 with the hat and cloak, save a mass of raven curls, and a 
 beard of the same hue. 
 
 The Count now threw open the door, dragging after him 
 his sister, who still clung round him. 
 
 " Ha that is well ! " he cried to the man, in Italian. 
 " Bear the lady after me, gently ; but if she attempt to cry 
 cut why, force enough to silence her, not more. As for 
 you, Beatrice, traitress that you are, I could strike you to 
 the earth but no, this suffices." He caught his sister in 
 his arms as he spoke, and, regardless of her cries and strug- 
 gles, sprang down the stairs. 
 
 The hall was crowded with fierce swarthy men. The 
 Count turned to one of them, and whispered ; in ah instant 
 the Marchesa was seized and gagged. The Count cast a 
 look over his shoulder ; Violante was close behind, supported 
 by the man to whom Peschiera had consigned her, and who 
 was pointing to Beatrice, and appeared warning Violante 
 against resistance. Violante was silent, and seemed re- 
 signed. Peschiera smiled cynically, and, preceded by some 
 of his hirelings, who held torches, descended a few steps 
 that led to an abrupt landing-place between the hall and the 
 basement story. There a small door stood open, and the 
 river flowed close by. A boat was moored on the bank, 
 round which grouped four men, who had the air of foreign 
 sailors. At the appearance of Peschiera, three of these men 
 sprang into the boat, and got ready their oars. The fourth 
 carefully readjusted a plank thrown from the boat to the 
 wharf, and offered his arm obsequiously to Pesehiera. The 
 Count was the first to enter, and, humming a gay opera air, 
 took his place by the helm. The two females were next 
 lifted in, and Violante felt her hand pressed almost convul-
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 923 
 
 sively by the man who stood by the plank. The rest fol- 
 lowed, and in another minute the boat bounded swiftly over 
 the waves toward a vessel that lay several furlongs adovvn 
 the river, and apart from all the meaner craft that crowded 
 the stream. The stars struggled pale through the foggy 
 atmosphere ; not a word was heard within the boat no 
 sound, save the regular splash of the oars. The Count 
 paused from his lively tune, and gathering round him the 
 ample fold of his fur pelisse, seemed absorbed in thought. 
 Even by the imperfect light of the stars, Peschiera's face 
 wore an air of sovereign triumph. The result had justified 
 that careless and insolent confidence in himself and in for- 
 tune, which was the most prominent feature in the charac- 
 ter of the man who, both bravo and gamester, had played 
 against the world, with his rapier in one hand, and cogged 
 dice in the other. Violante, once in a vessel filled by his 
 own men, was irretrievably in his power. Even her father, 
 must feel grateful to learn that the captive of Peschiera had 
 saved name and repute in becoming Peschiera's wife. Even 
 the pride of sex in Violante herself must induce her to con- 
 firm what Peschiera, of course, intended to state, viz., that 
 she was a willing partner in a bridegroom's schemes of flight 
 toward the altar, rather than the poor victim of a betrayer, 
 and receiving his hand but from his mercy. He saw his for- 
 tune secured, his success envied, his very character rehabili- 
 tated by his splendid nuptials. Ambition began to mingle 
 with his dreams of pleasure and pomp. What post in the 
 court or the state too high for the aspirations of one who 
 had evinced the most incontestable talent for active life 
 the talent to succeed in all that the will had undertaken? 
 Thus mused the Count, half forgetful of the present, and ab- 
 sorbed in the golden future, till he was aroused by a loud 
 hail from the vessel, and the bustle on board the boat, as 
 the sailors caught at the rope flung forth to them. He then 
 rose and moved toward Violante. But the man who wasP 
 still in charge of her passed the Count lightly, half-leading, 
 half-carrying his passive prisoner. " Pardon, Excellency," 
 said the man, in Italian, " but the boat is crowded, and rocks 
 so much, that your aid would but disturb yur footing." Be- 
 fore Peschiera could replv, Violante was already on the 
 steps of the vessel, and the Count paused till, with elated 
 smile, he saw her safely standing on the deck. Beatrice fol- 
 lowed, and then Peschiera himself ; but when the Italians 
 in his train also thronged toward the sides of the boat, two
 
 924 MY NOVEL; OR t 
 
 of the sailors got before them, and let go the rope, while the 
 other two plied their oars vigorously, and pulled back to- 
 ward shore. The Italians burst into an amazed and indig- 
 nant volley of execrations. " Silence," said the sailor who 
 ,had stood by the plank, "we obey orders. If you are not 
 quiet, we shall upset the boat. We can swim ; Heaven and 
 Monsignore San Giacomo pity you if you cannot ! " 
 
 Meanwhile, as Peschiera leaped upon deck, a flood of 
 light poured upon him from lifted torches. That light 
 streamed full on the face and form of a man of command- 
 ing stature, whose arm was around Violante, and whose 
 dark eyes flashed upon the Count more luminously than the 
 torches. On one side this man stood the Austrian Prince ; 
 on the other side (a cloak, and a profusion of false dark 
 locks, at his feet) stood Lord L'Estrange, his arms folded, 
 and his lips curved by a smile in which the ironical humor 
 native to the man was tempered with a calm and supreme 
 disdain. The Count strove to speak, but his voice faltered. 
 
 All around him looked ominous and hostile. He saw 
 many Italian faces, but they scowled at him with vindictive 
 hate ; in the rear were English mariners, peering curiously 
 over the shoulders of the foreigners, and with a broad grin 
 on their open countenances. Suddenly, as the Count thus 
 stood perplexed, cowering, stupefied, there burst from all 
 the Italians present a hoot of unutterable scorn " // tradi- 
 tore ! il traditore ! " (the traitor ! the traitor !) 
 
 The Count was brave, and at the cry he lifted his head 
 with a certain majesty. 
 
 At that moment Harley, raising his hand as if to silence 
 the hoot, came forth from the group by which he had been 
 hitherto standing, and toward him the Count advanced with 
 a bold stride. 
 
 "What trick is this?" he said, in French, fiercely. "I 
 divine that it is you whom I can single out for explanation 
 and atonement." 
 
 " Pardieu, Monsieur le Comte" answered Harley, in the 
 same language, which lends itself so well to polished sar- 
 casm and high-bred enmity "let us distinguish. Expla- 
 nation should come from me, I allow ; but atonement I 
 have the honor to -resign to yourself. This vessel 
 
 "Is mine !" cried the Count. "Those men, who insult 
 me, should be in my pay." 
 
 "The men in your pay, Monsieur le Comte, are on shore, 
 drinking success to your voyage. But, anxious still to pro-
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 925 
 
 cure you the gratification of being amongst your own coun- 
 trymen, those whom I have taken into my pay are still bet- 
 ter Italians than the pirates whose place they supply ; 
 perhaps not such good sailors ; but then I have taken the 
 liberty to add to the equipment of a vessel, which has cost 
 me too much to risk lightly, some stout English seamen, 
 who are mariners more practised than even your pirates. 
 Your grand mistake, Monsieur le Comic, is in thinking that 
 the ' Flying Dutchman ' is yours. With many apologies for 
 interfering with your intention to purchase it, I beg to in- 
 form you that Lord Spendquick has kindly sold it to me. 
 Nevertheless, Monsieur le Comte, for the next few weeks I 
 place it men and all at your service." 
 
 Peschiera smiled scornfully. 
 
 ."I thank your lordship ; but since I presume that I shall 
 no longer have the travelling companion who alone could 
 make the voyage attractive, I shall return to shore, and 
 will simply request you to inform me at what hour you 
 can receive the friend whom I shall depute to discuss that 
 part of the question yet untouched, and to arrange that the 
 atonement, whether it be due from me or yourself, may be 
 rendered as satisfactory as you have condescended to make 
 the explanation." 
 
 "Let not that vex you, Monsieur le Comte the atone- 
 ment is, in much, made already ; so anxious have I been to 
 forestall all that your nice sense of honor would induce so 
 complete a gentleman to desire. You have ensnared a 
 young heiress, it is true ; but you see that it was only to 
 restore her to the arms of her father. You have juggled an 
 illustrious kinsman out of his heritage ; but you have 
 voluntarily come on board this vessel, first, to enable his 
 highness the Prince Von , of whose rank at the Aus- 
 trian court you are fully aware, to state to your Emperor 
 that he himself has been witness of the manner in which 
 you interpreted his Imperial Majesty's assent to your nup- 
 tials with a child of one of the first subjects in his Italian 
 realm ; and next, to commence by an excursion to the seas 
 of the Baltic, the sentence of banishment which I have no 
 doubt will accompany the same act that restores to the 
 chief of your house his lands and his honors." 
 
 The Count started. 
 
 "That restoration," said the Austrian Prince, who had 
 advanced to Hurley's side, " I already guarantee. Disgrace 
 that you are, Giulio Franzini, to the nobles of the empire,
 
 926 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 I will not leave my royal master till his hand strike your 
 name from the roll. I have here your own letters, to prove 
 that your kinsman was duped by yourself into the revolt 
 which you would have headed as a Catiline, if it had not 
 better suited your nature to betray it as a Judas. In ten 
 days from this time, these letters will be laid before the 
 Emperor and his Council." 
 
 " Are you satisfied, Monsieur le Comte" said Harley, " with 
 your atonement so far ? if not, I have procured you the 
 occasion to render it yet more complete. Before you 
 stands the kinsman you have wronged. He knows now, 
 that though, for a while, you ruined his fortunes, you 
 failed to sully his hearth. His heart can grant you pardon, 
 and hereafter his hand may give you alms. Kneel then, 
 Giulio Franzini kneel at the feet of Alphonso, Duke *of 
 Serrano." 
 
 The above dialogue had been in French, which only a 
 few of the Italians present understood, and that imper- 
 fectly ; but at the name with which Harley concluded his 
 address to the Count, a simultaneous cry from those Italians 
 broke forth. 
 
 "Alphonso the Good! Alphonso the Good! Viva 
 viva the good Duke of Serrano ! " 
 
 And forgetful even of the Count they crowded round 
 the tall form of Riccabocca, striving who should first kiss 
 his hand the very hem of his garments. 
 
 Riccabocca's eyes overflowed. The gaunt exile seemed 
 transfigured into another and more kingiy man. An in- 
 expressible dignity invested him. He stretched forth his 
 arms, as if to bless his countrymen. Even that rude cry, 
 from humble men, exiles like himself, consoled him for 
 years of banishment and penury. 
 
 "Thanks, thanks," he continued ; "thanks. Some day 
 or other, vou will all perhaps return with me to the beloved 
 land!" 
 
 The Austrian Prince bowed his head, as if in assent to 
 the prayer. 
 
 " Giulio Franzini," said the Duke of Serrano for so we 
 may now call the threadbare recluse of the Casino " had 
 this last villanous design of yours been allowed by Provi- 
 dence, think you that there is one spot on earth on which 
 the ravisher could have been saved frbm a father's arm ? 
 But now, Heaven has been more kind. In this hour let
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 927 
 
 me imitate its mercy ; " and with relaxing brow the Duke 
 mildly drew near to his guilty kinsman. 
 
 From the moment the Austrian Prince had addressed 
 him, the Count had preserved a profound silence, showing 
 neither repentance nor shame. Gathering himself up, he 
 had stood firm, glaring around him like one at bay. But as 
 the Duke now approached, he waved his hand, and ex- 
 claimed, "Back, pedant, back; you have not triumphed 
 yet. And you, prating German, tell your tales to our Em- 
 peror. I shall be by his throne to answer if, indeed, you 
 escape from the meeting to w r hich I will force you by the 
 way." He spoke, and made a rush toward the side of the 
 vessel. But Harley's quick wit had foreseen the Count's in- 
 tention, and Harley's quick eye had given the signal by 
 which it was frustrated. Seized in the gripe of his own 
 watchful and indignant countrymen, just as he was about 
 to plunge into the stream, Peschiera was dragged back 
 pinioned down. Then the expression of his whole coun- 
 tenance changed the desperate violence of the inborn 
 gladiator broke forth. His great strength enabled him to 
 break loose more than once, to dash more than one man to 
 the floor of the deck ; but at length, overpowered by num- 
 bers, though still struggling all dignity, all attempt at 
 presence of mind gone, uttering curses the most plebeian, 
 gnashing his teeth, and foaming at the mouth, nothing 
 seemed left of the brilliant Lothario but the coarse fury of 
 the fierce natural man. 
 
 Then still preserving that air and tone of exquisite im- 
 perturbable irony which the highest comedian might have 
 sought to imitate in vain, Harley bowed low to the storm- 
 ing Count. 
 
 "Adieu, Monsieur le Comte, adieu! The vessel which you 
 have honored me by entering is bound to Norway. The 
 Italians who accompany you were sent by yourself into 
 exile, and, in return, they now kindly promise to enliven 
 you with their society, whenever you feel somewhat tired 
 of your own. Conduct the Count to his cabin. Gently 
 there, gently. Adieu, Monsieur le Comte, adieu! ct bon 
 voyage." 
 
 Harley turned lightly on his heel, as Peschiern, in spite 
 of his struggles, was now fairly carried down to the cabin. 
 
 " A trick for the trickster," said L'Estrange to the Aus- 
 trian Prince. "The revenge of a farce on the would-be 
 tragedian."
 
 928 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 "More than that he is ruined." 
 
 "And ridiculous," quoth Harley. "I should like to see 
 his look when they land him in Norway." Harley then 
 passed toward the centre of the vessel, by which, hitherto 
 partially concealed by the sailors, who were now busily oc- 
 cupied, stood Beatrice ; Frank Hazeldean, who had first re- 
 ceived her on entering the vessel, standing by her side ; and 
 Leonard, a little apart from the two, in quiet observation 
 of all that had passed around him. Beatrice appeared but 
 little to heed Frank ; her dark eyes were lifted to the dim 
 starry skies, and her lips were moving as in prayer ; yet her 
 young lover was speaking to her in great emotion, low and 
 rapidly. 
 
 " No, no do not think for a moment that we suspect 
 you, Beatrice ; I will answer for your honor with my life. 
 Oh, why will you turn from me why will you not speak ?" 
 
 " A moment later," said Beatrice, softly. " Give me one 
 moment yet." She passed slowly and falteringly toward 
 Leonard placed her hand, that trembled, on his arm and 
 led him aside to the verge of the vessel. Frank, startled by 
 her movement, made a step as if to follow, and then stopped 
 short, and looked on, but with a clouded and doubtful coun- 
 tenance. Harley 's smile had gone, and his eye was also 
 watchful. 
 
 It was but a few words that Beatrice spoke it was but 
 a sentence or so that Leonard answered ; and then Beatrice 
 extended her hand, which the young poet bent over, and 
 kissed in silence. She lingered an instant ; and even by the 
 starlight, Harley noted the blush that overspread her face. 
 The blush faded as Beatrice returned to Frank. Lord 
 L'Estrange would have retired she signed to him to stay. 
 
 " My lord," she said, very firmly, " I cannot accuse you 
 of harshness to my sinful and unhappy brother. His offence 
 might perhaps deserve a heavier punishment than that which 
 you inflict with such playful scorn. But, whatever his pen- 
 ance, contempt now. or poverty later, I feel that his sister 
 should be by his side to share it. I am riot innocent, if he 
 be guilty ; and, wreck though he be, nothing else on this 
 dark sea of life is now left to me to cling to. Hush, my 
 lord ! I shall not leave this vessel. All that I entreat of you 
 is, to order your men to respect my brother, since a woman 
 will be by his side." 
 
 " But, Marchesa, this cannot be ; and "
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 929 
 
 " Beatrice, Beatrice and me ! our betrothal ? Do you 
 forget me ? " cried Frank, in reproachful agony. 
 
 "No, young and too noble lover; I shall remember you 
 ever in my prayers. But listen. I have been deceived 
 hurried on, I might say, by others, but also, and far more, 
 by my own mad and blinded heart deceived, hurried on, 
 to wrong you and to belie myself. My shame burns into 
 me when I think that I could have inflicted on you the just 
 anger of your family linked you to my own ruined fortunes 
 my own " 
 
 " Your own generous, loving heart ! that is all I asked !" 
 cried Frank. " Cease, cease that heart is mine still ! " 
 
 Tears gushed from the Italian's eyes. 
 
 " Englishman, I never loved you ; this heart was dead to 
 you, and it will be dead to all else for ever. Farewell. You 
 will forget me sooner than you think for sooner than I 
 shall forget you as a friend, as a brother if brothers had 
 natures as tender and as kind as yours ! Now, my lord, will 
 you give me your arm ? I would join the Count." 
 
 " Stay one word, madam," said Frank, very pale, and 
 through his set teeth, but calmly and with a pride on his 
 brow which had never before dignified its habitual careless 
 expression " one word. I may not be worthy of you in 
 anything else but an honest love, that never doubted, 
 never suspected that would have clung to you though all 
 the world were against ; such a love makes the meanest 
 man of worth. One word, frank and open. By all that 
 you hold most sacred in your creed, did you speak the 
 truth when you said that you never loved me ? " 
 
 Beatrice bent down her head ; she was abashed before 
 this manly nature that she had so deceived, and perhaps till 
 then undervalued. 
 
 " Pardon, pardon," she said, in reluctant accents, half- 
 choked by the rising of a sob. 
 
 At her hesitation, Frank's face lighted as if with sudden 
 hope. She raised her eyes, and saw the change in him, 
 then glanced where Leonard stood, mournful and motion- 
 less. She shivered, and added, firmly 
 
 " Yes pardon ; for I spoke the truth; and I had no 
 heart to give. It might have been as wax to another it 
 was of granite to you." She paused, and muttered inly 
 " Granite, and broken ! " 
 
 Frank said not a word more. He stood rooted to the 
 spot, not even gazing after Beatrice as she passed on, lean-
 
 93 o MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 ing on the arm of Lord L'Estrange. He then walked reso- 
 lutely away, and watched the boat that the men were now 
 lowering from the side of the vessel. Beatrice stopped 
 when she came near the place where Violante stood, an- 
 swering in agitated whispers her father's anxious questions. 
 As she stopped, she leaned more heavily upon Harley. " It 
 is your arm that trembles now, Lord L'Estrange," said she, 
 with a mournful smile, and, quitting him ere he could ans- 
 wer, she bowed down her- head meekly before Violante. 
 " You have pardoned me already," she said, in a tone that 
 reached only the girl's ear, " and my last words shall not 
 be of the past. I see your future spread bright before me 
 under those steadfast stars. Love still ; hope and trust. 
 These are the last words of her who will soon die to the 
 world. Fair maid, they are prophetic ! " 
 
 Violante shrank back to her father's breast, and there 
 hid her glowing face, resigning her hand to Beatrice, who 
 pressed it to her bosom. The Marchesa then came back 
 to Harley, and disappeared with him in the interior of the 
 vessel. 
 
 When Harley again came on deck, he seemed much 
 flurried and disturbed. He kept aloof from the Duke and 
 Vioiante, and was the last to enter the boat that was now 
 lowered into the water. 
 
 As he and his companions reached the land, they saw 
 the vessel in movement, gliding slowly down the river. 
 
 " Courage, Leonard, courage ! " murmured Harley. 
 " You grieve, and nobly. But you have shunned the worst 
 and most vulgar deceit in civilized life ; you have not simu- 
 lated love. Better that yon poor lady should be, awhile, the 
 sufferer from a harsh truth, than the eternal martyr of a 
 flattering lie ! Alas, my Leonard ! with the love of the 
 poet's dream are linked only the Graces ; with the love of 
 the human heart come the awful Fates ! " 
 
 " My lord, poets do not dream when they love. You 
 will learn how the feelings are deep in proportion as the 
 fancies are vivid, when you read that confession of genius 
 and woe which I have left in your hands." 
 
 Leonard turned away. Harley' s gaze followed him with 
 inquiring interest, and suddenly encountered the soft, dark, 
 grateful eyes of Violante. "The Fates, the Fates!" mur- 
 mured Harley.
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 931 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 WE are at Norwood, in the sage's drawing-room. Vio- 
 lante has long since retired to rest. Harley, who had ac- 
 companied the father and daughter to their home, is still 
 conversing with the former. 
 
 " Indeed, my dear duke " said Harley. 
 
 "Hush, hush ! Diavolo, don't call me Duke yet ; I am at 
 home here once more as Dr. Riccabocca." 
 
 " My dear doctor, then, allow me to assure you that you 
 overrate my claims to your thanks. Your old friends, Leo- 
 nard and Frank Hazeldean, must come in for their share. 
 Nor is the faithful Giacomo to be forgotten." 
 
 " Continue your explanation." 
 
 " In the first place, I learned, through Frank, that one 
 Baron Levy, a certain fashionable money-lender, and gen- 
 eral ministrant to the affairs of fine gentlemen, was just 
 about to purchase a yacht from Lord Spendquick on behalf 
 of the Count. A short interview with Spendquick enabled 
 me to outbid the usurer, and conclude a bargain by which 
 the yacht became mine ; a promise to assist Spendquick in 
 extricating himself from the claws of the money-lender 
 (which I trust to do by reconciling him with his father, who 
 is a man of liberality and sense), made Spendquick readily 
 connive at my scheme for outwitting the enemy. He 
 allowed Levy to suppose that the Count might take pos- 
 session of the vessel ; but affecting an engagement, and 
 standing out for terms, postponed the final settlement of 
 the purchase-money till the next day. I was thus master of 
 the vessel, which I felt sure was destined to serve Pes- 
 chiera's infamous design. But it was my business not to 
 alarm the Count's suspicions ; I therefore permitted the pi- 
 rate crew he had got together to come on board. I knew I 
 could get rid of them when necessary. Meanwhile, Frank 
 undertook to keep close to the Count until he could see 
 and cage within his lodgings the servant whom Peschiera 
 had commissioned to attend his sister. If I could but ap- 
 prehend this servant, I had a sanguine hope that I could 
 discover and free your daughter before Peschiera could 
 even profane her with his presence. But Frank, alas ! was
 
 93* MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 no pupil of Machiavelli. Perhaps the Count detected his 
 secret thoughts under his open countenance ; perhaps 
 merely wished to get rid of a companion very much in his 
 way ; but, at all events, he contrived to elude our young 
 friend as cleverly as you or I could have done told him 
 that Beatrice herself was at Roehampton had borrowed 
 the Count's carriage to go there volunteered to take 
 Frank to the house took him. Frank found himself in a 
 drawing-room ; and after waiting a few minutes, while the 
 Count went out on pretence of seeing his sister in pirou- 
 etted a certain distinguished opera-dancer ! Meanwhile the 
 Count was fast ba.ck on the road to London, and Frank had 
 to return as he could. He then hunted for the Count every- 
 where, and saw him no more. It was late in the day when 
 Frank found me out with this news. I became seriously 
 alarmed. Peschiera might perhaps learn my counter- 
 scheme with the yacht or he might postpone sailing until 
 he had terrified or entangled Violante into some in short, 
 everything was to be dreaded from a man of the Count's 
 temper. I had no clue to the place to which your daughter 
 was taken no excuse to arrest Peschiera no means even 
 of learning where he was. He had not returned to Mivart's. 
 The Police were at fault, and useless, except in one valuable 
 piece of information. They told me where some of your 
 countrymen, whom Peschiera's perfidy had sent into exile, 
 were to be found. I commissioned Giacomo to seek these 
 men out, and induce them to man the vessel. It might be 
 necessary, should Peschiera or his confidential servants 
 come aboard, after we had expelled or drawn off the pirate 
 crew, that they should find Italians whom they might well 
 mistake for their own hirelings. To these foreigners I 
 added some English sailors who had before served in the 
 same vessel, and on whom Spendquick assured me I could 
 rely. Still these precautions only availed in case Peschiera 
 should resolve to sail, and defer till then all machinations 
 against his captives. While, amidst my fears and uncer- 
 tainties, I was struggling still to preserve presence of mind, 
 and rapidjy discussing with the Austrian Prince if any other 
 steps could be taken, or if our sole resource was to repair to 
 the vessel and take the chance of what might ensue, Leonard 
 suddenly and quietly entered my room. You know his 
 countenance, in which joy or sadness is not betrayed so 
 much by the evidence of the passions as by variations in 
 the intellectual expression. It was but by the clearer brow
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 
 
 933 
 
 and the steadier eye that I saw he had good tidings to im- 
 part." 
 
 " Ah," said Riccabocca for so, obeying his own request, 
 we will yet call the sage "ah, I early taught that young 
 man the great lesson inculcated by Helvetius : ' All our 
 errors arise from our ignorance or our passions.' Without 
 ignorance, and without passions, we should be serene, all- 
 penetrating intelligences." 
 
 " Mopsticks," quoth Harley, " have neither ignorance 
 nor passions ; but as for their intelligence 
 
 " Pshaw ! " interrupted Riccabocca " Proceed." 
 
 " Leonard had parted from us some hours before. I had 
 commissioned him to call at Madame di Negra's, and, as he 
 was familiarly known to her servants, seek to obtain quietly 
 all the information he could collect, and, at all events, pro- 
 cure (what in my haste I had failed to do) the name and 
 description of the man who had driven her out in the morn- 
 ing, and make what use he judged best of every hint he 
 could gather or glean that might aid our researches. 
 Leonard only succeeded in learning the name and descrip- 
 tion of the coachman, whom he recognized as one Beppo, to 
 whom she had often given orders in his presence. None 
 could say where she then could be found, if not at the 
 Count's hotel. Leonard went next to that hotel. The man 
 had not been there all the day. While revolving what next 
 he should do, his eye caught sight of your intended son-in- 
 law, gliding across the opposite side of the street. One of 
 those luminous, inspiring conjectures, which never occur to 
 you philosophers, had from the first guided Leonard to be- 
 lieve that Randal Leslie was mixed up in this villanous 
 affair." 
 
 "Ha! He!" cried Riccabocca. "Impossible! For 
 what interest ? what object ? " 
 
 " I cannot tell ; neither could Leonard ; but we had both 
 formed the same conjecture. Brief : Leonard resolved to 
 follow Randal Leslie, and track all his movements. He did 
 then follow him, unobserved ; and at a distance first to 
 Audley Egerton's house then to Eaton Square -thence to 
 a house in Bruton Street, which Leonard ascertained to be 
 Baron Levy's. Suspicious that, my dear sage ! " 
 
 " Diavolo yes \ " said Riccabocca, thoughtfully. 
 
 " At Levy's, Randal stayed till dusk. He then came out, 
 with his cat-like, stealthy step, and walked quickly into the 
 neighborhood of Leicester Square. Leonard saw him enter
 
 934 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 one of those small hotels which are appropriated to 
 foreigners. Wild outlandish fellows were loitering about 
 the door and in the street. Leonard divined that the Count 
 or the Count's confidants were there." 
 
 "If that can be proved," cried Riccabocca " if Randal 
 could have been thus in communication with Peschiera 
 could have connived at such perfidy I am released from 
 i my promise. Oh, to prove it ! " 
 
 " Proof will come later, if we are on the right track. 
 Let me go on. While waiting near the door of this hotel, 
 Beppo himself, the very man Leonard was in search of, came 
 forth, and, after speaking a few words to some of the loiter- 
 ing foreigners, walked briskly toward Piccadilly. Leonard 
 here resigned all further heed of Leslie, and gave chase to 
 Beppo, whom he recognized at a glance. Coming up to 
 him, he said, quietly, 'I have a letter for the Marchesa di 
 Negra. She told me I was to send it to her by you. I have 
 been searching for you the .whole day.' The man fell into 
 the trap, and the more easily, because as he since owned 
 in excuse for a simplicity, which, I dare say, weighed 
 on his conscience more than any of the thousand-and-one 
 crime she may have committed in the course of his illustrious 
 life he had been employed by the Marchesa as a spy upon 
 Leonard, and, with an Italian's acumen in affairs of the 
 heart, detected her secret." 
 
 "What secret ? " asked the innocent sage. 
 
 "Her love for the handsome young poet. I betray that 
 secret, in order to give her some slight excuse for becoming 
 Peschiera's tool. She believed Leonard to be in love with 
 your daughter, and jealousy urged her to treason. Violante, 
 no doubt, will explain this to you. Well, the man fell into 
 the trap. 'Give me the letter, Signore, and quick.' 
 
 <(< It is at an hotel close by; come there, and you will 
 have a guinea for your trouble.' 
 
 " So Leonard walked our gentleman into my hotel ; and 
 having taken him into my dressing-room, turned the key 
 and there left him. On learning his capture, the Prince 
 and myself hastened to see our prisoner. He was at first 
 sullen and silent ; but when the Prince disclosed his rank 
 and name (you know the mysterious terror the meaner 
 Italians feel for an Austrian magnate), his countenance 
 changed, and his courage fell. What with threats, and 
 what with promises, we soon obtained all that we sought to 
 know ; and an offered bribe, which I calculated at ten
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 935 
 
 times the amount the rogue could ever expect to receive 
 from his spendthrift master, finally bound him cheerfully 
 to our service, soul and body. Thus we learned the dis- 
 mal place to which your noble daughter had been so per- 
 fidiously ensnared. We learned also that the Count had 
 not yet visited her, hoping much from the effect that 
 prolonged incarceration might have in weakening her spirits 
 and inducing her submission. Peschiera was to go to the 
 house at midnight, thence to transport her to the vessel. 
 Beppo had received orders to bring the carriage to Leicester 
 Square, where Peschiera would join him. The Count (as 
 Leonard surmised) had taken skulking refuge at the hotel 
 in which Randal Leslie had disappeared. The Prince, 
 Leonard, Frank (who was then in the hotel), and myself, 
 held a short council. Should we go at once to the house, 
 and, by the help of the police, force an entrance, and 
 rescue your daughter ? This was a very hazardous resource. 
 The abode, which, at various times, had served for the 
 hiding-place of men haunted by the law, abounded, ac- 
 cording to our informant, in subterranean vaults and secret 
 passages, and had more than one outlet on the river. At 
 our first summons at the door, therefore, the ruffians within 
 might not only escape themselves, but carry off their pri- 
 soner. The door was strong, and before our entrance could 
 be forced, all trace of her we sought might be lost. Again, 
 too, the Prince was desirous of bringing Peschiera's guilty 
 design home to him anxious to be able to state to the 
 Emperor, and to the great minister, his kinsman, that he 
 himself had witnessed the Count's vile abuse of the Em- 
 peror's permission to wed your daughter. In short, while 
 I only thought of Violante, the Prince thought also of her 
 father's recall to his dukedom. Yet still to leave Violante 
 in that terrible house, even for an hour, a few minutes, 
 subjected to the actual presence of Peschiera, unguarded 
 save by the feeble and false woman who had betrayed, and 
 might still desert her how contemplate that fearful risk ? 
 What might not happen in the interval between Peschiera's 
 visit to the house and his appearance with his victim on the 
 vessel ? An idea flashed on me Beppo was to conduct 
 the Count to the house ; if I could accompany Beppo in 
 disguise enter the house myself be present? I rushed 
 back to our informant, now become our agent ; I found 
 the plan still more feasible than I had at first supposed. 
 Beppo had asked the Count's permission to bring with
 
 936 My NOVEL; OR % 
 
 him a brother accustomed to the sea, and who wished to 
 quit England. I might personate that brother. You know 
 that the Italian language, in most of its dialects and va- 
 rieties of patois Genoese, Piedmontese, Venetian is as 
 familiar to me as Addison's English ! Alas ! rather more 
 so. Presto ! the thing was settled. I felt my heart, from 
 that moment, as light as a feather, and my sense as keen as 
 the dart which a feather wings. My plans now were 
 formed in a breath, and explained in a sentence. It was 
 right that you should be present on board the vessel, not 
 only to witness your foe's downfall, but to receive your 
 child in a father's arms. Leonard set out to Norwood for 
 you, cautioned not to define too precisely for what object 
 you were wanted, till on board. 
 
 " Frank, accompanied by Beppo (for there was yet time 
 for these preparations before midnight), repaired to the 
 yacht, taking Giacomo by the way. There our new ally, 
 familiar to most of that piratical crew, and sanctioned by 
 the presence of Frank, as the Count's friend and prospec- 
 tive brother-in-law, told Peschiera's hirelings that they were 
 to quit the vessel, and wait on shore under Giacomo's 
 auspices till further orders ; and as soon as the decks were 
 cleared of these ruffians (save a few left to avoid suspicion, 
 and who were afterward safely stowed down in the hold), 
 and as soon as Giacomo had lodged his convoy in a public 
 house, where he quitted them, drinking his health over un- 
 limited rations of grog, your inestimable servant quietly 
 shipped on board the Italians pressed into the service, and 
 Frank took charge of the English sailors. 
 
 " The Prince, promising to be aboard in due time, then 
 left me to make arrangements for his journey to Vienna 
 with the dawn. I hastened to a masquerade warehouse, 
 where, with the help of an ingenious stagewright artificer, 
 I disguised myself into a most thorough-paced-looking cut- 
 throat, and then waited the return of my friend Beppo with 
 the most perfect confidence." 
 
 " Yet, if that rascal had played false, all these precau- 
 tions were lost. Cospetto ! you were not wise," said the pru- 
 dent philosopher. 
 
 " Very likely not. You would have been so wise, that 
 by this time your daughter would have been lost to you 
 for ever." 
 
 " But why not employ the police ?" 
 
 " First because I had already employed them to little
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 937 
 
 purpose. Secondly Because I no longer wanted them. 
 Thirdly Because to use them for my final catastrophe, 
 would be to drag your name, and your (laughter's, perhaps, 
 before a police court ; at all events before the tribunal of 
 public gossip. And lastly because having decided upon 
 the proper punishment, it had too much of equity to be 
 quite consistent with law ; and in forcibly seizing a man's 
 person, and shipping him off to Norway, my police would 
 have been sadly in the way. Certainly my plan rather savors 
 of Lope de Vega than of Blackstone. However, you see suc- 
 cess atones for all irregularities. I resume : Beppo came 
 back in time to narrate all the arrangements that had been 
 made, and to inform me that a servant from the Count had 
 come on board just as our new crew were assembled there, 
 to order the boat to be at the place where we found it. The 
 servant it was deemed prudent to detain and secure. Gia- 
 como undertook to manage the boat. I am nearly at the 
 close of my story. Sure of my disguise, I got on the coach- 
 box with Beppo. The Count arrived at the spot appointed, 
 and did not even honor myself with a question or glance. 
 ' Your brother ?' he said to Beppo ; ' one might guess that ; 
 he has the family likeness. Not a handsome race yours ! 
 Drive on.' 
 
 " We arrived at the house. I dismounted to open the 
 carriage-door. The Count gave me one look. 
 
 " ' Beppo says you have known the sea.' " 
 
 " ' Excellency, yes. I am a Genoese.' " 
 
 "'Ha! how is that? Beppo is a Lombard.' Admire 
 the readiness with which I redeemed my blunder : " 
 
 " ' Excellency, it pleased Heaven that Beppo should be 
 born in Lombardy, and then to remove my respected parents 
 to Genoa, at which city they were so kindly treated, that 
 my mother, in common gratitude, was bound to increase its 
 population. It was all she could do, poor woman. You see 
 she did her best.' " 
 
 " The Count smiled, and said no more. The door 
 opened I followed him ; your daughter can tell you the 
 rest." 
 
 " And you risked your life in that den of miscreants ! 
 Noble friend ! " 
 
 " Risked my life no ; but I risked the Count's. There 
 
 was one moment when my hand was on my trigger, and 
 
 my soul very near the sin of justifiable homicide. But 
 
 my tale is done. The Count is now on the river, and will 
 
 40
 
 938 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 soon be on the salt seas, though not bound to Norway as 
 I had first intended. I could not inflict that frigid voyage 
 on his sister. So the men have orders to cruise about for 
 sixty days, keeping aloof from shore, and they will then 
 land the Count and the Marchesa, by boat, on the French 
 coast. That delay will give time for the Prince to arrive at 
 Vienna .before the Count could follow him." 
 
 " Would he have that audacity ?" 
 
 " Do him more justice ! Audacity, faith ! he does not 
 want for that. But I dreaded not his appearance at Vienna 
 with such evidence against him. I dreaded his encounter- 
 ing the Prince on the road, and forcing a duel, before his 
 character was so blasted that the Prince could refuse it ; 
 and the Count is a dead shot of course ; all such men 
 are ! " 
 
 " He will return, and you " 
 
 " I ! Oh, never fear ; he has had enough of me. And 
 now, my dear friend now that Violante is safe once more 
 under your own roof now that my honored mother must 
 long ere this have been satisfied by Leonard, who left us 
 to go to her, that our success has been achieved without 
 danger, and, what she will value almost as much, without 
 scandal now that your foe is powerless as a reed floating 
 
 on the water toward its own rot, and the Prince Von is 
 
 perhaps about to enter his carriage on the road to Dover, 
 charged with the mission of restoring to Italy her worthiest 
 son let me dismiss you to your own happy slumbers, and 
 allow me to wrap myself in my cloak, and snatch a short 
 sleep on the sofa, till yonder gray dawn has mellowed into 
 riper day. My eyes are heavy, and if you stay here three 
 minutes longer, I shall be out of reach of hearing in the 
 land of dreams. Buona notte ! " 
 
 " But there is a bed prepared for you." 
 
 Harley shook his head in dissent, and composed himself 
 at length on the sofa. 
 
 Riccabocca bending, wrapped the cloak round his guest, 
 kissed him on the forehead, and crept out of the room to 
 rejoin Jemima, who still sat up for him, nervously anxious 
 to learn from him those explanations which her considerate 
 affection would not allow her to ask from the agitated and 
 exhausted Violante. " Not in bed ! " cried the sage, on 
 seeing her. " Have you no feelings of compassion for my 
 son that is to be ? Just, too, when there is a reasonable 
 probability that we can afford a son ?"
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 939 
 
 Riccabocca here laughed merrily, and his wife threw 
 herself on his shoulder, and cried for joy. 
 
 But no sleep fell on the lids of Harley L'Estrange. He 
 started up when his host had left him, and paced the apart- 
 ment, with noiseless but rapid strides. All whim and levity 
 had vanished from his face, which, by the light of the dawn, 
 seemed death-like pale. On that pale face there was all 
 the struggle, and all the anguish of passion. " These arms 
 have clasped her," he murmured ; "these lips have inhaled 
 her breath. I am under the same roof, and she is saved 
 saved ever more from danger and from penury, and for ever 
 divided from me. Courage, courage! Oh, honor, duty; 
 and thou, dark memory of the past thou that didst pledge 
 love at least to a grave support defend me ! Can I be- so 
 weak ! " 
 
 The sun was in the wintry skies, when Harley stole 
 from the house. No one was stirring except Giacomo, who 
 stood by the threshold of the door, which he had just un- 
 barred, feeding the house-dog. "Good day," said the ser- 
 vant, smiling. " The dog has not been of much use, but I 
 don't think the Padrone will henceforth grudge him a 
 breakfast. I shall take him to Italy, and marry him there, 
 in the hope of improving the breed of our native Lombard 
 dogs." 
 
 " Ah ! " said Harley, " you will soon leave our cold 
 shores. May sunshine settle on you all." He paused, and 
 looked up at the closed windows wistfully. 
 
 " The Signorina sleeps there," said Giacomo, in a husky 
 voice, " just over the room in which you slept." 
 
 " I knew it," muttered Harley. "An instinct told me of 
 it. Open the gate ; I must go home. My excuses to your 
 lord, and to all." 
 
 He turned a deaf ear to Giacomo's entreaties to stay till 
 at least the Signorina was up the Signorina whom he 
 had saved. Without trusting himself to speak further, he 
 quitted the demesne, and walked with swift strides toward 
 London.
 
 940 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 HARLEY had not long reached his hotel, and was still 
 seated before his untasted breakfast, when Mr. Randal Les- 
 lie was announced. Randal, who was in the firm belief that 
 Violante was now on the wide seas with Peschiera, entered, 
 looking the very personation of anxiety and fatigue. For, 
 like the great Cardinal Richelieu, Randal had learned the 
 art how to make good use of his own delicate and some- 
 what sickly aspect. The Cardinal, when intent on some 
 sanguinary scheme requiring unusual vitality and vigor, 
 contrived to make himself look a harmless sufferer at death's 
 door. And Randal, whose nervous energies could at that 
 moment have whirled him from one end of this huge me- 
 tropolis to the other, with a speed that would have out- 
 stripped a prize pedestrian, now sank into a chair with a 
 jaded weariness that no mother could have seen without 
 compassion. He seemed since the last night to have gal- 
 loped toward the last stage of consumption. 
 
 " Have you discovered no trace, my lord ? Speak, 
 speak ! " 
 
 " Speak certainly. I am too happy to relieve your 
 mind, Mr. Leslie. What fools we were ! Ha ! ha ! " 
 
 " Fools how ? " faltered Randal. 
 
 " Of course ; the young lady was at her father's house 
 all the time." 
 
 " Eh ? what ? " 
 
 "And is there now." 
 
 " It is not possible ! " said Randal, in the hollow dreamy 
 tone of a somnambulist. "At her father's house at Nor- 
 wood ! Are you sure ?" 
 
 " Sure." 
 
 Randal made a desperate and successful effort at self- 
 control. " Heaven be praised ! " he cried. "And just as I 
 had begun to suspect the Count the Marchesa ; for I find 
 that neither of them slept at home last night ; and Levy 
 told me that the Count had written to him, requesting the 
 Baron to discharge his bills, as he should be for some time 
 absent from England." 
 
 " Indeed ! Well, that is nothing to us very much to
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 941 
 
 Baron Levy, if he executes his commission, and discharges 
 the bills. What ! are you going already ? " 
 
 " Do you ask such a question ? How can I stay ? I 
 must go to Norwood must see Violante with my own 
 eyes ! Forgive my emotion I I " 
 
 Randal snatched at his hat, and hurried away. The low 
 scornful laugh of Harley followed him as he went. 
 
 " I have no more doubt of his guilt than Leonard has. 
 Violante at least shall not be the prize of that thin-lipped 
 knave. What strange fascination can he possess, that he 
 should thus bind to him the two men I value most Aud- 
 ley Egerton and Alphonso di Serrano ? Both so wise too ! 
 one in books, one in action. And both suspicious men ! 
 While I, so imprudently trustful and frank Ah ! that is the 
 reason ; our natures are antipathetic ; cunning, simulation, 
 falsehood, I have no mercy, no pardon for these. Woe to 
 all hypocrites if I were a Grand Inquisitor ! " 
 
 " Mr. Richard Avenel," said the waiter, throwing open 
 the door. 
 
 Harley caught at the arm of the chair on which he sate, 
 and grasped it nervously ; while his eyes became fixed in- 
 tently on the form of the gentleman who now advanced into 
 the room. He rose with an effort. 
 
 " Mr. Avenel ! " he said, falteringly. " Did I hear your 
 name aright ? Avenel ? " 
 
 " Richard Avenel, at your service, my lord," answered 
 Dick. " My family is not unknown to you ; and I am not 
 ashamed of my family, though my parents were small Lans- 
 mere tradesfolks. And I am a-hem ! a citizen of the 
 world, and well-to-do ! " added Dick, dropping his kid 
 gloves into his hat, and then placing the hat on the table, 
 with the air of an old acquaintance who wishes to make 
 himself at home. 
 
 Lord L'Estrange bowed, and said, as he reseated him- 
 self (Dick being firmly seated already) "You are most 
 welcome, sir ; and if there be anything I can do for one of 
 your name " 
 
 " Thank you, my lord," interrupted Dick. " I want 
 nothing of any man. A bold word to say; but I say it. 
 Nevertheless, I should not have presumed to call on your 
 lordship, unless, indeed, you had done me the honor to 
 call first at my house, Eaton Square, No. * * *. I should 
 not have presumed to call, if it had not been on business, I 
 may say NATIONAL business."
 
 942 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 Harley bowed again. A faint smile flitted for a moment 
 to his lip, but, vanishing, gave way to a mournful, absent 
 expression of countenance, as he scanned the handsome 
 features before him, and, perhaps, masculine and bold 
 though they were, still discovered something of a family 
 likeness to one whose beauty had once been his ideal of 
 female loveliness ; for suddenly he stretched forth his hand, 
 and said, with more than his usual cordial sweetness, " Busi- 
 ness, or not business, let us speak to each other as friends 
 for the sake of a name that takes me back to Lansmere 
 to my youth. I listen to you with interest." 
 
 Richard Avenel, much surprised by this unexpected 
 kindliness, and touched he knew not why, by the soft and 
 melancholy tone of Harley's voice, warmly pressed the hand 
 held out to him ; and, seized with a rare fit of shyness, col- 
 ored, and coughed, and hemmed, and looked first down, 
 then aside, before he could find the words which were gen- 
 erally ready enough at his command. 
 
 " You are very good, Lord L'Estrange ; nothing can be 
 handsomer. I feel it here, my lord," striking his buff waist- 
 coat "I do, 'pon my honor. But not to waste your time 
 (time's money), I come to the point. It is about the bor- 
 ough of Lansmere. Your family interest is very strong in 
 that borough. But excuse me if I say that I don't think 
 you are aware that I too have cooked up a pretty consider- 
 able interest on the other side. No offence opinions are 
 free. And the popular tide runs strong with us I mean 
 with me, at the impending crisis that is, at the next elec- 
 tion. Now, I have a great respect for the Earl, your father ; 
 and so have those that brought me into the world ; my 
 father, John, was always a regular good Blue ; and my re- 
 spect for yourself since I came into this room has gone up 
 in the market a very great rise indeed considerable. 
 So I should just like to see if we could set our heads to- 
 gether, and settle the borough between us two, in a snug 
 private way, as public men ought to do when they get to- 
 gether nobody else by, and no necessity for that sort of 
 humbug which is so common in this rotten old country. 
 Eh, my lord ?" 
 
 " Mr. Avenel," said Harley, slowly, recovering himself 
 from the abstraction with which he had listened to Dick's 
 earlier sentences, " I fear I do not quite understand you ; 
 but I have no other interest in the next election for the
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 943 
 
 borough of Lansmere, than as may serve one whom, what- 
 ever be your politics, you must acknowledge to be " 
 
 " A humbug ! " 
 
 " Mr. Avenel, you cannot mean the person I mean. I 
 speak of one of the first statesmen of our time of Mr. 
 Audley Egerton of- 
 
 " A stiff-necked, pompous- 
 
 " My earliest and dearest friend." 
 
 The rebuke, though gently said, sufficed to silence Dick 
 for a moment ; and when he spoke again, it was in an al- 
 tered tone. 
 
 " I beg your pardon, my lord, I am sure. Of course, I 
 can say nothing disrespectful of your friend ; very sorry 
 that he is your friend. In that case, I am almost afraid 
 that nothing is to be done. But Mr. Audley Egerton has 
 not a chance. Let me convince you of this.'' And Dick 
 pulled out a little book, bound neatly in red. 
 
 " Canvass-book, my lord. I am no aristocrat. I don't 
 pretend to carry a free and independent constituency in 
 my breeches-pocket. Heaven forbid ! But, as a practical 
 man of business what I do is done properly. Just look at 
 this book. Well kept, eh ? Names, promises, inclinations, 
 public opinions, and private interests of every individual 
 Lansmere elector ! Now, as one man of honor to another, 
 I show you this book, and I think you will see that we 
 have a clear majority of at least eighty votes as against Mr. 
 Egerton." 
 
 "That is your view of the question," said Harley, taking 
 the book and glancing over the names catalogued and 
 ticketed therein. But his countenance became serious as 
 he recognized many names familiar to his boyhood as those 
 of important electors on the Lansmere side, and which he 
 now found transferred to the hostile. " But surely there 
 are persons here in whom you deceive yourself old friends 
 of my family staunch supporters of our party." 
 
 " Exactly so. But this new question has turned all old 
 things topsy-turvy. No relying on any friend of yours. 
 No reliance except in this book ! " said Dick, slapping the 
 red cover with calm but ominous emphasis. 
 
 " Now, what I want to propose is this : Don't let the 
 Lansmere interest be beaten ; it would vex the old Earl 
 go to his heart, I am sure." 
 
 Harley nodded. 
 
 " And the Lansmere interest need not be beaten, if you'll
 
 944 MY NOVEL; UK, 
 
 put up another man instead of this red-tapist. (Beg par- 
 don.) You see I only want to get in one man you want 
 to get in another. Why not ? Now there's a smart youth 
 connection of Mr. Egerton's Randal Leslie. I have no 
 objection to him, though he is of your colors. Withdraw 
 Mr. Egerton, and I'll withdraw my second man before it 
 comes to the poll ; and so we shall halve the borough slick 
 betxveen us. That's the way to do business, eh, my lord ? " 
 
 " Randal Leslie ! Oh, you wish to bring in Mr. Leslie ? 
 But he stands with Egerton, not against him." 
 
 "Ah ! " said Dick, smiling, as if to himself, "so I hear; 
 and we could bring him in over Egerton without saying a 
 word to you. But all our family respects yours, and so I 
 have wished to do the thing handsome and open. Let the 
 Earl and your party be content with young Leslie." 
 
 " Young Leslie has spoken to you ? " 
 
 " Not as to my coming here. Oh, no that's a secret- 
 private and confidential, my lord. And now, to make mat- 
 ters still more smooth, I propose that my man shall be one 
 to your lordship's own heart. I find you have been very 
 kind to my nephew ; does you credit, my lord ; a wonderful 
 young man, though I say it. I never guessed there was so 
 much in him. Yet all the time he was in my house, he had 
 in his desk the very sketch of an invention that is now saving 
 me from ruin from positive ruin Baron Levy the King's 
 Bench and almighty smash ! Now, such a young man 
 ought to be in Parliament. I like to bring forward a rela- 
 tion ; that is, when he does one credit ; 'tis human nature 
 and sacred ties one's own flesh and blood ; and besides, 
 one hand rubs the other, and one leg helps on the other, and 
 relations get on best in the world when they pull together ; 
 that is, supposing that they are the proper sort of rela- 
 tions, and pull one on, not down. I had once thought of 
 standing for Lansmere myself thought of it very lately. 
 The country wants men like me I know that ; but I have 
 an idea that I had better see to my own business. The 
 country may, or may not, do without me, stupid old thing 
 that she is ! But my mill and my new engines, there is no 
 doubt that they cannot do without me. In short, as we are 
 quite alone, and, as I said before, there's no kind of neces- 
 sity for that sort of humbug which exists when other people 
 are present, provide elsewhere for Mr. Egerton, whom I 
 hate like poison I have a right to do that, I suppose, with- 
 out offence to your lordship and the two younkers, Leon-
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 945 
 
 ard Fairfield and Randal Leslie, shall be members for the 
 free and independent borough of Lansmere ! " 
 
 " But does Leonard wish to come into Parliament ? " 
 
 " No, he says not ; but that's nonsense. If your lord- 
 ship will just signify your wish that he should not lose this 
 noble opportunity to raise himself in life, and get something 
 handsome out of the nation, I'm sure he owes you too much 
 to hesitate 'specially when 'tis to his own advantage. And, 
 besides, one of us Avenels ought to be in Parliament. And 
 if I have not the time and learning, and so forth, and he 
 has, why, it stands to reason that he should be the man. 
 And if he can do something for me one day not that I 
 want anything but still a baronetcy or so would be a com- 
 pliment to British industry, and be appreciated as such by 
 myself and the public at large I say, if he could do some- 
 thing of that sort, it would keep up the whole family ; and 
 if he can't, why, I'll forgive him." 
 
 " Avenel," said Harley, with that familiar and gracious 
 charm of manner which few ever could resist "Avenel, if, as 
 a great personal favor to myself to me, your fellow-towns- 
 man (I was born at Lansmere) if I asked you to forego 
 your grudge against Audley Egerton, whatever that grudge 
 be, and not oppose his election, while our party would not 
 oppose your nephew's could you not oblige me ? Come, 
 for the sake of dear Lansmere, and all the old kindly feel- 
 ings between your family and mine, say ' Yes so shall it 
 be.'" 
 
 Richard Avenel was almost melted. He turned away 
 his face ; but there suddenly rose to his recollection the 
 scornful brow of Audley Egerton, the lofty contempt with 
 which he, then the worshipful Mayor of Screwstown, had 
 been shown out of the minister's office-room ; and, the blood 
 rushing over his cheeks, he stamped his foot on the floor, 
 and exclaimed, angrily, " No ; I swore that Audley Egerton 
 should smart for his insolence to me, as sure as my name 
 be Richard Avenel ; and all the soft soap in the world will 
 not wash out that oath. So there is nothing for it but for 
 you to withdraw that man, or for me to defeat him. And 
 I would do so, ay and in the way that could most gall him, 
 if it cost me half my fortune. But it will not cost th.it," 
 said Dick, cooling, "nor anything like it; for when the 
 popular tide runs in one's favor, 'tis astonishing how cheap 
 an election may be. It will cost him enough though, and 
 all for nothing worse than nothing. Think of it, my lord." 
 40*
 
 946 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 "I will, Mr. Avenel. And I say, in my turn, that my 
 friendship is as strong as your hate ; and that if it costs me, 
 not half, but my whole fortune, Audley Egerton shall come 
 in without a shilling of expense to himself, should we once 
 decide that he stand the contest." 
 
 "Very well, my lord very well," said Dick, stiffly, and 
 drawing on his kid gloves; " we'll see if the aristocracy is 
 always to ride over the free choice of the people in this way. 
 But the people are roused, my lord. The March of Enlight- 
 enment is commenced the Schoolmaster is abroad, and the 
 British Lion " 
 
 " Nobody here but ourselves, my dear Avenel. Is not 
 this rather what you call humbug?" 
 
 Dick started, stared, colored, and then burst out laugh- 
 ing "Give us yoUr hand again, my lord. You are a good 
 fellow, that you are. And for your sake " 
 
 " You'll not oppose Egerton ? " 
 
 " Tooth and nail tooth and nail ! " cried Dick, clap- 
 ping his hands to his ears, and fairly running out of the 
 room. 
 
 There passed over Harley's countenance that change so 
 frequent to it more frequent, indeed, to the gay children 
 of the world than those of consistent tempers and uniform 
 habits might suppose. There is many a man whom we call 
 friend, and whose face seems familiar to us as our own ; 
 yet, could we but take a glimpse of him when we leave his 
 presence, and he sinks back into his chair alone, we should 
 sigh to see how often the smile on the frankest lip is but a 
 bravery of the drill, only worn when on parade. 
 
 What thoughts did the visit of Richard Avenel bequeath 
 to Harley ? It were hard to define them. 
 
 In his place, an Audley Egerton would have taken some 
 comfort from the visit would have murmured, " Thank 
 Heaven ! I have not to present to the world that terrible 
 man as my brother-in-law." But probably, Harley had es- 
 caped, in his reverie, from Richard Avenel altogether. 
 Even as the slightest incident in the day-time causes our 
 dreams at night, but is itself clean forgotten so the name, 
 so the look of the visitor, might have sufficed but to influ- 
 ence a vision as remote from its casual suggester, as what 
 we call real life is from that life much more real, that we 
 imagine, or remember, in the haunted chambers ot the 
 brain. For what is real life ? How little the things actu- 
 ally doing around us affect the springs of our sorrow or
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 947 
 
 joy ; but the life which our dulness calls romance the 
 sentiment, the remembrance, the hope, and the fear, that 
 are never seen in the toil of our hands never heard in the 
 jargon on our lips ; from that life all spin, as the spider 
 from its entrails, the web by which we hang in the sun- 
 beam, or glide out of sight into the shelter of home. 
 
 "I must not think," said Harley, rousing himself with a 
 sigh, "either of past or present. Let me hurry on to some 
 fancied future. ' Happiest are the marriages,' said the 
 French philosopher, and still says many a sage, ' in which 
 man asks only the mild companion, and woman but the 
 calm protector.' I will go to Helen." 
 
 He rose ; and as he was about to lock up his escritoire, 
 he remembered the papers which Leonard had requested 
 him to read. He took them from their deposit with a care- 
 less hand, intending to carry them with him to his father's 
 house. But as his eye fell upon the characters, the hand 
 suddenly trembled, and he recoiled some paces, as if struck 
 by a violent blow. Then, gazing more intently on the writ- 
 ing, a low cry broke from his lips. He reseated himself, 
 and began to read. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 RANDAL with many misgivings at Lord L'Estrange's 
 tone, in which he was at no loss to detect a latent irony 
 proceeded to Norwood. He found Riccabocca exceedingly 
 cold and distant. But he soon brought that sage to com- 
 municate the suspicions which Lord L'Estrange had in- 
 stilled into his mind, and these Randal was as speedily 
 enabled to dispel. He accounted at once for his visits to 
 Levy and Peschiera. Naturally he had sought Levy, an 
 acquaintance of his own nay, of Audley Egerton's ; but 
 whom he knew to be professionally employed by the Count. 
 He had succeeded in extracting from the Baron, Peschiera's 
 suspicious change of lodgment from Mivart's Hotel to the 
 purlieus of Leicester Square ; had called there on the 
 Count forced an entrance openly accused him of ab- 
 stracting Violante ; high words had passed between them 
 even a challenge. Randal produced a note from a military 
 friend of his, whom he had sent to the Count an hour after
 
 948 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 quitting the hotel. This note stated that arrangements 
 were made for a meeting near Lord's Cricket Ground, at 
 seven o'clock the next morning. Randal submitted to Ric- 
 cabocca another formal memorandum from the same war- 
 like friend to the purport that Randal and himself had 
 repaired to the ground, and no Count been forthcoming. It 
 must be owned that Randal had taken all suitable precau- 
 tions to clear himself. Such a man is not to blame for want 
 of invention, if he be sometimes doomed to fail. 
 
 " I then, much alarmed," continued Randal, " hastened 
 to Baron Levy, who informed me that the Count had 
 written him word that he should be for some time absent 
 from England. Rushing thence, in despair, to your friend 
 Lord L'Estrange, I heard that your daughter was safe with 
 you. And though, as I have just proved, I would have 
 risked my life against so notorious a duellist as the Count, 
 on the mere chance of preserving Violante from his sup- 
 posed designs, I am rejoiced to think that she has no need 
 of my unskilful arm. But how and why can the Count 
 have left England after accepting a challenge ? A man so 
 sure of his weapon too reputed to be as fearless of danger 
 as he is blunt in conscience. Explain; you who know 
 mankind so well explain. I cannot." 
 
 The philosopher could not resist the pleasure of narra- 
 ting the detection and humiliation of his foe the wit, 
 ingenuity, and readiness of his friend. So Randal learned, 
 by little and little, the whole drama of the preceding night. 
 He saw, then, that the exile had all reasonable hope of 
 speedy restoration to rank and wealth. Violante, indeed, 
 would be a brilliant prize too brilliant, perhaps, for 
 Randal but not to be sacrificed without an effort. There- 
 fore, wringing convulsively the hand of his meditated 
 father-in-law, and turning away his head as if to conceal 
 his emotions, the ingenuous young suitor faltered forth 
 " That now Dr. Riccabocca was so soon to vanish into the 
 Duke di Serrano, he Randal Leslie of Rood, born a 
 gentleman, indeed, but of fallen fortunes had no right to 
 claim the promise which had been given to him while a 
 father had cause to fear for a daughter's future ; with the 
 fear ceased the promise. Might Heaven bless father and 
 daughter both !" 
 
 This address touched both the heart and honor of the 
 exile. Randal Leslie knew his man. And though, before 
 Randal's visit, Riccabocca was not quite so much a philoso-
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 949 
 
 pher, but what he would have been well pleased to have found 
 himself released, by proof of the young man's treachery, from 
 an alliance below the rank to which he had all chance of 
 early restoration ; yet no Spaniard was ever more tenacious 
 of plighted word than this inconsistent pupil of the pro- 
 found Florentine. And Randal's probity being now clear 
 to him, he repeated with stately formalities, his previous 
 offer of Violante's hand. 
 
 " But," still falteringly sighed the provident and far- 
 calculating Randal " but your only child, your sole heir- 
 ess ! Oh, might not your consent to such a marriage (if 
 known before your recall) jeopardize your cause ? Your 
 lands, your principalities, to devolve on the child of an 
 humble Englishman ! I dare not believe it. Ah, would 
 Violante were not your heiress ! " 
 
 " A noble wish," said Riccabocca, smiling blandly, "and 
 one that the Fates will realize. Cheer up ; Violante will 
 not be my heiress." 
 
 " Ah," cried Randal, drawing a long breath " ah, what 
 do I hear ! " 
 
 " Hist ! I shall soon a second time be a father. And, to 
 judge by the unerring researches of writers upon that most 
 interesting of all subjects, parturitive science, I shall be the 
 father of a son. He will, of course, succeed to the titles of 
 Serrano. And Violante " 
 
 " Will have nothing, I suppose ! " exclaimed Randal, 
 trying his best to look overjoyed, till he had got his paws 
 out of the trap into which he had so incautiously thrust 
 them. 
 
 " Nay, her portion by our laws to say nothing of my 
 affection would far exceed the ordinary dower which the 
 daughters of London merchants bring to the sons of British 
 peers. Whoever marries Violante, provided I regain my 
 estates, must submit to the cares which the poets assure us 
 ever attend on wealth." 
 
 " Oh ! " groaned Randal, as if already bowed beneath 
 the cares, and sympathizing with the poets. 
 
 " And now let me present you to your betrothed ! " 
 
 Although poor Randal had been remorselessly hurried 
 along what Schiller calls the "gamut of feeling," during 
 the last three minutes, down to the deep chord of despair 
 at the abrupt intelligence that his betrothed was no heiress 
 after all ; thence ascending to vibrations of pleasant doubt 
 as to the unborn usurper of her rights, according to the
 
 950 - MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 prophecies of parturitive science ; and lastly, swelling into 
 a concord of all sweet thoughts at the assurance that, come 
 what might, she would be a wealthier bride than a peer's 
 son could discover in the matrimonial Potosi of Lombard 
 Street ; still the tormented lover was not there allowed to 
 repose his exhausted though ravished soul. For, at the 
 idea of personally confronting the destined bride whose 
 very existence had almost vanished from his mind's eye, 
 amidst the golden showers that it saw falling divinely round 
 her Randal was suddenly reminded of the exceeding blunt- 
 ness with which, at their last interview, it had been his pol- 
 icy to announce his suit, and of the necessity of an impromptu 
 falsetto suited to the new variations that tossed him again to 
 and fro on the merciless gamut. However, he could not 
 recoil from her father's proposition, though, in order to 
 prepare Riccabocca for Violante's representation, he con- 
 fessed pathetically that his impatience to obtain her con- 
 sent, and baffle Peschiera, had made him appear a rude and 
 presumptuous wooer. The philosopher, who was disposed 
 to believe one kind of courtship to be much the same as an- 
 other, in cases where the result of all courtships was once 
 predetermined smiled benignly, patted Randal's thin cheek 
 with a " Pooh, pooh, pazzie ! " and left the room to summon 
 Violante. 
 
 "If knowledge be power," soliloquized Randal, "ability 
 is certainly good luck, as Miss Edgeworth shows in that 
 story of Murad the Unlucky, which I read at Eton ; very 
 clever story it is, too. So nothing comes amiss to me. 
 Violante's escape, which has cost me the Count's ten thou- 
 sand pounds, proves to be worth to me, I dare say, ten times 
 as much. No doubt she'll have a hundred thousand pounds 
 at the least. And then, if her father have no other child, 
 after all, or the child he expects die in infancy, why, once 
 reconciled to his government and restored to his estates, the 
 law must take its usual course, and Violante will be the 
 greatest heiress in Europe. As to the young lady herself. 
 I confess she rather awes me ; I know I shall be henpecked. 
 Well, all respectable husbands are. There is something 
 scampish and ruffianly in not being henpecked." Here 
 Randal's smile might have harmonized well with Pluto's 
 " iron tears ; " but, iron as the smile was, the serious young 
 man was ashamed of it. " What am I about ? " said he, half 
 aloud, "chuckling to myself, and wasting time when I 
 ought to be thinking gravely how to explain away my
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 951 
 
 former cavalier courtship ? Such a masterpiece as I 
 thought it then ! But who could foresee the turn things 
 would take ? Let me think ; let me think. Plague on it, 
 here she comes." 
 
 But Randal had not the fine ear of your more romantic 
 lover ; and, to his great relief, the exile entered the room 
 unaccompanied by Violante. Riccabocca looked somewhat 
 embarrassed. 
 
 " My dear Leslie, you must excuse my daughter to-day ; 
 she is still suffering from the agitation she has gone through, 
 and cannot see you." 
 
 The lover tried not to look too delighted. 
 
 " Cruel," said he ; "yet I would not for worlds force 
 myself on her presence. I hope, duke, that she will not 
 find it too difficult to obey the commands which dispose 
 of her hand, and intrust her happiness to my grateful 
 charge." 
 
 " To be plain with you, Randal, she does at present 
 seem to find it more difficult than I foresaw. She even talks 
 of " 
 
 " Another attachment Oh, heavens ! " 
 
 "Attachment, pazzie ! Whom has she seen? No a 
 convent ! But leave it to me. In a calmer hour she will 
 comprehend that a child must know no lot more enviable 
 and holy than that of redeeming her father's honor. And 
 now, if you are returning to London, may I ask you to con- 
 vey to young Mr. Hazeldean my assurances of undying gra- 
 titude for his share in my daughter's delivery from that poor 
 baffled swindler." 
 
 It is noticeable that, now Peschiera was no longer an 
 object of dread to the nervous father, he became but an ob- 
 ject of pity to the philosopher, and of contempt to the 
 grandee. 
 
 "True," said Randal, "you told me Frank had a share 
 in Lord L'Estrange's very clever and dramatic device. 
 My Lord must be by nature a fine actor comic, with a 
 touch of melodrame ! Poor Frank ! apparently he has lost 
 the woman he adored Beatrice di Negra. You say she 
 has accompanied the Count. Is the marriage that was to be 
 between her and Frank broken off ? " 
 
 " I did not know such a marriage was contemplated. I 
 understood her to be attached to another. Not that that is 
 any reason why she should not have married Mr. Hazeldean. 
 Express to him my congratulations on his escape."
 
 952 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 "Nay, he must not know that I have inadvertently be- 
 trayed his confidence ; but you now guess, what perhaps 
 puzzled you before viz., how I came to be so well ac- 
 quainted with the Count and his movements. I was so 
 intimate with my relation Frank, and Frank was affianced 
 to the Marchesa." 
 
 "I am glad you give me that explanation ; it suffices. 
 After all, the Marcheca is not by nature a bad woman 
 that is, not worse than women generally are, so Harley 
 says, and Violante forgives and excuses her." 
 
 " Generous Violante ! But it is true. So much did the 
 Marchesa appear to me possessed of fine, though ill-regu- 
 lated qualities, that I always considered her disposed to aid 
 in frustrating her brother's criminal designs. So I even 
 said, if I remember right, to Violante." 
 
 Dropping this prudent and precautionary sentence, in 
 order to guard against anything Violante might say as to 
 that subtle mention of Beatrice which had predisposed her 
 to confide in the Marchesa, Randal then hurried on, " But 
 you want repose. I leave you, the happiest, the most grate- 
 ful of men. I will give your courteous message to Frank." 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 CURIOUS to learn what had passed between Beatrice and 
 Frank, and deeply interested in all that could oust Frank 
 out of the Squire's good-will, or aught that could injure his 
 own prospects, by tending to unite son and father, Randal 
 was not slow in reaching his young kinsman's lodgings. 
 It might be supposed that having, in all probability, just 
 secured so great a fortune as would accompany Violante's 
 hand, Randal might be indifferent to the success of his 
 scheme on the Hazeldean exchequer. Such a supposition 
 would grievously wrong this profound young man. For, in 
 the first place, Violante was not yet won nor her father yet 
 restored to the estates which would defray her dower ; and, 
 in the next place, Randal, like lago, loved villany for the 
 genius it called forth in him. The sole luxury the abstem- 
 ious aspirer allowed to himself was that which is found in 
 intellectual restlessness. Untempted by wine, dead to love, 
 unamused by pleasure, indifferent to the arts, despising lit-
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 953 
 
 erature, save as means to some end of power, Randal Leslie 
 was the incarnation of thought, hatched out of the corrup- 
 tion of will. At twilight we see thin airy spectral insects, 
 all win? and nippers, hovering, as if they could never pause, 
 over some sullen mephitic pool. Just so, methinks, hover 
 over Acheron such gnat-like, noiseless soarers into gloomy 
 air out of Stygian deeps, as are the thoughts of spirits like 
 Randal Leslie's. Wings have they, but only the better to 
 pounce down draw their nutriment from unguarded mater- 
 ial cuticles ; and just when, maddened, you strike, and ex- 
 ulting exclaim, " Caught, by Jove ! " wh irr flies the dia- 
 phanous ghostly larva, and your blow falls on your own 
 twice-offended cheek. 
 
 The young men who were acquainted with Randal said 
 he had not a vice ! The fact being, that his whole compo- 
 sition was one epic vice, so elaborately constructed that it 
 had not an episode which a critic could call irrelevant. 
 Grand young man ! 
 
 " But, my dear fellow," said Randal, as soon as he had 
 learned from Frank all that had passed on board the vessel 
 between him and Beatrice, " I cannot believe this. ' Never 
 loved you ! ' What was her object, then, in deceiving, not 
 only you, but myself ? I suspect her declaration was but 
 some heroical refinement of generosity. After her brother's 
 dejection and probable ruin, she might feel that she was 
 no match for you. Then, too, the Squire's displeasure. I 
 see it all just like her noble, unhappy woman ! " 
 
 Frank shook his head. " There are moments," said he, 
 with a wisdom that comes out of those instincts which 
 awake from the depths of youth's first great sorrow " mo- 
 ments when a woman cannot feign, and there are tones in 
 the voice of a woman which men cannot misinterpret. She 
 does not love me she never did love me ; I can see that 
 her heart has been elsewhere. No matter all is over. I 
 don't deny that I am suffering an intense grief ; it gnaws 
 like a kind of sullen hunger ; and I feel so broken, too, as 
 if I had grown old, and there was nothing left worth living 
 for. I don't deny all that." 
 
 " My poor dear friend, if you would but believe " 
 
 " I don't want to believe anything, except that I have 
 been a great fool. I don't think lean ever commit such 
 follies again. But I'm a man. I shall get the better of this ; 
 I should despise myself if I could not. And now let us talk 
 of my dear father. Has he left town ? "
 
 954 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 " Left List night, by the mail. You can write and tell 
 him you have given up the Marchesa, and all will be well 
 again between you." 
 
 " Give her up ! Fie, Randal ! Do you think I should 
 tell such a lie ? She gave me up ; I can claim no merit out 
 of that." 
 
 " Oh, yes ! I can make the Squire see all to your advan- 
 tage. Oh, if it were only the Marchesa ! but, alas ! that 
 cursed post-obit ! How could Levy betray you ? Never 
 trust to usurers again ; they cannot resist the temptation of 
 of a speedy profit. They first buy the son, and then sell 
 him to the father. And the Squire has such strange no- 
 tions on a matter of this kind." 
 
 " He is right to have them. There, just read this letter 
 from my mother. It came to me this morning. I could 
 hang myself, if I were a dog ; but I'm a man, and so I must 
 bear it." 
 
 Randal took Mrs. Hazeldean's letter from Frank's trem- 
 bling hand. The poor mother had learned, though but 
 imperfectly, Frank's misdeeds from some hurried lines 
 which the Squire had despatched to her ; and she wrote, 
 as good, indulgent, but sensible, right-minded mothers 
 alone can write. More lenient to an imprudent love than 
 the Squire, she touched with discreet tenderness on Frank's 
 rash engagements with a foreigner, but severely on his own 
 open defiance of his father's wishes. Her anger was, how- 
 ever, reserved for that unholy post-obit. Here the hearty, 
 genial wife's love overcame the mother's affection. To 
 count, in cold blood, on that husband's death, and to wound 
 his heart so keenly, just where its jealous fatherly fondness 
 made it most susceptible ! 
 
 "O Frank, Frank!" wrote Mrs. Hazeldean, "were it 
 not for this, were it only for your unfortunate attachment 
 to the Italian lady, only for your debts, only for the errors 
 of hasty, extravagant youth, I should be with you now my 
 arms round your neck, kissing you, chiding you back to 
 your father's heart. But but the thought that between 
 you and his heart has been the sordid calculation of his 
 death that is a wall between us. I cannot come near you. 
 I should not like to look on your face, and think how my 
 William's tears fell over it, when I placed you, new born, 
 in his arms, and bade him welcome his heir. What ! you a 
 mere boy still, your father yet in the prime of life, and the
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 955 
 
 heir cannot wait till nature leaves him fatherless. Frank, 
 Frank ! this is so xmlike you. Can London have ruined 
 already a disposition so honest and affectionate ? No ; I 
 cannot believe it. There must be some mistake. Clear it 
 up, I implore you ; or, though as a mother I pity you, as a 
 wife I cannot forgive. 
 
 " HARRIET HAZELDEAN." 
 
 Even Randal was affected by the letter ; for, as we know, 
 even Randal felt in his own person the strength of family 
 ties. The poor Squire's choler and bluff ness had disguised 
 the parental heart from an eye that, however acute, had not 
 been willing to search for it; and Randal, ever affected 
 through his intellect, had despised the very weakness on 
 which he had preyed. But the mother's letter, so just and 
 sensible (allowing that the Squire's opinions had naturally 
 influenced the wife to take, what men of the world would 
 call a very exaggerated view of the every-day occurrence of 
 loans raised by a son, payable only at a father's death), 
 this letter, I say, if exaggerated according to fashionable 
 notions, so sensible if judged by natural affections, touched 
 the dull heart of the schemer, because approved by the 
 quick tact of his intelligence. 
 
 " Frank," said he, with a sincerity that afterward amazed 
 himself, "go down at once to Hazeldean see your mother, 
 and explain to her how this transaction really happened. 
 The woman you loved, and wooed as wife, in danger of an 
 arrest your distraction of mind, Levy's counsels^ your 
 hope to pay off the debt, so incurred to the usurer, from the 
 fortune you would shortly receive with the Marchesa. 
 Speak to your mother she is a woman ; women have a 
 common interest in forgiving all faults that arise from the 
 source of their power over us men ; I mean love. Go ! " 
 
 "No I cannot go ; you see she would not like to look 
 on my face. And I cannot repeat what you say so glibly. 
 Besides, somehow or other, as I am so dependent upon my 
 father and he has said as much I feel as if it would be 
 mean in me to make any excuses. I did the thing, and 
 must suffer for it. But I'm a m an no I'm not a man 
 here." Frank burst into tears. 
 
 At the sight of those tears, Randal gradually recovered 
 from his strange aberration into vulgar and low humanity. 
 His habitual contempt for his kinsman returned ; and with 
 contempt came the natural indifference to the sufferings of
 
 956 My NOVEL; OR, 
 
 the thing to be put to use. It is contempt for the worm 
 that makes the angler fix it on the hook, and observe with 
 complacency that the vivacity of its wriggles will attract the 
 bite. If the worm could but make the angler respect, or 
 even fear it, the barb would find some other bait. Few 
 anglers would impale an estimable silkworm, and still fewer 
 the anglers who would finger into service a formidable 
 hornet. 
 
 " Pooh, my dear Frank," said Randal, " I have given 
 you my advice ; you reject it. Well, what then will you 
 do?" 
 
 " I shall ask for leave of absence, and run away some- 
 where," said Frank, drying his tears. " I can't face Lon- 
 don ; I can't mix with others. I want to be by myself, and 
 wrestle with all that I feel here in my heart. Then I shall 
 write to my mother, say the plain truth, and leave her to 
 judge as kindly of me as she can." 
 
 " You are quite right. Yes, leave town ! Why not go 
 abroad ? You have never been abroad. New scenes will 
 distract your mind. Run over to Paris." 
 
 " Not to Paris I don't want gaieties ; but I did intend 
 to go abroad somewhere any dull dismal hole of a place. 
 Good-bye. Don't think of me any more for the present." 
 
 " But let me know where you go ! and meanwhile I will 
 see the Squire." 
 
 " Say as little of me as you can to him. I know you 
 mean most kindly but oh, how I wish there never had 
 been any third person between me and my father ! There ; 
 you may well snatch away your hand. What an ungrateful 
 wretch to you I am ! I do believe I am the wickedest fel- 
 low. What, you shake hands with me still. My dear Randal, 
 you have the best heart God bless you." Frank turned 
 away, and disappeared within his dressing-room. 
 
 " They must be reconciled now, sooner or later Squire 
 and son," said Randal to himself, as he left the lodgings. 
 " I don't see how I can prevent that the Marchesa being 
 withdrawn unless Frank does it for me. But it is well he 
 should be abroad something may be made out of that ; 
 meanwhile, I may yet do all that I could reasonably hope 
 to do even if Frank had married Beatrice since he was 
 not to be disinherited. Get the Squire to advance the 
 money for the Thornhill purchase complete the affair ; 
 this marriage with Violante will help ; Levy must know 
 that ; secure the borough ; well thought of. I will go to
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 957 
 
 Avenel's. By the bye by the bye the Squire might as 
 well keep me still in the entail after Frank supposing 
 Frank die childless. This love affair may keep him long 
 from marrying. His hand was very hot a hectic color ; 
 those strong-looking fellows often go off in a rapid decline, 
 especially if anything preys on their minds their minds are 
 so very small. 
 
 " Ah the Hazeldean Parson and with Avenel ! That 
 young man, too who is he ? I have seen him before 
 somewhere. My dear Mr. Dale, this is a pleasant surprise. 
 I thought you had returned to Hazeldean with our friend 
 the Squire ? " 
 
 MR. DALE. The Squire ! Has he left town, and with- 
 out telling me ? 
 
 RANDAL (taking aside the Parson). He was anxious to 
 get back to Mrs. Hazeldean, who was naturally very un- 
 easy about her son and this foolish marriage ; but I am 
 happy to tell you that that marriage is effectually and per- 
 manently broken off. 
 
 MR. DALE. How, how ? My poor friend told me he had 
 wholly failed to make any impression on Frank forbade 
 me to mention the subject. I was just going to see Frank 
 myself. I always had some influence with him. But, Mr. 
 Leslie, explain this very sudden and happy event the 
 marriage broken off ! 
 
 RANDAL. It is a long story, and I dare not tell you my 
 humble share in it. Nay, I must keep that secret. Frank 
 might not forgive me. Suffice it that you have my word 
 that the fair Italian has left England, and decidedly refused 
 Frank's addresses. But stay take my advice don't go to 
 him ; you see it was not only the marriage that has of- 
 fended the Squire, but some pecuniary transactions an 
 unfortunate poit-obit bond on the Casino property. Frank 
 ought to be left to his own repentant reflections. They 
 will be most salutary you know his temper he don't bear 
 reproof ; and yet it is better, on the other hand, not to let 
 him treat too lightly what has passed. Let us leave him to 
 himself for a few days. He is in an excellent frame of 
 mind. 
 
 MR. DALE (shaking Randal's hand warmly). You speak 
 admirably a post-obit! so often as he has heard his 
 father's opinion on such transactions. No I will not see 
 him I should be too angry 
 
 RANDAL (leading the Parson back, resumes, after an ex-
 
 9$8 MY NOVEL; OK, 
 
 change of salutations with Avenel, who, meanwhile, had 
 been conferring with his nephew). You should not be so 
 long away from your rectory, Mr. Dale. What will your 
 parish do without you ? 
 
 MR. DALE. The old fable of the wheel and the fly. I 
 am afraid the wheel rolls on the same. But if I am absent 
 from my parish, I am still in the company of one who does 
 me honor as an old parishioner. You remember Leonard 
 Fairfield, your antagonist in the Battle of the Stocks ? 
 
 MR. AVENEL. My nephew, I am proud to say, sir. 
 
 Randal bowed with marked civility Leonard with a re- 
 serve no less marked. 
 
 MR. AVENEL (ascribing his nephew's reserve to shyness). 
 You should be friends, you two youngsters. Who knows 
 but you may run together in the same harness ? Ah, that 
 reminds me, Leslie I have a word or two to say to you. 
 Your servant, Mr. Dale. Shall be happy to present you to 
 
 Mrs. Avenel. My card Eaton Square Number . You 
 
 will call on me to-morrow, Leonard. And mind, I shall be 
 very angry if you persist in your refusal. Such an open- 
 ing! (Avenel took Randal's arm, while the Parson and 
 Leonard walked on.) 
 
 "Any fresh hints as to Lansmere ? " asked Randal. 
 
 "Yes ; I have now decided on the plan of contest. We 
 must fight two and two you and Egerton against me 
 and (if. can get him to stand, as I hope) my nephew, 
 Leonard." 
 
 " What ! " said Randal, alarmed ; " then, after all, I can 
 hope for no support from you ? " 
 
 " I don't say that ; but I have reason to think Lord 
 L'Estrange will bestir himself actively in favor of Egerton. 
 If so, it will be a very sharp contest ; and I must manage 
 the whole election on our side, and unite all our shaky 
 votes, which I can best do by standing myself in the first 
 instance, reserving it to after-consideration whether I shall 
 throw up at the last ; for I don't particularly want to 
 come in, as I did a little time ago, before I had found out 
 my nephew. Wonderful young man ! with such a head 
 will do me credit in the rotten old House ; and I think I 
 had best leave London, go to Screwstown, and look to my 
 business. No ; if Leonard stand, I must firs-t see to get 
 him in ; and next, to keep Egerton out. It will probably, 
 therefore, end in the return of one and one on either side,
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 959 
 
 as we thought of before. Leonard on our side ; and Eger- 
 ton sha'n't be the man on the other. You understand ? " 
 
 " I do, my dear Avenel. Of course, as I before said, I 
 can't dictate to your party whom they should prefer 
 Egerton or myself. And it will be obvious to the public 
 that your party would rather defeat so eminent an adver- 
 sary as Mr. Egerton, than a tyro in politics like me. Of 
 course I cannot scheme for such a result ; it would be mis- 
 construed, and damage my character. But I rely equally 
 on your friendly promise." 
 
 " Promise ! No I don't promise ; I must first see how 
 the cat jumps ; and I don't know yet how our friends may 
 like you, nor how they can be managed. All I can say is, 
 that Audley Egerton sha'n't be M.P. for Lansmere. Mean- 
 while, you will take care not to commit yourself in speak- 
 ing, so that our party can't vote for you consistently ; they 
 must count on having you when you get into the House." 
 
 " I am not a violent party-man at present," answered 
 Randal, prudently ; " and if public opinion prove on your 
 side, it is the duty of a statesman to go with the times." 
 
 "Very sensibly said; and I have a private bill or two, 
 and some other little jobs, I want to get through the 
 House, which we can discuss later, should it come to a 
 frank understanding between us. We must arrange how 
 to meet privately at Lansmere, if necessary. I'll see to 
 that. I shall go down this week. I think of taking a 
 hint from the free and glorious land of America, and "es- 
 tablishing secret caucuses. Nothing like 'em." 
 
 "Caucuses ?" 
 
 " Small sub-committees that spy on their men night and 
 day, and don't suffer them to be intimidated to vote the 
 other way.' ? 
 
 "You have an extraordinary head for public affairs, 
 Avenel. You should come into Parliament yourself; your 
 nephew is so very young." 
 
 " So are you." 
 
 "Yes, but I know the world. Does he ?" 
 
 "The world knows him, though not by name, and he 
 has been the making of me." 
 
 " How ? You surprise me." 
 
 Avenel first explained about the patent which Leonard 
 had secured to him ; and next confided, upon honor, Leon- 
 ard's identity with the anonymous author whom the Par- 
 son had supposed to be Professor Moss.
 
 960 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 Randal Leslie felt a jealous pang. What ! then had 
 this village boy this associate of John Burley (literary 
 vagabond, whom he supposed had long since gone to the 
 dogs, and been buried at the expense of the parish) had 
 this boy so triumphed over birth, rearing, circumstances, 
 that, if Randal and Leonard had met together in any public 
 place, and Leonard's identity with the rising author been 
 revealed, every eye would have turned from Randal to 
 gaze on Leonard? The common consent of mankind 
 would have acknowledged the supreme royalty of genius, 
 when it once leaves its solitude, and strides into the world. 
 What ! was this rude villager the child of Fame who, with- 
 out an effort, and unconsciously, had inspired in the wear- 
 ied heart of Beatrice di Negra a love that Randal knew, by 
 an instinct, no arts, no craft, could ever create for him in 
 the heart of woman ? And, now, did this same youth stand 
 on the same level in the ascent to power as he, the well- 
 born Randal Leslie, the accomplished protege of the superb 
 Audley Egerton ? Were they to be rivals in the same arena 
 of practical busy life? Randal gnawed his quivering lip. 
 
 All the while, however, the young man whom he so 
 envied was a prey to sorrows deeper far than could ever 
 find room or footing in the narrow and stony heart of the 
 unloving schemer. As Leonard walked through the 
 crowded streets with the friend and monitor of his child- 
 hood, confiding the simple tale of his earlier trials when, 
 amidst the wreck of fortune, and in despair of fame, the 
 Child-angel smiled by his side, like Hope all renown 
 seemed to him so barren, all the future so dark ! His voice 
 trembled, and his countenance became so sad that his ben- 
 ignant listener, divining that around the image of Helen 
 there clung some passionate grief that overshadowed all 
 worldly success, drew Leonard gently on, till the young 
 man, long yearning for some confidant, told him all ; how, 
 faithful through long years to one pure and ardent memory, 
 Helen had been seen once more the child ripened to 
 woman, and the memory revealing itself as love. 
 
 The Parson listened with a mild and thoughtful brow, 
 which expanded into a more cheerful expression as Leon- 
 ard closed his story. 
 
 "I see no reason to despond," said Mr. Dale. "You 
 fear that Miss Digby does not return your attachment ; you 
 dwell upon her reserve her distant though kindly manner. 
 Cheer up ! All young ladies are under the influence of
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 961 
 
 what phrenologists call the organ of Secretiveness, when 
 they are in the society of the object of their preference. 
 Just as you describe Miss Digby's manner to you, was my 
 Carry's manner to myself." 
 
 The Parson here indulged in a very appropriate digres-. 
 sion upon female modesty, which he wound up by asserting, 
 that that estimable virtue became more and more influenced 
 by the secretive organ, in proportion as the favored suitor 
 approached near and nearer to a definite proposal. It was 
 the duty of a gallant and honorable lover to make that 
 proposal in distinct and orthodox form, before it could be 
 expected that a young lady should commit herself and the 
 dignity of her sex by the slightest hint as to her own 
 inclinations. 
 
 'Next," continued the Parson, "you choose to torment 
 yourself by contrasting your own origin and fortunes with 
 the altered circumstances of Miss Digby the ward of Lord 
 L'Estrange, the guest of Lady Lansmere. You say that if 
 Lord L'Estrange could have countenanced such a union, he 
 would have adopted a different tone with you sounded 
 your heart, encouraged your hopes, and so forth. I view 
 things differently. I have reason to do so ; and, from all 
 you have told me of this nobleman's interest in your fate, 
 I venture to make you this promise, that if Miss Digby 
 would accept your hand, Lord L'Estrange shall ratify her 
 choice." 
 
 " My dear Mr. Dale," cried Leonard, transported, "you 
 make me that promise ? " 
 
 " I do from what you have said, and from what I my- 
 self know of Lord L'Estrange. Go, then, at once to 
 Knightsbridge see Miss Digby show her your heart ex- 
 plain to her, if you will, your prospects ask her permission 
 to apply to Lord L'Estrange (since he has constituted him- 
 self her guardian) ; and if Lord L'Estrange hesitate which, 
 if your happiness be set on this union, I think he will not 
 let me know, and leave the rest to me." 
 
 Leonard yielded himself to the Parson's persuasive elo- 
 quence. Indeed, when he recalled to mind those passages 
 in the manuscripts of the ill-fated Nora which referred to 
 the love that Harley had once borne to her (for he felt con- 
 vinced that Harley and the boy suitor of Nora's narrative 
 were one and the same) ; and when all the interest that 
 Harley had taken in his own fortunes was explained by his 
 relationship to her (even when Lord L'Estrange had sup- 
 
 41
 
 962 MY NOVF.L; OR, 
 
 posed it less close than he would now discover it to be), 
 the young man, reasoning by his own heart, could not but 
 suppose that the noble Harley would rejoice to confer 
 happiness upon the son of her, so beloved by his boyhood. 
 
 " And to thee, perhaps, O my mother ! " thought Leon- 
 ard, with swimming eyes " to thee, perhaps, even in thy 
 grave, I shall owe the partner of my life, 'as to the mystic 
 breath of thy genius I owe the first pure aspirations of my 
 soul." 
 
 It will be seen that Leonard had not confided to the 
 Parson his discovery of Nora's manuscripts, nor even his 
 knowledge of his real birth ; for the proud son naturally 
 shrank from any confidence that implicated Nora's fair name, 
 until at last Harley, who, it was clear from those papers, 
 must have intimately known his father, should perhaps de- 
 cide the question which the papers themselves left so terribly 
 vague viz., whether he were the offspring of a legal mar- 
 riage, or Nora had been the victim of some unholy fraud. 
 
 While the Parson still talked, and while Leonard still 
 mused and listened, their steps almost mechanically took the 
 direction toward Knightsbridge, and paused at the gates of 
 Lord Lansmere's house. 
 
 "Go in, my young friend ; I will wait without to know 
 the issue," said the Parson, cheeringly. " Go ; and, with 
 gratitude to Heaven, learn how to bear the most precious 
 joy that can befall mortal man ; or how to submit to youth's 
 sharpest sorrow, with the humble belief that even sorrow is 
 but some mercy concealed." 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 LEONARD was shown into the drawing-room, and it so 
 ,hanced that Helen was there alone. The girl's soft face 
 was sadly changed even since Leonard had seen it last ; for 
 the grief of natures mild and undemonstrative as hers, gnaws 
 with quick ravages ; but at Leonard's unexpected entrance, 
 the color rushed so vividly to the pale cheeks, that its hectic 
 might be taken for the lustre of blood and health. She rose 
 hurriedly, and in great confusion faltered out, " that she 
 believed Lady Lansmere was in her room she would go for 
 her," and moved toward the door, without seeming to notice
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 963 
 
 the hand tremulously held forth to her ; when Leonard ex- 
 claimed, in uncontrollable emotions which pierced to her 
 very heart, in the keen accent of reproach 
 
 " Oh. Miss Digby oh, Helen is it thus that you greet 
 me rather thus that you shun me ? Could I have foreseen 
 this when we two orphans stood by the mournful bridge ; 
 so friendless so desolate and so clinging each to each ! 
 Happy time ! " He seized her hand suddenly as he spoke 
 the last words, and bowed his face over it. 
 
 "I must not hear you. Do not talk so, Leonard you 
 break my heart. Let me go let me go." 
 
 " Is it that I am grown hateful to you? is it merely that 
 you see my love and would discourage it ? Helen, speak 
 to me speak ! " 
 
 He drew her with tender force toward him ; and hold- 
 ing her firmly by both hands, sought to gaze upon the face 
 that she turned from him turned in such despair. 
 
 " You do not know," she said at last, struggling for 
 composure "you do not know the new claims on me my 
 altered position how I am bound, or you would be the 
 last to speak thus to me, the first to give me courage and 
 bid me bid me " 
 
 "Bid you what?" 
 
 " Feel nothing here but duty ! " cried Helen, drawing 
 from his clasp both her hands, and placing them firmly on 
 her breast. 
 
 "Miss Digby," said Leonard, after a short pause of 
 bitter reflection, in which he wronged, while he thought 
 to divine, her meaning, "you speak of new claims on you, 
 your altered position I comprehend. You may retain 
 some tender remembrance of the past ; but your duty 
 now is to rebuke my presumption. It is as I thought and 
 feared. This vain reputation which I have made is but 
 a hollow sound it gives me no rank, assures me no for- 
 tune. I have no right to look for the Helen of old in the 
 Helen of to-day. Be it so forget what I have said, and 
 forgive me." 
 
 This reproach stung to the quick the heart to which it 
 appealed. A flash brightened the meek tearful eyes, al- 
 most like the flash of resentment her lips writhed in 
 torture, and she felt as if all other pain were light com- 
 pared with the anguish that Leonard could impute to her 
 motives which to her simple nature seemed so unworthy 
 of her, and so galling to himself. *
 
 964 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 A word rushed as by inspiration to her lip, and that 
 word calmed and soothed her. 
 
 "Brother!" she said, touchingly, "brother!" 
 
 The word had a contrary effect on Leonard. Sweet as it 
 was, tender as the voice that spoke it, it imposed a bound- 
 ary to affection it came as a knell to hope. He recoiled, 
 shook his head mournfully " Too late to accept that tie 
 too late even for friendship. Henceforth for long years 
 to come henceforth, till this heart has ceased to beat 
 at your name to thrill at your presence, we two are 
 strangers." 
 
 " Strangers ! Well yes, it is right it must be so ; we 
 must not meet. Oh, Leonard Fairfield, who was it in 
 those days that you recall to me who was it that found 
 you destitute and obscure who, not degrading you by 
 charity, placed you in your right career opened to you, 
 amidst the labyrinth in which you were well-nigh lost, the 
 broad road to knowledge, independence, fame ? Answer 
 me answer ! Was it not the same who reared sheltered 
 your sister orphan ? If I could forget what I have owed to 
 him, should I not remember what he has done for you ? 
 Can I hear of your distinction and not remember it ? Can 
 I think how proud she may be who will one day lean on 
 your arm, and bear the name you have already raised 
 beyond all the titles of an hour ? Can I think of this, and 
 not remember our common friend, benefactor, guardian ? 
 Would you forgive me, if I failed to do so ?" 
 
 " But," faltered Leonard, fear mingling with the conjec- 
 tures these words called forth " but is it that Lord L'Es- 
 trange would not consent to our union ? or of what do you 
 speak ? You bewilder me." 
 
 Helen felt for some moments as if it were impossible to 
 reply ; and the words at length were dragged forth as from 
 the depth of her very soul. 
 
 " He came to me our noble friend. I never dreamed 
 of it. He did not tell me that he loved me. He told me 
 that he was unhappy, alone ; that in me, and only in me, he 
 could find a comforter, a soother He, he ! And I had just 
 arrived in England was under his mother's roof had not 
 then once more seen you ; and and what could I answer ? 
 Strengthen rne strengthen me, you whom I look up to 
 and revere. Yes, yes you are right. We must see each 
 other no more. I am betrothed to another to him ! 
 Strengthen me ! "
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 965 
 
 All the inherent nobleness of the poet's nature rose at 
 once at this appeal. 
 
 "Oh, Helen sister Miss Digby, forgive me. You need 
 no strength from me ; I borrow it from you. I comprehend 
 you I respect. Banish all thought of me. Repay our 
 common benefactor. Be what he asks of you his com- 
 forter, his soother ; be more his pride and his joy. Hap- 
 piness will come to you, as it comes to those who confer 
 happiness and forget self. God comfort you in the passing 
 struggle ; God bless you in the long years to come. Sister 
 I accept the holy name now, and will claim it hereafter, 
 when I too can think more of others than myself." 
 
 Helen had covered her face with her hands, sobbing; 
 with that soft womanly constraint which presses woe back 
 into the heart. A strange sense of utter solitude suddenly 
 pervaded her whole being, and by that sense of solitude she 
 knew that he was gone. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 IN another room in that same house sat, solitary as 
 Helen, a stern, gloomy, brooding man, in whom they who 
 had best known him from his childhood could scarcely have 
 recognized a trace of the humane, benignant, trustful, but 
 wayward and varying Harley, Lord L' Estrange. 
 
 He had read that fragment of a memoir, in which, out 
 of all the chasms of his barren and melancholy past, there 
 rose two malignant truths that seemed literally to glare 
 upon him with mocking and demon eyes : the woman 
 whose remembrance had darkened all the sunshine of his 
 life, had loved another ; the friend in whom he had con- 
 fided his whole affectionate loyal soul had been his per- 
 fidious rival. He had read from the first word to the last, 
 as if under a spell that held him breathless ; and when he 
 closed the manuscript, it was without groan or sigh ; but 
 over his pale lips there passed that withering smile, which 
 is as sure an index of a heart overcharged with dire and 
 fearful passions, as the arrowy flash of the lightning is of 
 tempests that are gathered within the cloud. 
 
 He then thrust the papers into his bosom, and, keeping 
 his hand over them firmly clenched, he left the room, and
 
 966 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 walked slowly toward his father's house. With every step 
 by the way, his nature, in the war of its elements, seemed 
 to change and harden into forms of granite. Love, human- 
 ity, trust, vanished away. Hate, revenge, misanthropy, 
 suspicion, and scorn of all that could wear the eyes of 
 affection, or speak with the voice of honor, came fast 
 through the gloom of his thoughts, settling down in the 
 wilderness, grim and menacing as the harpies of ancient 
 song 
 
 " Uncseque manus, et pallida semper Ora." * 
 
 Thus the gloomy man had crossed the threshold of his 
 father's house, and silently entered the apartments still set 
 apart for him. He had arrived about an hour before 
 Leonard ; and as he stood by the hearth, with his arms 
 folded on his breast, and his eyes fixed lead-like on the 
 ground, his mother came in to welcome and embrace him. 
 He checked her eager inquiries after Violante he recoiled 
 from the touch of her hand. 
 
 " Hold, madam," said he, startling her ear with the cold 
 austerity of his tone. " I cannot heed your questions I am 
 filled with the question I must put to yourself. You op- 
 posed my boyish love for Leonora Avehel. I do not blame 
 you all mothers of equal rank would have done the same. 
 Yet, had you not frustrated all frank intercourse with her, I 
 might have taken refusal from her own lips survived that 
 grief, and now been a happy man. Years since then have 
 rolled away rolled over her quiet slumbers, and my restless 
 waking life. All this time were you aware that Audley 
 Egerton had been the lover of Leonora Avenel ? " 
 
 " Harley, Harley ! do not speak to me in that cruel 
 voice do not look at me with those hard eyes ! " 
 
 " You knew it, then you, my mother ! " continued 
 Harley, unmoved by her rebuke ; "and why did you never 
 say, ' Son, you are wasting the bloom and uses of your life 
 in sorrowful fidelity to a lie ? You are lavishing trust and 
 friendship on a perfidious hypocrite ? ' ' 
 
 " How could I speak to you thus how could I dare to 
 do so seeing you still so cherished the memory of that un- 
 happy girl still believed that she had returned your affec- 
 tion ? Had I said to you what I knew (but not till after her 
 death), as to her relations with Audley Egerton " 
 
 " Well ? you falter go on had you done so ? " 
 
 * " Hands armed with fangs, and lips forever pale."
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 967 
 
 " Would you have felt no desire for revenge ? Might 
 there not have been strife between you danger blood- 
 shed ? Harley, Harley ! Is not such silence pardonable in a 
 mother ? And why deprive you too of the only friend you 
 seemed to prize who alone had some influence over you | 
 who concurred with me in the prayer and hope, that some day 
 you would find a living partner worthy to replace this lost 
 delusion, arouse your faculties be the ornament your 
 youth promised to your country ? For you wrong Audley 
 indeed you do ! " 
 
 "Wrong him! Ah! let me not do that. Proceed." 
 
 " I do not excuse him his rivalship, nor his first con- 
 cealment of it. But believe me, since then, his genuine re- 
 morse, his anxious tenderness for your welfare, his dread 
 of losing your friendship " 
 
 " Stop it was doubtless Audley Egerton who induced 
 you to conceal what you call his ' relations ' with her whom I 
 can now so calmly name Leonora Avenel ? " 
 
 " It was so, in truth and from motives that " 
 
 " Enough let me hear no more." 
 
 " But you will not think too sternly of what is passed ; 
 you are about to form new ties. You cannot be wild and 
 wicked enough to meditate what your brow seems to 
 threaten. You cannot dream of revenge risk Audley's 
 life or your own ? " 
 
 "Tut tut tut] What cause here for duels? Single 
 combats are out of date civilized men do not slay each 
 other with sword and pistol. Tut ! revenge ! does it look 
 like revenge, that one object which brings me hither is to 
 request my father's permission to charge myself with the 
 care of Audley Egerton's election ? What he values most 
 in the world is his political position ; and his political exis- 
 tence is at stake. You know that I have had through life 
 the character of a weak, easy, somewhat over-generous man. 
 Such men are not revengeful. Hold ! You lay your hand 
 on my arm I know the magic of that light touch, mother ; 
 but its power over me is gone. Countess of Lansmere, hear 
 me ! Ever from infancy (save in that frantic passion for 
 which I now despise myself), I have obeyed you, I trust, as 
 a duteous son. Now, our relative positions are somewhat 
 altered. I have the right to exact I will not say to command 
 the right which wrong and injury bestow upon all men. 
 Madam, the injured man has prerogatives that rival those 
 of kings. I now call upon you to question me no more-
 
 968 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 not again to breathe the name of Leonora Avenel, unless I 
 invite the subject ; and not to inform Audley Egerton by a 
 hint by a breath that I have discovered what shall I 
 call it ? his ' pardonable deceit.' Promise me this, by 
 your affection as mother, and on your faith as gentlewoman 
 or I declare solemnly, that never in life will you look 
 upon my face again." 
 
 Haughty and imperious though the Countess was, her 
 spirit quailed before Haiiey's brow and voice. 
 
 " Is this my son this my gentle Harley ? " she said, falter- 
 ingiy. " Oh ! put your arms round my neck let me feel 
 that I have not lost my child ! " 
 
 Harley looked softened, but he did not obey the pa- 
 thetic prayer ; nevertheless, he held out his hand, and 
 turning away his face, said, in a milder voice, " Have I 
 your promise ? " 
 
 "You have you have ; but on condition that there pass 
 no words between you and Audley that can end but in the 
 strife which " 
 
 " Strife ! " interrupted Harley. " I repeat that the idea 
 of challenge and duel between me and my friend from our 
 school-days, and on a quarrel that we could explain to no 
 seconds, would be a burlesque upon all that is grave in the 
 realities of life and feeling. I accept your promise and 
 seal it thus " 
 
 He pressed his lips to his mother's forehead, and pas- 
 sively received her embrace. 
 
 " Hush," he said, withdrawing from her arms ; " I hear 
 my father's voice." 
 
 Lord Lansmere threw open the door widely, and with a 
 certain consciousness that a door by which an Earl of 
 Lansmere entered ought to be thrown open widely. It 
 could not have been opened with more majesty if a huisster, 
 or officer of the Household, had stood on either side. The 
 Countess passed by her lord with a light step, and escaped. 
 
 " I was occupied with my architect in designs for the 
 new infirmary, of which I shall make a present to our 
 county. I have only just heard that you were here, Harley. 
 What's all this about our fair Italian guest ? Is she not 
 coming back to us ? Your mother refers me to you for ex- 
 planations." 
 
 " You shall have them later, my dear father ; at present 
 I can think only of public affairs." 
 
 " Public affairs ! they are indeed alarming. I am re-
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 969 
 
 joiced to hear you express yourself so worthily. An awful 
 crisis, Harley ! And, gracious heaven ! I have heard that a 
 low man, who was born in Lansmere, but made a fortune in 
 America, is about to contest the borough. They tell me he 
 is one of the Avenels a born Blue is it possible ?" 
 
 " I have come here on that business. As a peer you 
 cannot, of course, interfere. But I propose, with your 
 leave, to go down myself to Lansmere, and undertake the 
 superintendence of the election. It would be better, per- 
 haps, if you were not present ; it would give us more liberty 
 of action." 
 
 " My dear Harley, shake hands ; anything you please. 
 You know how I have wished to see you come forward, and 
 take that part in life which becomes your birth." 
 
 "Ah, you think I have sadly wasted my existence hither- 
 to." 
 
 "To be frank with you, yes, Harley," said the Earl, with 
 a pride that was noble in its nature, and not without dig- 
 nity in its expression. " The more we take from our 
 country, the more we owe to her. From the moment you 
 came into the world, as the inheritor of lands and honors, 
 you were charged with a trust for the benefit of others, 
 that it degrades one of our order of gentlemen not to dis- 
 charge." 
 
 Harley listened with a sombre brow, and made no direct 
 reply. 
 
 " Indeed," resumed the Earl, " I would rather you were 
 about to canvass for yourself than for your friend Egerton. 
 But I grant he is an example that it is never too late to 
 follow. Why, who that had seen you both as youths, not- 
 withstanding Audley had the advantage of being some 
 years your senior who could have thought that he was the 
 one to become distinguished and eminent and you to 
 degenerate into the luxurious idler, averse to all trouble 
 and careless of all fame ? You, with such advantages, not 
 only of higher fortune, but, as every one said, of superior 
 talents you, who had then so much ambition so keen a 
 desire for glory, sleeping with Plutarch's Lives under your 
 pillow, and only, my wild son, only too much energy. But 
 you are a young man still it is not too late to redeem the 
 years you have thrown away." 
 
 " The years are nothing mere dates in an almanac ; 
 but the feelings, what can give me back those ? the hope, 
 the enthusiasm, the no matter ! feelings do not help men
 
 970 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 to rise in the world. Egerton's feelings are not too lively. 
 What I might have been, leave it to me to remember let 
 us talk of the example you set before me of Audley Eger- 
 ton." 
 
 " We must get him in," said the Earl, sinking his voice 
 into a whisper. " It is of more importance to him than I 
 ever thought for. But you know his secrets. Why did you 
 not confide to me frankly the state of his affairs ? " 
 
 " His affairs ! Do you mean that they are seriously em- 
 barrassed ? This interests me much. Pray, speak ; what 
 do you know ? " 
 
 " He has discharged the greater part of his establish- 
 ment. That in itself is natural on quitting office ; but still 
 it set people talking ; and it has got wind that his estates 
 are not only mortgaged for more than they are worth, but 
 that he has been living upon the discount of bills ; in short, 
 he has been too intimate with a man whom we all know by 
 sight a man who drives the finest horses in London, and 
 they tell me (but that I cannot believe) lives in the familiar 
 society of the young puppies he snares to perdition. 
 What's the man's name ? Levy, is it not ? yes, Levy." 
 
 " I have seen Levy with him," said Harley ; and a sinister 
 joy lighted up his falcon eyes. " Levy Levy it is well." 
 
 " I hear but the gossip of the clubs," resumed the Earl. 
 " But they do say that Levy makes little disguise of his 
 power over our very distinguished friend, and rather pa- 
 rades it as a merit with our party (and, indeed, with all men 
 for Egerton has personal friends in every party), that he 
 keeps sundry bills locked up in his desk until Egerton is 
 once more safe in Parliament. Nevertheless if, after all, 
 our friend were to lose his election, and Levy were then to 
 seize on his effects, and proclaim his ruin it would se- 
 riously damage, perhaps altogether destroy, Audley's politi- 
 cal career." 
 
 "So I conclude," said Harley. ."A Charles Fox might 
 be a gamester, and a William Pitt be a pauper. But Aud- 
 ley Egerton is not o/ their giant stature ; he stands so high 
 because he stands upon heaps of respectable gold. Audley 
 Egerton, needy and impoverished out of Parliament, and, 
 as the vulgar slang has it, out at elbows, skulking from duns, 
 perhaps in the Bench " 
 
 " No, no our party would never allow that ; we would 
 subscribe 
 
 " Worse than all, living as the pensioner of the party he
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 971 
 
 aspired to lead ! You say truly. His political prospects 
 would be blasted. A man whose reputation lay in his out- 
 ward respectability ! Why, people would say that Audley 
 Egerton has been a solemn lie ; eh, my father ? " 
 
 " How can you talk with such coolness of your friend ? 
 You need say nothing to interest me in his election if you 
 mean that. Once in Parliament, he must soon again be in 
 office and learn to live on his salary. You must get him 
 to submit to me the schedule of his liabilities. I have a 
 head for business, as you know. I will arrange his affairs 
 for him. And I will yet bet five to one, though I hate 
 wagers, that he will be prime minister in three years. He 
 is not brilliant, it is true ; but just at this crisis we want a 
 safe, moderate, judicious, conciliatory man ; and Audley has 
 so much tact, such experience of the House, such knowl- 
 edge of the world, and," added the Earl, emphatically sum- 
 ming up his eulogies, " he is so thorough a gentleman ! " 
 
 " A thorough gentleman, as you say the soul of honor! 
 But, my dear father, it is your hour for riding ; let me not 
 detain you. It is settled, then ; you do not come yourself 
 to Lansmere. You put the house at my disposal, and allow 
 me to invite Egerton, of course, and what other guests I 
 may please ; in short you leave all to me ? " 
 
 " Certainly ; and if you cannot get in your friend, who 
 can ? That borough, it is an awkward, ungrateful place, 
 and has been the plague of my life. So much as I have 
 spent there, too, so much as I have done to its trade." 
 And the Earl, with an indignant sigh, left th& room. 
 
 Harley seated himself deliberately at his writing-table, 
 leaning his face on his hand, and looking abstractedly into 
 space from under-knit and lowering brows. 
 
 Harley L'Estrange was, as we have seen, a man singu- 
 larly tenacious of affections and impressions. He was a 
 man, too, whose nature was eminently bold, loyal, and 
 candid ; even the apparent whim and levity which misled 
 the world, both as to his dispositions and his powers, might 
 be half ascribed to that open temper, which, in its over- 
 contempt for all that seemed to savor of hypocrisy, sported 
 with forms and ceremonials, and extracted humor, some- 
 times extravagant, sometimes profound from "the solemn 
 plausibilities of the world." The shock he had now re- 
 ceived smote the very foundations of his mind, and, over- 
 throwing all the airier structures which fancy and wit had 
 built upon its surface, left it clear as a new world for the
 
 972 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 operations of the darker and more fearful passions. When 
 a man of a heart so loving, and a nature so irregularly pow- 
 erful as Harley's, suddenly and abruptly discovers deceit 
 where he had most confided, it. is not (as with the calmer 
 pupils of that harsh teacher Experience) the mere with- 
 drawal of esteem and affection from the one offender, it 
 is, that trust in everything seems gone, it is, that the in- 
 jured spirit looks back to the Past, and condemns all its 
 kindlier virtues as follies that conduced to its own woe ; 
 and looks on to the Future as to a journey beset with smil- 
 ing traitors, whom it must meet with an equal simulation, 
 or crush with a superior force. The guilt of treason to 
 men like these is incalculable, it robs the world of all the 
 benefits they would otherwise have lavished as they passed, 
 it is responsible for all the ill that springs from the cor- 
 ruption of natures, whose very luxuriance, when the atmos- 
 phere is once tainted, does but diffuse disease ; even as the 
 malaria settles not over thin and barren soils, nor over 
 wastes that have been from all time desolate, but over the 
 places in which southern suns had once ripened delightful 
 gardens, or the sites of cities, in which the pomp of palaces 
 has passed away. 
 
 It was not enough that the friend of his youth, the con- 
 fidant of his love, had betrayed his trust been the secret 
 and successful rival ; not enough that the woman his boy- 
 hood had madly idolized, and all the while he had sought 
 her traces with pining remorseful heart, believing she but 
 eluded his suit from the emulation of a kindred generosity, 
 desiring rather to sacrifice her own love, than to cost to 
 his the sacrifice of all which youth rashly scorns, and the 
 world so highly estimates; not enough that all this wh'-e 
 her refuge had been the bosom of another. This was *ot 
 enough of injury. His whole life had been wasted on a 
 delusion his faculties and aims, the wholesome ambition 
 of lofty minds had been arrested at the very onset of fair 
 existence, his heart corroded by a regret for which there 
 was no cause, his conscience charged with the terror that 
 his wild chase had urged a too tender victim to the grave, 
 over which he had mourned. What years that might other- 
 wise have been to himself so serene', to the world so useful, 
 had been consumed in objectless, barren, melancholy 
 dreams ! And all this while to whom had his complaints 
 been uttered ? to the man who knew that his remorse was 
 an idle spectre, and his faithful sorrow a mocking self-
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 973 
 
 deceit. Every thought that could gall man's natural pride, 
 every remembrance that could sting into revenge a heart 
 that had loved too deeply not to be accessible to hate, con- 
 spired to goad those maddening Furies who come into 
 every temple which is once desecrated by the presence of 
 the evil passions. In that sullen silence of the soul, ven- 
 geance took the form of justice. Changed though his feel- 
 ings toward Leonara Avenel were, the story of her grief 
 and her wrongs embittered still more his wrath against his 
 rival. The fragments of her memoir left naturally on Har- 
 ley's mind the conviction that she had been the victim of 
 an infamous fraud the dupe of a false marriage. His idol 
 had not only been stolen from the altar, it had been sullied 
 by the sacrifice, broken with remorseless hand and thrust 
 into dishonored clay, mutilated, defamed, its very 
 memory a thing of contempt to him who had ravished it 
 from worship. The living Harley and the dead Nora both 
 called aloud to their joint despoiler, " Restore what thou 
 hast taken from us, or pay the forfeit ! " 
 
 Thus, then, during the interview between Helen and 
 Leonard, thus Harley L'Estrange sat alone ! and as a 
 rude irregular lump of steel, when wheeled round into 
 rapid motion, assumes the form of the circle it describes, 
 so his iron purpose, hurried on by his relentless passion, 
 filled the space into which he gazed with optical delusions 
 scheme after scheme revolving and consummating the 
 circles that clasped a foe. 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 THE entrance of a servant, announcing a name which 
 Harley, in the absorption of his gloomy reverie, did not 
 hear, was followed by that of a person on whom he lifted 
 his eyes in the cold and haughty surprise with which a man, 
 much occupied, greets and rebukes the intrusion of an un- 
 welcome stranger. 
 
 " It is so long since your lordship has seen me," said 
 the visitor, with mild dignity, "that I cannot wonder you 
 do not recognize my person, and have forgotten my name." 
 
 "Sir," answered Harley, with an impatient rudeness ill 
 in harmony with the urbanity for which he was usually dis-
 
 974 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 tinguished "sir, your person is strange to me, and your 
 name I did not hear ; but, at all events, I am not now at 
 leisure to attend to you. Excuse my plainness." 
 
 " Yet, pardon me if I still linger. My name is Dale. I 
 was formerly curate at Lansmere ; and I would speak to 
 your lordship" in the name and the memory of one once dear 
 to you Leonora Avenel." 
 
 HARLEY (after a short pause). Sir, I cannot conjecture 
 your business. But be seated. I remember you now, though 
 years have altered both ; and I have since heard much in 
 your favor from Leonard Fairfield. Still, let me pray that 
 you will be brief. 
 
 MR. DALE. May I assume at once that you have divined 
 the parentage of the young man you call Fairfield ? When 
 I listened to his grateful praises of your beneficence, and 
 marked with melancholy pleasure the reverence in which 
 he holds you, my heart swelled within me. I acknowledge 
 the mysterious force of nature. 
 
 HARLEY. Force of nature ! You talk in riddles. 
 
 MR. DALE (indignantly). Oh, my lord, how can you so 
 disguise your better self ? Surely in Leonard Fairfield you 
 have long since recognized the son of Nora Avenel ? 
 
 Harley passed his hand over his face. " Ah ! " thought 
 he, " she lived to bear a son, then a son to Egerton ! Leo- 
 nard is that son. I should have known him by the likeness 
 by the fond foolish impulse that moved me to him. This 
 is why he confided to me these fearful memoirs. He seeks 
 his father he shall find him." 
 
 MR. DALE (mistaking the cause of Harley's silence). I 
 honor your compunction, my lord. Oh ! let your heart 
 and your conscience continue to speak to your worldly pride. 
 
 HARLEY. My compunction, heart, conscience ! Mr. 
 Dale, you insult me ! 
 
 MR. DALE (sternly). Not so ; I am fulfilling my mission, 
 which bids me rebuke the sinner. Leonora Avenel speaks 
 in me, and commands the guilty father to acknowledge the 
 innocent child ! 
 
 Harley half rose, and his eyes literally flashed fire ; but 
 he calmed his anger into irony. "Ha!" said he, with a 
 sarcastic smile, "so you suppose that /was the perfidious 
 seducer of Nora Avenel that /am the callous father of the 
 child who came into the world without a name. Very well, 
 sir, taking these assumptions for granted, what is it you de- 
 mand from me on behalf of this young man ? "
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 97$ 
 
 " I ask from you his happiness," replied Mr. Dale, im- 
 ploringly ; and yielding to the compassion with which Leo- 
 nard inspired him, and persuaded that Lord L'Estrange 
 felt a father's love for the boy whom he had saved from the 
 whirlpool of London, and guided to safety and honorable 
 independence, he here, with simple eloquence, narrated all 
 Leonard's feelings for Helen his silent fidelity to her 
 image, though a child's his love when he again beheld her 
 as a woman the modest fears which the Parson himself 
 had combated the recommendation that Mr. Dale had 
 forced upon him, to confess his affection to Helen, and 
 plead his cause. "Anxious, as you may believe, for his 
 success," continued the Parson, " I waited without your 
 gates till he came from Miss Digby's presence. And oh, 
 my lord, had you but seen his face ! such emotion and 
 such despair ! I could not learn from him what had passed. 
 He escaped from me, and rushed away. All that I could 
 gather was from a few broken words, and from those words I 
 formed the conjecture (it may be erroneous) that the obstacle 
 to his happiness was not in Helen's heart, my lord, but 
 seemed to me as if it were in yourself. Therefore, when he 
 had vanished from my sight, I took courage, and came at 
 once to you. If he be your son, and Helen Digby be your 
 ward she herself an orphan, dependent on your bounty 
 why should they be severed ? Equals in years united by 
 early circumstance congenial, it seems, in simple habits 
 and refined tastes what should hinder their union, unless 
 it be the want of fortune ? and all men know your wealth 
 none ever questioned your generosity. My lord, my lord, 
 your look freezes me. If I have offended, do not visit my 
 offence on him on Leonard ! " 
 
 " And so," said Harley, still controlling his rage, " so 
 this boy whom, as you say, I saved from that pitiless 
 world which has engulfed many a nobler genius so, in re- 
 turn for all, he has sought to rob me of the last affection, 
 poor and lukewarm though it was, that remained to me in 
 life. He presumed to lift his eyes to my affianced bride ! 
 He ! And for aught I know, steal from me her living heart, 
 and leave to me her icy hand ! " 
 
 " Oh, my lord, your affianced bride ! I never dreamed 
 of this. I implore your pardon. The very thought is so 
 terrible so unnatural the son to woo the father's 
 Oh, what sin have I fallen into ! The sin was mine I urged
 
 9 ;6 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 and persuaded him to it. He was ignorant as myself. 
 Forgive him, forgive him ! " 
 
 " Mr. Dale," said Harley, rising, and extending his hand, 
 which the poor Parson felt himself unworthy to take " Mr. 
 Dale, you are a good man if, indeed, this universe of liars 
 contains some man who does not cheat our judgment when 
 we deem him honest. Allow me only to ask why you con- 
 sider Leonard Fairfield to be my son ?" 
 
 " Was not your youthful admiration for poor Nora evi- 
 dent to me ? Remember, I was a frequent guest at Lans- 
 mere Park ; and it was so natural that you, with all your 
 brilliant gifts, should captivate her refined fancy her affec- 
 tionate heart." 
 
 " Natural you think so go on." 
 
 "Your mother, as became her, separated you. It was 
 not unknown to me that you still cherished a passion which 
 your rank forbade to be lawful. Poor girl ! she left the 
 roof of her protectress, Lady Jane. Nothing was known of 
 her till she came to her father's house to give birth to a 
 child, and die. And the same day that dawned on her 
 corpse, you hurried from the place. Ah ! no doubt your 
 conscience smote you you have never returned to Lans- 
 mere since." 
 
 Harley 's breast heaved he waved his hand the Parson 
 resumed 
 
 "Whom could I suspect but you? I made inquiries, 
 they confirmed my suspicions." 
 
 " Perhaps you inquired of my friend, Mr. Egerton ? He 
 was with me when when as you say, I hurried from the 
 place." 
 
 " I did, my lord." 
 
 "And he?" 
 
 " Denied your guilt ; but still, a man of honor so nice, of 
 heart so feeling, could not feign readily. His denial did not 
 deceive me." 
 
 " Honest man ! " said Harley ; and his hand griped the 
 breast over which still rustled, as if with a ghostly sigh, 
 the records of the dead. " He knew she had left a son, 
 too ? " 
 
 " He did, my lord ; of course, I told him that." 
 
 " The son whom I found starving in the streets of Lon- 
 don ! Mr. Dale, as you see, your words move me very 
 much. I cannot deny that he who wronged, it may be with
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 977 
 
 no common treachery, that young mother for Nora Avenel 
 was not one to be lightly seduced into error 
 
 " Indeed, no !" 
 
 " And who then thought no more of the offspring of her 
 anguish and his own crime I cannot deny that that man 
 deserves some chastisement should render some atonement. 
 Am I not right here ? Answer with the plain speech which 
 becomes your sacred calling." 
 
 " I cannot say otherwise, my lord," replied the Parson, 
 pitying what appeared to him such remorse. " But if he 
 repent " 
 
 " Enough," interrupted Harley, " I now invite you to visit 
 me at Lansmere ; give me your address, and I will apprise 
 you of the day on which I will request your presence. 
 Leonard Fairfield shall find a father I was about to say, 
 worthy of himself. For the rest stay ; reseat yourself. 
 For the rest," and again the sinister smile broke from 
 Harley's eye and lip " I will not yet say whether I can, ojr 
 ought to, resign to a younger and fairer suitor the lady who 
 has accepted my own hand. I have no reason yet to believe 
 that she prefers him. But what think you, meanwhile, of 
 this proposal ? Mr. Avenel wishes his nephew to contest 
 the borough of Lansmere has urged me to obtain the 
 young man's consent. True, that he may thus endanger the 
 seat of Mr. Audley Egerton. What then ? Mr. Audley 
 Egerton is a great man, and may find another seat ; that 
 should not stand in the way. Let Leonard obey his uncle. 
 If he win the election ; why, he'll be a more equal match, in 
 the world's eye, for Miss Digby that is, should she prefer 
 him to myself ; and if she do not, still, in public life, there is a 
 cure for all private sorrow. That is a maxim of Mr. Audley 
 Egerton's ; and he, you know, is a man not only of the 
 nicest honor, but the deepest worldly wisdom. Do you like 
 my proposition ?" 
 
 "It seems to me most considerate most generous." 
 
 " Then you shall take to Leonard the lines I am about 
 to write." 
 
 LORD L'ESTRANGE TO LEONARD FAIRFIELD. 
 
 " I have read the memoir you intrusted to me. I will 
 follow up all the clues that it gives me. Meanwhile I re- 
 quest you to suspend all questions forbear all reference to 
 a subject which, as you may well conjecture, is fraught with
 
 978 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 painful recollections to myself. At this moment, too, I am 
 compelled to concentre my thoughts upon affairs of a pub- 
 lic nature, and yet which may sensibly affect yourself. 
 There are reasons why I urge you to comply with your 
 uncle's wish, and stand for the borough of Lansmere at the 
 approaching election. If the exquisite gratitude of your 
 nature so overrates what I may have done for you, that you 
 think you owe me some obligations, you will richly repay 
 them on the day in which I hear you hailed as member for 
 Lansmere. Relying on that generous principle of self- 
 sacrifice which actuates all your conduct, I shall count 
 upon your surrendering your preference to private life, and 
 entering the arena of that noble ambition which has con- 
 ferred such dignity on the name of my friend Audley Eger- 
 ton. He, it is true, will be your opponent ; but he is too 
 generous not to pardon my zeal for the interest of a youth 
 whose career I am vain enough to think that I have aided. 
 And as Mr. Randal Leslie stands in coalition with Egerton, 
 and Mr. Avenel believes that two candidates of the same 
 party cannot both succeed, the result may be to the satis- 
 faction of all the feelings which I entertain for Audley Eger- 
 ton, and for you, who, I have reason to think, will emulate 
 his titles to my esteem. 
 
 " Yours, 
 
 " L'ESTRANGE. 
 
 " There, Mr. Dale," said Harley, sealing his letter, and 
 giving it into the Parson's hands. " There, you shall deliver 
 this note to your friend. But no upon second thoughts, 
 since he does not yet know of -your visit to me, it is best 
 that he should be still in ignorance of it. For should Miss 
 Digby resolve to abide by her present engagements, it were 
 surely kind to save Leonard the pain of learning that you 
 had communicated to me that rivalry he himself had con- 
 cealed. Let all that has passed between us be kept in strict 
 confidence." 
 
 " I will obey you, my lord," answered the Parson, 
 meekly, startled to find that he who had come to arrogate 
 authority, was now submitting to commands ; and all at 
 fault what judgment he could venture to pass upon the man 
 whom he had regarded as a criminal, who had not even 
 denied the crime imputed to him, yet who now impressed 
 the accusing priest with something of that respect which 
 Mr. Dale had never before conceded but to Virtue. Could
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 979 
 
 he have then but looked into the dark and stormy heart, 
 which he twice misread ! 
 
 " It is well very well," muttered Harley, when the door 
 had closed upon the Parson. "The viper and the viper's 
 brood ! So it was this man's son that I led from the dire 
 Slough of Despond ; and the son unconsciously imitates the 
 father's gratitude and honor Ha ha ! " Suddenly the bit- 
 ter laugh was arrested ; a flash of almost celestial joy darted 
 through the warring elements of storm and darkness. If 
 Helen returned Leonard's affection, Harley L'Estrange was 
 free ! And through that flash the face of Violante shone 
 upon him as an angel's. But the heavenly light and the 
 angel face vanished abruptly, swallowed up in the black 
 abyss of the rent and tortured soul. 
 
 "Fool !" said the unhappy man, aloud, in his anguish 
 " fool ! what then ? Were I free, would it be to trust my 
 fate again to falsehood ? If, in all the bloom and glory of 
 my youth, I failed to win the heart of a village girl if, 
 once more deluding myself, it is in vain that I have tended, 
 reared, cherished, some germ of woman's human affection 
 in the orphan I saved from penury how look for love in 
 the brilliant princess, whom all the sleek Lotharios of our 
 gaudy world will surround with their homage when once 
 she alights on their sphere ! If perfidy be my fate what 
 hell of hells in the thought? that a wife might lay her 
 head in my bosom and oh, horror! horror! No! 
 I would not accept her hand were it offered, nor believe in 
 her love were it pledged to me. Stern soul of mine 
 wise at last, love never more never more believe in 
 truth !" 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 As Harley quitted the room, Helen's pale, sweet face 
 looked forth from a door in the same corridor. She ad- 
 vanced toward him timidly. 
 
 "May I speak with you?" she said, in almost inaudible 
 accents. "I have been listening for your footstep." 
 
 Harley looked'at her steadfastly. Then, without a word, 
 he followed her into the room she had left, and closed the 
 door.
 
 980 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 " I too," said he, " meant to seek an interview with your- 
 self but later. You would speak to me, Helen say on. 
 Ah ! child, what mean you ? Why this ? " for Helen was 
 kneeling at his feet. 
 
 "Let me kneel," she said, resisting the hand that sought 
 to raise her. " Let me kneel till I have explained all, and 
 perhaps won your pardon. You said something the other 
 evening. It has weighed on my heart and my conscience 
 ever since. You said, ' that I should have no secret from 
 you ; for that, in our relation to each other, would be deceit.' 
 I have had a secret ; but, oh, believe me ! it was long ere it 
 was clearly visible to myself. You honored me with a suit 
 so far beyond my birth, my merits. You said that I might 
 console and comfort you. At those words, what answer 
 could I give ? I, who owe you so much more than a 
 daughter's duty ? And I thought that my affections were 
 free that they would- obey that duty. But but but " 
 continued Helen, bowing her head still lowlier, and in a 
 voice far fainter " I deceived myself. I again saw him who 
 has been all in the world to me, when the world was so 
 terrible and then and then I trembled. I was terrified 
 at my own memories my own thoughts. Still I struggled 
 to banish the past resolutely firmly. Oh, you believe me, 
 do you not ? And I hoped to conquer. Yet ever since 
 those words of yours, I felt that I ought to tell you even of 
 the struggle. This is the first time we have met since you 
 spoke them. And now now I have seen him again, and 
 and though not by a word could she you had deigned 
 to woo as your bride encourage hope in another though 
 there there where you now stand he bade me farewell, 
 and we parted as for ever ; yet yet O Lord L'Estrange ! 
 in return for your rank, wealth, your still nobler gifts of 
 nature what should I bring ? something more than grati- 
 tude, esteem, reverence at least an undivided heart, fillei 
 with your image, and yours alone. And this I cannot give. 
 Pardon me not for what I say now, but for not saying it be- 
 fore. Pardon me O my benefactor, pardon me ! " 
 
 " Rise, Helen," said Harley, with relaxing brow, though 
 still unwilling to yield to one softer and holier emotion. 
 " Rise ! " And he lifted her up, and drew her toward the 
 light. " Let me look at your face. There seems no guile 
 here. These tears are surely honest. If I cannot be loved, 
 it is my fate, and not your crime. Now, listen to me. If 
 you grant me nothing else, will you give me the obedience
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 981 
 
 which the ward owes to the guardian, the child to the 
 parent ? " 
 
 "Yes oh yes ! " murmured Helen. 
 
 "Then while I release you from all troth to me, I claim 
 the right to refuse, if I so please it, my assent to the suit of 
 of the person you prefer. I acquit you of deceit, but I 
 reserve to myself the judgment I shall pass on him. Until 
 I myself sanction that suit, will you promise not to recall in 
 any way the rejection which, if I understand you rightly, 
 you have given to it ? " 
 
 " I promise." 
 
 "And if I say to you, ' Helen, this man is not worthy 
 of you ' ' 
 
 " No, no ! do not say that I could not believe you." 
 
 Harley frowned, but resumed calmly " If, then, I say, 
 1 Ask me not wherefore, but I forbid you to be the wife of 
 Leonard Fairfield,' what would be your answer ? " 
 
 " Ah, my lord, if you can but comfort him, do with me 
 as you will ; but do not command me to break his heart." 
 
 " Oh, silly child," cried Harley, laughing scornfully, 
 " hearts are not found in the race from which that man 
 sprang. But I take your promise with its credulous con- 
 dition. Helen, I pity you. I have been as weak as you, 
 bearded man though I be. Some day or other, you and I 
 may live to laugh at the follies at which you weep now. I 
 can give you no other comfort, for I know of none." 
 
 He moved to the door, and paused at the threshold. " I 
 shall not see you again for some days, Helen. Perhaps I 
 may request my mother to join me at Lansmere ; if so, 
 I shall pray you to accompany her. For the present, let all 
 believe that our position is unchanged. The time will soon 
 come when I may " 
 
 Helen looked up wistfully through her tears. 
 
 " I may release you from air duties to me," continued 
 Harley, with grave and severe coldness ; " or I may claim 
 your promise in spite of the condition ; for your lover's 
 heart will not be broken. Adieu ! "
 
 982 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 As Harley entered London, he came suddenly upon 
 Randal Leslie, who was hurrying from Eaton Square, hav- 
 ing not only accompanied Mr. Avenel in his walk, but gone 
 home with him, and spent half the day in that gentleman's 
 society. He was now on his way to the House of Commons, 
 at which some disclosure as to the day for the dissolution 
 of Parliament was expected. 
 
 " Lord L'Estrange," said Randal, " I must stop you. I 
 have been to Norwood, and seen our noble friend. He has 
 confided to me, of course, all that passed. How can I ex- 
 press my gratitude to you ! By what rare talent with 
 what signal courage you have saved the happiness per- 
 haps even the honor of my plighted bride ! " 
 
 "Your bride ! The Duke, then, still holds to the promise 
 you were fortunate enough to obtain from Dr. Ricca- 
 bocca ? " 
 
 " He confirms that promise more solemnly than ever. 
 You may well be surprised at his magnanimity." 
 
 " No ; he is a philosopher nothing in him can surprise 
 me. But he seemed to think, when I saw him, that there 
 were circumstances you might find it hard to explain." 
 
 " Hard ! nothing so easy. Allow me to tender to you 
 the same explanations which satisfied one whom philosophy 
 itself has made as open to truth as he is clear-sighted to 
 imposture. 
 
 "Another time, Mr. Leslie. If your bride's father be 
 satisfied, what right have I to doubt ? By the way, you 
 stand for Lansmere. Do me the favor to fix your quarters 
 at the Park during the election. You will, of course, 
 accompany Mr. Egerton." 
 
 "You are most kind," answered Randal, greatly sur- 
 prised. 
 
 " You accept ? That is well. We shall then have ample 
 opportunity for those explanations which you honor me by 
 offering ; and, to make your visit still more agreeable, I 
 may, perhaps, induce our friends at Norwood to meet you. 
 Good day." 
 
 Harley walked on, leaving Randal motionless in amaze,
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 983 
 
 but tormented with suspicion. What could such courtesies 
 in Lord L'Estrange portend ? Surely no good. 
 
 " 1 am about to hold the balance of justice," said Harley 
 to himself. "I will cast the light-weight of that knave into 
 the scale. Violante never can be mine ; but I did not save 
 her from a Peschiera to leave her to a Randal Leslie. Ha, 
 ha ! Audley Egerton has some human feeling tenderness 
 for that youth whom he has selected from the world in 
 which he left Nora's child to the jaws of Famine. Through 
 that side I can reach at his heart, and prove him a fool like 
 myself, where he esteemed and confided ! Good." 
 
 Thus soliloquizing, Lord L'Estrange gained the corner 
 of Bruton Street, when he was again somewhat abruptly 
 accosted. 
 
 "My dear Lord L'Estrange, let me shake you by the 
 hand ; for Heaven knows when I may see you again ; and 
 you have suffered me to assist in one good action." 
 
 " Frank Hazeldean, I arn pleased indeed to meet you. 
 Why do you indulge in that melancholy doubt as to the 
 time when I may see you again ? " 
 
 " I have just got leave of absence. I am not well, and I 
 am rather hipped, so I shall go abroad for a few weeks." 
 
 In spite of himself, the sombre brooding man felt interest 
 and sympathy in the dejection that was evident in Frank's 
 voice and countenance. " Another dupe to affection," 
 thought he, as if in apology to himself ; " of course, a 
 dupe ; he is honest and artless at present." He pressed 
 kindly on the arm which hehad involuntarily twined within 
 his own. " I conceive how you now grieve, my young 
 friend," said he ; " but you will congratulate yourself here- 
 after on what this day seems to you an affliction." 
 
 " My dear Lord " 
 
 " I am much older than you, but not old enough for 
 such formal ceremony. Pray, call'me L'Estrange." 
 
 " Thank you ; and I should indeed like to speak to you 
 as a friend. There is a thought on my mind which haunts 
 me. I dare say it is foolish enough, but I am sure you will 
 not laugh at me. You heard what Madame di Negra said 
 to me last night. I have been trifled with and misled, but I 
 cannot forget so soon how dear to me that woman was. I 
 am not going to bore you with such nonsense ; but from 
 what I can understand, her brother is likely to lose all his 
 fortune ; and, even if not, he is a sad scoundrel. I cannot 
 bear the thought that she should be so dependent on him
 
 984 'MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 that she may come to want. After all, there must be good 
 in her good in her to refuse my hand if she did not love 
 me. A mercenary woman so circumstanced would not have 
 done that." 
 
 "You are quite right. But do not torment yourself 
 with such generous fears. Madame di Negra shall not come 
 to want shall not be dependent on her infamous brother. 
 The first act of the Duke of Serrano, on regaining his es- 
 tates, will be a suitable provision for his kinswoman. I will 
 answer for this." 
 
 " You take a load off my mind. I did not mean to ask 
 you to intercede with Riccabocca that is, the Duke (it is 
 so hard to think he can be a Duke !) I, alas ! have nothing 
 in my power to bestow upon Madame di Negra. I may in- 
 deed, sell my commission ; but then I have a debt which I 
 long to pay off, and the sale of the commission would not 
 suffice even for that ; and perhaps my father might be still 
 more angry if I do sell it. Well, good-bye. I shall now go 
 away happy that is, comparatively. One must bear things 
 like a man ! " 
 
 " I should like, however, to see you again before you go 
 abroad. I will call on you. Meanwhile, can you tell me 
 the number of one Baron Levy ? He lives in this street, I 
 know ! " 
 
 " Levy ! Oh, have no dealings with him, I advise I 
 entreat you ! He is the most plausible, dangerous rascal, 
 and, for Heaven's sake ! pray be warned by me, and let 
 nothing entangle you into a POST-OBIT ! " 
 
 " Be reassured, I am more accustomed to lend money 
 than borrow it ; and, as to a post-obit, I have a foolish pre- 
 judice against such transactions." 
 
 "Don't call it foolish, L'Estrange ; I honor you for it. 
 How I wish I had known you earlier so few men of the 
 world are like you. Even Randal Leslie, who is so fault- 
 less in most things, and never gets into a scrape himself, 
 called my own scruples foolish. However " 
 
 " Stay Randal Leslie ! What ! He advised you to 
 borrow on a post-obit, and probably shared the loan with 
 you ?" 
 
 " Oh no ; not a shilling." 
 
 "Tell me all about it, Frank. Perhaps, as I see that 
 Levy is mixed up in the affair, your information may be 
 useful to myself, and put me on my guard in dealing with 
 that popular gentleman."
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 985 
 
 Frank, who somehow or other felt himself quite at home 
 with Harley, and who, with all his respect for Randal Les- 
 lie's talents, had a vague notion that Lord L'Estrange was 
 quite as clever, and from his years and experience, likely to 
 be a safer and more judicious counsellor, was noways loath 
 to impart the confidence thus pressed for. 
 
 He told Harley of his debts his first dealings with Levy ; 
 the unhappy post-obit into which he had been hurried by 
 the distress of Madame di Negra ; his father's anger his 
 mother's letter his own feelings of mingled shame and 
 pride, which made him fear that repentance would but seem 
 self-interest his desire to sell his commission, and let 
 its sale redeem in part \\\e post-obit ; in short, he made what 
 is called a clean breast of it. Randal Leslie was necessarily 
 mixed up with this recital ; and the subtle cross-question- 
 ings of Harley extracted far more as to that young diplo- 
 matist's agency in all these melancholy concerns, than the 
 ingenuous narrator himself was aware of. 
 
 "So then," said Harley, "Mr. Leslie assured you of 
 Madame di Negra's affection, when you yourself doubted 
 of it?" 
 
 " Yes ; she took him in, even more than she did me." . 
 
 " Simple Mr. Leslie ! And the same kind friend who 
 is related to you did you say ?" 
 
 " His grandmother was a Hazeldean." 
 
 "Humph. The same kind relation led you to believe 
 that you could pay off the bond with the Marchesa's por- 
 tion, and that he could obtain the consent of your parents 
 to your marriage with that lady ? " 
 
 " I ought to have known better ; my father's prejudices 
 against foreigners and Papists are so strong." 
 
 " And now Mr. Leslie concurs with you, that it is best 
 for you to go abroad, and trust to his intercession with your 
 father. He has evidently, then, gained a great influence 
 over Mr. Hazeldean." 
 
 "My father naturally compares me with him he so 
 clever, so promising, so regular in his habits, and I such a 
 reckless scapegrace." 
 
 " And the bulk of your father's property is unentailed 
 Mr. Hazeldean might disinherit you ?" 
 
 " I deserve it. I hope he will." 
 
 "You 'have no brothers nor sisters no relation, per- 
 haps, after your parents, nearer to you than your excellent 
 friend Mr. Randal Leslie?" 
 42
 
 986 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 " No ; that is the reason he is so kind to me, otherwise 
 I am the last person to suit him. You have no idea how 
 well-informed and clever he is," added Frank, in a tone be- 
 tween admiration and awe. 
 
 " My dear Hazeldean, you will take my advice will you 
 not ?" 
 
 "Certainly. You are too good." 
 
 " Let all your family, Mr. Leslie included, suppose you 
 to be gone abroad ; but stay quietly in England, and within 
 a day's journey of Lansmere Park. I am obliged to go 
 thither for the approaching election. I may ask you to 
 come over. I think I see a way to serve you ; and if so, 
 you will soon hear from me. Now, Baron Levy's number?" 
 
 " That is the house with the cabriolet at the door. How 
 such a fellow can have such a horse ! 'tis out of all 
 keeping !" 
 
 " Not at all ; horses are high-spirited, generous, unsus- 
 picious animals. They never know if it is a rogue who 
 drives them. I have your promise, then, and you will send 
 me your address ? " 
 
 " I will. Strange that I feel more confidence in you 
 than I do even in Randal ! Do take care of Levy." 
 
 Lord L'Estrange and Frank here shook hands, and 
 Frank, with an anxious groan, saw L'Estrange disappear 
 within the portals of the sleek destroyer. 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 LORD L'ESTRANGE followed the spruce servant into 
 Baron Levy's luxurious study. 
 
 The Baron looked greatly amazed at his unexpected 
 visitor ; but he got up handed a chair to my lord with a 
 low bow. " This is an honor," said he. 
 
 " You have a charming abode here," said Lord L'Es- 
 trange, looking round. "Very fine bronzes excellent 
 taste. Your reception-rooms above are, doubtless, a model 
 to all decorators ! " 
 
 " Would your lordship condescend to see them ? " said 
 Levy, wondering, but flattered. 
 
 "With the greatest pleasure." 
 
 " Lights ! " cried Levy, to the servant who answered
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 987 
 
 his bell. "Lights in the drawing-rooms it is growing 
 dark." 
 
 Lord L'Estrange followed the usurer up-stairs ; admired 
 everything pictures, draperies, Sevres china, to the very 
 shape of the downy fauteuils, to the very pattern of the 
 Tournay carpets. Reclining then on one of the voluptuous 
 sofas, Lord L'Estrange said, smilingly, " You are a wise 
 man ; there is no advantage in being rich, unless one enjoys 
 one's riches." 
 
 " My own maxim, Lord L'Estrange." 
 
 " And it is something, too, to have a taste for good so- 
 ciety. Small pride would you have, my dear Baron, in 
 these rooms, luxurious though they are, if filled with guests 
 of vulgar exterior and plebeian manners. It is only in the 
 world in which we move that we find persons who harmon- 
 ize, as it were, with the porcelain of Sevres, and these sofa? 
 that might have come from Versailles." 
 
 " I own," said Levy, "that I have what some may call a 
 weakness in a parvenu like myself. I have a love for the 
 beau monde. It is indeed a pleasure to me when I receive 
 men like your lordship." 
 
 "But why call yourself a parvenu? Though you are 
 contented to honor the name of Levy, we, in society, all 
 know that you are the son of a long-descended English 
 peer. Child of love, it is true ; but the Graces smile on 
 those over whose birth Venus presided. Pardon my old- 
 fashioned mythological similes they go so well with these 
 rooms Louis Quinze." 
 
 " Since you touch on my birth," said Levy, his color 
 rather heightening, not with shame, but With pride, " I 
 don't deny that it has had some effect on my habits and 
 tastes in life. In fact " 
 
 " In fact, own that you would be a miserable man, in 
 spite of all your wealth, if the young dandies, who throng 
 to your banquets, were to cut you dead in the streets ; if, 
 when your high-stepping horse stopped at your club, the 
 porter shut the door in your face ; if, when you lounged 
 into the opera-pit, handsome dog that you are, each spend- 
 thrift rake in ' Fop's Alley,' who now waits but the scratch 
 of your pen to endorse billets-doux with the charm that can 
 chain to himself for a month some nymph of the Ballet, 
 spinning round in a whirlwind of tulle, would shrink from 
 the touch of your condescending forefinger with more 
 dread of its contact than a bailiff's tap in the thick of Pall
 
 9 8S MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 Mall could inspire ; if, reduced to the company of city 
 clerks, parasite led-captains " 
 
 " Oh, don't go on, my dear lord," cried Levy, laughing 
 affectedly. " Impossible though the picture be, it is really 
 appalling. Cut rne off from May Fair and St. James's, and 
 I should go into my strong closet and hang myself." 
 
 " And yet, my dear Baron, all this may happen if I have 
 the whim just to try ; all this will happen, unless, ere I 
 leave your house, you concede the conditions I come here 
 to impose." 
 
 " My Lord ! " exclaimed Levy, starting up, and pulling 
 down his waistcoat with nervous passionate fingers, " if 
 you were not under my own roof, I would " 
 
 " Truce with mock heroics. Sit down, sir sit down. 
 I will briefly state my threat more briefly my conditions. 
 You will be scarcely more prolix in your reply. Your for- 
 tune I cannot touch your enjoyment of it I can destroy. 
 Refuse my conditions make me your enemy and war to 
 che knife ! I will interrogate all the young dupes you 
 have ruined. I will learn the history of all the transactions 
 by which you have gained the wealth that it pleases you to 
 spend in courting the society and sharing the vices of men 
 who go with these rooms, Louis Quinze ! Not a roguery 
 of yours shall escape me, down even to your last notable 
 connivance with an Italian reprobate for the criminal ab- 
 duction of an heiress. All these particulars I will proclaim 
 in the clubs to which you have gained admittance in every 
 club in London which you yet hope to creep into. All 
 these I will impart to some such authority in the Press as 
 Mr. Henry Norreys ; all these I will, upon the voucher of 
 my own name, have so published in some journals of re- 
 pute, that you must either tacitly submit to the revelations 
 that blast you, or bring before a court of law actions that 
 will convert accusations into evidence. It is but by suf- 
 ferance that you are now in society you are excluded 
 when one man like me comes forth to denounce you. You 
 try in vain to sneer at my menace your white lips show 
 your terror. I have rarely in life drawn any advantage 
 from my rank and position ; but I am thankful that they 
 give me the power to make my voice respected and my ex- 
 posure triumphant. Now, Baron Levy, will you go into 
 your strong closet and hang yourself, or will you grant me my 
 very moderate conditions ? You are silent. I will relieve 
 you, and state those conditions. Until the general election,
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 989 
 
 about to take place, is concluded, you will obey me to the 
 letter in all that I enjoin no demur, and no scruple. And 
 the first proof of obedience I demand is, your candid dis- 
 closure of all Mr. Audley Egerton's pecuniary affairs." 
 
 " Has my client Mr. Egerton authorized you to request 
 of me that disclosure ? " 
 
 " On the contrary, all that passes between us you will 
 conceal from your client." 
 
 "You would save him from ruin? Your trusty friend, 
 Mr. Egerton ! " said the Baron, with a livid sneer. 
 
 " Wrong again, Baron Levy. If I would save him from 
 ruin, you are scarcely the man I should ask to assist me." 
 
 " Ah, I guess. You have learned how he " 
 
 " Guess nothing, but obey in all things. Let us descend 
 to your business-room." 
 
 Levy said not a word until he had reconducted his 
 visitor into his den of destruction all gleaming with 
 spoliaria in rose-wood. Then he said this: "If, Lord 
 L'Estrange, you seek but revenge on Audley Egerton, 
 you need not have uttered those threats, I too hate the 
 man." 
 
 Harley looked at him wistfully, and the nobleman felt a 
 pang that he had debased himself into a single feeling 
 which the usurer could share. Nevertheless the inter- 
 view appeared to close with satisfactory arrangements, 
 and to produce amicable understanding. For, as the Baron 
 ceremoniously followed Lord L'Estrange through the hall, 
 his noble visitor said, with marked affability 
 
 " Then I shall see you at Lansmere with Mr. Egerton, 
 to assist in conducting his election. It is a sacrifice of 
 your time worthy of your friendship ; not a step farther, I 
 beg. Baron, I have the honor to wish you good evening." 
 
 As the street-door opened on Lord L'Estrange, he again 
 found himself face to face with Randal Leslie, whose hand 
 was already lifted to the knocker. 
 
 " Ha, Mr. Leslie ! you too a client of Baron Levy's ;- 
 a very useful, accommodating man." 
 
 Randal stared and stammered, " I come in haste from 
 the House of Commons on Mr. Egerton's business. Don't 
 you hear the newspaper venders crying out ' Great news 
 Dissolution of Parliament ? " 
 
 " We are prepared. Levy himself consents to give us 
 the aid of his talents. Kindly, obliging clever person ! " 
 
 Randal hurried into Levy's study, to which the usurer
 
 990 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 had shrunk back, and was now wiping his brow with his 
 scented handkerchief, looking heated and haggard, and 
 very indifferent to Randal Leslie. 
 
 " How is this ? " cried Randal. " I come to tell you 
 first of Peschiera's utter failure, the ridiculous coxcomb, 
 and I meet at your door the last man I thought to find 
 there the man who foiled us all, Lord L'Estrange. What 
 brought him to you ? Ah, perhaps his interest in F-gerton's 
 election ? " 
 
 "Yes," said Levy, sulkily. "I know all about Pes- 
 chiera. I cannot talk to you now ; I must make arrange- 
 ments for going to Lansmere." 
 
 " But don't forget my purchase from Thornhill. I shall 
 have the money shortly from a surer source than Pes- 
 chiera." 
 
 "The Squire?" 
 
 "Or a rich father-in-law." 
 
 In the meanwhile, as Lord L'Estrange entered Bond 
 Street, his ears were stunned by vociferous cries from the 
 Stentors employed by Standard, Sun, and Globe Great 
 news Dissolution of Parliament Great news ! " The gas- 
 lamps were lighted a brown fog was gathering over the 
 streets, blending itself with the falling shades of night. 
 The forms of men loomed large through the mist. The 
 lights from the shops looked red and lurid. Loungers 
 usually careless as to politics, were talking eagerly and 
 anxiously of King, Lords, Commons, " Constitution at 
 stake" "Triumph of liberal opinions," according to 
 their several biases. Hearing, and scorning unsocial, 
 isolated walked on Harley L'Estrange. With his direr 
 passions had been roused up all the native powers that 
 made them doubly dangerous. He became proudly con- 
 scious of his own great faculties, but exulted in them only 
 so far as they could minister to the purpose which had 
 invoked them. 
 
 " I have constituted myself a Fate," he said inly ; " let 
 the gods be but neutral while I weave the meshes. Then, 
 as Fate itself when it has fulfilled its mission, let me pass 
 away into shadow, with the still and lonely stride that none 
 may follow. 
 
 ' Oh for a lodge in some vast wilderness.' 
 
 How weary I am of this world of men ! " And again the 
 cry " Great news National crisis Dissolution of Parlia-
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 991 
 
 ment Great news ! " rang through the jostling throng. 
 Three men, arm-in-arm, brushed by Harley, and were 
 stopped at the crossing by a file of carriages. The man in 
 the centre was Audley Egerton. His companions were an 
 ex-minister like himself, and one of those great proprietors 
 who are proud of being above office, and vain of the power 
 to make and unmake Governments. 
 
 " You are the only man to lead us, Egerton," said this 
 last personage. " Do but secure your seat, and as soon as 
 this popular fever has passed away, you must be something 
 more than the leader of Opposition you must be the first 
 man in England." 
 
 " Not a doubt of that," chimed in the fellow ex-minister 
 a worthy man perfect red-tapist, but inaudible in the 
 reporters' gallery. " And your election is quite safe, eh ? 
 All depends on that. You must not be thrown out at such 
 a time, even for a month or two. I hear that you will have 
 a contest some townsman of the borough, I think. But 
 the Lansmere interest must be all powerful ; and I suppose 
 L'Estrange will come out and canvass for you. You are 
 not the man to have lukewarm friends." 
 
 " Don't be alarmed about my election. I am as sure of 
 that as of L'Estrange's friendship." 
 
 Harley heard, w r ith a grim smile, and passing his hand 
 within his vest, laid it upon Nora's memoir. 
 
 " What could we do in Parliament without you ! " said 
 the great proprietor, almost piteously. 
 
 " Rather what could I do without Parliament ? Public 
 life is the only existence I own. Parliament is all in all to 
 me. But we may cross now." 
 
 Harley's eye glittered cold as it followed the tall form of 
 the statesman, towering high above all other passers-by. 
 
 "Ay," he muttered "ay, rest as sure of my friendship 
 as I am of thine ! And be Lansmere our field of Phillippi ! 
 There, where thy first step was made in the only life that 
 thou own'st as existence, shall the ladder itself rot from 
 under thy footing. There, where thy softer victim slunk to 
 death from the deceit of thy love, shall deceit like thine 
 own dig a grave for thy frigid ambition. I borrow thy 
 quiver of fraud ; its still arrows shall strike thee ; and thou 
 too shalt say, when the barb pierces home, ' This comes 
 from the hand of a friend.' Ay, at Lansmere, at Lansmere, 
 shall the end crown the whole ! Go, and dot on the can-
 
 992 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 vas the lines for a lengthened perspective, where my eyes 
 note already the vanishing-point of the picture." 
 
 Then through the dull log, and under the pale gas-lights, 
 Harley L'Estrange pursued his noiseless way, soon dis- 
 tinguished no more amongst the various, motley, quick- 
 succeeding groups, with their infinite subdivisions of 
 thought, care, and passion ; while loud over all their low 
 murmurs, or silent hearts, were heard the tramp of horses 
 and din of wheels, and the vociferous, discordant cry that 
 had ceased to attract an interest in the ears it vexed 
 " Great News, Great News Dissolution of Parliament 
 Great News ! " 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 THE scene is at Lansmere Park a spacious pile, com- 
 menced in the reign of Charles II. ; enlarged and altered in 
 the reign of Anne. Brilliant interval in the History of 
 our National Manners, when even the courtier dreaded 
 to be dull, and Sir Fopling raised himself on tiptoe to 
 catch the ear of a wit when the names of Devonshire and 
 Dorset, Halifax and Carteret, Oxford and Bolingbroke, 
 unite themselves, brother-like, with those of Hobbes and 
 of Dryden, of Prior and Bentley, of Arbuthnot, Gay, Pope, 
 and Swift ; and still, wherever we turn, to recognize some 
 ideal of great Lord or fine Gentleman the Immortals of 
 Literature stand by his side. 
 
 The walls of the rooms at Lansmere were covered with 
 the portraits of those who illustrate that time which Europe 
 calls the Age of Louis XIV. A L'Estrange, who had lived 
 through the reigns of four English princes (and with no 
 mean importance through all), had collected those like- 
 nesses of noble contemporaries. As you passed through 
 the chambers opening one on the other in that pomp 
 of parade introduced with Charles II. from the palaces 
 of France, and retaining its mode till Versailles and the 
 Trianon passed, themselves, out of date you felt you were 
 in excellent company. What saloons of our day, demeaned 
 to tailed coats and white waistcoats, have that charm of 
 high breeding which speaks out from the canvas of Kneller 
 and Jervis, Vivien and Rigaud ? And withal, notwithstand- 
 ing lace and brocade the fripperies of artificial costume
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 993 
 
 still those who give interest or charm to that day, look 
 from their portraits like men raking or dtbonnaire, if you 
 will never mincing nor feminine. Can we say as much 
 of the portraits of Lawrence ? Gaze there on fair Marl- 
 borough what delicate perfection of features, yet how 
 easy in boldness, how serene in the conviction of power ! So 
 fair and so tranquil he might have looked through the 
 cannon-reek at Ramilies and Blenheim, suggesting to Addi- 
 son the image of an angel of war. Ah, there, Sir Charles 
 Sedley, the Lovelace of wits ! Note that strong jaw and 
 marked brow ; do you not recognize the courtier who 
 scorned to ask one favor of the king with whom he lived as 
 an equal, and who stretched forth the right hand of man 
 to hurl from a throne the king who had made his daughter 
 a Countess ? * 
 
 Perhaps, from his childhood thus surrounded by the 
 haunting faces that spoke of their age as they looked from 
 the walls that age and those portraits were not without in- 
 fluence on the character of Harley L'Estrange. The whim 
 and the daring the passion for letters and reverence for 
 genius the mixture of levity and strength the polished 
 sauntering indolence, or the elastic readiness of energies 
 once called into action all might have found their proto- 
 types in the lives which those portraits rekindled. The 
 deeper sentiment, the more earnest nature, which in Harley 
 L'Estrange were commingled with the attributes common 
 to a former age these, indeed, were of "his own. Our age 
 so little comprehended, while it colors us from its atmos- 
 phere ! so full of mysterious and profound emotions, which 
 our ancestors never knew ! Will those emotions be under- 
 stood by our descendants ? 
 
 In this stately house were now assembled, as Harley's 
 guests, many of the more important personages whom the 
 slow length of this story has made familiar to the reader. 
 The two candidates for the borough in the True Blue inter- 
 est Audley Egerton and Randal Leslie ; and Levy chief 
 among the barons to whom modern society grants a seign- 
 iory of pillage, which, had a baron of old ever ventured to 
 arrogate, burgess and citizen, socman and bocman, villein 
 
 * Sedley was so tenacious of his independence, that when his affairs were most embarrassed, 
 he refused all pecuniary aid from Charles II. His bitter sarcasm, in vindication of the part 
 he took in the disposition of James II,, who had corrupted his daughter, and made her 
 Countess of Dorchester, is well known. "As the King has made my daughter a Countess, 
 the least I can do, in common gratitude, it to asmt in making his majesty's daughter a 
 Queen t H
 
 99 4 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 and churl, would have burned him alive in his castle ; the 
 Duke di Serrano, still fondly clinging to his title of doctor 
 and pet name of Riccabocca ; Jemima, not yet with the 
 airs of a duchess, but robed in very thick silks, as the 
 chrysalis state of a duchess ; Violante, too, was there, 
 sadly against her will, and shrinking as much as possible 
 into the retirement of her own chamber. The Countess of 
 Lansmere had deserted her lord, in order to receive the 
 guests of her son ; my lord himself, ever bent on being of 
 use in some part of his country, and striving hard to dis- 
 tract his interest from his plague of a borough, had gone 
 down into Cornwall to inquire into the social condition of 
 certain troglodytes who worked in some mines which the 
 Earl had lately had the misfortune to wring from the Court 
 of Chancery, after a lawsuit commenced by his grandfather ; 
 and a Blue Book, issued in the past session by order of 
 Parliament, had especially quoted the troglodytes thus de- 
 volved on the Earl as bipeds who were in considerable 
 ignorance of the sun, and had never been known to wash 
 their feet since the day that they came into the world 
 their world underground, chipped off from the Bottomless 
 Pit! 
 
 With the Countess came Helen Digby, of course ; and 
 Lady Lansmere, who had hitherto been so civilly cold to 
 the wife elect of her son, had, ever since her interview with 
 Harley at Knightsbridge, clung to Helen with almost a ca- 
 ressing fondness. "The stern Countess was tamed by fear ; 
 she felt that her own influence over Harley was gone ; she 
 trusted to the influence of Helen in case of what? ay, 
 what? It was because the danger was not clear to her, that 
 her bold spirit trembled ; superstitions, like suspicions, are, 
 "as bats among birds, and fly by twilight." Harley had 
 ridiculed the idea of challenge and strife between Audley 
 and himself; but still Lady Lansmere dreaded the fiery 
 emotions of the last, and the high spirit and austere self- 
 respect which were proverbial to the first. Involuntarily she 
 strengthened her intimacy with Helen. In case her alarm 
 should appear justified, what mediator could be so persua- 
 sive in appeasing the angrier passions, as one whom court- 
 ship and betrothal sanctified to the gentlest ? 
 
 On arriving at Lansmere, the Countess, however, felt 
 somewhat relieved. Harley had received her, if with a 
 manner less cordial and tender than had hitherto distin- 
 guished it, still with easy kindness and calm self-possession.
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 995 
 
 His bearing towards Audley Egerton still more reassured 
 her : it was not marked by any exaggeration of familiarity 
 or friendship which would at once have excited her ap- 
 prehension of some sinister design nor, on the other hand, 
 did it betray, by covert sarcasms, an ill-suppressed resent- 
 ment. It was exactly what, under the circumstances, would 
 have been natural to a man who had received an injury 
 from an intimate friend, which, in generosity or discretion, 
 he resolved to overlook, but which those aware of it could 
 just perceive had cooled or alienated the former affection. 
 Indefatigably occupying himself with all the details of the 
 election, Harley had a fair pretext for absenting himself 
 from Audley, who, really looking very ill, and almost worn 
 out, pleaded indisposition as an excuse for dispensing with 
 the fatigues of a personal canvass, and, passing much of his 
 time in his own apartments, left all the preparations for 
 contest to his more active friends. It was not till he had 
 actually arrived at Lansmere that Audley became acquainted 
 with the name of his principal opponent. Richard Avenel ! 
 the brother of Nora! rising up from obscurity, thus to stand 
 front to front against him in a contest on which all his fates 
 were cast. Egerton quailed as before an appointed aven- 
 ger. He would fain have retired from the field ; he spoke 
 to Harley ! 
 
 " How can you support all the painful remembrances 
 which the very name of my antagonist must conjure up?" 
 
 "Did you not tell me," answered Harley, "to strive 
 against such remembrances to look on them as sickly 
 dreams ? I am prepared to brave them. Can you be more 
 sensitive than J ?" 
 
 Egerton durst not say more. He avoided all further 
 reference to the subject. The strife raged around him, and 
 he shut himself out from it shut himself up in solitude with 
 his own heart Strife enough there ! Once, late at night, 
 he stole forth and repaired to Nora's grave. He stood there, 
 amidst the rank grass, and under the frosty starlight, long, 
 and in profound silence. His whole past life seemed to 
 rise before him ; and, when he regained his lonely room, 
 and strove to survey the future, still he could behold only 
 that past and that grave. 
 
 In thus declining all active care for an election, to his 
 prospects so important, Audley Egerton was considered to 
 have excuse, not only in the state of his health, but in his 
 sense of dignity. A statesman so eminent, of opinions so
 
 996 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 well known, of public services so incontestable, might well be 
 spared the personal trouble that falls upon obscurer candi- 
 dates. And besides, according to current report, and the 
 judgment of the Blue Committee, the return of .Mr. Eger- 
 ton was secure. But, though Audley himself was thus in- 
 dulgently treated, Harley and the Blue Committee took 
 care to inflict double work upon Randal. That active young 
 spirit found ample materials for all its restless energies. 
 Randal Leslie was kept on his legs from sunrise to star- 
 light. There does not exist in the Three Kingdoms a con- 
 stituency more fatiguing to a candidate than that borough 
 of Lansmere. As soon as you leave the High Street, 
 wherein, according to immemorial usage, the Blue can- 
 vasser is first led, in order to put him into spirits for the 
 toils that await him (delectable, propitious, constitutional 
 High Street, in which at least two-thirds of the electors 
 opulent tradesmen employed at the Park always vote for 
 " my lord's man," and hospitably prepare wine and cakes 
 in their tidy back-parlors !) as soon as you quit this strong- 
 hold of the party, labyrinths of lanes and defiles stretch 
 away into the farthest horizon ; level ground is found no- 
 where ; it is all up-hill and down-hill now rough craggy 
 pavements that blister the feet, and at the very first tread 
 upon which all latent corns shook prophetically now deep 
 muddy ruts, into which you sink ankle-deep oozing slush 
 creeping into the pores, and moistening the way for catarrh, 
 rheum, cough, sore throat, bronchitis, and phthisis. Black 
 sewers, and drains Acherontian, running before the thresh- 
 olds, and so filling the homes behind with effluvia, that, 
 while one hand clasps the grimy paw of the voter, the other 
 instinctively guards from typhus and cholera your abhor- 
 rent nose. Not in those days had mankind ever heard of a 
 sanitary reform ! and, to judge of the slow progress which 
 that reform seems to make, sewer and drain would have 
 been much the same if they had. Scot-and-lot voters were 
 the independent electors of Lansmere, with the additional 
 franchise of Freemen. Universal suffrage could scarcely 
 more efficiently swamp the franchises of men who care a 
 straw what becomes of Great Britain ! With all Randal 
 Leslie's profound diplomacy, all his art in talking over, de- 
 ceiving, and (to borrow Dick Avenel's vernacular phrase) 
 " humbugging " educated men, his eloquence fell flat upon 
 minds invulnerable to appeals whether to State or to Church, 
 to Reform or to Freedom. To catch a Scot-and-lot voter
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 997 
 
 by such frivolous arguments, Randal Leslie might as well 
 have tried to bring down a rhinoceros by a pop-gun charged 
 with split peas ! The young man who so firmly believed 
 that "knowledge was power," was greatly disgusted. It 
 was here the ignorance that foiled him. When he got hold 
 of a man with some knowledge, Randal was pretty sure to 
 trick him out of a vote. 
 
 Nevertheless, Randal Leslie walked and talked on, with 
 most credible perseverance. The Blue Committee allowed 
 that he was an excellent canvasser. They conceived a lik- 
 ing for him, mingled with pity. For, though sure of Eger- 
 ton's return, they regarded Randal's as out of the question. 
 He was merely there to keep split votes from going to the 
 opposite side; to serve his patron, the ex-minister; shake 
 the paws and smell the smells which the ex-minister was too 
 great a man to shake and to smell. But, in point of fact, 
 none of that Blue Committee knew anything of the pros- 
 pects of the election. Harley received all the reports of 
 each canvass-day. Harley kept the canvass-book, locked up 
 from all eyes but his own, or it might be Baron Levy's, as 
 Audley Egerton's confidential, if not strictly professional ad- 
 viser ; Baron Levy, the millionaire, had long since retired 
 from all acknowledged professions. Randal, however 
 close, observant, shrewd perceived that he himself was 
 much stronger than the Blue Committee believed. And, to 
 his infinite surprise, he owed that strength to Lord L'Es- 
 trange's exertions on his behalf. For though Harley, after 
 the first day on which he ostentatiously showed himself in 
 the High Street, did not openly canvass with Randal, yet 
 when the reports were brought in to him, and he saw the 
 names of the voters who gave one vote to Audley and with- 
 held the other from Randal, he would say to Randal, dead 
 beat as that young gentleman was, " Slip out with me, the 
 moment dinner is over, and before you go the round of the 
 public-houses ; there are some voters we must get for you 
 to-night. And sure enough a few kindly words from the 
 popular heir of the Lansmere baronies usually gained over 
 the electors, from whom, though Randal had proved that all 
 England depended on their votes in his favor, Randal would 
 never have extracted more than a "Wu'll, I shall waute gin 
 the Dauy coomes ! " Nor was this all that Harley did for 
 the younger candidate. If it was quite clear that only one 
 vote could be won for the Blues, and the other was pledged 
 to the Yellows, Harley would say, " Then put it down to
 
 998 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 Mr. Leslie ; " a request the more readily conceded, since 
 Audley Egerton was considered so safe by the Blues, and 
 alone worth a fear by the Yellows. 
 
 Thus Randal, who kept a snug little canvass-book of his 
 own, became more and more convinced that he had a better 
 chance than Egerton, even without the furtive aid he ex- 
 pected from Avenel ; and he could only account for Har- 
 ley's peculiar exertions in his favor, by supposing that Har- 
 ley, unpractised in elections, and deceived by the Blue 
 Committee, believed Egerton to be perfectly safe, and sought, 
 for the honor of the family interest, to secure both the seats. 
 
 Randal's public cares thus deprived him of all opportu- 
 nity of pressing his courtship on Violante ; and, indeed, 
 if ever he did find a moment in which he could steal to her 
 reluctant side, Harley was sure to seize that very moment 
 to send him off to canvass an hesitating freeman, or ha- 
 rangue in some public-house. 
 
 Leslie was too acute not to detect some motive hostile 
 to his wooing, however plausibly veiled in the guise of 
 zeal for his election, in this officiousness of Harley's. But 
 Lord L'Estrange's manner to Violante was so little like 
 that of a jealous lover, and he was so well aware of her 
 engagement to Randal, that the latter abandoned the sus- 
 picion he had before conceived, that Harley was his rival. 
 And he was soon led to believe that Lord L'Estrange 
 had another, more disinterested, and less formidable mo- 
 tive for thus stinting his opportunites to woo the heiress. 
 
 "Mr. Leslie," said Lord L'Estrange, one day, "the 
 Duke has confided to me his regret at his daughter's re- 
 luctance to ratify his own promise ; and knowing, the warm 
 interest I take in her welfare for his sake and her own ; 
 believing, also, that some services to herself, as well as to 
 the father she so loves, give me a certain influence over her 
 inexperienced judgment, he has even requested me to speak 
 a word to her in your behalf." 
 
 " Ah ! if you would !" said Randal, surprised. 
 
 " You must give me the power to do so. You were 
 obliging enough to volunteer to me the same explanations 
 which you gave to the Duke, his satisfaction with which 
 induced him to renew, or confirm the promise of his daugh- 
 ter's hand. Should those explanations content me, as they 
 did him, I hold the Duke bound to fulfil his engagement, 
 and I am convinced that his daughter would, in that case, 
 not be inflexible to your suit. But, till such explanations
 
 VARIETIES IM ENGLISH LIFE. 
 
 999 
 
 be given, my friendship for the father, and my interest in 
 the child, do not allow me to assist a cause which, however, 
 at present, suffers little by delay." 
 
 " Pray, listen at once to those explanations." 
 
 " Nay, Mr. Leslie, I can now only think of the election. 
 As soon as that is over, rely on it you shall have the 
 amplest opportunity to dispel any doubts which your inti- 
 macy with Count di Peschiera and Madame di Negra may 
 have suggested. Apropos of the election here is a list of 
 voters you must see at once in Fish Lane. Don't lose a 
 moment." 
 
 In the meanwhile, Richard Avenel and Leonard had 
 taken up their quarters in the hotel appropriated to the 
 candidates for the Yellows ; and the canvass on that side 
 was prosecuted with all the vigor which might be expected 
 from operations conducted by Richard Avenel, and backed 
 by the popular feeling. 
 
 The rival parties met from time to time, in the streets 
 and lanes, in all the pomp of war banners streaming, 
 fifes resounding (for bands and colors were essential proofs 
 of public spirit, and indispensable items in a candidate's 
 bills, in those good old days). When they thus encoun- 
 tered, very distant bows were exchanged between the 
 respective chiefs. But Randal, contriving ever to pass 
 close to Avenel, had ever the satisfaction of perceiving that 
 gentleman's countenance contracted into a knowing wink, 
 as much as to say, " All right, in spite of this tarnation 
 humbug." 
 
 But now that both parties were fairly in the field, to the 
 private arts of canvassing were added the public arts of 
 oratory. The candidates had to speak at the close of each 
 day's canvass out from wooden boxes, suspended from 
 the windows of their respective hotels, and which looked 
 like dens for the exhibition of wild beasts. They had to 
 speak at meetings of committees meetings of electors go 
 the nightly round of enthusiastic public-houses, and appeal 
 to the sense of an enlightened people through wreaths of 
 smoke and odors of beer. 
 
 The alleged indisposition of Audley Egerton had spared 
 him the excitement of oratory, as well as the fatigue of can- 
 vassing. The practised debater had limited the display of 
 his talents to a concise, but clear and masterly exposition of 
 his own views on the leading public questions of the day, 
 and the state of parties, which, on the day after his arrival
 
 looo MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 at Lansmere, was delivered at a meeting of his general com- 
 mittee in the great room of their hotel and which was then 
 printed and circulated amongst the voters. 
 
 Randal, though he expressed himself with more fluency 
 and self-possession than are usually found in the first 
 attempts of a public speaker, was not effective in address- 
 ing an unlettered crowd ; for a crowd of this kind is all 
 heart and we know that Randal Leslie's heart was as 
 small as heart could be. If he attempted to speak at his 
 own intellectual level, he was so subtle and refining as to 
 be incomprehensible ; if he fell into the fatal error not un- 
 common to inexperienced orators of trying to lower him- 
 self to the intellectual level of his audience, he was only 
 elaborately stupid. No man can speak too well for a crowd 
 as no man can write too well for the stage ; but in neither 
 case should he be rhetorical, or case in periods the dry 
 bones of reasoning. It is to the emotions, or to the hu- 
 mors, that the speaker of a crowd must address himself ; 
 his eye must brighten with generous sentiment, or his lip 
 must expand in the play of animated fancy or genial wit. 
 Randal's voice, too, though pliant and persuasive in private 
 conversation, was thin and poor when strained to catch the 
 ear of a numerous assembly. The falsehood of his nature 
 seemed to come out, when he raised the tones which had 
 been drilled into deceit. Men like Randal Leslie may be- 
 come sharp debaters admirable special pleaders ; they can 
 no more become orators than they can become poets. 
 Educated audiences are essential to them, and the smaller 
 the audience (that is, the more the brain supersedes the 
 action of the heart) the better they can speak. 
 
 Dick Avenel was generally very short and very pithy in 
 his addresses. He had two or three favorite topics, which 
 always told. He was a fellow-townsman a man who had 
 made his own way in life he wanted to free his native 
 place from aristocratic usurpation it was the battle of the 
 electors, not his private cause, etc. He said little against 
 Randal " Pity a clever young man should pin his future 
 to two yards of worn-out red tape " " He had better lay 
 hold of the strong rope, which the People, in compassion 
 to his youth, were willing yet to throw out to save him from 
 sinking," etc. But as for Audley Egerton, " the gentleman 
 who would not show, who was afraid to meet the electors, 
 who could only find his voice in a hole-and-corner meeting, 
 accustomed all his venal life to dark and nefarious jobs "
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 1001 
 
 Dick, upon that subject, delivered philippics truly De- 
 mosthenian. Leonard, on the contrary, never attacked 
 Harley's friend, Mr. Egerton ; but he was merciless against 
 the youth who had filched reputation from John Burley, 
 and whom he knew that Harley despised as heartily as him- 
 self. And Randal did not dare to retaliate (though boiling 
 over with indignant rage), for fear of offending Leonard's 
 uncle. Leonard was unquestionably the popular speaker 
 of the three. Though his temperament was a writer's, not 
 an orator's though he abhorred what he considered the 
 theatrical exhibition of self, which makes what is called 
 " delivery " more effective than ideas though he had little 
 interest at any time in party politics though at this time 
 his heart was far away from the Blues and Yellows of Lans- 
 mere, sad and forlorn yet, forced into action, the elo- 
 quence that was natural to his conversation poured itself 
 forth. He had warm blood in his veins ; and his dislike to 
 Randal gave poignancy to his wit, and barbed his argu- 
 ments with impassioned invective. In fact, Leonard could 
 conceive no other motive for Lord L'Estrange's request to 
 take part in the election, than that nobleman's desire to 
 defeat the man whom they both regarded as an impostor. 
 And this notion was confirmed by some inadvertent expres- 
 sions which Avenel let fall, and which made Leonard sus- 
 pect that, if he were not in the field, Avenel would have 
 exerted all his interest to return Randal instead of Egerton. 
 With Dick's dislike to that statesman, Leonard found it im- 
 possible to reason ; nor, on the other hand, could all Dick's 
 scoldings or coaxings induce Leonard to divert his siege on 
 Randal to an assault upon the man who, Harley had often 
 said, was dear to him as a brother. 
 
 In the meanwhile, Dick kept the canvass-book of the 
 Yellows as closely as Harley kept that of the Blues ; and, 
 in despite of many pouting fits and gusts of displeasure, 
 took precisely the same pains for Leonard as Harley took 
 for Randal. There remained, however, apparently un- 
 shaken by the efforts on either side, a compact body of 
 about a hundred and fifty voters, chiefly freemen. Would 
 they vote Yellow ? Would they vote Blue ? No one could 
 venture to decide ; but they declared that they would all vote 
 the same way. Dick kept his secret " caucuses," as he called 
 them, constantly nibbling at this phalanx. A hundred and 
 fifty voters ! they had the election in their hands ! Never 
 were hands so cordially shaken so caressingly clung to
 
 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 so fondly lingered upon ! But the votes still stuck as firm 
 to the hands as if a part of the skin, or of the dirt which 
 was much the same thing ! 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 WHENEVER Audley joined the other guests of an evening 
 while Harley was perhaps closeted with Levy and com- 
 mittee-men, and Randal was going the round of the public- 
 houses the one with whom he chiefly conversed was 
 Violante. He had been struck at first, despite his gloom, 
 less, perhaps, by her extraordinary beauty, than by some- 
 thing in the expression of her countenance which, despite 
 differences in feature and complexion, reminded him of 
 Nora ; and when, by his praises of Harley, he drew her at- 
 tention, and won into her liking, he discovered, perhaps, 
 that the likeness which had thus impressed him, came from 
 some similarities in character between the living and the 
 lost one the same charming combination of lofty thought 
 and child-like innocence the same enthusiasm the same 
 rich exuberance of imagination and feeling. Two souls 
 that resemble each other will give their likeness to the looks 
 from which they beam. On the other hand, the person 
 with whom Harley most familiarly associated, in his rare 
 intervals of leisure, was Helen Digby. One day, Audley 
 Egerton, standing mournfully by the window of the sitting- 
 room appropriated to his private use, saw the two, whom 
 he believed still betrothed, take their way across the park, 
 side by side. " Pray Heaven, that she may atone to him 
 for all!" murmured Audley. "But ah, that it had been 
 Violante ! Then I might have felt assured that the Future 
 would efface the Past and found the courage to tell him 
 all. And when last night I spoke of what Harley ought to 
 be to England, how like were Violante's eyes and smile to 
 Nora's, when Nora listened in delighted sympathy to the 
 hopes of my own young ambition ! " With a sigh he turned 
 away, and resolutely sat down to read and reply to the vo- 
 luminous correspondence which covered the table of the 
 busy public man. For, Audley's return to Parliament be- 
 ing considered by his political party as secure, to him were 
 transmitted all the hopes and fears of the large and influ-
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 1003 
 
 ential section of it whose members looked up to him as their 
 future chief, and who in that general election (unprecedent- 
 ed for the number of eminent men it was fated to expel 
 from Parliament, and the number of new politicians it was 
 fated to send into it), drew their only hopes of regaining 
 their lost power from Audley's sanguine confidence in the 
 reaction of that Public Opinion which he had hitherto so 
 profoundly comprehended ; and it was too clearly seen, 
 that the seasonable adoption of his counsels would have 
 saved the existence and popularity of the late Administra- 
 tion, whose most distinguished members could now scarcely 
 show themselves on the hustings. 
 
 Meanwhile, Lord L'Estrange led his young companion 
 toward a green hill in the centre of the Park, on which 
 stood a circular temple, that commanded a view of the 
 country round for miles. They had walked in silence till 
 they gained the summit of the sloped and gradual ascent ; 
 and then, as they stood still, side by side, Harley thus 
 spoke 
 
 " Helen, you know that Leonard is in the town, though 
 I cannot receive him at the park, since he is standing in 
 opposition to my guests, Egerton and Leslie." 
 
 HELEN. But that seems to me so strange. How how 
 could Leonard do anything that seems hostile to you ? 
 
 HARLEY. Would his hostility to me lower him in your 
 opinion ? If he know that I am his rival, does not rivalry 
 include hate ? 
 
 HELEN. Oh, Lord L'Estrange, how can you speak 
 thus ? how so wrong yourself ? Hate hate j^> you ! and 
 from Leonard Fairfield ! 
 
 HARLEY. You evade my question. Would his hate or 
 hostility to me affect your sentiments toward him ? 
 
 HELEN (looking down). I could not force myself to be- 
 lieve in it. 
 
 HARLEY. Why ? 
 
 HELEN. Because it would be so unworthy of him. 
 
 HARLEY. Poor child ! You have the delusion of your 
 years. You deck a cloud in the hues of the rainbow, and 
 will not believe that its glory is borrowed from the sun of 
 your own fancy. But here, at least, you are not deceived. 
 Leonard obeys but my wishes, and, I believe, against his 
 own will. He has none of man's noblest attribute, am- 
 bition. 
 
 HELEN. No ambition !
 
 1004 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 HARLEY. It is vanity that stirs the poet to toil if toil 
 the wayward chase of his own chimeras can be called. Am- 
 bition is a more masculine passion. 
 
 Helen shook her head gently, but made no answer. 
 
 HARLEY. If I utter a word that profanes one of your 
 delusions, you shake your head and are incredulous. Pause : 
 listen one moment to my counsels perhaps the last I may 
 ever obtrude upon you. Lift your eyes ; look around. 
 Far as your eye can reach, nay, far beyond the line which 
 the horizon forms in the landscape, stretch the lands of my 
 inheritance. Yonder you see the home in which my fore- 
 fathers for many generations lived with honor and died la- 
 mented. All these, in the course of nature, might one day 
 have been your own, had you not rejected my proposals. 
 I offered you, it is true, not what is commonly called Love ; 
 I offered you sincere esteem, and affections the more dur- 
 able for their calm. You have not been reared by the world in 
 the low idolatry of rank and wealth. But even romance 
 cannot despise the power of serving others, which rank and 
 wealth bestow. For myself, hitherto indolence, and lately 
 disdain, rob fortune of these nobler attributes. But she 
 who will share my fortune may dispense it so as to atone 
 for my sins of omission. On the other side, grant that there 
 is no bar to your preference for Leonard Fairfield, what 
 does your choice present to you ? Those of his kindred 
 with whom you will associate are unrefined and mean. 
 His sole income is derived from precarious labors ; the 
 most vulgar of all anxieties the fear of bread itself for the 
 morrow must mingle with all your romance, and soon 
 steal from love all its poetry. You think his affection will 
 console you for every sacrifice. Folly ! the love of poets 
 is for a mist a moonbeam a denizen of air a phantom 
 that they call an Ideal. They suppose for a moment that 
 they have found that Ideal in Chloe or Phyllis Helen or a 
 milkmaid. Bah ! the first time you come to the poet with 
 the baker's bill, where flies the Ideal ? I knew one more 
 brilliant than Leonard more exquisitely gifted by nature 
 that one was a woman ; she saw a man hard and cold as 
 that stone at your feet a false, hollow, sordid worldling ; 
 she made him her Idol beheld in him all that, history would 
 not recognize in a Caesar that mythology would scarcely 
 grant to an Apollo ; to him she was a plaything of an hour 
 she died, and before the year was out he had married for 
 money ! I knew another instance I speak of myself, I
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 1005 
 
 loved before I was you rage. Had an angel warned me then, 
 I would have been incredulous as you. How that ended, 
 no matter ; but had it not been for that dream of maudlin 
 delirium, I had lived and acted as others of my kind and 
 my sphere married from reason and judgment been now 
 a useful and happy man. Pause, then. Will you still re- 
 ject me for Leonard Fairfield ? For the last time you have 
 the option me and all the substance of waking life Leon- 
 ard Fairfield and the shadows of a fleeting dream. Speak ! 
 You hesitate. Nay, take time to decide. 
 
 HELEN. Ah, Lord L'Estrange, you, who have felt what 
 it is to love, how can you doubt my answer ? how think 
 that I could be so base, so ungrateful as take from your- 
 self what you call the substance of waking life, while my 
 heart was far away faithful to what you call a dream ? 
 
 HARLEY. But, can you not dispel the dream? 
 
 HELEN (her whole face one flush). It was wrong to call 
 it dream ! It is the reality of life to me. All things else 
 are as dreams. 
 
 HARLEY (taking her hand and kissing it with respect). 
 Helen, you have a noble heart, and I have tempted you 
 in vain. I regret your choice, though I will no more op- 
 pose it. I regret it, though I shall never witness your dis- 
 appointment. As the wife of that man, I shall see and 
 know you no more. 
 
 HELEN. Oh, no! do not say that. Why? wherefore? 
 
 HARLEY (his brows meeting). He is the child of fraud 
 and of shame. His father is my foe, and my hate descends 
 to the son. He, too, the son, filches from me but com- 
 plaints are idle. When the next few days are over, think 
 of me but as one who abandons all right over your actions, 
 and is a stranger to your future fate. Pooh ! dry your 
 tears ; so long as you love Leonard or esteem me, rejoice 
 that our paths do not cross. 
 
 He walked on impatiently ; but Helen, alarmed and 
 wondering, followed close, took his arm timidly, and sought 
 to soothe him. She felt that he wronged Leonard that he 
 knew not how Leonard had yielded all hope when he 
 learned to whom she was affianced. For Leonard's sake 
 she conquered her bashfulness, and sought to explain. But 
 at her first hesitating, faltered words, Harley, who with 
 great effort suppressed the emotions which swelled within 
 him, abruptly left her side, and plunged into the recesses of 
 thick far-spreading groves, that soon rapt him from her eye.
 
 ioo6 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 While this conversation occurred between Lord L'Es- 
 trange and his ward, the soi-disant Riccabocca and Violante 
 were walking slowly through the gardens. The philosopher, 
 unchanged by his brightening prospects so far as the outer 
 man was concerned still characterized by the red umbrella 
 and the accustomed pipe took the way mechanically to- 
 ward the sunniest quarter of the grounds, now and then 
 glancing tenderly at Violante's downcast melancholy face, 
 but not speaking ; only, at each glance, there came a brisker 
 cloud from the pipe, as if obedient to a fuller heave of the 
 heart. 
 
 At length, in a spot which lay open toward the south, 
 and seemed to collect all the gentlest beams of the Novem- 
 ber sun, screened from the piercing east by dense ever- 
 greens, and flanked from the bleak north by lofty walls, 
 Riccabocca paused and seated himself. Flowers still 
 bloomed on the sward in front, over which still fluttered the 
 wings of those later and more brilliant butterflies that, un- 
 seen in the genial days of our English summer, come with 
 autumnal skies, and sport round the mournful steps of the 
 coming winter types of those thoughts which visit and 
 delight the contemplation of age, while the current yet 
 glides free from the iron ice, and the leaves yet linger on 
 the boughs ; thoughts that associate the memories of the 
 departed summer with messages from suns that shall succeed 
 the winter, and expand colors the most steeped in light and 
 glory, just as the skies through which they gleam are dark- 
 ening, and the flowers on which they hover fade from the 
 surface of the earth dropping still seeds, that sink deep 
 out of sight below. 
 
 " Daughter," said Riccabocca, drawing Violante to his 
 side, with caressing arm " Daughter ! Mark, how they 
 who turn toward the south can still find the sunny side of 
 the landscape ! In all the seasons of life, how much of chill 
 or of warmth depends on our choice of the aspect ! Sit 
 down let us reason." 
 
 Violante sat down passively, clasping her father's hand 
 in both her own. Reason ! harsh word to the ears of 
 Feeling ! 
 
 "You shrink," resumed Riccabocca, "from even the 
 courtship, even the presence of the suitor in whom my honor 
 binds me to recognize your future bridegroom." 
 
 Violante drew away her hands, and placed them before 
 her eyes, shudderingly.
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 1007 
 
 "But," continued Riccabocca, rather peevishly, "this is 
 not listening to reason. I may object to Mr. Leslie, because 
 he has not an adequate rank or fortune to pretend to a 
 daughter of my house ; that would be what every one would 
 allow to be reasonable in a father; except, indeed," added 
 the poor sage, trying hard to be sprightly, and catching 
 hold of a proverb to help him "except, indeed, those wise 
 enough to recollect that admonitory saying, ' Casa il figlio 
 quando vuoi, e la figlia quando puoi ' (Marry your son 
 when you will, your daughter when you can). Seriously, if 
 I overlook those objections to Mr. Leslie, it is not natural 
 for a young girl to enforce them. What is reason in you is 
 quite another thing from reason in me. Mr. Leslie is young, 
 not ill-looking, has the air of a gentleman, is passionately 
 enamoured of you, and has proved his affection by riskhig 
 his life against that villanous Peschiera that is, he would 
 have risked it had Peschiera not been shipped out of the 
 way. If, then, you will listen to reason, pray what can 
 reason say against Mr. Leslie ?" 
 
 "Father, I detest him!" 
 
 Cospetto /" persisted Riccabocca, testily, "you have no 
 reason to detest him. If you had any reason, child, I am 
 sure that I should be the last person to dispute it. How 
 can you know your own mind in such a matter ? It is not 
 as if you had seen any one else you could prefer. Not 
 another man of your own years do you even know except, 
 indeed, Leonard Fairfield, whom, though I grant he is 
 handsomer, and with more imagination and genius than Mr. 
 Leslie, you still must remember as the boy who worked in 
 my garden. Ah ! to be sure, there is Frank Hazeldean 
 fine lad but his affections are pre-engaged. In short," con- 
 tinued the sage, dogmatically, " there is no one else you can, 
 by any possible caprice, prefer to Mr. Leslie ; and for a 
 girl, who has no one else in her head, to talk of detesting a 
 well-looking, well-dressed, clever young man, is a nonsense. 
 ' Chi lascia il poco per haver 1'assai, ne 1'uno ne 1'altro avera. 
 mai ; ' which may be thus paraphrased The young lady 
 who refuses a mortal in the hope of obtaining an angel, 
 loses the one, and will never fall in with the other. So 
 now, having thus shown that the darkest side of the ques- 
 tion is contrary to reason let us look to the brighter. In 
 the first place " 
 
 " Oh, father, father ! " cried Violante, passionately, " you 
 to whom I once came for comfort in every childish sorrow !
 
 ioo8 MY NOVEL; OH, 
 
 Do not talk to me with this cutting levity. See, I lay my 
 head upon your breast I put my arms .around you and 
 now, can you reason me into misery ? " 
 
 " Child, child, do not be so wayward. Strive, at least, 
 against a prejudice that you cannot defend. My Violante, 
 my darling, this is no trifle. Here I must cease to be the 
 fond foolish father whom you can do what you will with. 
 Here I am Alphonso, Duke di Serrano ; for here my honor 
 as noble, and my word as man, are involved. I, then but a 
 helpless exile no hope of fairer prospects before me 
 trembling like a coward at the wiles of my unscrupulous 
 kinsman grasping at all chances to save you from his 
 snares I myself offered your hand to Randal Leslie of- 
 fered, promised, pledged it ; and now that my fortunes 
 seem assured, my rank in all likelihood restored, my foe 
 crushed, my fears at rest now, does it become me to re- 
 tract what I myself had urged ? It is not the noble, it is the 
 parvenu, who had only to grow rich, in order to forget 
 those whom in poverty he hailed as his friends. * Is it for 
 me to make the poor excuse, never heard on the lips of an 
 Italian prince, ' that I cannot command the obedience of 
 my child,' subject myself to the galling answer ' Duke of 
 Serrano, you could once command that obedience, when, in 
 exile, penury, and terror, you offered me a bride without a 
 dower.' Child Violante daughter of ancestors on whose 
 honor never slander set a stain, I call on you to redeem 
 your father's plighted word." 
 
 " Father, must it be so ? Is not even the convent open 
 to me ? Nay, look not so coldly on me. If you could but 
 read my heart ! And, oh ! I feel so assured of your own 
 repentance hereafter so assured that this man is not what 
 you believe him. I so suspect that he has been playing 
 throughout some secret and perfidious part." 
 
 " Ha ! " interrupted Riccabocca, " Harley has perhaps 
 infected you with that notion." 
 
 " No no. But is not Harley is not Lord L'Estrange 
 one whose opinion you have cause to esteem ? And if he 
 distrust Mr. Leslie " 
 
 " Let him make good his distrust by such proof as will 
 absolve my word, and I shall share your own joy. I have 
 told him this. I have invited him to make good his sus- 
 
 * " Quando '1 villano i divcnuto ricco, 
 
 Kon ha (>, e., ricooosce) parent' ni atnico." 
 
 Italian Provert.
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 1009 
 
 picions he puts me off. He cannot do so," added Ricca- 
 bocca, in a dejected tone ; " Randal has already so well ex- 
 plained all that Harley deemed equivocal. Violante, my 
 name and my honor rest in your hands. Cast them away 
 if you will ; I cannot constrain you, and I cannot stoop to 
 implore. Noblesse oblige With your birth you took its 
 duties. Let them decide between your vain caprice and 
 your father's solemn remonstrance." 
 
 Assuming a sternness that he was far from feeling, and 
 putting aside his daughter's arms, the exile walked away. 
 
 Violante paused a moment, shivered, looked round, as if 
 taking a last farewell of joy, and peace, and hope on earth, 
 and then approaching her father with a firm step, she said, 
 " I never rebelled, father ; I did but entreat What you 
 say is my law now, as it has ever been ; and come what may, 
 never shall you hear complaint or murmur from me. Poor 
 father, you will suffer more than I shall. Kiss me ! " 
 
 About an hour afterward, as the short day closed in, 
 Harley, returning from his solitary wanderings, after he had 
 parted from Helen, encountered on the terrace, before the 
 house, Lady Lansmere and Audley Egerton arm in arm. 
 
 Harley had drawn his hat over his brows, and his eyes 
 were fixed on the ground, so that he did not see the group 
 upon which he came unawares, until Audley's voice started 
 him from his reverie. 
 
 " My dear Harley," said the ex-minister, with a faint 
 smile, " you must not pass us by, now that you have a 
 moment of leisure from the cares of the election. And, 
 Harley, though we are under the same roof, I see you so 
 little." Lord L'Estrange darted a quick glance toward his 
 mother a glance that seemed to say, "You-leaning on Aud- 
 ley's arm! Have you kept your promise?" And the 
 eye that met his own reassured him. 
 
 " It is true," said Harley, " but you, who know that, once 
 engaged in public affairs, one has no heart left for the ties 
 of private life, will excuse me. And this election is so im- 
 portant ! " 
 
 "And you, Mr. Egerton," said Lady Lansmere, "whom 
 the election most concerns, seem privileged to be the only 
 one who appears indifferent to success." 
 
 Ay but you are not indifferent ?" said Lord L'Es- 
 trange, abruptly. 
 
 "No. How can I be so, when my whole future career 
 may depend on it." 
 43
 
 roro MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 Harley drew Egerton aside. " There is one voter you 
 ought at least to call upon and thank. He cannot be made 
 to comprehend that, for the sake of any relation, even for the 
 sake of his own son, he is to vote against the Blues against 
 you ; I mean, of course, Nora's father, John Avenel. His 
 vote and his son-in-law's gained your majority at your first 
 election." 
 
 EGF.RTON. Call on John Avenel ! Have you called ? 
 
 HARLEY (calmly). Yes. Poor old man, his mind has 
 been affected ever since Nora's death. But your name as 
 the candidate for the borough at that time the successful 
 candidate for whose triumph the joy-bells chimed with her 
 funeral knell your name brings up her memory ; and he 
 talks in a breath of her and of you. Come, let us walk to- 
 gether to his house ; it is close by the Park Lodge. 
 
 The drops stood on Audley's brow ! He fixed his dark 
 handsome eyes, in mournful amaze, upon Harley's tranquil 
 face. 
 
 " Harley, at last, then, you have forgotten the Past." 
 
 " No ; but the Present is more imperious. All my ef- 
 forts are needed to requite your friendship. You stand 
 against her brother yet her father votes for you. And her 
 mother says to her son, ' Let the old man alone. Con- 
 science is all that is well alive in him ; and he thinks if he 
 were to vote against the Blues, he would sin against honor.' 
 'An electioneering prejudice,' some sceptics would say. 
 But you must be touched by this trait of human nature in 
 her father, too you, Audley Egerton, who are the soul of 
 honor. What ails you ? " 
 
 EGERTON. Nothing a spasm at the heart my old 
 complaint. Well, I will call on the poor man later, but not 
 now not with you. Nay, nay, I will not I cannot. Har- 
 ley, just as you joined us, I was talking to your mother. 
 
 HARLEY. Ay, and what of ? 
 
 EGERTON. Yourself. I saw you from my windows 
 walking with your betrothed. Afterward, I observed her 
 coming home alone ; and by the glimpse I caught of her 
 gentle countenance, it seemed sad. Harley, do you deceive 
 us ? 
 
 HARLEY. Deceive I ! How ! 
 
 EGERTON. Do you really feel that your intended mar- 
 riage will bestow on you the happiness, which is my prayer, 
 as it must be your mother's? 
 
 HARLEY. Happiness I hoped so. But perhaps
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. ion 
 
 EGERTON. Perhaps what ? 
 
 HARLEY. Perhaps the marriage may not take place. 
 Perhaps I have a rival not an open one a secret, stealthy 
 wooer in one, too, whom I have loved, served, trusted. 
 Question me not now. Such instances of treachery make 
 one learn more how to prize a friendship honest, devoted, 
 faithful, as your own, Audley Egerton. But here comes 
 your protege, released awhile from his canvass, and your 
 confidential adviser, Baron Levy. He accompanied Ran- 
 dal through the town to-day. So anxious is he to see that 
 that young man does not play false, and regard his own in- 
 terest before yours. Would that surprise you ? 
 
 EGERTON. You are too severe upon Randal Leslie. He 
 is ambitious, worldly has no surplus of affection at the 
 command of his heart 
 
 HARLEY. Is it Randal Leslie you describe ? 
 
 EGERTON (with a languid smile). Yes, you see I do not 
 flatter. But he is born and reared a gentleman ; as such 
 he would scarcely do anything mean. And, after all, it is 
 with me that he must rise or fall. His very intellect must 
 tell him that. But again I ask, do not strive to prepossess 
 me against him. I am a man who could have loved a son. 
 I have none. Randal, such as he is, is a sort of son. He 
 carries on my projects and my interests in the world of 
 men beyond the goal of the tomb." 
 
 Audley turned kindly to Randal. 
 
 "Well, Leslie, what report of the canvass ?" 
 
 " Levy has the book, sir. I think we have gained ten 
 fresh votes for you, and perhaps seven for me." 
 
 "Let me rid you of your book, Baron Levy," said 
 Harley. 
 
 Just at this time Riccabocca and Violante approached 
 the house, both silent. The Italian caught sight of Ran- 
 dal, and made him a sign to join them. The young lover 
 glanced fearfully toward Harley, and then with alacrity 
 bounded forward, and was soon at Violante's side. But 
 scarce had Harley, surprised by Leslie's sudden disappear- 
 ance, remarked the cause, than with equal abruptness he 
 abandoned the whispered conference he had commenced 
 with Levy, and hastening to Randal, laid hand on the 
 young man's shoulder, exclaiming, "Ten thousand pardons 
 to all three ! You have yet an hour before it grows dark. 
 There are three out-voters six miles off, influential farmers, 
 whom you must canvass in person with my father's stew-
 
 ion MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 ard. Hasten to the stables ; choose your own horse. To 
 saddle to saddle ! Baron Levy, go and order my lord's 
 steward, Mr. Smart, to join Mr. Leslie at the stables ; then 
 come back to me quick. What ? loitering still, Mr. 
 Leslie ! You will make me throw up your whole cause in 
 disgust at your indolence and apathy." 
 
 Alarmed at this threat, Randal lifted his accusing eyes 
 to Heaven, and withdrew. 
 
 Meanwhile Audley had drawn close to Lady Lansmere, 
 who was leaning in thought over the balustrade of the 
 terrace. 
 
 " Did you note," said Audley, whispering, "how Harley 
 sprang forward when the fair Italian came in sight ? Trust 
 me, I was right. I know little of the young lady, but I have 
 conversed with her. I have gazed on the changes in her 
 face. If Harley ever love again, and if ever love influence 
 and exalt his mind, wish with me that his choice may yet 
 fall where I believe that his heart inclines it." 
 
 LADY LANSMERE. Ah ! that it were so. Helen, I own, 
 is charming ; but but Violante is equal in birth ! Are 
 you not aware that she is engaged to your young friend, 
 Mr. Leslie? 
 
 AUDLEY. Randal told me so ; but I cannot believe it. 
 In fact, I have taken occasion to sound that fair creature's 
 inclinations, and if I know aught of women, her heart is not 
 with Randal. I cannot believe her to be one whose affec- 
 tions are so weak as to be easily constrained ; nor can I 
 suppose that her father could desire to enforce a marriage 
 that is almost a mesalliance. Randal must deceive himself ; 
 and from something Harley just let fall, in our painful, but 
 brief conversation, I suspect that his engagement with Miss 
 Digby is broken off. He promises to tell me more, later. 
 Yes (continued Audley, mournfully), observe Violante's 
 countenance, with its ever- varying play; listen to her voice, 
 to which feeling seems to give the expressive music, and 
 tell me whether you are not sometimes reminded of of 
 in one word, there is one who, even without rank or for- 
 tune, would be worthy to replace the image of Leonora, 
 and be to Harley what Leonora could not ; for sure I am 
 that Violante loves him. 
 
 Harley, meanwhile, had lingered with Riccabocca and 
 Violante, speaking but on indifferent subjects, obtaining 
 short answers from the first and none from the last, when 
 the sage drew him a little aside, and whispered, " She has
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 1013 
 
 consented to sacrifice herself to my sense of honor. But, O 
 Harley ! if she be unhappy, it will break my heart. Either 
 you must give me sufficient proof of Randal's unworthiness, 
 to absolve me from my promise, or I must again entreat 
 you to try and conciliate the poor child in his favor. All 
 you say has weight with her ; she respects you as a second 
 father." 
 
 Harley did not seem peculiarly flattered by that last as- 
 surance, but he was relieved from an immediate answer by 
 the appearance of a man who came from the direction of the 
 stables, and whose dress, covered with dust, and travel- 
 stained, seemed like that of a foreign courier. No sooner 
 did Harley catch sight of this person, than he sprang for- 
 ward, and accosted him briefly and rapidly. 
 
 " You have been quick ; I did not expect you so soon. 
 You discovered the trace ? You gave my letter?" 
 
 " And have brought back the answer, my lord," replied 
 the man, taking the letter from a leathern pouch at his side. 
 Harley hastily broke open the seal, and glanced over the 
 contents, which were comprised in a few lines. 
 
 "Good. Say not whence you came. Do not wait here ; 
 return at once to London." 
 
 Harley's face seemed so unusuallly cheerful, as he re- 
 joined the Italians, that the Duke exclaimed, 
 
 " A despatch from Vienna ! My recall ! " 
 
 " From Vienna, my dear friend ? Not possible yet. I 
 cannot calculate on hearing from the Prince till a day or 
 two before the close of this election. But you wish me to 
 speak to Violante. Join my mother yonder. What can she 
 be saying to Mr. Egerton ? I will address a few words 
 apart to your fair daughter, that may at least prove the 
 interest in her fate taken by her second father." 
 
 " Kindest of friends," said the unsuspecting pupil of 
 Machiavelli ; and he walked toward the terrace. Violante 
 was about to follow. Harley detained her. 
 
 " Do not go till you have thanked me ; for you are not 
 the noble Violante for whom I take you, unless you ac- 
 knowledge gratitude to any one who delivers you from the 
 presence of an admirer in Mr. Randal Leslie." 
 
 VIOLANTE. Ought I to hear this of one whom whom 
 
 HARLEY. One whom your father obstinately persists in 
 obtruding on your repugnance. Yet, O dear child, you 
 who, when almost an infant, ere yet you knew what snares
 
 ioi4 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 and pit-falls, for all who trust to another, lie under the sward 
 at our feet, even when decked the fairest with the flowers 
 of spring, you who put your small hands around my neck, 
 and murmured in your musical voice, " Save us save my 
 father ; " you, at least, I will not forsake, in a peril worse 
 than that which menaced you then, a peril which affrights 
 you more than that which threatened you in the snares of 
 Peschiera. Randal Leslie may thrive in his meaner objects 
 of ambition those I fling to him in scorn, but you ! the 
 presuming varlet ! (Harley paused a moment, half-stifled 
 with indignation. He then resumed, calmly) Trust to me, 
 and fear not. I will rescue this hand from the profanation 
 of Randal Leslie's touch ; and then farewell, for life, to 
 every soft emotion. Before me expands the welcome soli- 
 tude. The innocent saved, the honest righted, the perfidi- 
 ous stricken by just retribution and then what then ? 
 Why, at least I shall have studied Machiavelli with more 
 effect than your wise father ; and I shall lay him aside, 
 needing no philosophy to teach me never again to be de- 
 ceived. (His brow darkened ; he turned abruptly away, 
 leaving Violante lost in amaze, fear and a delight, vague, 
 yet more vividly felt than all.) 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 THAT night, after the labors of the day, Randal had 
 gained the sanctuary of his own room, and seated himself 
 at his table, to prepare the heads of the critical speech he 
 would have now very soon to deliver on the day of nomina- 
 tion critical speech, when, in the presence of foes and 
 friends, reporters from London, and amidst all the jarring 
 interests that he sought to weave into the sole self-interest 
 of Randal Leslie, he would be called upon to make the for- 
 mal exposition of his political opinions. Randal Leslie, 
 indeed, was not one of those speakers whom either modesty, 
 fastidiousness, or conscientious desire of truth, predisposes 
 toward the labor of written composition. He had too much 
 cleverness to be in want of fluent period, or ready common- 
 place the ordinary materials of oratorical impromptu, 
 too little taste for the Beautiful, to study what graces of dic- 
 tion will best adorn a noble sentiment, too obtuse a con-
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 1015 
 
 science, to care if the popular argument were purified from 
 the dross which the careless flow of a speech wholly ex- 
 temporaneous rarely fails to leave around it. But this was 
 no ordinary occasion. Elaborate study here was requisite, 
 not for the orator, but the hypocrite. Hard task, to please 
 the Blues, and not offend the Yellows, appear to side with 
 Audley Egerton, yet insinuate sympathy with Dick Avenel, 
 confront, with polite smile, the younger opponent, whose 
 words had lodged arrows in his vanity, which rankled the 
 more gallingly because they had raised the skin of his con- 
 science. 
 
 He had dipped his pen into the ink, and smoothed the 
 paper before him, when a knock was heard at the door. 
 
 " Come in," said he, impatiently. Levy entered, saun- 
 teringly. 
 
 " I am come to talk over matters with you, mon chcr" 
 said the Baron, throwing himself on the sofa. " And, first, 
 I wish you joy of your prospects of success." 
 
 Randal postponed his meditated composition with a 
 quick sigh, drew his chair toward the sofa, and lowered his 
 voice into a whisper. " You think with me, that the chance 
 of my success-is good ?" 
 
 " Chance ! Why, it is a rubber of whist, in which your 
 partner gives you all the winnings, and in which the adver- 
 sary is almost sure to revoke. Either Avenel or his ne- 
 phew, it is true, must come in ; but not both. Two parvenus 
 aspiring to make a family-seat of an Earl's borough ! Bah ! 
 too absurd." 
 
 " I hear from Riccabocca (or rather the Duke di Ser- 
 rano) that this same young Fairfield is greatly indebted to 
 the kindness of Lord L'Estrange. Very odd that he should 
 stand against the Lansmere interest." 
 
 " Ambition, mon cher. 'You yourself are under some 
 obligation to Mr. Egerton. Yet, in reality, he has more 
 to apprehend from you than from Mr. Fairfield." 
 
 " I disown obligations to Mr. Egerton. And if the 
 electors prefer me to him (whom, by the bye, they once 
 burned in effigy), it is no fault of mine ; the fault, if any, 
 will rest with his own dearest friend, L'Estrange. I do not 
 understand how a man of such clear sense as L'Estrange 
 undoubtedly possesses, should be risking Egerton's election 
 in his zeal for mine. Nor do his formal courtesies to 
 myself deceive me. He has even implied that he suspects 
 me of connivance with Peschiera's schemes on Violante.
 
 ioi6 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 But those suspicions he cannot support. For of course, 
 Levy, you would not betray me ? " 
 
 " I ! What possible interest could I serve in that ? " 
 
 "None that I can discover, certainly," said Randal, 
 relaxing into a smile. "And when I get into Parliament, 
 aided by the social position which my marriage will give me, 
 I shall have so many ways to serve you. No, it is certainly 
 your interest not to betray me. I shall count on you as a 
 witness, if a witness can be required." 
 
 "Count on me, certainly, my dear fellow," said the 
 Baron. "And I suppose there will be no witness the other 
 way. Done for eternally is my poor friend Peschiera, 
 whose cigars, by the bye, were matchless ; I wonder if 
 there will be any for sale. And if he were not so done for, 
 it is not you, it is L'Estrange, that he would be tempted to 
 do for." 
 
 "We may blot Peschiera out of the map of the future," 
 rejoined Randal. " Men from whom henceforth we have 
 nothing to hope or to fear, are to us as the races before the 
 deluge." 
 
 " Fine remark," quoth the Baron, admiringly. " Pes- 
 chiera, though not without brains, was a complete failure. 
 And when the failure of one I have tried to serve is com- 
 plete, the rule I have adopted through life is to give him up 
 altogether." 
 
 " Of course," said Randal. 
 
 " Of course," echoed the Baron. " On the other hand, 
 you know that I like pushing forward young men of mark 
 and promise. You really are amazingly clever ; and how 
 comes it you don't speak better ? Do you know I doubt 
 whether you will do in the House of Commons all that I 
 expected from your address and, readiness in private life." 
 
 " Because I cannot talk trash vulgar enough for a mob ? 
 Pooh ! I shall succeed wherever knowledge is really power. 
 Besides, you must allow for my infernal position. You know, 
 after all, that Avenel, if he can only return himself or his 
 nephew, still holds in his hands the choice of the candidate 
 upon our side. I cannot attack him I cannot attack his 
 insolent nephew." 
 
 " Insolent ! not that, but bitterly eloquent. He hits 
 you hard. You are no match for him, Randal, before a 
 popular audience ; though en petit comite", the devil himself 
 were hardly a match for you. But now to a somewhat more 
 serious point. Your election you will win your bride is
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 101? 
 
 promised to you ; but the old Leslie lands, in the present 
 possession of Squire Thornhill, you have not gained and 
 your chance of gaining them is in great jeopardy. I did 
 not like to tell you this morning it would have spoiled 
 your temper for canvassing ; but I have received a- letter 
 from Thornhill himself. He has had an offer for the prop- 
 erty, which is only ^"1,000 short of what he asks. A city 
 alderman, called Jobson, is the bidder ; a man, it seems, of 
 large means and few words. The alderman has fixed the 
 date on which he must have a definite answer ; and that 
 date falls on the th, two days after that fixed for the poll 
 at Lansmere. The brute declares he will close with another 
 investment, if Thornhill does not then come into his terms. 
 Now, as Thornhill will accept these terms unless 1 can 
 positively promise him better, and as those funds on which 
 you calculated (had the marriage of Peschiera with Violante, 
 and Frank Hazeldean with Madame di Negra, taken place) 
 fail you, I see no hope for your being in time with the 
 money and the old lands of the Leslies must yield their 
 rents to a Jobson." 
 
 " I care for nothing on earth like those old lands of my 
 forefathers," said Randal, with unusual vehemence " I 
 reverence so little amongst the living and I do reverence 
 the dead. And my marriage will take place so soon ; and 
 the dower would so amply cover the paltry advance re- 
 quired." 
 
 " Yes ; but the mere prospect of a marriage to the 
 daughter of a man whose lands are still sequestered, would 
 be no security to a money-lender." 
 
 "Surely," said Randal, "you, who once offered to assist 
 me when my fortunes were more precarious, might now ac- 
 commodate me with this loan, as a friend, and keep the 
 title-deeds of the estate as 
 
 "As a money-lender," added the Baron, laughing pleas- 
 antly. " No, mon cher, I will still lend you half the sum 
 required in advance, but the other half is more than I can 
 afford as friend, or hazard as money-lender ; and it would 
 damage my character be out of all rule if, the estates 
 falling, by your default of payment, into my own hands, I 
 should appear to be the real purchaser of the property of 
 my own distressed client. But, now I think of it, did not 
 Squire Hazeldean promise you his assistance in this matter ?" 
 
 " He did so," answered Randal, "as soon as the marriage 
 between Frank and Madame di Negra was off his mind. I 
 
 43*
 
 ioi8 MT NOVEL; OR, 
 
 meant to cross over to Hazeldean immediately after the 
 election. How can I leave the place till then ?" 
 
 " If you do, your election is lost. But why not write to 
 the Squire ? " 
 
 " It is against my maxim to write where I can speak. 
 However, there is no option ; I will write at once. Mean- 
 while, communicate with Thomhill ; keep up his hopes ; 
 and be sure, at least, that he does not close with this 
 greedy alderman before the day fixed for decision." 
 
 " I have done all that already, and my letter is gone. 
 Now, do your part : and if you write as cleverly as you 
 talk, you would coax the money out from a stonier heart 
 than poor Mr. Hazeldean's. I leave you now Good night." 
 
 Levy took up his candlestick, nodded, yawned, and 
 went. 
 
 Randal still suspended the completion of his speech, 
 and indited the following epistle : 
 
 "My DEAR MR. HAZELDEAN, I wrote to you a few hasty 
 lines on leaving town, to inform you that the match you so 
 dreaded was broken off, and proposing to defer particulars 
 till I could visit your kind and hospitable roof, which I 
 trusted to do for a few hours during my stay at Lansmere, 
 since it is not a day's journey hence to Hazeldean. But I 
 did not calculate on finding so sharp a contest. In no 
 election throughout the kingdom do I believe that a more 
 notable triumph, or a more stunning defeat, for the great 
 landed interest can occur. For in this town so dependent 
 on agriculture we are opposed by a low and sordid manu- 
 facturer, of the most revolutionary notions, who has, more- 
 over, the audacity to force his own nephew that very boy 
 whom I. chastised for impertinence on your village green 
 son of a common carpenter actually the audacity, I say, 
 to attempt to force this peasant of a nephew, as well as 
 himself, into the representation of Lansmere. against the 
 Earl's interest, against your distinguished brother of my- 
 self I say nothing. You should hear the language in which 
 these two men indulge against all your family ! If we are 
 beaten by such persons in a borough supposed to be so 
 loyal as Lansmere, every one with a stake in the country 
 may tremble at such a prognostic of the ruin that must 
 await not only our old English Constitution, but the exist- 
 ence of property itself. I need not say that on such an oc- 
 casion I cannot spare myself. Mr. Egerton is ill too. All
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 1019 
 
 the fatigue of the canvass devolves on me. -I feel, my dear 
 and revered friend, that I am a genuine Hazeldean, fighting 
 your battle ; and that thought carries me through all. I 
 cannot, therefore, come to you till the election is over ; and 
 meanwhile you, and my dear Mrs. Hazeldean, must be 
 anxious to know more about the affair that so preyed on 
 both your hearts, than I have yet informed you, or can 
 well trust to a letter. Be assured, however, that the worst 
 is over ; the lady has gone abroad. I earnestly entreated 
 Frank (who showed me Mrs. Hazeldean's most pathetic let- 
 ter to him) to hasten at once to the Hall and relieve your 
 minds. Unfortunately he would not be ruled by me, but 
 talked of going abroad too not, I trust (nay, I feel assured), 
 in pursuit of Madame di Negra; but still in short, I should 
 be so glad to see you, and talk over the whole. Could you 
 not come hither ? pray do. And now, at the risk of your 
 thinking that in this I am only consulting my own interest 
 (but no your noble English heart will never so misjudge 
 me !), I will add with homely frankness, that if you could 
 accommodate me immediately with the loan you not 
 long since so generously offered, you would save those 
 lands once in my family from passing away from us for 
 ever. A city alderman one Jobson is meanly taking ad- 
 vantage of Thornhill's necessities, and driving a hard bar- 
 gain for those lands. He has fixed the th inst. for Thorn- 
 hill's answer, and Levy (who is here assisting Mr. Egerton's 
 election) informs me that Thornhill will accept his offer, 
 unless I am provided with ; 1 0,000 beforehand ; the other 
 ^10,000, to complete the advance required, Levy will lend 
 me. Do not be surprised at the usurer's liberality ; he 
 knows that I am about shortly to marry a very great heir- 
 ess (you will be pleased when you learn whom, and will 
 then be able to account for my indifference to Miss Stickto- 
 rights), and her dower will amply serve to repay his loan 
 and your own, if I may trust to your generous affection for 
 the grandson of a Hazeldean ! I have the less scruple in 
 this appeal to you, for I know how it would grieve you that 
 a Jobson, who perhaps never knew a grandmother, should 
 foist your own kinsman from the lands of his fathers. Of 
 one thing I am convinced we squires, and sons of squires, 
 must make common cause against those great moneyed 
 capitalists, or. they will buy us all out in a few generations. 
 The old race of country gentlemen is already much dimin- 
 ished by the grasping cupidity of such leviathans ; and if
 
 1020 My NOVEL; OR, 
 
 the race be once extinct, what will become of the boast and 
 strength of England ! 
 
 " Yours, my dear Mr. Hazeldean, with most affectionate 
 and grateful respect, 
 
 " RANDAL LESLIE." 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 NOTHING to Leonard could as yet be more distasteful or 
 oppressive than his share in this memorable election. In 
 the first place, it chafed the secret sores of his heart to be 
 compelled to resume the name of Fairfield, which was a 
 tacit disavowal of his birth. It had been such delight to 
 him that the same letters which formed the name of Nora 
 should weave also that name of Oran, to which he had 
 given distinction, which he had associated with all his 
 nobler toils, and all his hopes of enduring fame a mystic 
 link between his own career and his mother's obscurer 
 genius. It seemed to him as if it were rendering to her the 
 honors accorded to himself subtle and delicate fancy of 
 the affections, of which only poets would be capable, but 
 which others than poets may perhaps comprehend ! That 
 earlier name of Fairfield was connected in his memory with 
 all the ruder employments, the meaner trials of his boy- 
 hood ; the name of Oran, with poetry and fame. It was 
 his title in the ideal world, amongst all fair shapes and 
 spirits. In reviving the old appellation, the practical 
 world, with its bitterness and strife, returned to him as at 
 the utterance of a spell. But in coming to Lansmere he 
 had no choice. To say nothing of Dick, and Dick's par- 
 ents, with whom his secret would not be safe, Randal Leslie 
 knew that he had gone by the name of Fairfield knew his 
 supposed parentage, and would be sure to proclaim them. 
 How account for the later name without setting curiosity 
 to decipher the anagram it involved, and perhaps guiding 
 suspicions to his birth from Nora, to the injury of her 
 memory, yet preserved from stain ? 
 
 His feelings as connected with Nora sharpened and 
 deepened as they all had been by has discovery of her pain- 
 ful narrative were embittered still more by coming in con- 
 tact with her parents. Old John was in the same helpless
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 1021 
 
 state of mind and body as before neither worse nor better ; 
 but waking up at intervals with vivid gleams of interest in 
 the election at the wave of a blue banner at the cry of " Blue 
 forever!" It was the old broken-down charger, who, doz- 
 ing in the meadows, starts at the roll of the drum. No per- 
 suasion Dick could employ would induce his father to pro- 
 mise to vote even one Yellow. You might as well have 
 expected the old Roman, with his monomaniac cry against 
 Carthage, to 'have voted for choosing Carthaginians for 
 consuls. But poor John, nevertheless, was not only very 
 civil, but very humble to Dick " very happy to oblige the 
 gentleman." 
 
 " Your own son ! " bawled Dick ; " and here is your own 
 grandson." 
 
 " Very happy to serve you both ; but you see you are the 
 wrong color." 
 
 Then as he gazed at Leonard, the old man approached 
 him with trembling knees, stroked his hair, looked into his 
 face piteously. "Be thee my grandson?" he faltered. 
 "Wife, wife, Nora had no son, had she? My memory be- 
 gins to fail me, sir ; pray excuse it ; but you have a look 
 
 about the eyes that " Old John began to weep, and 
 
 his wife led him away. 
 
 " Don't come again," she said to Leonard, harshly, when 
 she returned. " He'll not sleep all night now." And, then, 
 observing that the tears stood in Leonard's eyes, she added, 
 in softened tones " I am glad to see you well and thriving, 
 and to hear that you have been of great service to my son 
 Richard, who is a credit and an honor to the family, though 
 poor John cannot vote for him or for you against his con- 
 science ; and he should not be asked," she added, firing up ; 
 "and it is a sin to ask it, and he is so old, and no one to 
 defend him but me. But defend him I will while I have 
 life!" 
 
 The poet recognized woman's brave, loving, wife-like 
 heart here, and would have embraced the stern grandmother, 
 if she had not drawn back from him ; and, as she turned 
 toward the room to which she had led her husband, she 
 said over her shoulder 
 
 "I'm not so unkind as I seem, boy ; but it is better for 
 you, and for all, that you should not come to this house 
 again better that you had not come into the town." 
 
 " Fie, mother ! " said Dick, seeing that Leonard, bend-
 
 1022 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 ing his head, silently walked from the room. " You should 
 be prouder of your grandson than you are of me." 
 
 " Prouder of him who may shame us all yet ?" 
 
 "What do you mean ? " 
 
 But Mrs. Avenel shook her head and vanished. 
 
 " Never mind her, poor old soul," said Dick, as lie 
 joined Leonard at the threshold ; she always had her tem- 
 pers. And since there is no vote to be got in this house, 
 and one can't set a caucus on one's own father at least in 
 this extraordinary rotten and prejudiced old country, which 
 is quite in its dotage we'll not come here to be snubbed any 
 more. Bless their old hearts, nevertheless ! " 
 
 Leonard's acute sensibility in all that concerned his 
 birth, deeply wounded by Mrs. Avenel's allusions, which 
 he comprehended better than his uncle did, was also kept 
 on the edge by the suspense to which he was condemned 
 by Harley's continued silence as to the papers confided to 
 that nobleman. It seemed to Leonard almost unaccount- 
 able that Harley should have read those papers be in the 
 same town with himself and yet volunteer no communica- 
 tion. At length he wrote a few lines to Lord L'Estrange, 
 bringing the matter that concerned him so deeply before 
 Harley's recollection, and suggesting his own interest in 
 any information that could supply the gaps and omissions 
 of the desultory fragments. Harley, in replying to this 
 note, said, with apparent reason, " that it would require a 
 long personal interview to discuss the subject referred to, and 
 that such an interview, in the thick of the contest between 
 himself and a candidate opposed to the Lansmere party, 
 would be sure to get wind, be ascribed to political intrigues, 
 be impossible otherwise to explain and embarrass all the 
 interests confided to their respective charge. That for the 
 rest he had not been unmindful of Leonard's anxiety, which 
 must now mainly be to see justice done to the dead parent, 
 and learn the name, station, and character of the parent yet 
 surviving. And in this Harley trusted to assist him as soon 
 as the close of the poll would present a suitable occasion." 
 The letter was unlike Harley's former cordial tone ; it was 
 hard and dry. Leonard respected L'Estrange too much to 
 own to himself that it was unfeeling. With all his rich 
 generosity of nature, he sought excuses for what he de- 
 clined to blame. Perhaps something in Helen's manner or 
 words had led Harley to suspect that she still cherished too 
 tender an interest in the companion of her childhood ; per-
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 1023 
 
 haps under this coldness of expression there lurked the 
 burning anguish of jealousy. And, oh Leonard so well un- 
 derstood, and could so nobly compassionate, even in. his 
 prosperous rival, that torture of the most agonizing of 
 human passions, in which all our reasonings follow the dis- 
 torted writhings of our pain. 
 
 And Leonard himself, amidst his other causes of dis- 
 quiet, was at once so gnawed and so humbled by his own 
 jealousy. Helen, he knew, was still under the same roof 
 as Harley. They, the betrothed, could see each other 
 daily, hourly. He would soon hear of their marriage. She 
 would be borne afar from the very sphere of his existence 
 carried into a loftier region accessible only to his dreams. 
 And yet to be jealous of one to whom both Helen and him- 
 self were under such obligations, debased him in his own 
 esteem jealousy here was so like ingratitude. But for 
 Harley, what could have become of Helen, left to his boy- 
 ish charge ? he who had himself been compelled, in de- 
 spair, to think of sending her from his side, to be reared 
 into smileless youth in his mother's humble cottage, while 
 he faced famine alone, gazing on the terrible river, from 
 the bridge by which he had once begged for very alms- 1 
 begged of that Audley Egerton, to whom he was now op- 
 posed as an equal ; or Hying from the fiend that glared at 
 him under the lids of the haunting Chatterton. No, jeal- 
 ousy here was more than agony it was degradation it 
 was crime ! But, ah ! if Helen were happy in these splen- 
 did nuptials ! Was he sure even of that consolation ? Bitter 
 was the thought either way that she should wholly forget 
 him, in happiness from which he stood excluded as a thing 
 of sin or sinfully herself remember, and be wretched ! 
 
 With that healthful strength of will which is more often 
 proportioned to the susceptibility of feeling than the world 
 supposes, the young man at last wrenched himself for a 
 while from the iron that had entered into his soul, and 
 forced his thoughts to seek relief in the very objects from 
 which they otherwise would have the most loathingly re- 
 coiled. He aroused his imagination to befriend his reason ; 
 he strove to divine some motive not explained by Harley, 
 not to be referred to the mere defeat, by counter-scheme, 
 of the scheming Randal nor even to be solved, by any 
 service to Audley Egerton, which Harley might evolve from 
 the complicated meshes of the election ; some motive that 
 could more interest his own heart in the contest, and con-
 
 1024 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 nect itself with Harley's promised aid in clearing up the 
 mystery of his parentage. Nora's memoir had clearly 
 hinted that his father was of rank and station far beyond 
 her own. She had thrown the glow of her glorious fancies 
 over the ambition and the destined career of the lover in 
 whom she had merged her ambition as poetess, and her^ 
 career as woman. Possibly the father might be more dis- 
 posed to own and to welcome the son, if the son could 
 achieve an opening, and give promise of worth, in that 
 grand world of public life in which alone reputation takes 
 precedence of rank. Possibly, too, if the son thus suc- 
 ceeded, and became one whom a proud father could with 
 pride acknowledge, possibly he might not only secure a 
 father's welcome, but vindicate a mother's name. This 
 marriage, which Nora darkly hinted she had been led to 
 believe was fraudulent, might, after all, have been legal 
 the ceremony concealed, even till now, by worldly shame 
 at disparity of rank. But if the son could make good his 
 own footing there where rank itself owned its chiefs in 
 in talent that shame might vanish. These suppositions 
 were not improbable ; nor were they uncongenial to Leon- 
 ard's experience of Harley's delicate benignity of purpose. 
 Here, too, the image of Helen allied itself with those of his 
 parents, to support his courage and influence his new am- 
 bition. True, that she was lost to him for ever. No worldly 
 success, no political honors, could now restore her to his 
 side. But she might hear him named with respect in those 
 circles in which alone she would hereafter move, and in 
 which parliamentary reputation ranks higher than literary 
 fame. And perhaps in future years, when love, retaining 
 its tenderness, was purified from its passion, they might 
 thus meet as friends. He might, without a pang, take her 
 children on his knees, and say, perhaps in their old age, 
 when he had climbed to a social equality even with her 
 high-born lord, "It was the hope to re'gain the privilege 
 bestowed on her childhood, that strengthened me to seek 
 distinction when you and happiness forsook my youth. 
 Thus regarded, the election, which had before seemed to 
 him so poor and vulgar an exhibition of vehement passions 
 for petty objects, with its trumpery of banners, and its dis- 
 cord of trumpets, suddenly grew into vivid interest, and 
 assumed dignity and importance. It is ever thus with all 
 mortal strife. In proportion as it possesses, or is void of, 
 the diviner something that quickens the pulse of the heart,
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 1025 
 
 and elevates the wing of the imagination, it presents a 
 mockery to the philosopher, or an inspiration to the bard. 
 Feel that something, and no contest is mean ! Feel it not, 
 and, like Byron, you may class with the slaughter of Cannae 
 that field which, at Waterloo, restored the landmarks of 
 nations ; or may jeer with Juvenal at the dust of Hannibal, 
 because he sought to deliver Carthage from ruin, and free 
 a world from Rome. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 ONCE then, grappling manfully with the task he had un- 
 dertaken, and constraining himself to look on what Ricca- 
 bocca would have called "the southern side of things," 
 whatever there was really great in principle or honorable 
 to human nature, deep below the sordid details and pitiful 
 interests apparent on the face of the agitated current, came 
 clear to his vision. The ardor of those around him began 
 to be contagious ; the generous devotion to some cause, 
 apart from self, which pervades an election, and to which 
 the poorest voter will often render sacrifices that may be 
 called sublime the warm personal affection which com- 
 munity of zeal creates for the defender of beloved opinions 
 all concurred to dispel that indifference to party politics, 
 and counteract that disgust of their baser leaven, which the 
 young poet had first conceived. He even began to look 
 with complacency, for itself, on a career of toil and honors 
 strange to his habitual labors and intellectual ambition. 
 He threw the poetry of idea within him (as poets ever do) 
 into the prose of action to which he was hurried forward. 
 H^ no longer opposed Dick Avenel when that gentleman 
 represented how detrimental it would be to his business at 
 Screwstovvn if he devoted to his country the time and the 
 acumen required by his mill and its steam-engine ; and 
 how desirable it would be, on all accounts, that Leonard 
 Fairfield should become the parliamentary representative of 
 tho Avenels. " If, therefore," said Dick, " two of us can- 
 not come in, and one must retire, leave it to me to arrange 
 with the committee that you shall be the one to persist. 
 Oil, never fear but what all scruples of honor shall be satis- 
 fied. I would not, for the sake of the Avenels, have a word 
 said against their representative."
 
 1026 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 " But," answered Leonard, " if I grant this, I fear that 
 you have some intention of suffering the votes that your 
 resignation would release, to favor Leslie at the expense of 
 Egerton." 
 
 " What the deuce is Egerton to you ? " 
 
 " Nothing, except through my gratitude to his friend, 
 Lord L'Estrange." 
 
 " Pooh ! I will tell you a secret. Levy informs me 
 privately that L'Estrange will be well satisfied if the choice 
 of Lansmere fall upon Leslie instead of Egerton ; and I 
 think I convinced my Lord for I saw him in London 
 that Egerton would have no chance, though Leslie might." 
 
 " I must think that Lord L'Estrange would resist to the 
 utmost any attempt to prefer Leslie whom he despises to 
 Egerton, whom he honors. And, so thinking, I too would 
 resist it, as you may judge by the speeches which have so 
 provoked your displeasure." 
 
 " Let us cut short a yarn of talk which, when it comes 
 to likings and dislikings, might last to almighty crack ; I'll 
 ask you to do nothing that Lord L'Estrange does not sanc- 
 tion. Will that satisfy you ? " 
 
 " Certainly, provided I am assured of the sanction." 
 
 And now, the important day preceding the poll, the 
 day in which the candidates were to be formally nominated, 
 and meet each other in all the ceremony of declared rival- 
 ship, dawned at last. The town-hall was the place selected 
 for the occasion ; and before sunrise, all the streets were 
 resonant with music, and gay with banners. 
 
 Audley Egerton felt that he could not without incur- 
 ring some just sarcasm on his dread to face the consti- 
 tuency he had formerly represented, and by the malcontents 
 of which he had been burned in effigy absent himself from 
 the town-hall, as he had done from balcony and hostel. 
 Painful as it was to confront Nora's brother, and wrestle in 
 public against all the secret memories that knit the strife 
 of the present contest with the anguish that recalled the 
 first still the thing must be done ; and it was the English 
 habit of his life to face with courage whatever he had 
 to do.
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 1027 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 THE chiefs of the Blue party went in state from Lans- 
 mere Park ; the two candidates in open carriages, each 
 attended with his proposer and seconder. Other carriages 
 were devoted to Harley and Levy, and the principal mem- 
 bers of the committee. Riccabocca was seized with a fit of 
 melancholy or cynicism, and declined to join the proces- 
 sion. But just before they started, as all were assembling 
 without the front door, the postman arrived with his. wel- 
 come bag. There were letters for Harley, some for Levy, 
 many for Egerton, one for Randal Leslie. 
 
 Levy, soon hurrying over his own correspondence, 
 looked, in the familiar freedom wherewith he usually 
 treated his particular friends, over Randal's shoulder. 
 
 "From the Squire? "said he. "Ah, he has written 
 at last ! What made him delay so long ? Hope' he relieves 
 your mind ? " 
 
 "Yes," cried Randal, giving way to a joy that rarely 
 lighted up his close and secret countenance "yes, he does 
 not write from Hazeldean not there when my letter arrived 
 in London could not rest at the Hall the place re- 
 minded him too much of Frank- went again to town, on 
 the receipt of my first letter concerning the rupture of the 
 marriage, to see after his son, and take up some money to 
 pay off his post-obit. Read what he says : ' So, while I was 
 about a mortgage (never did I guess that I should be the 
 man to encumber the Hazeldean estate) I thought I might 
 as well add ^20,000 as ^10,000 to the total. Why should 
 you be indebted at all to that Baron Levy ? Don't have deal- 
 ings with money-lenders. Your grandmother was a Hazel- 
 dean ! and from a Hazeldean you shall have the whole sum 
 required in advance for those Rood lands good light soil 
 some of them. As to repayment, we'll talk of that later. 
 If Frank and I come together again, as we did of old, why, 
 my estates will be his some day ; and he'll not grudge the 
 mortgage, so fond as he always was of you ; and if we don't 
 come together, what do I care for hundreds or thousands, 
 either more or less ? So I shall be down at Lansmere the day 
 after to-morrow, just in the thick of your polling. Beat
 
 1028 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 the manufacturer, my boy, and stick up for the land. Tell 
 Levy to have all ready. I shall bring the money down in 
 good bank-notes, and a brace of pistols in my coat-pocket 
 to take care of them, in case robbers get scent of the notes 
 and attack me on the road, as they did my grandfather 
 sixty years ago come next Michaelmas. A Lansmere elec- 
 tion puts one in mind of pistols. I once fought a duel with 
 an officer in his Majesty's service,. R.N., and had a ball 
 lodged in my right shoulder, on account of an election at 
 Lansmere ; but I have forgiven Audley his share in that 
 transaction. Remember me to him kindly. Don't get into 
 a duel yourself ; but I suppose manufacturers don't fight ; 
 not that I blame them for that far from it.'" 
 
 The letter then ran on to express surprise, and hazard 
 conjecture, as to the wealthy marriage which Randal had 
 announced as a pleasing surprise to the Squire. 
 
 "Well," said Levy, returning the letter, you must have 
 written as cleverly as you talk, or the Squire is a booby ni- 
 deed." 
 
 Randal smiled, pocketed the letter, and responding to 
 the impatient call of his proposer, sprang lightly into the 
 carriage. 
 
 Harley, too, seemed pleased with the letters delivered 
 to himself, and now joined Levy, as the candidates drove 
 slowly off. 
 
 " Has not Mr. Leslie received from the Squire an answer 
 to that letter of which you informed me ?" 
 
 "Yes, my lord ; the Squire will be here to-morrow." 
 
 " To-morrow ? Thank you for apprising me ; his rooms 
 shall be prepared." 
 
 " I suppose he will only stay to see Leslie and myself, 
 and pay the money." 
 
 " Aha ! Pay the money. Is it so, then ? " 
 
 "Twice the sum, and, it seems, as a gift, which Leslie 
 only asked as a loan. Really, my lord, Mr. Leslie is a very 
 clever man ; and though I am at your commands, I should 
 not like to injure him. With such matrimonial prospects, 
 he could be a very powerful enemy ; and if he succeeded in 
 Parliament, still more so." 
 
 " Baron, these gentlemen are waiting for you. I will 
 follow by myself."
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 1029 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 IN the centre of the raised platform in the town-hall sat 
 the Mayor. On either hand of that dignitary now appeared 
 the candidates of the respective parties. To his right, Aud- 
 ley Egerton and Leslie ; to his left, Dick Avenel and Leon- 
 ard. The place was as full as it could hold. Rows of grimy 
 faces peeped in, even from the upper windows outside the 
 building. The contest was one that created intense interest, 
 not only from public principles, but local passions. Dick 
 Avenel, the son of a small tradesman, standing against the 
 Right Honorable Audley Egerton, the choice of the power- 
 ful Lansmere aristocratic party standing too, with his 
 nephew by his side taking, as he himself was wont to say, 
 ' the tarnation Blue Bull by both its oligarchical horns ! " 
 There was a pluck and gallantry in the very impudence of 
 the attempt to convert the important borough for one 
 member of which a great Earl had hitherto striven, " with 
 labor dire and weary woe," into two family seats for the 
 house of Avenel and the triumph of the Capelocracy. 
 
 This alone would have excited all the spare passions of 
 a country borough ; but, besides this, there was the curios- 
 ity that attached to the long-deferred public appearance of 
 a candidate so renowned as the ex-minister a man whose 
 career had commenced with his success at Lansmere, and 
 who now, amid the popular tempest that scattered his col- 
 leagues, sought to refit his vessel in the same harbor from 
 which it had first put forth. New generations had grown 
 up since the name of Audley Egerton had first fluttered the 
 dovecots in that Corioli. The questions that had then seemed 
 so important, were, for the most part, settled and at rest. 
 But those present who remembered Egerton in the former 
 days, were struck to see how the same characteristics of 
 bearing and aspect which had distinguished his early youth 
 revived their interest in the mature and celebrated man. 
 As he stood up for a few moments, before he took his seat 
 beside the Mayor, glancing over the assembly, with its up- 
 roar of cheers and hisses, there was the same stately erect- 
 ness of form and steadfastness of look the same indefina- 
 ble arid mysterious dignity of externals that imposed respect,
 
 I03 o MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 confirmed esteem, or stilled dislike. The hisses involuntarily 
 ceased. 
 
 The preliminary proceedings over, the proposers and 
 seconders commenced their office. 
 
 Audley was proposed, of course, by the crack man of the 
 party a gentleman who lived on his means in a white house 
 in the High Street had received a University education, and 
 was a cadet of a u County Family." This gentleman spoke 
 much about the Constitution, something about Greece and 
 Rome compared Egerton with William Pitt, also with 
 Aristides ; and sat down, after an oration esteemed classical 
 by the few, and pronounced prosy by the many. Audley's 
 seconder, a burly and important maltster, struck a bolder 
 key. He dwelt largely upon the necessity of being repre- 
 sented by gentlemen of wealth and rank, and not by " up- 
 starts and adventurers (cheers and groans). Looking at 
 the candidates on the other side, it was an insult to the re- 
 spectability of Lansmere to suppose its constituents could 
 elect a man who had no pretensions whatever to their no- 
 tice, except that he had once been a little boy in the town, 
 in which his father kept a shop and a very noisy, turbu- 
 lent, dirty little boy he was ! " Dick smoothed his spotless 
 shirt-front, and looked daggers, while the Blues laughed 
 heartily, and the Yellows cried "Shame!" " As for the 
 other candidate on the same side, he (the maltster) had noth- 
 ing to say against him. He was, no doubtj seduced into 
 presumption by his uncle and his own inexperience. It 
 was said that that candidate, Mr. Fairfield, was an author 
 and a poet ; if so, he was unknown to fame, for no book- 
 seller in the town had ever even heard of Mr. Fairfield's 
 works. Then it was replied, Mr. Fairfield had written un- 
 der another name. What would that prove ? Either that 
 he was ashamed of his name, or that the works did him no 
 credit. For his part, he (the maltster) was an Englishman ; 
 he did not like anonymous scribblers ; there was something 
 not right in whatever was concealed. A man should never 
 be afraid to put his name to what he wrote. But, grant that 
 Mr. Fairfield was a great author and a great poet, what the 
 borough of Lansmere wanted was, not a member who would 
 pass his time in writing spnnets to Peggy or Moggy, but a 
 practical man of business a statesman such a man as Mr. 
 Audley Egerton a gentleman of ancient birth, high stand- 
 ing, and princely fortune. The member for such a place as 
 Lansmere should have a proper degree of wealth." (" Hear,
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 1031 
 
 hear!" from the Hundred and Fifty Hcsitators, who all 
 stood in a row at the bottom of the hall ; and " Gammon ! " 
 " Stuff ! " from some revolutionary, but incorruptible Yel- 
 lows.) Still the allusion to Egerton's private fortune had 
 considerable effect with the bulk of the audience, and the 
 maltster was much cheered on concluding. Mr. Avenel's 
 proposer and seconder the one a large grocer, the other 
 the proprietor of a new shop for ticketed prints, shawls, 
 blankets, and counterpanes (a man who, as he boasted, dealt 
 with the People for ready money, and no mistake at least 
 none that he ever rectified), next followed. Both said 
 much the same thing. Mr. Avenel had made his fortune by 
 honest industry was a fellow-townsman must know the 
 interests of the town better than strangers upright pub* 
 lie principles never fawn on governments would see 
 that the people had their rights, and cut down army, navy, 
 and all other jobs of a corrupt aristocracy, etc., etc., etc. 
 Randal Leslie's proposer, a captain on half-pay, undertook 
 a long defence of the army and navy, from the unpatriotic 
 aspersions of the preceding speakers ; which defence di- 
 verted him from the due praise of Randal, until cries of 
 " Cut it short " recalled him to that subject ; and then the 
 topics he selected for eulogium were "amiability of char- 
 acter, so conspicuous in the urbane manners of his young 
 friend;" "coincidence in the opinions of that illustrious 
 statesman with whom he was conjoined :" "early tuition 
 in the best principles only fault, youth and that was a 
 fault which would diminish every day." Randal's seconder 
 was a bluff yeoman, an out-voter of weight with the agri- 
 cultural electors. He was too straightforward by half- 
 adverted to Audley Egerton's early desertion of questions 
 espoused by the landed interest " hoped he had had 
 enough of large towns ; and he (the yeoman) was ready to 
 forgive and forget, but trusted that there would be no chance 
 of burning their member again in effigy. As to the young 
 gentleman, whose nomination he had the pleasure to second 
 did not know much about him ; but the Leslies were an 
 old family in the neighboring county, and Mr. Leslie said 
 he was nearly related to Squire Hazeldean as good a man 
 as ever stood upon shoe leather. He (the yeoman) liked a 
 good breed in sheep and bullocks ; and a good breed in 
 men he supposed was the same thing. He (the yeoman) 
 was not for abuses he was for King and Constitution. He 
 should have no objection, for instance, to have tithes low-
 
 1033 M? NOVEL; OR^ 
 
 ered, and the malt-tax repealed not the least objection. 
 Mr. Leslie seemed to him a likely young chap, and uncom- 
 mon well-spoken ; and, on the whole, for aught he (the yeo- 
 man) could see, would do quite as well in Parliament as 
 nine-tenths of the gentlemen sent there." The yeoman sat 
 down, little cheered by the Blues much by the Yellows 
 and with a dim consciousness that somehow or other he had 
 rather damaged than not the cause of the party he had 
 been chosen to advocate. Leonard was not particularly 
 fortunate in his proposer a youngish gentleman who, 
 having tried various callings, with signal unsuccess, had 
 come into a small independence, and set up for a literary char- 
 acter. This gentleman undertook the defence of poets, as 
 the half-pay captain had undertaken that of the army and 
 navy; and after a dozen sentences, spoken through the nose, 
 about the " moonlight of existence," and "the oasis in the 
 desert," suddenly broke down, to the satisfaction of his im- 
 patient listeners. This failure was, however, redeemed by 
 Leonard's seconder a master tailor a practised speaker 
 and an earnest thinking man sincerely liking, and warmly 
 admiring, Leonard Fairfield. His opinions were delivered 
 with brief simplicity and accompanied by expressions of 
 trust in Leonard's talents and honesty, that were effective, 
 because expressed with feeling. 
 
 These preparatory orations over, a dead silence suc- 
 ceeded, and Audley Egerton arose. 
 
 At the first few sentences, all felt they were in the pres- 
 ence of one accustomed to command attention, and to give 
 to opinions the weight of recognized authority. The slow- 
 ness of the measured accents, the composure of the manly 
 aspect, the decorum of the simple gestures all bespoke and 
 all became the Minister of a great empire, who had less 
 agitated assemblies by impassioned eloquence, than com- 
 pelled their silent respect to the views of sagacity and 
 experience. But what might have been formal and didactic 
 in another, was relieved in Egerton by that air, tone, bear- 
 ing of a gentleman, which have a charm for the most plebeian 
 audience. He had eminently these attributes in private 
 life ; but they became far more conspicuous whenever he 
 had to appear in public. The " setiatorius decor'" seemed a 
 phrase coined for him. 
 
 Audley commenced with notice of his adversaries in that 
 language of high courtesy which is so becoming to superior 
 station, and which augurs better for victory than the most
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 1033 
 
 pointed diatribes of hostile declamation. Inclining his 
 head toward Avenel, he expressed regret that he should be 
 opposed by a gentleman whose birth naturally endeared him 
 to the town, of which he was a distinguished native, and 
 whose honorable ambition was in itself a proof of the admir- 
 able nature of that Constitution, which admitted the lowliest 
 to rise to its distinctions, while it compelled the loftiest to 
 labor and compete for those honors which were the most 
 coveted, because they were derived from the trust of their 
 countrymen, and dignified by the duties which the sense of 
 responsibility entailed. He paid a passing but generous 
 compliment to the reputed abilities of Leonard Fairfield ; 
 and, alluding with appropriate grace to the interest he had 
 ever taken in the success of youth striving for place in the 
 van of the new generation that marched on to replace the 
 old, he implied that he did not consider Leonard as opposed 
 to himself, but rather as an emulous competitor for a worthy 
 prize with his "own young and valued friend, Mr. Randal 
 Leslie." "They are happy at their years ! " said the states- 
 man, with a certain pathos. " In the future they see noth- 
 ing to fear, in the past they have nothing to defend. It is 
 not so with me." And then, passing on to the vague insinu- 
 ations or bolder charges against himself and his policy 
 proffered by the preceding speakers, Audley gathered him- 
 self up, and paused ; for his eye here rested on the Reporters 
 seated round the table just below him ; and he recognized 
 faces not unfamiliar to his recollection when metropolitan 
 assemblies had hung on the words which fell from lips then 
 privileged to advise a king. And involuntarily it occurred 
 to the ex-minister to escape altogether from this contracted 
 audience this election, with all its associations of pain 
 and address himself wholly to that vast and invisible Public, 
 to which those "Reporters would transmit his ideas. At this 
 thought his whole manner gradually changed. His eye 
 became fixed on the farthest verge of the crowd ; his tones 
 grew more solemn in their deep and sonorous swell. He 
 began to review and to vindicate his whole political life. 
 He spoke of the measures he had aided to pass of his part 
 in the laws which now ruled the land. He touched lightly, 
 but with pride, on the services he had rendered to the opin- 
 ions he had represented. He alluded to his neglect of his 
 own private fortunes ; but in what detail, however minute, 
 in the public business committed to his charge, could even 
 an enemy accuse him of neglect ? The allusion was no 
 
 44
 
 1034 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 doubt intended to prepare the public for the news, that the 
 wealth of Audley Egerton was gone. Finally, he came to 
 the questions that then agitated the day ; and made a gen- 
 eral but masterly exposition of the policy which, under the 
 changes he foresaw, he should recommend his party to 
 adopt. 
 
 Spoken to the motley assembly in that town-hall, 
 Audley's speech extended to a circle of interests too wide 
 for their sympathy. But that assembly he heeded not 
 he forgot it. The reporters understood him, as their 
 flying pens followed words which they presumed neither 
 to correct nor to abridge. Audley's speech was addressed 
 to the nation ; the speech of a man in whom the nation yet 
 recognized a chief desiring to clear all misrepresentation 
 from his past career calculating, if life were spared to him, 
 on destinies higher than he had yet fulfilled issuing a 
 manifesto of principles to be carried later into power, and 
 planting a banner round which the divided sections of a 
 broken host might yet rally for battle and for conquest. 
 Or perhaps, in the deeps of his heart (not even compre- 
 hended by reporters, nor to be divined by the public), the 
 uncertainty of life was more felt than the hope of ambition ; 
 and the statesman desired to leave behind him one full 
 vindication of that public integrity and honor, on which, at 
 least, his conscience acknowledged not a stain. " For more 
 than twenty years," said Audley, in conclusion, "I have 
 known no day in which I have not lived for my country. 
 I may at times have opposed the wish of the People I 
 may oppose it now but, so far as I can form a judgment, 
 only because I prefer their welfare to their wish. And if 
 as I believe there have been occasions on which, as one 
 amongst men more renowned, I have amended the laws of 
 England confirmed her safety, extended her commerce, 
 upheld her honor I leave the rest to the censure of my 
 enemies, and (his voice trembled) to the charity of my 
 friends." 
 
 Before the cheers that greeted the close of this speech 
 were over, Richard Avenel arose. What is called " the 
 more respectable part " of an audience viz., the better 
 educated and better clad, even on the Yellow side of the 
 question winced a little for the credit of their native 
 borough, when they contemplated the candidate pitted 
 against the Great Commoner, whose lofty presence still 
 filled the eye, and whose majestic tones yet sounded in the
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 1035 
 
 ear. But the vast majority on both sides, Blue and Yellow, 
 hailed the rise of Dick Avenel as a relief to what, while it 
 had awed their attention, had rather strained their faculties. 
 The Yellows cheered, and the Blues groaned ; there was a 
 tumultuous din of voices, and a reel to and fro of the whole 
 excited mass of unwashed faces and brawny shoulders. 
 But Dick had as much pluck as Audley himself ; and, by 
 degrees, his pluck and his handsome features, and the curi- 
 osity to hear what he had to say, obtained him a hearing ; 
 and that hearing, Dick having once got, he contrived to 
 keep. His self-confidence was backed by a grudge against 
 Egerton, that attained to the elevation of malignity. He 
 had armed himself for this occasion with an arsenal of 
 quotations from Audley's speeches, taken out of Hansard's 
 Debates ; and, garbling these texts in, the unfairest and 
 most ingenious manner, he contrived to split consistency 
 into such fragments of inconsistency to cut so many 
 harmless sentences into such unpopular, arbitrary, tyran- 
 nical segments of doctrine -that he made a very pretty 
 case against the enlightened and incorruptible Egerton, as 
 shuffler and trimmer, defender of jobs, and eulogist of 
 Manchester massacres, etc., etc. And all told the more 
 because it seemed courted and provoked by the ex- 
 minister's elaborate vindication of himself. Having thus, 
 as he declared, " triumphantly convicted the Right Honora- 
 able Gentleman out of his own mouth," Dick considered 
 himself at liberty to diverge into what he termed " the just 
 indignation of a free-born Briton ; " in other words, into 
 every variety of abuse which bad taste could supply to 
 acrimonious feeling. But he did it so roundly and daunt- 
 lessly, in such true hustings style, that for the moment at 
 least, he carried the bulk of the crowd along with him 
 sufficiently to bear down all the resentful murmurs of the 
 Blue Committeemen, and the abashed shakes of the head 
 with which the more aristocratic and well-bred among the 
 Yellows signified to each other that they were heartily 
 ashamed of their candidate. Dick concluded with an 
 emphatic declaration that the Right Honorable Gentle- 
 man's day was gone by ; that the people had been pillaged 
 and plundered enough by pompous red-tapists, who 
 only thought of their salaries, and never went to their 
 offices except to waste the pen, ink, and paper which they 
 did not pay for ; that the Right Honorable Gentleman had 
 boasted that he had served his country for twenty years.
 
 1036 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 Served his country ! he should have said, served her ouf f 
 (Much laughter.) Pretty mess his country was in now. In 
 short, for twenty years the Right Honorable Gentleman had 
 put his hands into his country's pockets. " And I ask 
 you," bawled Dick, " whether any of you are a bit the 
 better for all that he has taken out of them ! " The 
 Hundred and Fifty Hesitators shook their heads. " Noa, 
 that we ben't ! " cried the Hundred and Fifty dolorously. 
 " You hear THE PEOPLE ! " said Dick, turning majestically 
 to Egerton, who, with his arms folded on his breast, and his 
 upper lip slightly curved, sat like " Atlas unremoved " 
 "You hear THE PEOPLE! They condemn you and the 
 whole set of you. I repeat here what I once vowed on 
 a less public occasion ' As sure as my name is Richard 
 Avenel, you shall smart for ' (Dick hesitated) smart for 
 your contempt of the just rights, honest claims, and en- 
 lightened aspirations of your indignant countrymen. The 
 schoolmaster is abroad, and the British Lion is aroused ! " 
 
 Dick sat down. The curve of contempt had passed 
 from Egerton's lip ; at the name of Avenel, thus harshly 
 spoken, he had suddenly shaded his face with his hand. 
 
 But Randal Leslie next arose, and Audley slowly raised 
 his eyes, and looked toward his protege with an expression 
 of kindly interest. What better debut could there be for 
 a young man warmly attached to an eminent patron, who 
 had been coarsely assailed fora political aspirant vindicat- 
 ing the principles which that patron represented ? The 
 Blues, palpitating with indignant excitement, all prepared 
 to cheer every sentence that could embody their sense of 
 outrage ; even the meanest amongst the Yellows, now that 
 Dick had concluded, dimly aware that their orator had laid 
 himself terribly open, and richly deserved (more especially 
 from the friend of Audley Egerton) whatever punishing re- 
 tort could vibrate from the heart of a man to the tongue 
 of an orator. A better opportunity for an honest young 
 d 'bittant could not exist; a more disagreeable, annoying, 
 perplexing, unmanageable opportunity for Randal Leslie, 
 the malice of the Fates could not have contrived. How 
 could he attack Dick Avenel ? he who counted upon 
 Dick Avenel to win his election ? How could he exasperate 
 the Yellows, when Dick's solemn injunction had been 
 " Say nothing to make the Yellows not vote for you ! " 
 How could he identify himself with Egerton's policy, when 
 it was his own policy to make his opponents believe him
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 1037 
 
 an unprejudiced sensible youth, who would come all right 
 and all Yellow one of these days ? Demosthenes him- 
 self would have had a sore throat, worse than when he 
 swallowed the golden cup of Harpalus, had Demosthenes 
 been placed in so cursed a fix. Therefore Randal Leslie 
 may well be excused if he stammered and boggled if he 
 was appalled by a cheer when he said a word in vindication 
 of Egerton and looked cringing and pitiful when he 
 sneaked out a counter civility to Dick. The Bines were 
 sadly disappointed damped ; the Yellows smirked and 
 took heart. Audley Egerton's brows darkened. Harley, 
 who was on the platform, half seen behind the front row, 
 a quiet listener, bent over and whispered dryly to Audley 
 " You should have given a lesson beforehand to your 
 clever young friend. His affection for you overpowers 
 him ! " 
 
 Audley made no rejoinder, but tore a leaf out of his 
 pocket-book, and wrote, in pencil, these words "Say that 
 you may well feel embarrassed how to reply to Mr. Avenel, 
 because I had especially requested you not to be provoked 
 to one angry expression against a gentleman whose father 
 and brother-in-law gave the majority of two by which I 
 gained my first seat in Parliament ; then plunge at once 
 into general politics." He placed this paper in Randal's 
 hand, just as that unhappy young man was on the point of 
 a thorough break-down. Randal paused, took breath, read 
 the words attentively, and amidst a general titter ; his pre- 
 sence of mind returned to him he saw a way out of the 
 scrape collected himself suddenly raised his head and 
 in tones unexpectedly firm and fluent, enlarged on the text 
 afforded to him enlarged so well that he took the audience 
 by surprise pleased the Blues by an evidence of Audley's 
 generosity and touched the Yellows by so affectionate a 
 deference te the family of their two candidates. Then the 
 speaker was enabled to come at once to the topics on which 
 he had elaborately prepared himself, and delivered a set 
 harangue very artfully put together temporizing, it is 
 true, and trimming, but full of what would have been called 
 admirable tact and discretion in an old stager who did not 
 want to commit himself to anybody or to anything. On 
 the whole, the display became creditable, at least as an 
 evidence of thoughtful reserve, rare in a man so young 
 too refining and scholastic for oratory, but a very good 
 essay upon both sides of the question. Randal wiped his
 
 1038 MY NOVEL; OK, 
 
 pale forehead, and sat down, cheered, especially by the 
 lawyers present, and self-contented. It was now Leonard's 
 turn to speak. Keenly nervous, as men of the literary 
 temperament are constitutionally shy, his voice trembled 
 as he began. But he trusted, unconsciously, less to his 
 intellect than his warm heart and noble temper and the 
 warm heart prompted his words, and the noble temper 
 gradually dignified his manner. He took advantage of the 
 sentences which Audley had put into Randal's mouth, in 
 order to efface the impression made by his uncle's rude 
 assault. "Would that the Right Honorable gentleman had 
 himself made that generous and affecting allusion to the 
 services which he had deigned to remember, for, in that 
 case, he (Leonard) was confident that Mr. Avenel would 
 have lost all the bitterness which political contest was apt 
 to engender in proportion to the earnestness with which 
 political opinions were entertained. Happy it was when 
 some such milder sentiment as that which Mr. Egerton had 
 instructed Mr. Leslie to convey, preceded the sharp en- 
 counter, and reminded antagonists, as Mr. Leslie had so 
 emphatically done, that every shield had two sides, and 
 that it was possible to maintain the one side to be golden, 
 without denying the truth of the champion who asserted 
 the other side to be silver." Then, without appearing to 
 throw over his uncle, the young speaker contrived to in- 
 sinuate an apology on his uncle's behalf, with such exqui- 
 site grace and good feeling, that he was loudly cheered by 
 both parties ; and even Dick did not venture to utter the 
 dissent which struggled to his lips. 
 
 But if Leonard dealt thus respectfully with Egerton, he 
 had no such inducements to spare Randal Leslie. With the 
 intuitive penetration of minds accustomed to analyze char- 
 acter and investigate human nature, he detected the var- 
 nished insincerity of Randal's artful address. His color rose 
 his voice swelled his fancy began to play, and his wit 
 to sparkle when he came to take to pieces his younger 
 antagonist's rhetorical mosaic. He exposed the falsehood 
 of its affected moderation he tore into shreds the veil of 
 words, with their motley woof of yellow and blue and 
 showed that not a single conviction could be discovered be- 
 hind it. "Mr. Leslie's speech," said he, "puts me in mind 
 of a ferry-boat ; it seems made for no purpose but to go 
 from one side to the other." The simile hit the truth so 
 exactly, that it was received with a roar of laughter ; even
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE, 1039 
 
 Egerton smiled. " For myself," concluded Leonard, as he 
 summed up his unsparing analysis, "I am new to party 
 warfare ; yet if I were not opposing Mr. Leslie as a candi- 
 date for your suffrages, if I were but an elector belonging, 
 as I do, to the people by my condition and my labors I 
 should feel that he is one of those politicians in whom the 
 welfare, the honor, the moral elevation of the people, find 
 no fitting representative." 
 
 Leonard sat down amidst great applause, and after a 
 speech that raised the Yellows in their own estimation, and 
 materially damaged Randal Leslie in the eyes of the Blues. 
 Randal felt this with a writhing of the heart, though a sneer 
 on the lips. He glanced furtively toward Dick Avenel, on 
 whom, after all, his election, in spite of the Blues, might de- 
 pend. Dick answered the furtive glance by an encouraging 
 wink. Randal turned to Egerton, and whispered to him 
 " How I wish I had had more practice in speaking, so that 
 I could have done you more justice ! " 
 
 " Thank you, Leslie ; Mr. Fairfield has supplied any 
 omission of yours, so far as I am concerned. And you 
 should excuse him for his attack on yourself, because it may 
 serve to convince you where your fault as a speaker lies." 
 
 "Where ?" asked Leslie, with jealous sullenness. 
 
 " In not believing a single word that you say," answered 
 Egerton, very dryly ; and then turning away, he said aloud 
 to his proposer, and with a slight sigh, " Mr. Avenel may 
 be proud of his nephew ! I wish that young man were on 
 our side ; I could train him into a great debater." 
 
 And now the proceedings were about to terminate with 
 a sho'w of hands, when a tall brawny elector in the middle 
 of the hall suddenly arose, and said he had some questions 
 to put. A thrill ran through the assembly, for this elector 
 was the demagogue of the Yellows a fellow whom it was 
 impossible to put down a capital speaker, with lungs of 
 brass. " I shall be very short," said the demagogue. And 
 therewith, under the shape of questions to the two Blue 
 candidates, he commenced a most furious onslaught on the 
 Earl of Lansmere, and the Earl's son, Lord L'Estrange, ac- 
 cusing the last of the grossest intimidation and corruption, 
 and citing instances thereof as exhibited toward various 
 electors in Fish Lane and the Back Slums, who had been 
 turned from Yellow promises by the base arts of Blue aris- 
 tocracy, represented in the person of the noble lord, whom 
 he now dared to reply. The orator paused, and Harley
 
 1040 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 suddenly passed into the front of the platform, in token that 
 he accepted the ungracious invitation. Great as had been 
 the curiosity to hear Audley Egerton, yet greater, if possi- 
 ble, was the curiosity to hear Lord L'Estrange. Absent 
 from the place for so many years heir to such immense 
 possessions with a vague reputation for talents that he 
 had never proved strange, indeed, if Blue and Yellow had 
 not strained their ears and hushed their breaths to listen. 
 It is said that the poet is born, and the orator made a say- 
 ing only partially true. Some men have been made poets, 
 and some men have been born orators. Most probably 
 Harley L'Estrange had hitherto never spoken in public, 
 and he had not now spoken five minutes before all the pas- 
 sions and humors of the assembly were as much under his 
 command as the keys of the instrument are under the hands 
 of the musician. He had taken from nature a voice capa- 
 ble of infinite variety of modulation, a countenance of the 
 most flexile play of expression ; and he was keenly alive 
 (as profound humorists are) equally to the ludicrous and 
 the graver side of everything presented to his vigorous un- 
 derstanding. Leonard had the eloquence of a poet Aud- 
 ley Egerton that of a parliamentary debater. But Harley 
 had the rarer gift of eloquence in itself, apart from the 
 matter it conveys or adorns that gift which Demosthenes 
 meant by his triple requisite of an orator, which has been 
 improperly translated "action," but means in reality "the 
 acting," "the stage-play." Both Leonard and Audley 
 spoke well, from the good sense which their speeches con- 
 tained ; but Harley could have talked nonsense, and made 
 it mote effective than sense even as Kemble or Macready 
 could produce effects from the trash talked by "The Stran- 
 ger," which your merely accomplished performer would 
 fail to extract from the beauties of Hamlet. The art of ora- 
 tory, indeed, is allied more closely to that of the drama than 
 to any other ; and throughout Harley's whole nature there 
 ran, as the reader may have noted (though quite uncon- 
 sciously to Harley himself), a tendency toward that concen- 
 tration of thought, action, and circumstance, on a single 
 purpose, which makes all the world form itself into a stage, 
 and gathers various and scattered agencies into the symme- 
 try and compactness of a drama. This tendency, though it 
 often produces effects that appear artificially theatrical, is 
 not uncommon with persons the most genuine and single- 
 minded. It is, indeed, the natural inclination of quick
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 1041 
 
 energies springing from warm emotions. Hence the very 
 history of nations in their fresh, vigorous, half-civilized 
 youth, always shapes itself into dramatic forms ; while, as 
 the exercise of sober reason expands with civilization, to 
 the injury of the livelier faculties and more intuitive im- 
 pulses, people look to the dramatic form of expression, 
 whether in thought or in action, as if it were the antidote 
 to truth, instead of being its abstract and essence. 
 
 But to return from this long and somewhat metaphysi- 
 cal digression, whatever might be the cause why Harley 
 L'Estrange spoke so wonderfully well, there could be no 
 doubt that wonderfully well he did speak. He turned the 
 demagogue and his attack into the most felicitous ridicule, 
 and yet with the most genial good-humor ; described that 
 virtuous gentleman's adventures in search of corruption 
 through the pure regions of Fish Lane and the Black 
 Slums ; and then summed up the evidences on which the 
 demagogue had founded his charge, with a humor so caus- 
 tic and original that the audience were convulsed with 
 laughter. From laughter Harley hurried his audience al- 
 most to the pathos of tears for he spoke of the insinua- 
 tions against his father, so that every son and every father 
 in the assembly felt moved as at the voice of Nature. 
 
 A turn in a sentence, and a new emotion seized the as- 
 sembly. Harley was identifying himself with the Lans- 
 mere electors. He spoke of his pride in being a Lansmere 
 man, and all the Lansmere electors suddenly felt proud of 
 him. He talked with familiar kindness of old friends 
 remembered in his school-boy holidays, rejoicing to find so 
 many alive and prospering. He had a felicitous word to 
 each. 
 
 " Dear old Lansmere ! " said he, and the simple excla- 
 mation won him the hearts of all. In fine, when he paused, 
 as if to retire, it was amidst a storm of acclamation. Aud- 
 ley grasped his hand, and whispered " I am the only one 
 here not surprised, Harley. Now you have discovered your 
 powers, never again let them slumber. What a life may be 
 yours, if you no longer waste it ! " Harley extricated his 
 hand, and his eye glittered. He made a sign that he had 
 more to say, and the applause was hushed. " My Right 
 Honorable friend chides me for the years that I have wasted. 
 True ; my years have been wasted no matter how nor 
 wherefore ! But his .' how have they been spent ? in such 
 devotion to the public, that those who know him not as I
 
 1042 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 do, have said that he had not one feeling left to spare to 
 the obscurer duties and more limited affections, by which 
 men of ordinary talents and humble minds rivet the links 
 of that social order which it is the august destiny of states- 
 men like him who now sits beside me to cherish and de- 
 fend. But, for my part, I think that there is no being so 
 dangerous as the solemn hypocrite, who, because he drills 
 his cold nature into serving mechanically some convention- 
 al abstraction whether he calls it ' the Constitution ' or 
 ' the Public ' holds himself dispensed from whatever, in 
 the warm blood of private life, wins attachment to goodness 
 and confidence to truth. Let others, then, praise my Right 
 Honorable friend as the incorruptible politician. Pardon 
 me if I draw his likeness as the local, sincere man, who 
 might say with the honest priest, ' that he could not tell a 
 lie to gain Heaven by it ! ' and with so fine a sense of 
 honor, that he would hold it a lie merely to conceal the 
 truth." Harley then drew a brilliant picture of the type of 
 chivalrous honesty of the ideal which the English attach 
 to the phrase of "a perfect gentleman," applying each sen- 
 tence to his Right Honorable friend with an emphasis that 
 seemed to burst from his heart. To all of the audience, 
 save two, it was an eulogium which the fervent sincerity of 
 the eulogist alone saved from hyperbole. But Levy rubbed 
 his hands, and chuckled inly ; and Egerton hung his head, 
 and moved restlessly on his seat. Every word that Harley 
 uttered lodged an arrow in Audley's breast. Amidst the 
 cheers that followed this admirable sketch of the " loyal 
 man," Harley recognized Leonard's enthusiastic voice. He 
 turned sharply toward the young man : " Mr. Fairfield 
 cheers this description of integrity, and its application ; let 
 him imitate the model set before him, and he may live to 
 hear praise as genuine as mine from some friend who has 
 tested his worth as I have tested Mr. Egerton's. Mr. 
 Fairfield is a poet : his claim to that title was disputed by 
 one of the speakers who preceded me ! unjustly disputed ! 
 Mr. Fairfield is every inch a poet. But, it has been asked, 
 ' Are poets fit for the business of senates ? Will they not 
 be writing sonnets to Peggy and Moggy, when you want 
 them to concentrate their divine imagination on the de- 
 tails of a beer bill ?' Do not let Mr. Fairfield's friends be 
 alarmed. At the risk of injury to the two candidates whose 
 cause I espouse, truth compels me to say, that poets, when 
 they stoop to action, are not less prosaic than the dullest
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 1043 
 
 amongst us : they are swayed by the same selfish interests 
 they are moved by the same petty passions. It is a mis- 
 take to suppose that any detail in common life, whether in 
 public or private, can be too mean to seduce the exquisite 
 pliances of their fancy. Nay, in public life, we may trust 
 them better than other men ; for vanity is a kind of second 
 conscience, and, as a poet himself said 
 
 4 Who fears not to do ill, yet fears the name, 
 And, free from conscience, is a slave to shame.' 
 
 In private life alone we do well to be on our guard against 
 these children of fancy, for they so devote to the Muse all 
 their treasury of sentiment, that we can no more expect 
 them to waste a thought on the plain duties of men, than 
 we can expect the spendthrift, who dazzles the town, ' to 
 fritter away his money in payiug his debts.' But all the 
 world are agreed to be indulgent to the infirmities of those 
 who are their own deceivers and their own chastisers. Poets 
 have more enthusiasm, more affection, more heart than 
 others ; but only for fictions of their own creating. It is in 
 vain for us to .attach them to ourselves by vulgar merit, by 
 commonplace obligations strive and sacrifice as we may. 
 They are ungrateful to us, only because gratitude is so very 
 unpoetical a subject. We lose them the moment we attempt 
 to bind. Their love, 
 
 ' Light as air, at sight of human ties, 
 Spreads its light wings, and in a moment tlies.' 
 
 They follow their own caprices adore their own delusions 
 and, deeming the forms of humanity too material for 
 their fantastic affections, conjure up a ghost, and are chilled 
 to death by its embrace ! " 
 
 Then, suddenly aware that he was passing beyond the 
 comprehension of his audience, and touching upon the 
 bounds of his bitter secret (for here he was thinking, not 
 of Leonard, but of Nora), Harley gave a new and more 
 homely direction to his terrible irony turned into telling 
 ridicule the most elevated sentiments Leonard's speech 
 had conveyed hastened on to a rapid view of political 
 questions in general- defended Leslie with the same appar- 
 ent earnestness and latent satire with which he had eulo- 
 gized Audley and concluded a speech, which, for pop-
 
 1044 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 ular effect, had never been equalled in that hall, amidst a 
 diapason of cheers that threatened to bring down the rafters. 
 
 In a few minutes more, the proceedings were closed 
 a show of hands taken. The show was declared by the 
 Mayor, who was a thorough Blue, in favor of the Right 
 Hon. Audley Egerton and Randal Leslie, Esquire. 
 
 Cries of ''No," "Shame," "Partial," etc. a poll de- 
 manded on behalf of the other two candidates and the 
 crowd began to pour out of the hall. 
 
 Harley was the first who vanished, retreating by the 
 private entrance. Egerton followed ; Randal, lingering, 
 Avenel came up and shook hands with him openly, but 
 whispered, privately, " Meet me to-night in Lansmere 
 Park, in the oak copse, about three hundred yards from 
 the turnstile, at the town end of the park. We must see 
 how to make all right. What a confounded humbug this 
 has been ! " 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 IF the vigor of Harley's address had taken by surprise 
 both friend and foe, not one in that assembly not even 
 the conscience-stricken Egerton felt its effect so deeply 
 as the assailed and startled Leonard. He was at first 
 perfectly stunned by sarcasms which he so ill deserved ; 
 nor was it till after the assembly had broken up that Leon- 
 ard could even conjecture the cause which had provoked 
 the taunt and barbed its dart. Evidently Harley had 
 learned (but learned only in order to misconceive and to 
 wrong) Leonard's confession of love to Helen Digby. 
 And now those implied accusations of disregard to the 
 duties of common life not only galled the young man's 
 heart, but outraged his honor. He felt the generous in- 
 dignation of manhood. He must see Lord L'Estrange at 
 once, and vindicate himself vindicate Helen ; for thus to 
 accuse one, was tacitly to asperse the other. 
 
 Extricating himself from his own enthusiastic partisans. 
 Leonard went straight on foot toward Lansmere Housel 
 The park palings touched close upon the town, with a smal, 
 turnstile for foot-passengers. And as Leonard, availing 
 himself of this entrance, had advanced some hundred yards 
 or so through the park, suddenly, in the midst of that very
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 1045 
 
 copse in which Avenel had appointed to meet Leslie, he 
 found himself face to face with Helen Digby herself. 
 
 Helen started, with a faint cry. But Leonard, absorbed 
 in his own desire to justify both, hailed the sight, and did 
 not pause to account for his appearance, nor to soothe her 
 agitation. 
 
 " Miss Digby ! " he exclaimed, throwing into his voice 
 and manner that respect which often so cruelly divides the 
 past familiarity from the present alienation " Miss Digby, 
 I rejoice to see you rejoice to ask your permission to 
 relieve myself from a charge, that in truth wounds even you 
 while levelled but at me. Lord L' Estrange has just implied, 
 in public, that I I who owe him so much who have 
 honored him so truly, that even the just resentment I now 
 feel, half seems to me the ingratitude with which he charges 
 me has implied that ah ! Miss Digby, I can scarcely 
 command words to say what it so humiliates me to have 
 heard. But you know how false is all accusation that either 
 of us could deceive our common benefactor. Suffer me to 
 repeat to your guardian, what I presumed to say to you 
 when we last met what you answered and state how I 
 left your presence." 
 
 " Oh, Leonard ! yes ; clear yourself in his eyes. Go ! 
 Unjust that he is ungenerous Lord L' Estrange ! " 
 
 " Helen Digby ! " cried a voice, close at hand, " of whom 
 do you speak thus ? " 
 
 At the sound of that voice, Helen and Leonard both 
 turned, and beheld Violante standing before them, her 
 young beauty rendered almost sublime by the noble anger 
 that lit her eyes, glowed in her cheeks, and animated her 
 stately form. 
 
 " It is you who thus speak of Lord L'Estrange ? You 
 Helen Digby you ! " 
 
 From behind Violante now emerged Mr. Dale. " Softly, 
 children," he said ; and placing one hand on Violante's 
 shoulder, he extended > the other to Leonard. "What is 
 this ? Come hither to me, Leonard, and explain." 
 
 Leonard walked aside with the Parson, and in a few 
 sentences gave vent to his swelling heart. 
 
 The Parson shared in Leonard's resentment ; and having 
 soon drawn from him all that had passed in his memorable 
 interview with Helen, exclaimed 
 
 "Enough ! Do not yet seek Lord L'Estrange yourself; 
 I am going to see him I am here at his request. His sum-
 
 1046 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 mons, indeed, was for to-morrow ; but the Squire having 
 written me a hurried line, requesting me to meet him at 
 Lansmere to-morrow, and proceed with him afterward in 
 search of poor Frank, I thought I might have little time 
 for communications with Lord L'Estrange, unless I fore- 
 stalled his invitation and came to-day. Well that I did so. 
 I only arrived an hour since found he was gone to the 
 Town Hall and joined the young ladies in the park. Miss 
 Digby, thinking it natural that I might wish to say some- 
 thing in private to my old young friend Violante, walked a 
 few paces in advance. Thus, fortunately, I chanced to be 
 here, to receive your account, and I trust to remove mis- 
 understanding. Lord L'Estrange must now be returned. I 
 will go back to the house. You, meanwhile, return to the 
 town, I beseech you. I will come to you afterward at your 
 inn. Your very appearance in these grounds even the 
 brief words that have passed between Helen and you might 
 only widen the breach between yourself and your benefactor. 
 I cannot bear to anticipate this. Go back, I entreat you. 
 1 will explain all, and Lord L'Estrange shall right you. 
 That is that must be his intention ! " 
 
 '/<r must be his intention when he has just so wronged 
 me!" 
 
 " Yes, yes," faltered the poor Parson, mindful of his pro- 
 mise to L'Estrange not to reveal his own interview with that 
 nobleman, and yet not knowing otherwise how to explain 
 or to soothe. But, still believing Leonard to he Harley's 
 son, and remembering all that Harley had so pointedly said 
 of atonemeut, in apparent remorse for crime, Mr. Dale was 
 wholly at a loss himself to understand why Harley should 
 have thus prefaced atonement by an insult. Anxious, how- 
 ever, to prevent a meeting between Harley and Leonard, 
 while both were under the influence of such feelings toward 
 each other, he made an effort over himself, and so well 
 argued in favor of his own diplomacy, that Leonard reluc- 
 tantly consented to wait for Mr. Dale's report. 
 
 " As to reparation or excuse," said he, proudly, " it must 
 rest with Lord L'Estrange. " I ask it not. Tell him only 
 this that if, the instant I heard that she whom I loved and 
 held sacred for so many years was affianced to him, I 
 resigned even the very wish to call her mine if that were 
 desertion of man's duties, I am guilty. If to have prayed 
 night and day that she who would have blessed my lonely 
 and toilsome life, may give some charm to his, not bestowed
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 1047 
 
 by his wealth and his greatness if that were ingratitude, I 
 am ungrateful ; let him still condemn me. I pass out of 
 his sphere a thing that has crossed it a moment, and is 
 gone. But Helen he must not blame suspect even by 
 a thought. One word more. In this election this strife 
 for objects wholly foreign to all my habits, unsuited to my 
 poverty, at war with aspirations so long devoted to fairer 
 goals, though by obscurer paths I obeyed but his will or 
 whim ; at a moment, too, when my whole soul sickened for 
 repose and solitude. I had forced myself at last to take 
 interest in what I had before loathed. But in every hope 
 for the future every stimulant to ambition Lord L'Es- 
 trange's esteem still stood before me. Now, what do I here 
 longer ? All of his conduct, save his contempt for myself, 
 is an enigma. And unless he repeat a wish, which I would 
 fain still regard as a law, I retire from the contest he has 
 embittered I renounce the ambition he has poisoned ; 
 and, mindful of those humble duties which he implies that 
 I disdain, I return to my own home." 
 
 The Parson nodded assent to each of these sentences, 
 and Leonard, passing by Violante and Helen, with a salu- 
 tation equally distant to both, retraced his steps toward the 
 town. 
 
 Meanwhile Violante and Helen had also been in close 
 conference, and that conference had suddenly endeared each 
 to the other ; for Helen, taken by surprise, agitated, over- 
 powered, had revealed to Violante that confession of an- 
 other attachment, which she had made to Lord L'Estrange 
 the rupture of her engagement with the latter. Violante 
 saw that Harley was free. Harley, too, had promised to 
 free herself. By a sudden flash of conviction, recalling his 
 words, looks, she felt that she was beloved -deemed that 
 honor alone (while either was yet shackled) had forbidden 
 him to own that love. Violante stood a being transformed, 
 " blushing celestial rosy red" Heaven at her heart, joy in 
 her eyes ; she loved so well, and she trusted so implicitly ! 
 Then from out the overflow of her own hope and bliss she 
 poured forth such sweet comfort to Helen, that Helen's arm 
 stole around her cheek touched cheek they were as sis- 
 ters. 
 
 At another moment, Mr. Dale might have felt some 
 amazement at the sudden affection which had sprung up 
 between these young persons ; for in his previous conver- 
 sation with Violante, he had, as he thought, very artfully,
 
 1048 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 and in a pleasant vein, sounded the young Italian as to her 
 opinion of her fair friend's various good qualities and 
 Violante had rather shrunk from the title of " friend ; " and 
 though she had the magnanimity to speak with great praise 
 of Helen, the praise did not sound cordial. But the good 
 man was at this moment occupied in preparing his thoughts 
 for his interview with Harley, he joined the two girls in 
 silence, and linking an arm of each within his own, walked 
 slowly toward the house. As he approached the terrace, 
 he observed Riccabocca and Randal pacing the gravel 
 walk side by side. 
 
 Violante, pressing his arm, whispered, " Let us go 
 round the other way ; I would speak with you a few min- 
 utes undisturbed." 
 
 Mr. Dale, supposing that Violante wished to dispense 
 with the presence of Helen, said to the latter, " My dear 
 young lady, perhaps you will excuse me to Dr. Riccabocca 
 who is beckoning to me, and no doubt very much sur- 
 prised to see me here while I finish what I was saying to 
 Violante when we were interrupted." 
 
 Helen left them, and Violante led the Parson round 
 through the shrubbery, toward a side-door in another wing 
 of the house. 
 
 " What have you to say to me ? " asked Mr. Dale, sur- 
 prised that she remained silent. 
 
 " You will see Lord L'Estrange. Be sure that you con- 
 vince him of Leonard's honor. A doubt of treachery so 
 grieves his noble heart, that perhaps it may disturb his 
 judgment." 
 
 " You seem to think very highly of the heart of this 
 Lord L'Estrange, child ! " said the Parson, in some sur- 
 prise. 
 
 Violante blushed, but went on firmly, and with seri- 
 ous earnestness. " Some words which he that is, Lord 
 L'Estrange said to me very lately, make me so glad that 
 you are here that you will see him ; for I know how good 
 you are, and how wise dear, dear Mr. Dale. He spoke as 
 one who had received some grievous wrong, which had ap- 
 ruptly soured all his views of life. He spoke of retirement 
 solitude ! he on whom his country has so many claims. I 
 know not what he can mean unless it be that his his mar- 
 riage with Helen Digby is broken off." 
 
 " Broken off ! Is that so ? " 
 
 " I have it from herself. You may well be astonished
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 1049 
 
 that she could even think of another after having known 
 him ! " 
 
 The Parson fixed his eyes very gravely on the young 
 enthusiast. But though her cheek glowed, there was in her 
 expression of face so much artless, open innocence, that 
 Mr. Dale contented himself with a slight shake of the head, 
 and a dry remark : 
 
 " I think it quite natural that Helen Digby should prefer 
 Leonard Fairfield. A good girl, not misled by vanity and 
 ambition ; temptations of which it behoves us all to beware 
 nor least, perhaps, young ladies suddenly brought in con- 
 tact with wealth and rank. As to this nobleman's merits, I 
 know not yet whether to allow or to deny them ; I reserve 
 my judgment till after our interview. This is all you have 
 to say to me ? " 
 
 Violante paused a moment. " I cannot think," she said, 
 half-smiling " I cannot think that the change that has oc- 
 curred in him for changed he is that his obscure hints as 
 to injury received, and justice to be done, are caused merely 
 by his disappointment with regard to Helen. But you can 
 learn that ; learn if he be so very much disappointed. Nay, 
 I think not ! " 
 
 She slipped her slight hand from the Parson's arm, and 
 darted away through the evergreens. Half-concealed amidst 
 the laurels, she turned back, and Mr. Dale caught her eye 
 half arch half melancholy ; its light came soft through a 
 tear. 
 
 " I don't half like this," muttered the Parson ; " I shall 
 give Dr. Riccabocca a caution." So muttering, he pushed 
 open the side-door, and finding a servant, begged admittance 
 to Lord L' Estrange. 
 
 Harley at that moment was closeted with Levy, and his 
 countenance was composed and fearfully stern. " So, so, 
 by this time to-morrow," said he, " Mr. Egerton will be 
 tricked out of his election by Mr. Randal Leslie good ! 
 By this time to-morrow his ambition will be blasted by the 
 treachery of his friends good ! By this time to-morrow the 
 bailiffs will seize his person ruined, beggared, pauper, and 
 captive all because he has trusted and been deceived good ! 
 And if he blame you, prudent Baron Levy if he accuse 
 smooth Mr. Randal Leslie forget not to say, ' We were 
 both but the blind agents of your friend Harley L'Estrange. 
 Ask him why you are so miserable a dupe.' "
 
 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 " And might I now ask your lordship for one word of 
 explanation ? " 
 
 "No, sir! it is enough that I have spared ^w/. But you 
 were never my friend ; I have no revenge against a man 
 whose hand I never even touched." 
 
 The Baron scowled, but there was a power about his ty- 
 rant that cowed him into actual terror. He resumed, after 
 a pause 
 
 " And though Mr. Leslie is to be member for Lansmere 
 thanks to you you still desire that I should 
 
 " Do exactly as I have said. My plans now never vary 
 a hair's breadth." 
 
 The groom of the chambers entered. 
 
 "My lord, the Reverend Mr. Dale wishes to know if you 
 can receive him." 
 
 " Mr. Dale ! he should have come to-morrow. Say 
 that I did not expect him to-day ; that I am unfortunately 
 engaged till dinner, which will be earlier than usual. Show 
 him into his room ; he will have but little time to change 
 his dress. By the way, Mr. Egerton dines in his own apart- 
 ment." 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 THE leading members of the Blue Committee were in- 
 vited to dine at the Park, and the hour for the entertain- 
 ment was indeed early, as there might be much need yet of 
 active exertion on the eve of a poll in a contest expected to 
 be so close, and in which the inflexible Hundred and Fifty 
 " Waiters upon Providence " still reserved their very valu- 
 able votes. 
 
 The party was gay and animated, despite the absence of 
 Audley Egerton, who, on the plea of increased indispo- 
 sition, had shut himself up in his rooms the instant that he 
 had returned from the Town Hall, and sent word to Harley 
 that he was too unwell to join the party at dinner. 
 
 Randal was really in high spirits, despite the very equivo- 
 cal success of his speech. What did it signify if a speech 
 failed, provided the election was secure ? He was longing 
 for the appointment with Dick Avenel, which was to make 
 " all right ! " The Squire was to bring the money for the 
 purchase of the coveted lands the next morning. Riccabocca
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 1051 
 
 had assured him, again and again, of Violante's hand. If 
 ever Randal Leslie could be called a happy man, it was as 
 he sat at that dinner taking wine with Mr. Mayor and Mr. 
 Alderman, and looking, across the gleaming silver plateau, 
 down the long vista into wealth and power. 
 
 The dinner was scarcely over, when Lord L'Estrange, 
 in a brief speech, reminded his guests of the work still be- 
 fore them ; and after a toast to the health of the future mem- 
 bers for Lansmere, dismissed the Committee to their labors. 
 
 Levy made a sign to Randal, who followed the Baron to 
 his own room. 
 
 " Leslie, your election is in some jeopardy. I find from 
 the conversation of those near me at dinner, that Egerton 
 has made such way amongst the Blues by his speech, and 
 they are so afraid of losing a man who does them so much 
 credit, that the Committeemen not only talk of withholding 
 from you their second votes and of plumping Egerton, but 
 of subscribing privately amongst themselves to win over 
 that coy body of a Hundred and Fifty, upon whom I know 
 that Avenel counts in whatever votes he may be able to 
 transfer to you." 
 
 " It would be very unhandsome in the Committee, which 
 pretends to act for both of us, to plump Egerton," said Ran- 
 dal, with consistent anger. " But I don't think they can get 
 those Hundred and Fifty without the most open and exor- 
 bitant bribery an expense which Egerton will not pay, and 
 which it would be very discreditable to Lord L'Estrange or 
 his father to countenance." 
 
 " I told them flatly," returned Levy, " that, as Mr. Eger- 
 ton's agent, I would allow no proceedings that might vitiate 
 the election ; but that I would undertake the management 
 of these men myself ; and I am going into the town in order 
 to do so. I have also persuaded the leading Committee- 
 men to reconsider their determination to plump Egerton ; 
 they have decided to do as L'Estrange directs ; and I know 
 what he will say. You may rely on me," continued the 
 Baron, who spoke with a dogged seriousness, unusual to his 
 cynical temper, " to obtain for you the preference over Aud- 
 ley, if it be in my power to do so. Meanwhile, you should 
 really see Avenel this very night." 
 
 " I have an appointment with him at ten o'clock ; and, 
 judging by his speech against Egerton, I cannot doubt of 
 his aid to me, if convinced by his poll-books that he is not 
 able to return both himself and his impertinent nephew.
 
 105* MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 My speech, however sarcastically treated by Mr. Fairfield, 
 must at least have disposed the Yellow party to vote rather 
 for me than for a determined opponent like Egerton." 
 
 " I hope so ; for your speech and Fairfield's answer 
 have damaged you terribly with the Blues. However, your 
 main hope rests on my power to keep those Hundred and 
 Fifty rascals from splitting their votes on Egerton, and to 
 induce them, by all means, short of bringing myself before 
 a Committee of the House of Commons for positive bribery 
 which would hurt most seriously my present social posi- 
 tion, to give one vote to you. I shall tell them, as I have 
 told the Committee, that Egerton is safe, and will pay noth- 
 ing ; but that you want the votes, and that I in short, if 
 they can be bought upon tick, I will buy them. Avenel, 
 however, can serve you best here ; for, as they are all Yel- 
 lows at heart, they make no scruple of hinting that they 
 want twice as much for voting Blue as they will take for 
 voting Yellow. And Avenel being a townsman, and know- 
 ing their ways, could contrive to gain them, and yet not 
 bribe." 
 
 RANDAL (shaking his head incredulously). Not bribe ! 
 
 LEVY. Pooh ! Not bribe so as to be found out. 
 
 There was a knock at the door. A servant entered and 
 presented Mr. Egerton's compliments to Baron Levy, with 
 a request that the Baron would immediately come to his 
 rooms for a few minutes. 
 
 "Well," said Levy, when the servant had withdrawn, 
 " I must go to Egerton, and the instant I leave him I shall 
 repair to the town. Perhaps I may pass the night there." 
 So saying, he left Randal, and took his way to Audley's 
 apartment. 
 
 " Levy," said the statesman, abruptly, upon the entrance 
 of the Baron, " have you betrayed my secret my first mar- 
 riage to Lord L'Estrange?" 
 
 " No, Egerton ; on my honor, I have not betrayed it." 
 
 "You heard his speech! Did you not detect a fearful 
 irony under his praises ? or is it but but my conscience ?" 
 added the proud man, through his set teeth. 
 
 "Really," said Levy, "Lord L'Estrange seemed to me 
 to select for his praise precisely those points in your char- 
 acter which any other of your friends would select for 
 panegyric." 
 
 " Ay, any other of my friends ! What friends ?" mut- 
 tered Egerton, gloomily. Then, rousing himself, he added
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 1053 
 
 in a voice that had none of its accustomed clear firmness 
 of tone, " Your presence here in this house, Levy, sur- 
 prised me, as I told you at the first ; I could not conceive 
 its necessity. Harley urged you to come ? he with whom 
 you are no favorite ! You and he both said that your 
 acquaintance with Richard Avenel would enable you to 
 conciliate his opposition. I cannot congratulate you on 
 your success." 
 
 " My success remains to be proved. The vehemence of 
 his attack to-day may be but a feint to cover his alliance to- 
 morrow." 
 
 Audley went on without notice of the interruption. 
 " There is a change in Harley to me and to all ; a change, 
 perhaps, not perceptible to others but I have known him 
 from a boy." 
 
 " He is occupied for the first time with the practical 
 business of life. That would account for a much greater 
 change than you remark." 
 
 " Do you see him familiarly ? converse with him often ?" 
 
 " No, and only on matters connected with the election. 
 Occasionally, indeed, he consults me as to Randal Leslie, 
 in whom, as your special protege, he takes considerable in- 
 terest." 
 
 " That, too, surprises me. Welf, I am weary of per- 
 plexing myself. This place is hateful ; after to-morrow I 
 shall leave it, and breathe in peace. You have seen the 
 reports of the canvass ; I have had no heart to inspect 
 them. Is the election as safe as they say ? " 
 
 " If Avenel withdraws his nephew, and the votes thus 
 released split off to you, you are secure." 
 
 "And you think his nephew will be withdrawn ? Poor 
 young man ! defeat at his age, and with such talents, is 
 hard to bear." Audley sighed. 
 
 " I must leave you now, if you have nothing important 
 to say," said the Baron, rising. " I have much to do, as 
 the election is yet to be won, and to you the loss of it 
 would be " 
 
 " Ruin, I know. Well, Levy, it is, on the whole, to 
 your advantage that I should not lose. There may be more 
 to get from me yet. And, judging by the letters I received 
 this morning, my position is rendered so safe by the abso- 
 lute necessity of my party to keep me up, that the news of 
 my pecuniary difficulties will not affect me so much as I 
 once feared. Never was my career so free from obstacle
 
 1054 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 so clear toward the highest summit of ambition never, in 
 my day of ostentatious magnificence, as it is now, when I 
 am prepared to shrink into a lodging, with a single servant." 
 
 " I am glad to hear it, and I am the more anxious to se- 
 cure your election, upon which this career must depend, 
 because nay, I hardly like to tell you " 
 
 " Speak on." 
 
 "I have been obliged, by a sudden rush on all my re- 
 sources, to consign some of your bills and promissory notes 
 to another, who, if your person should not be protected 
 from arrest by parliamentary privilege, might be harsh, 
 and " 
 
 "Traitor!" interrupted Egerton, fiercely, all the com- 
 posed contempt with which he usually treated the usurer, 
 giving way, "say no more. How could I ever expect 
 otherwise ! You have foreseen my defeat, and have planned 
 my destruction. Presume no reply. Sir, begone from my 
 presence ! " 
 
 "You will find that you have worse friends than myself," 
 said the Baron, moving to the door ; " and if you are de- 
 feated if your prospects for life are destroyed I am the 
 last man you will think of blaming. But I forgive your 
 anger, and trust that to-morrow you will receive those ex- 
 planations of my conduct which you are now in no temper 
 to bear. I go to take care of the election." 
 
 Left alone, Audley's sudden passion seemed to forsake 
 him. He gathered together, in that prompt and logical 
 precision which the habit of transacting public business 
 bestows, all his thoughts, and sounded all his fears ; and 
 most vivid of every thought, and most intolerable of every 
 fear, was the belief that the Baron had betrayed him to 
 L'Estrange. 
 
 " I cannot bear this suspense," he cried aloud and 
 abruptly. "I will see Harley myself. Open as he is, the 
 very sound of his voice will tell me at once if I am a bank- 
 rupt even of human friendship. If that friendship be se- 
 cure if Harley yet clasp my hand with the same cordial 
 warmth all other loss shall not wring from my fortitude one 
 complaint." 
 
 He rang the bell : his valet, who was waiting in the ante- 
 room, appeared. 
 
 " Go and see if Lord L'Estrange is engaged ; I would 
 speak with him." 
 
 The servant came back in less than two minutes.
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 1055 
 
 " I find that my lord is now particularly engaged, since 
 he has given strict orders that he is not to be disturbed." 
 
 " Engaged ! on what ? whom with ? " 
 
 " He is in his own room, sir, with a clergyman, who ar- 
 rived, and dined here to-day. I am told that he was for- 
 merly curate of Lansmere." 
 
 " Lansmere curate ! His name his name ! Not Dale ?" 
 
 "Yes, sir, that is the name the Reverend Mr. Dale." 
 
 " Leave me," said Audley, in a faint voice. " Dale ! the 
 man who suspected Harley, who called on me in London, 
 spoke of a child my child and sent me to find but another 
 grave ! He closeted with Harley he ?" 
 
 Audley sank back on his chair, and literally gasped for 
 breath. Few men in the world had a more established rep- 
 utation for the courage that dignifies mankind, whether the 
 physical courage or the moral. But at that moment it was 
 not grief, not remorse, that paralyzed Audley it was 
 fear. The brave man saw before him, as a thing visible and 
 menacing, the aspect of his own treachery that crime of a 
 coward ; and into cowardice he was stricken. What had he 
 to dread ? Nothing save the accusing face of an injured 
 friend nothing but that. And what more terrible ? The 
 only being, amidst all his pomp of partisans, who survived 
 to love him the only being for whom the cold statesman 
 felt the happy, living, human tenderness of private affection, 
 lost to him forever. He covered his face with both hands, 
 and sat in suspense of something awful, as a child sits in the 
 dark the drops on his brow, and his frame trembling. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 MEANWHILE, Harley had listened to Mr. Dale's vindi- 
 cation of Leonard with cold attention. 
 
 " Enough," said he, at the close. " Mr. Fairfield (for so 
 we will yet call him) shall see me to-night ; and if apology 
 be due to him, I will make it. At the same time, it shall be 
 decided whether he continue this contest or retire. And 
 now, Mr. Dale, it was not to hear how this young man 
 wooed, or shrunk from wooing, my affianced bride, that I 
 availed myself of your promise to visit me at this house. 
 We agreed that the seducer of Nora Avenel deserved
 
 1056 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 chastisement, and I promised that Nora Avenel's son should 
 find a father. Both these assurances shall be fulfilled to- 
 morrow. And you, sir," continued Harley, rising, his whole 
 form gradually enlarged by the dignity of passion, " who 
 wear the garb appropriated to the holiest office of Chris- 
 tian charity you have presumed to think that, before the 
 beard had darkened my cheek, I could first betray the 
 girl who had been reared under this roof, then abandon her 
 sneak like a dastard from the place in which my victim 
 came to die leave my own son, by the woman thus 
 wronged, without thought or care, through the perilous 
 years of tempted youth, till I found him, by chance, an out- 
 cast in a desert more dread than Hagar's you, sir, who 
 have for long years thus judged of me, shall have the occa- 
 sion to direct your holy anger toward the rightful head ; 
 and in me, you who have condemned the culprit, shall re- 
 spect the judge ! " 
 
 Mr. Dale was at first startled, and almost awed, by this 
 tmexpected burst. But, accustomed to deal with the 
 sternest and the darkest passions, his calm sense, and his 
 habit of authority over those whose souls were bared to 
 him, nobly recovered from his surprise. " My lord," said 
 he, " first, with humility, I bow to your rebuke, and entreat 
 your pardon for my erring, and, as you say, my uncharit- 
 able opinions. We, dwellers in a village, and obscure 
 pastors of a humble flock we, mercifully removed from 
 temptation, are too apt, perhaps, to exaggerate its power 
 over those whose lots are cast in that great world which 
 has so many gates ever open to evil. This is my sole 
 excuse, if I was misled by what appeared to me strong cir- 
 cumstantial evidence. But forgive me again if I warn you 
 not to fall into an error perhaps little lighter than my own. 
 Your passion, when you cleared yourself from reproach, 
 became you. But ah ! my lord, when with that stern brow 
 and those flashing eyes, you launched your menace upon 
 another over whom you would constitute yourself the judge, 
 forgetful of the divine precept, 'Judge not,' I felt that I 
 was listening no longer to honest self-vindication I felt 
 that I was listening to fierce revenge." 
 
 " Call it revenge, or what you will," said Harley, with 
 sullen firmness. " But I have been stung too deeply not 
 to sting. Frank with all, till the last few days, I have ever 
 been. Frank to you, at least, even now, this much I tell 
 you ; I pretend to no virtue in what I still hold to be
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 1057 
 
 justice ; but no declamations nor homilies tending to prove 
 that justice is sinful, will move my resolves. As man I 
 have been outraged, and as man I will retaliate. The way 
 and the mode the true criminal and his fitting sentence 
 you will soon learn, sir. I have much to do to-night : for- 
 give me if I adjourn for the present all further conference." 
 
 " No, no ; do not dismiss me. There is something, in 
 spite of your present language, which so commands my 
 interest, I see that there has been so much suffering where 
 there is now so much wrath, that I would save you from the 
 suffering worse than all remorse. O pause, my dear lord, 
 pause and answer me but two questions ; then I will leave 
 your after course to yourself." 
 
 "Say on, sir," said Lord L'Estrange, touched, and with 
 respect. 
 
 " First, then, analyze your own feelings. Is this anger 
 merely to punish an offender and to right the living ? 
 for who can pretend to right the dead ? Qr is there not 
 some private hate that stirs, and animates, and confuses 
 all ? " 
 
 Harley remained silent. Mr. Dale renewed. 
 
 " You 'loved this poor girl. Your language even now 
 reveals it. You speak of treachery ; perhaps you had a rival 
 who deceived you ; I know not guess not, who. But if 
 you would strike the rival, must you not wound the inno- 
 cent son ? And, in presenting Nora's child to his father, as 
 you pledge yourself to do, can you mean some cruel mock- 
 ery that, under seeming kindness, implies some unnatural 
 vengeance ? " 
 
 "You read well the heart of man," said Harley ; "and 
 I have owned to you that I am but man. Pass on ; you 
 have another question." 
 
 " And one more solemn and important. In my world 
 of a village, revenge is a common passion ; it is the sin 
 of the uninstructed. The savage deems it noble ; but 
 Christ's religion, which is the sublime Civilizer, emphati- 
 cally condemns it. Why ? Because religion ever seeks to 
 ennoble man ; and nothing so debases him as revenge. Look 
 into your own heart, and tell me whether, since you have 
 cherished this passion, you have not felt all sense of right 
 and wrong confused have not felt that whatever would be- 
 fore have seemed to you mean and base, appears now but 
 just means to your heated end. Revenge is ever a hypo- 
 crite rage, at least, strikes with the naked sword ; but
 
 1058 MY NOVEL; OK, 
 
 revenge, stealthy and patient, conceals the weapon of the 
 assassin. My lord, your color changes. What is your 
 answer to my question ? " 
 
 "Oh," exclaimed Harley, with a voice thrilling in its 
 mournful anguish, " it is not since I have cherished the 
 revenge that I am changed that right and wrong grow dark 
 to me that hypocrisy seems the atmosphere fit for earth. 
 No ; it is since the discovery that demands the vengeance. 
 It is useless, sir," he continued, impetuously "useless to 
 argue with me. Were I to sit down patient and impotent, 
 under the sense of the wrong which I have received, I 
 should feel, indeed, that debasement which you ascribe to 
 the gratification of what you term revenge. I should never 
 regain the self-esteem which the sentiment of power now 
 restores to rne I should feel as if the whole world could 
 perceive and jeer at my meek humiliation. I know not why 
 I have said so much why I have betrayed to you so much 
 of my secret mind, and stooped to vindicate my purpose. 
 I never meant it. Again I say, we must close this confer- 
 ence." Harley here walked to the door, and opened it sig- 
 nificantly. 
 
 "One word more, Lord L'Estrange but one.- You will 
 not hear me. I am a comparative stranger, but you have 
 a friend, a friend dear and intimate, now under the same 
 roof. Will you consent, at least, to take counsel of Mr. 
 Audley Egerton ? None can doubt his friendship for you ; 
 none can doubt, that whatever he advises will be that which 
 best becomes your honor. What, my lord, you hesitate ? 
 you feel ashamed to confide to your dearest friend a pur- 
 pose which his mind would condemn? Then I will seek 
 him I will implore him to save you from what can but 
 entai.1 repentance." 
 
 " Mr. Dale, I must forbid you to see Mr. Egerton. What 
 has passed between us ought to be as sacred to you as a 
 priest of Rome holds confession. This much, however, I 
 will say to content you : I promise that I will do nothing 
 that shall render me unworthy of Mr. Audley Egerton's 
 friendship, or which his fine sense of honor shall justify him 
 in blaming. Let that satisfy you." 
 
 " Ah, my lord," cried Mr. Dale, pausing irresolute at the 
 doorway, and seizing Harley's hand, " I should, indeed, be 
 satisfied if you would submit yourself to higher counsel 
 than mine than Mr. Egerton's than man's. Have you 
 never felt the efficacy of prayer?"
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 1059 
 
 " My life has been wasted," replied Harley, " and I dare 
 not, therefore, boast that I have found prayer efficacious. 
 But, so far back as I can remember, it has at least been my 
 habit to pray to Heaven, night and morning, until, at least 
 until The natural and obstinate candor of the man 
 forced out the last words, which implied reservation. He 
 stopped short. 
 
 " Until you have cherished revenge ? You have not 
 dared to pray since ? Oh ! reflect what evil there is within 
 us, when we dare not come before Heaven dare not pray 
 for what we wish. You are moved I leave you to your 
 own thoughts." 
 
 Harley inclined his head, and the Parson passed him by, 
 and left him alone startled indeed ; but was he softened ? 
 
 As Mr. Dale hurried along the corridor, much agitated, 
 Violante stole from a recess formed by a large bay-window, 
 and, linking her arm in his, said anxiously, but timidly : 
 "I have been waiting for you, dear Mr. Dale ; and so long! 
 You have been with Lord L'Estrange?" 
 
 "Well." 
 
 " Why do you net speak ? You have left him comforted 
 happier ? " 
 
 " Happier ! No." 
 
 " What ! " said Violante, with a look of surprise, and a 
 sadness not unmixed with petulance in her quick tone. 
 ' : What ! does he then so grieve that Helen prefers an- 
 other ? " 
 
 Despite the grave emotions that disturbed his mind, Mr. 
 Dale was struck by Violante's question, and the voice in 
 which it was said. He loved her tenderly. " Child, child," 
 said he, "I am glad that Helen has escaped Lord L'Es- 
 trange. Beware, oh beware ! how he excite any gentler 
 interest in yourself. He is a dangerous man more danger- 
 ous for glimpses of a fine original nature. He may well 
 move the heart of the innocent and inexperienced, for he 
 has strangely crept into mine. But his heart is swollen 
 with pride, and ire, and malice." 
 
 "You mistake: it is false!" cried Violante, impetuously. 
 " I cannot believe one word that would asperse him who 
 has saved my father from a prison, or from death. You- 
 have not treated him gently. He fancies he has been 
 wronged by Leonard received ingratitude from Helen. 
 He has felt the sting in proportion to his own susceptible 
 and generous heart, and you have chided where you should 1
 
 1060 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 have soothed. Poor Lord L'Estrange ! And you have left 
 him still indignant and unhappy ! " 
 
 " Foolish girl ! I have left him meditating sin ; I have 
 left him afraid to pray ; I have left him on the brink of some 
 design I know not what but which involves more than 
 Leonard in projects of revenge ; I have left him so, th;it if 
 his heart be really "susceptible and generous, he will wake 
 from wrath to be the victim of long and unavailing remorse. 
 If your father has influence over him, tell Dr. Riccabocca 
 what I say, and bid him seek, and in his turn save, the man 
 w r ho saved himself. He has not listened to religion he 
 may be more docile to philosophy. I cannot stay here 
 longer I must go to Leonard." 
 
 Mr. Dale broke from Violante, and hurried down the 
 corridor : Violante stood on the same spot, stunned and 
 breathless. Harley on the brink of some strange sin Har- 
 ley to -wake the victim of remorse Harley to be saved, as 
 he had saved her father ! Her breast heaved her color 
 went and came her eyes were raised her lips murmured. 
 She advanced with soft footsteps up the corridor she saw 
 the lights gleaming from Harley's room^and suddenly they 
 were darkened, as the inmate of the room shut to the door, 
 with angry and impatient hand. 
 
 An outward act often betrays the inward mind. As 
 Harley had thus closed the door, so had he sought to shut 
 his heart from the intrusion of softer and holier thoughts. 
 He had turned to his hearthstone, and stood on it, resolved 
 and hardened. The man who had loved with such perti- 
 nacious fidelity for so many years, could not at once part 
 with hate. A passion once admitted to his breast, clung to 
 it with such rooted force ! But woe, woe to thee, Harley 
 L'Estrange, if to-morrow at this hour thou stand at the 
 hearthstone, thy designs accomplished, knowing that, in 
 the fulfilment of thy blind will, thou hast met falsehood with 
 falsehood, and deception with deceit ! What though those 
 designs now seem so consummate, so just, so appropriate, 
 so exquisite a revenge seem to thee the sole revenge wit 
 can plan, and civilized life allow wilt thou ever wash from 
 thy memory the stain that will sully thine honor? Thou, 
 too, professing friendship still, and masking perfidy under 
 smiles ! Grant that the wrong be great as thou deem it 
 be ten times greater the sense of thy meanness, O gentle- 
 man and soldier, will bring the blush to thy cheek in the 
 depth of thy solitude. Thou, who now thinkest others
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 1061 
 
 unworthy a trustful love, wilt feel thyself forever unworthy 
 theirs. Thy seclusion will know not repose. The dignity 
 of man will forsake thee. Thy proud eye will quail from 
 the gaze. Thy step will no longer spurn the earth that it 
 treads on. He who has once done a base thing is never 
 again wholly reconciled to honor. And woe thrice woe, if 
 thou learn too late that thou hast exaggerated thy fancied 
 wrong : that there is excuse, where thou seest none ; that 
 thy friend may have erred, but that his error is venial coin- 
 pared to thy fancied retribution ! 
 
 Thus, however, in the superb elation of conscious power, 
 though lavished on a miserable object a terrible example 
 of what changes one evil and hateful thought, cherished to 
 the exclusion of all others, can make in the noblest nature 
 stood, on the hearth of his fathers, and on the abyss of a 
 sorrow and a shame from which there could be no recall, 
 the determined and scornful man. 
 
 A hand is on the door he does not hear it ; a form passes 
 the threshold he does not see it ; a light step pauses a 
 soft eye gazes. Deaf and blind still to both. 
 
 Violante came on, gathering courage, and stood at the 
 hearth, by his side. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 " LORD L'ESTRANGE noble friend ! " 
 
 "You ! and here Violante? Is it I whom you seek ? 
 For what ? Good heavens ! what has happened ? Why are 
 you so pale ? why tremble ? " 
 
 "Have you forgiven Helen?" asked Violante, begin- 
 ning with evasive question, and her cheek was pale no more. 
 
 " Helen the poor child ! I have nothing in her to for- 
 give, much to thank her for. She has been frank and 
 honest." 
 
 " And Leonard whom I remember in my childhood 
 you have forgiven him ? " 
 
 "Fair mediator," said Harley, smiling, though coldly, 
 "happy is the man who deceives another ; all plead for him. 
 And if the man deceived cannot forgive, no one will sym- 
 pathize or excuse."
 
 1062 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 " But Leonard did not deceive you ? " 
 
 "Yes, from the first. It is a long tale, and not to be 
 told to you. But I cannot forgive him." 
 
 " Adieu ! my lord. Helen must, then, still be very dear 
 to you ! " Violante turned away. Her emotion was so art- 
 less, her very anger so charming, that the love, against 
 which, in the prevalence of his later and darker passions, he 
 had so sternly struggled, rushed back upon Harley's breast ; 
 but it came only in storm. 
 
 " Stay, but talk not of Helen ! " he exclaimed. " Ah ! 
 if Leonard's sole offence had been what you appear to deem 
 it, do you think I could feel resentment ? No ; I should 
 have gratefully hailed the hand that severed a rash and un- 
 genial tie. I would have given my ward to her lover with 
 such a dower as it suits my wealth to bestow. But his of- 
 fence dates from his very birth. To bless and to enrich the 
 son of a man who Violante, listen to me. We may soon 
 part, and for ever. Others may misconstrue my actions ; 
 you, at least, shall know from what just principle they 
 spring. There was a man whom I singled out of the world 
 as more than a brother. In the romance of my boyhood I 
 saw one who dazzled my fancy, captivated my heart. It 
 was a dream of Beauty breathed into waking life. I loved 
 I believed myself beloved. I confided all my heart to 
 this friend this more than brother ; he undertook to be- 
 friend ( and to aid my suit. On that very pretext he first 
 saw this ill-fated girl ; saw betrayed destroyed her ; 
 left me ignorant that her love, which I had thought mine, 
 had been lavished so wildly on another ; left rne to believe 
 that my own suit she had fled, but in generous self-sacrifice 
 for she was poor and humbly born ; that oh, vain idiot 
 that I was ! the self-sacrifice had been too strong for a 
 young human heart, which had broken in the struggle ; 
 left me to corrode my spring of life in remorse ; clasped 
 my hand in mocking comfort ; smiled at my tears of agony 
 not one tear himself for his own poor victim ! And, sud- 
 denly, not long since, I learned all this. And, in the father 
 of Leonard Fairfield, you behold the man who has poisoned 
 all the well-spring of joy to me. You weep ! O, Violante ! 
 the Past he has blighted and embittered that I could for- 
 give ; but the Future is blasted too. For, just ere this 
 treason was revealed to me, I had begun to awake from the 
 torpor of my dreary penance, to look with fortitude toward 
 the duties I had slighted to own that the pilgrimage be-
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 1063 
 
 fore me was not barren. And then, oh then, I felt that all 
 love was not buried in a grave. I felt that you, had fate so 
 granted, might have been all to my manhood which youth 
 only saw through the delusion of its golden mists. True, I 
 was then bound to Helen ; true, that honor to her might 
 forbid me all hope. But still, even to know that my heart 
 was not all ashes that I could love again that that glori- 
 ous power and privilege of our being was still mine, seemed 
 to me so heavenly sweet. But then this revelation of false- 
 hood burst on me, and all truth seemed blotted from the 
 universe. I am freed from Helen ; ah, freed, forsooth be- 
 cause not even rank and wealth, and benefits and confiding 
 tenderness, could bind to me one human heart ! Free fronl 
 her ; but between me and your fresh nature stand Suspi- 
 cion as an Upas tree. Not a hope that would pass through 
 the tainted air, and fly to you, but falls dead under the dis- 
 mal boughs. / love ! Ha, ha ! I /, whom the Past has 
 taught the impossibility to be loved again. No ; if those 
 soft lips murmured ' Yes ' to the burning prayer that, had I 
 been free but two short weeks ago, would have rushed 
 from the frank deeps of my heart, I should but imagine 
 that you deceived yourself a girl's first fleeting delusive 
 fancy nothing more ! Were you my bride, Violante, I 
 should but debase your bright nature by my own curse of 
 distrust. At each word of tenderness, my heart would say 
 ' How long will this last ? when will the deception come ? ' 
 Your beauty, your gifts, would bring me but jealous terror ; 
 eternally I should fly from the Present to the Future, and 
 say, ' These hairs will be gray, while flattering youth will 
 surround her in the zenith of her charms.' Why then do I 
 hate and curse my foe ? Why do I resolve upon revenge ? 
 I comprehend it now. I knew that there was something 
 more imperious than the ghost of the Past that urged me 
 on. Gazing on you, I felt that it was the dim sense of a 
 mighty and priceless loss ; it is not the dead Nora it is the 
 living Violante. Look not at me with those reproachful 
 eyes ; they cannot reverse my purpose ; they cannot banish 
 my suspicion from my sickened soul ; they cannot create a 
 sunshine in the midst of this ghastly twilight. Go, go ; 
 leave me to the sole joy that bequeaths no disappointment 
 the sole feeling that unites me to social man ; leave me to 
 my revenge." 
 
 " Revenge ! Oh, cruel ! " exclaimed Violante, laying her
 
 1064 MY NOl'EL; OR, 
 
 hand on his ^rm. "And in revenge, it is your own life 
 that you would risk ! " 
 
 " My life, simple child ! This is no contest of life 
 against life. Could I bare to all the world my wrongs for 
 their ribald laughter, I should only give to my foe the tri- 
 umph to pity my frenzy to shun the contest ; or grant it, 
 if I could find a second and then fire in the air. And all 
 the world would say ' Generous Egerton ! soul of honor ! ' " 
 
 " Egerton, Mr. Egerton ! He cannot be this foe ! It is 
 not on him you can design revenge ? you who spend all 
 your hours in serving his cause you to whom he trusts so 
 fondly you who leant yesterday on his shoulder, and 
 smiled so cheeringly in his face ? " 
 
 " Did I ? Hypocrisy against hypocrisy snare against 
 snare ; that is my revenge ! " 
 
 " Harley, Harley ! Cease, Cease ! " 
 
 The storm of passion rushed on unheeding. 
 
 " I seem to promote his ambition, but to crush it into 
 the mire. I have delivered him from the gentler gripe of 
 an usurer, so that he shall hold at my option alms or a 
 prison " 
 
 " Friend, friend ! Hush, hush ! " 
 
 " I have made the youth he has reared and fostered into 
 treachery like his own (your father's precious choice Ran- 
 dal Leslie), mine instument in the galling lesson how in- 
 gratitude can sting. His very son shall avenge the mother, 
 and be led to his father's breast as victor, with Randal Les- 
 lie, in the contest that deprives sire and benefactor of all 
 that makes life dear to ambitious egotism. And if, in the 
 breast of Audley Egerton, there can yet lurk one memory 
 of what I was to him and to truth, not his least punishment 
 will be the sense that his own perfidy had so changed the 
 man whose very scorn of falsehood has taught him to find 
 in fraud itself the power of retribution." 
 
 " If this be not a terrible dream ! " murmured Violante, 
 recoiling, " it is not your foe alone that you will deprive of 
 all that makes life dear. Act thus and what, in the future, 
 is left to me ? " 
 
 " To you ? Oh, never fear. I may give Randal Leslie 
 a triumph over his patron, but in the same hour I will un- 
 mask his villany, and sweep him for ever from your path. 
 What in the future is left to you ? your birth-right and 
 your native land ; hope, joy, love, felicity. Could it be 
 possible that in the soft but sunny fancy which plays round
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 1065 
 
 the heart of maiden youth, but still sends no warmth into 
 its deeps could it be possible that you had honored me 
 with a gentler thought, it will pass away, and you will be 
 the 'pride and delight of one of your own years, to whom 
 the vista of Time is haunted by no chilling spectres one 
 who can look upon that lovely face, and not turn away to 
 mutter ' Too fair, too fair for me ! ' ' 
 
 " Oh agony!" exclaimed Violante, with sudden passion. 
 " In my turn, hear me. If, as you promise, I am released 
 from the dreadful thought that he, at whose touch I shud- 
 der, can claim this hand, my choice is irrevocably made. 
 The altars which await me will not be those of a human 
 love. But oh, I implore you by the memories of your 
 own life, hitherto, if sorrowful, unsullied by the generous 
 interest you yet profess for me, whom you will have twice 
 saved from a danger to which death were mercy leave, oh 
 leave me the right to regard your image as I have done 
 from the first dawn of childhood. Leave me the right to 
 honor and revere it. Let not an act accompanied with a 
 meanness oh that I should say the word ! a meanness 
 and a cruelty that give the lie to your whole life make even 
 a grateful remembrance of you an unworthy sin. When I 
 kneel within the walls that divide me from the world, oh 
 let me think that I can pray for you as the noblest being 
 that the world contains! Hear me ! hear me !" 
 
 "Violante!" murmured Harley, his whole frame heav- 
 ing with emotion, "bear with me. Do not ask of me the 
 sacrifice of what seems to me the cause of manhood itself 
 to sit down, meek and patient, under a wrong that de- 
 bases me, with the consciousness that all my life I have been 
 the miserable dupe to affections I deemed so honest to 
 regrets that I believed so holy. Ah ! I should feel more 
 mean in my pardon than you can think me in revenge ! 
 Were it an acknowledged enemy, I could open my arms to 
 him at your bidding ; but the perfidious friend ! ask it not. 
 My cheek burns at the thought, as at the stain of a blow. 
 Give me but to-morrow one day I demand no more 
 wholly to myself and to the past, and mould me for the 
 future as you will. Pardon, pardon the ungenerous thoughts 
 that extended distrust to you. I retract them ; they are 
 gone dispelled before those touching words, those ingenu- 
 ous eyes. At your feet, Violante, I repent and I implore ! 
 Your father himself shall banish your sordid suitor. Before 
 this hour to-morrow you will be free. Oh then, then ! will 
 
 45*
 
 1D56 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 you not give me this hand to guide me again into the para- 
 dise of my youth ? Violante, it is in vain to wrestle with 
 myself to doubt to reason to be wisely fearful I love, 
 I love you. I trust again in virtue and faith. I place my 
 fate in your keeping." 
 
 If at times Violante may appear to have ventured be- 
 yond the limit of strict maiden bashfulness, much may be 
 ascribed to her habitual candor, her solitary rearing, and 
 remoteness from the world the very innocence of her soul; 
 and the warmth of heart which Italy gives its daughters. 
 But now that sublimity of thought and purpose which per- 
 vaded her nature, and required only circumstances to de- 
 velop, made her superior to all the promptings of love 
 itself. Dreams realized which she had scarcely dared to 
 own Harley free Harley at her feet ; all the woman 
 struggling at her heart, mantling in her blushes, still 
 stronger than love stronger than the joy of being loved 
 again was the heroic will will to save him who in all 
 else ruled her existence from the external degradation to 
 which passion had blinded his own confused and warring 
 spirit. 
 
 Leaving one hand in his impassioned clasp, as he still 
 knelt before her, she raised on high the other : "Ah ! " she 
 said, scarce audibly "ah! if Heaven vouchsafe me the 
 proud and blissful privilege to be allied toyourfate,to minister 
 to your happiness, never should I know one fear of your dis- 
 trust. No time, no change, no sorrow not even the loss of 
 your affection could make me forfeit the right to remember 
 that you had once confided to me a heart so noble. " But " 
 here her voice rose in its tone, and the glow fled from her 
 cheek " But, O Thou the Ever Present, hear and receive 
 the solemn vow. If to me he refuse to sacrifice the sin that 
 would debase him, that sin be the barrier between us ever- 
 more. And may my life, devoted to Thy service, atone for 
 the hour in which he belied the nature he received from 
 Thee. Harley, release me ! I have spoken ; firm as your- 
 self, I leave the choice to you." 
 
 " You judge me harshly," said Harley, rising, with sullen 
 anger. " But at least I have not the meanness to sell what 
 I hold as justice, though the bribe may include my last 
 hope of happiness." 
 
 " Meanness ! Oh unhappy, beloved Harley ! " exclaimed 
 Violante, with such a gush of exquisite reproachful tender- 
 ness, that it thrilled him as the voice of the parting guardian
 
 rARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 1067 
 
 angel. " Meanness ! But it is that from which I implore 
 you to save yourself. You cannot judge, you cannot see. 
 You are dark, dark. Lost Christian that you are, what 
 worse than heathen darkness to feign the friendship the 
 better to betray to punish falsehood by becoming yourself 
 so false to accept the confidence even of your bitterest 
 foe, and then to sink below his own level in deceit ? And 
 oh worse, worse than all to threaten that a son son of 
 the woman you professed to love should swell your ven- 
 geance against a father. No ! it was not you that said this 
 it was the Fiend ! " 
 
 " Enough ? " exclaimed Harley, startled, conscience- 
 stricken, and rushing into resentment in order to escape 
 the sense of shame. "Enough! you insult the man you 
 professed to honor." 
 
 " I honored the prototype of gentleness and valor. I 
 honored one who seemed to me to clothe with life every 
 grand and generous image that is born from the souls of 
 poets. Destroy that ideal, and you destroy the Harley 
 whom I honored. He is dead to me for ever. I will mourn 
 for him as his widow faithful to his memory weeping 
 over the thought of what he was." Sobs choked her voice ; 
 but as Harley, once more melted, sprang forward to regain 
 her side, she escaped with a yet quicker movement, 
 gained the door, and darting down the corridor, vanished 
 from his sight. 
 
 Harley stood still one moment, thoroughly irresolute 
 nay, almost subdued. Then sternness, though less rigid 
 than before, gradually came to his brow. The demon had 
 still its hold in the stubborn and marvellous pertinacy with 
 which the man clung to all that once struck root at his 
 heart. With a sudden impulse, that still withheld decision, 
 yet spoke of sore-shaken purpose, he strode to his desk, 
 drew from it Nora's manuscript, and passed from his room. 
 
 Harley had meant never to have revealed to Audley the 
 secret he had gained, until the moment when revenge was 
 consummated. He had contemplated no vain reproach. 
 His wrath would have spoken forth in deeds, and then a 
 word would have sufficed as the key to nil. Willing, per- 
 haps, to hail some extenuation of perfidy, though the pos- 
 sibility of such extenuation he had never before admitted, 
 he determined on the interview which he had hitherto so 
 obstinately shunned, and went straight to the room in 
 which Audley Egerton still sat solitary and fearful.
 
 io68 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 EGERTON heard the well-known step advancing near and 
 nearer up the corridor heard the door open and reclose 
 and he felt, by one of those strange and unaccountable 
 instincts which we call forebodings, that the hour he had 
 dreaded for so many secret years had come at Irst. He 
 nerved his courage, withdrew his hands from his face, and 
 rose in silence. No less silent, Harley stood before him. 
 The two men gazed on each other ; you might have heard 
 their breathing. 
 
 "You have seen Mr. Dale?" said Egerton, at length. 
 "You know " 
 
 " All ! " said Harley, completing the arrested sentence. 
 
 Audley drew a long sigh. " Be it so ; but no, Harley ; 
 you deceive yourself ; you cannot know all, from any one 
 living, save myself." 
 
 "My knowledge comes from the dead," answered Har- 
 ley, and the fatal memoir dropped from his hand upon the 
 table. The leaves fell with a dull, low sound, mournful and 
 faint as might be the tread of a ghost, if the tread gave 
 sound. They fell, those still confessions of an obscure, un- 
 comprehended life, amidst letters and documents eloquent 
 of the strife that was then agitating millions, the fleeting, 
 turbulent fears and hopes that torture parties and perplex 
 a nation ; the stormy business of practical public life, so re- 
 mote from individual love and individual sorrow. 
 
 Egerton's eyes saw them fall. The room was but par- 
 tially lighted. At the distance where he stood, he did not 
 recognize the characters, but involuntarily he shivered, and 
 involuntarily drew near. 
 
 " Hold yet awhile," said Harley. "I produce my charge, 
 and then I leave you to dispute the 'only witness that I 
 bring. Audley Egerton, you took from me the gravest 
 trust one man can confide to another. You knew how I 
 loved Leonora Avenel. I was forbiden to see and urge my 
 suit ; you had the access to her presence which was denied 
 to myself. I prayed you to remove scruples that I deemed 
 too generous, and to woo her, not to dishonor, but to be my 
 wife. Was it so? Answer."
 
 VARIETIES IX ENGLISH LIFE. 1069 
 
 " It is true," said Audley, his hand clenched at his 
 heart. 
 
 "You saw her whom I thus loved her thus confided to 
 your honor. You wooed her for yourself. Is it so ?" 
 
 " Harley, I deny it not. Cease here. I accept the pen- 
 alty ; I resign your friendship ; I quit your roof ; I sub- 
 mit to your contempt; I dare not implore your pardon. 
 Cease ; let rne go hence, and soon ! " The strong man 
 gasped for breath. 
 
 Harley looked at him steadfastly, then turned away his 
 eyes, and went on. "Nay," said he, "is that ALL? You 
 wooed her for yourself you won her. Account to me for 
 that life which you wrenched from mine. You are silent. 
 I will take on myself your task ; you took that life and des- 
 troyed it." 
 
 " Spare me, spare me ! " 
 
 " What was the fate of her who seemed so fresh from 
 heaven when these eyes beheld her last ? A broken heart 
 a dishonored name an early doom a forgotten grave- 
 stone." 
 
 " No, no forgotten no ! " 
 
 " Not forgotten ! Scarce a year passed, and you were 
 married to another. I aided you to form those nuptials 
 which secured your fortunes. You have had rank, and 
 power, and fame. Peers call you the type of English 
 gentlemen. Priests hold you as a model of Christian 
 honor. Strip the mask, Audley Egerton ; let the world 
 know you for what you are ! " 
 
 Egerton raised his head, and folded his arms calmly ; 
 but he said, with a melancholy humility " I bear all from 
 you ; it is just. Say on." 
 
 "You took from me the heart of Nora Avenel. You 
 abandoned her you destroyed. And her memory cast no 
 shadow over your daily sunshine ; while over my thoughts 
 over my life oh, Egerton Audley, Audley how could 
 you have deceived me thus ! " Here the inherent tender- 
 ness under all this hate the fount imbedded under the 
 hardening stone broke out. Harley was ashamed of his 
 weakness, and hurried on. 
 
 " Deceived not for an hour, a day, but through bligh- 
 ted youth, through listless manhood you suffered me to 
 nurse the remorse that should have been your own ; 
 her life slain, mine wasted ; and shall neither of us have re- 
 venge ? "
 
 io?o MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 " Revenge ! Ah, Harley, you have had it ! " 
 
 " No, but I await it ! Not in vain from the charnel 
 have come to me the records I produce. And whom did 
 fate select to discover the \vrongs of the mother? whom 
 appoint as her avenger ? Your son your own son ; your 
 abandoned, nameless son ! " 
 
 " Son son ! " 
 
 " Whom I delivered from famine, or from worse ; and 
 who, in return, has given into my hands the evidence which 
 proclaims in you the perjured friend of Harley L'Estrange, 
 and the fraudulent seducer, under mock marriage forms 
 worse than all franker sin of Leonora Avenel." 
 
 "It is false false!" exclaimed Egerton, all his state- 
 liness and all his energy restored to him. " I forbid you 
 to speak thus to me. I forbid you by one word to sully the 
 memory of my lawful wife." 
 
 " Ah ! " said Harley, startled, " ah ! false ! Prove that, 
 and revenge is over ! Thank Heaven ! " 
 
 Prove it ! What so easy ? And wherefore have I de- 
 layed the proof wherefore concealed, but from tenderness 
 to you dread, too a selfish but human dread to lose in 
 you the sole esteem that I covet ; the only mourner who 
 would have shed one tear over the stone inscribed with 
 some lying epitaph, in which it will suit a party purpose to 
 proclaim the gratitude of a nation. Vain hope ! I resign 
 it ! But you spoke of a son. Alas, alas ! you are again de- 
 ceived. I heard that I had a son years, long years ago. 
 I sought him, and found a grave. But bless you, Harley, 
 if you succored one whom you even erringly suspect to be 
 Leonora's child ! " He stretched forth his hands as he 
 spoke. 
 
 "Of your son we will speak later," said Harley, strangely 
 softened. " But before I say more of him, let me ask you 
 to explain let me hope that you can extenuate what - 
 
 "You are right," interrupted Egerton, with eager quick- 
 ness. " You would know from my own lips at last the plain 
 tale of my own offence against you. It is due to both. 
 Patiently hear me out." 
 
 Then Egerton told all ; his own love for Nora his 
 struggles against what he felt as treason to his friend his 
 sudden discovery of Nora's love for him ; on that discovery, 
 the overthrow of all his resolutions ; their secret marriage 
 their separation ; Nora's flight, to which Audley still 
 assigned but her groundless vague suspicion that their nup-
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 107 1 
 
 tials had not been legal, and her impatience of his own 
 delay in acknowledging the rite. 
 
 His listener interrupted him here with a few questions ; 
 the clear and prompt replies to which enabled Harley to 
 detect Levy's plausible perversion of the facts ; and he 
 vaguely guessed the cause of the usurer's falsehood, in the 
 criminal passion which the ill-fated bride had inspired. 
 
 "Egerton," said Harley > stifling with an effort his own 
 wrath against the vile deceiver both of wife and husband, 
 "if, on reading those papers, you find that Leonora had 
 more excuse for her suspicions and flight than you now deem, 
 and discover perfidy in one to whom you trusted your secret, 
 leave his punishment to Heaven. All that you say con- 
 vinces me more and more that we cannot even see through 
 the cloud, much less guide the thunderbolt. But proceed." 
 
 Audley looked surprised and startled, and his eye turned 
 wistfully toward the papers ; but after a short pause he con- 
 tinued his recital. He came to Nora's unexpected return to 
 her father's house her death his conquest of his own grief, 
 that he might spare Harley the abrupt shock of learning her 
 decease. He had torn himself from the dead, in remorseful 
 sympathy with the living. He spoke of Harley's illness, so 
 nearly fatal repeated Harley's jealous words, "that he 
 would rather mourn Nora's death, than take comfort from 
 the thought that she had loved another." He spoke of his 
 journey to the village where Mr. Dale had told him Nora's 
 child was placed " and, hearing that child and mother 
 were alike gone, whom now could I right by acknowledging 
 a bond that I feared would so wring your heart ? " Audley 
 again paused a moment, and resumed in short, nervous, 
 impressive sentences. This cold, austere man of the world 
 for the first time bared his heart unconscious, perhaps, 
 that he did so unconscious that he revealed how deeply, 
 amidst state cares and public distinctions, he had felt the 
 absence of affections how mechanical was that outer circle 
 in the folds of life which is called ' - a career" how value- 
 less wealth had grown none to inherit it. Of his gnawing 
 and progressive disease alone he did not speak ; he was 
 too proud and too masculine to appeal to pity for physical 
 ills. He reminded Harley how often, how eagerly, year 
 after year, month after month, he had urged his friend to 
 rouse himself from mournful dreams, devote his native 
 powers to his country, or seek the surer felicity of domestic 
 ties. " Selfish in these attempts I might be," said Egerton ;
 
 1072 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 "it was only if I saw you restored to happiness that I could 
 believe you could calmly hear my explanation of the past, 
 and on the floor of some happy home grant me your for- 
 giveness. I longed to confess, and I dared not. Often 
 have the words rushed to my lips as often some chance 
 sentence from you repelled me. In a word, with you were 
 so entwined all thoughts and affections of my youth even 
 those that haunted the grave of Nora that I could not 
 bear to resign your friendship, and, surrounded by the 
 esteem and honor of a world I cared not for, to meet the 
 contempt of your reproachful eye." 
 
 Amidst all that Audley said amidst all that admitted 
 of no excuse two predominant sentiments stood clear, in 
 unmistakable and touching pathos. Remorseful regret for 
 the lost Nora and self-accusing, earnest, almost feminine 
 tenderness for the friend he had deceived. Thus, as he con- 
 tinued to speak, Harley more and more forgot even the re- 
 membrance of his own guilty and terrible interval of hate ; 
 the gulf that had so darkly yawned between the two closed 
 up, leaving them still standing, side by side, as in their 
 school-boy days. But he remained silent, listening shad- 
 ing his face from Audley, and as if under some soft but en- 
 thralling spell, till Egerton thus closed 
 
 " And now, Harley, all is told. You spoke of revenge ? " 
 
 " Revenge ! " muttered Harley, starting. 
 
 " And believe me," continued Egerton, " were revenge 
 in your power, I should rejoice at it as an atonement. To 
 receive an injury in return for that which, first from youth- 
 ful passion, and afterward from the infirmity of purpose 
 that concealed the wrong I have inflicted upon you why, 
 that would soothe my conscience, and raise my lost self- 
 esteem. The sole revenge you can bestow takes the form 
 which most humiliates me, to revenge, is to pardon." 
 
 Harley groaned ; and still hiding his face with one hand, 
 stretched forth the other, but rather with the air of one 
 who entreats than who accords forgiveness. Audley took 
 and pressed the hand thus extended. 
 
 " And now, Harley, farewell. With the dawn I leave ' 
 this house. I cannot new accept your aid in this election. 
 Levy shall announce my resignation. Randal Leslie, if you 
 please it, may be returned in my stead. He has abilities 
 which, under safe guidance, may serve his country ; and I 
 have no right to reject, from vain pride, whatever will pro-
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 1073 
 
 mote the career of one whom I undertook, and have failed, 
 to serve." 
 
 " Ay, ay," muttered Harley ; think not of Randal Les- 
 lie ; think but of your son." 
 
 "My son! But are you sure that he still lives? You 
 smile ; you you oh, Harley I took from you the mother, 
 give to me the son ; break my heart with gratitude. Your 
 revenge is found ! " 
 
 Lord L'Estrange rose with a sudden start gazed on 
 Audley for a moment irresolute, not from resentment, but 
 from shame. At that moment he was the man humbled ; 
 he was the man who feared reproach, and who needed par- 
 don. Audley, not divining what was thus passing in Har- 
 ley's breast, turned away. 
 
 " You think that I ask too much ; and yet all that I can 
 give to the child of my love, and the heir of my name, is the 
 worthless blessing of a ruined man. Harley, I say no more. 
 I dare not add, ' You too loved his mother ! and with a deeper 
 and a nobler love than mine.' " He stopped short, and 
 Harley flung himself on his breast. 
 
 " Me me pardon me, Audley ! Your offence has been 
 slight to mine. You have told me your offence ; never can 
 I name to you my own. Rejoice that we have both to ex- 
 change forgiveness, and in that exchange we are equal still, 
 Audley brothers still. Look up look up ; think that we 
 are boys now as we were once, boys who have had their 
 wild quarrel and who, the moment it is over, feel dearer 
 to each other than before." 
 
 " Oh, Harley, this is revenge ! It strikes home," mur- 
 mured Egerton, and tears gushed fast from eyes that could 
 have gazed unwinking on the rack. The clock struck ; 
 Harley sprang forward. 
 
 " I have time yet," he cried ; much to do and to undo. 
 You are saved from the grasp of Levy, your election will 
 be won, your fortunes in much may be restored, you have 
 before you honors not yet achieved, your career, as yet, is 
 scarce begun, your son will embrace you to-morrow. Let 
 me go your hand again \ Ah, Audley, we shall be so happy 
 yet ! "
 
 1074 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 CHAPTER XXXI. 
 
 " THERE is a hitch," said Dick, pithily, when Randal 
 joined him in the oak copse at ten o'clock. " Life is full 
 of hitches." 
 
 RANDAL. The art of life is to smoothe them away. What 
 hitch is this, my dear Avenel ? 
 
 DICK. Leonard has taken huff at certain expressions of 
 Lord L'Estrange's at the nomination to-day, and talks of 
 retiring from the contest. 
 
 RANDAL (with secret glee). But his resignation would 
 smoothe a hitch not create one. The votes promised to 
 him would thus be freed, and go to 
 
 DICK. The Right Honorable Red-Tapist. 
 
 RANDAL. Are you serious ? 
 
 DICK. As an undertaker ! The fact is, there are two 
 parties among the Yellows, as there are in the Church 
 High Yellow and Low Yellow. Leonard has made great 
 way with the High Yellows, and has more influence with 
 them than I ; and the High Yellows infinitely preferred 
 Egerton to yourself. They say, ' Politics apart, he would 
 be an honor to the borough.' Leonard is of the same opin- 
 ion ; and if he retires, I don't think I could coax either him 
 or the Highflyers to make you any the better by his resig- 
 nation. 
 
 RANDAL. But surely your nephew's sense of gratitude 
 to you would induce him not to go against your wishes ? 
 
 DICK. Unluckily, the gratitude is all the other way. 
 It is I who am under obligations to him not he to me. 
 As for Lord L'Estrange, I can't make head or tail of his 
 real intentions ; and why he should have attacked Leonard 
 in that way, puzzles me more than all, for he wished Leo- 
 nard to stand. And Levy has privately informed me that, 
 in spite of my lord's friendship for the Right Honorable, 
 you are the man he desires to secure. 
 
 RANDAL. He has certainly shown that desire through- 
 out the whole canvass. 
 
 DICK. I suspect that the borough-mongers have got a 
 seat for Egerton elsewhere ; or, perhaps, should his party 
 come in again, he is to be pitchforked into the Upper 
 House.
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 1075 
 
 RANDAL (smiling). Ah, Avenel, you are so shrewd ; you 
 see through everything. I will also add, that Egerton 
 wants some short respite from public life in order to nurse 
 his health and attend to his affairs, otherwise I could not 
 even contemplate the chance of the electors preferring me 
 to him, without a pang. 
 
 DICK. Pang ! stuff considerable. The oak trees don't 
 hear us ! You want to come into Parliament, and no mis- 
 take. If I am the man to retire as I always proposed, and 
 had got Leonard to agree to-, before this confounded speech 
 of L'Estrange's come into Parliament you will, for the 
 Low Yellows I can twist round my finger, provided the 
 High Yellows will not interfere ; in short, I could trans- 
 fer to you votes promised to -me, but I can't answer for 
 those promised to Leonard. Levy tells me you are to 
 marry a rich girl, and will have lots of money ; so, of 
 course, you will pay my expenses if you come in through 
 my votes. 
 
 RANDAL. My dear Avenel, certainly I will. 
 
 DICK. And I have two private bills I want to smuggle 
 through Parliament. 
 
 RANDAL. They shall be smuggled, rely on it. Mr. 
 Fairfield being on one side of the House, and I on the 
 other, we two could prevent all unpleasant opposition. 
 Private bills are easily managed with that tact which I 
 flatter myself I possess. 
 
 DICK. And when the bills are through the House, and 
 you have had time to look about you, I dare say you will 
 see that no man can go against Public Opinion, unless he 
 wants to knock his own head against a stone wall ; and 
 that Public Opinion is decidedly Yellow. 
 
 RANDAL (with candor). I cannot deny that Public 
 Opinion is Yellow ; and at my age it is natural that I 
 should not commit myself to the policy of a former gene- 
 ration. Blue is fast wearing out. But, to return to Mr. 
 Fairfield you do not speak as if you had no hope of keep- 
 ing him straight to what I understand to be his agreement 
 with yourself. Surely his honor is engaged to it. 
 
 DICK. I don't know as to honor ; but he has now 
 taken a fancy to public life, at least so he said no later 
 than this morning before we went into the hall ; and I 
 trust that matters will come right. Indeed, I left him with 
 Parson Dale, who promised me that he would use all his
 
 1076 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 best exertions to reconcile Leonard and my lord, and that 
 Leonard should do nothing hastily. 
 
 RANDAL. But why should Mr. Fairfield retire because 
 Lord L'Estrange wounds his feelings? I am sure Mr. 
 Fairfield has wounded mine, but that does not make me 
 think of retiring. 
 
 DICK. Oh, Leonard is a poet, and poets are quite as 
 crotchety as L'Estrange said they were. And Leonard is 
 under obligations to Lord L'Estrange, and thought that 
 Lord L'Estrange was pleased by his standing ; whereas, now 
 in short, it is all Greek to me, except that Leonard has 
 mounted his high horse, and if that throws him, I am afraid 
 it will throw you. But still I have great confidence in 
 Parson Dale a good fellow> who has much influence with 
 Leonard. And though I thought it right to be above- 
 board, and let you know where the danger lies, yet one 
 thing I can promise if I resign, you shall come in ; so 
 shake hands on it. 
 
 RANDAL. My dear Avenel ! And your wish is to re- 
 sign ? 
 
 DICK. Certainly. I should do so a little time after 
 noon, contriving to be below Leonard on the poll. You 
 know Emanuel Trout, the captain of the Hundred and 
 Fifty " Waiters on Providence," as they are called ? 
 
 RANDAL. To be sure sure I do. 
 
 DICK. When Emanuel Trout comes into the booth, 
 you will know how the election turns. As he votes, all the 
 Hundred and Fifty will vote. Now I must go back. Good 
 night. You'll not forget that my expenses are to be paid. 
 Point of honor. Still, if they are not paid, the election can 
 be upset petition for bribery and corruption ; and if they 
 are paid, why Lansmere may be your seat for life. 
 
 RANDAL. Your expenses shall be paid the moment my 
 marriage gives me the means to pay them and that must 
 be very soon. 
 
 DICK. So Levy says. And my little jobs the pri- 
 vate bills ? 
 
 RANDAL. Consider the bills passed and the jobs done. 
 
 DICK. And one must not forget one's country. One 
 must do the best one can for one's principles. Egerton is 
 infernally Blue. You allow Public Opinion is 
 
 RANDAL. Yellow. Not a doubt of it. 
 
 DICK. Good Night. Ha ha humbug, eh ?
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 1077 
 
 RANDAL. Humbug ! Between men like us oh no. 
 Good night, my dear friend I rely on you. 
 
 DICK. Yes ; but mind, I promise nothing if Leonard 
 Fairfield does not stand. 
 
 RANDAL. He must stand ; keep him to it. Your affairs 
 ' your business your mill 
 
 DICK. Very true. He must stand. I have great faith 
 in Parson Dale. 
 
 Randal glided back through the park. When he came 
 on the terrace, he suddenly encountered Lord L'Estrange. 
 " I have just been privately into the town, my dear lord, 
 and heard a strange rumor, that Mr. Fairfield was so an- 
 noyed by some remarks in your lordship's admirable speech, 
 that he talks of retiring from the contest. That would give 
 a new feature to the election, and perplex all our calcula- 
 tions. And I fear, in that case, there might be some secret 
 coalition between Avenel's friends and our Committee, 
 whom, I am told, I displeased by the moderate speech 
 which your lordship so eloquently defended a coalition by 
 which Avenel would come in with Mr. Egerton ; whereas, 
 if we all four stand, Mr. Egerton, I presume, will be quite 
 safe ; and I certainly think I have an excellent chance." 
 
 LORD L'ESTRANGE. So Mr. Fairfield will retire in con- 
 sequence of my remarks ! I am going into the town, and I 
 intend to apologize for those remarks, and retract them. 
 
 RANDAL (joyously). Noble ! 
 
 Lord L'Estrange looked at Leslie's face, upon which 
 the stars gleamed palely. "Mr. Egerton has thought more 
 of your success than of his own," said he, gravely, and 
 hurried on. 
 
 Randal continued on the terrace. Perhaps Harley's 
 last "words gave him a twinge of compunction. His head 
 sunk musingly on his breast, and he paced to and fro the 
 long gravel walk, summoning up all his intellect to resist 
 every temptation to what could injure his self-interest. 
 
 " Skulking knave ! " muttered Harley. " At least there 
 will be nothing to repent, if I can do justice on him. That 
 is not revenge. Come, that must be fair retribution. Be- 
 sides, how else can I deliver Violante?" He laughed gaily, 
 his heart was so light ; and his foot bounded on as fleet as 
 the deer that he startled amongst the fern. 
 
 A few yards from the turnstile he overtook Richard 
 Avenel, disguised in a rough great-coat and spectacles. 
 Nevertheless Harley's eye detected the Yellow candidate at
 
 1078 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 the first glance. Me caught Dick familiarly by the arm. 
 " Well met I was going to you. We have the election to 
 settle." 
 
 "On the terms I mentioned to your lordship?" said 
 Dick, startled. " I will agree to return one of your can- 
 didates ; but it must not be Audley Egerton." Harley 
 whispered close to Avenel's ear. 
 
 Avenel uttered an exclamation of amazement. The 
 two gentlemen walked on rapidly, and conversing with 
 .great eagerness. 
 
 " Certainly," said Avenel, at length stopping short, 
 " one would do a great deal to serve a family connection 
 and a connection that does a man so much credit ; and 
 how can one go against one's own brother-in-law ? a 
 gentleman of such high standing pull up the whole 
 family ! How pleased Mrs. Richard Avenel will be ! Why 
 the devil did not I know it before ? And poor dear 
 dear Nora. Ah, that she were living ! " Dick's voice 
 trembled. 
 
 " Her name will be righted ; and I will explain how it 
 was my fault that Egerton did not before acknowledge his 
 marriage, and claim you as a brother. Come, then, it is all 
 fixed and settled." 
 
 " No, my lord ; I am pledged the other way. I don't 
 see how I can get off my word to Randal Leslie. I'm not 
 over-nice, nor what is called Quixotic, but still my word is 
 given, that if I retire from the election, I will do my best 
 to return Leslie instead of Egerton." 
 
 " I know that through Baron Levy. But if your nephew 
 retires ? " 
 
 " Oh, that would solve all difficulties. But the poor boy 
 has now a wish to come into Parliament ; and he has done 
 me a service in the hour of need." 
 
 " Leave it to me. And as to Randal Leslie, he shall have 
 an occasion himself to acquit you and redeem himself ; and 
 happy, indeed, will it be for him if he has yet one spark of 
 gratitude, or one particle of honor." 
 
 The two continued to converse for a few moments Dick 
 seeming to forget the election itself, and ask questions of 
 more interest to his heart, which Harley answered so, that 
 Dick wrung L'Estrange's hand with great emotion and 
 muttered, " My poor mother ! I understand now why she 
 would never talk to me of Nora. When may I tell her the 
 truth ? "
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 1079 
 
 " To-morrow evening, after the election ; Egerton shall 
 embrace you all." 
 
 Dick started, and saying " See Leonard as soon as you 
 can there is no time to lose," plunged into a lane that 
 led toward the obscurer recesses of the town. Harley 
 continued his way with the same light elastic tread which 
 (lost during his abnegation of his own nature) was now re- 
 stored to the foot, that seemed loth to leave a print upon 
 the mire. 
 
 At the commencement of the High Street he encountered 
 Mr. Dale and Fairfield, walking slowly, arm in arm. 
 
 HARLEY. Leonard, I was coming to you. Give me your 
 hand. Forget for the present the words that justly stung 
 and offended you. I will do more than apologize I will 
 repair the wrong. Excuse me, Mr. Dale I have one 
 word to say in private to Leonard. He drew Fairfield 
 aside. 
 
 " Avenel tells me that if you were to retire from this 
 contest it would be a sacrifice of inclination. Is it so ? " 
 
 *' My lord, I have sorrows that I would fain forget ; and, 
 though I at first shrunk from the strife in which I have been 
 since engaged, yet now a literary career seems to me to have 
 lost its old charm ; and I find that, in public life, there is a 
 distraction to the thoughts which embitter solitude, that 
 books fail to bestow. Therefore, if you still wish me to con- 
 tinue this contest, though I know not your motive, it will 
 not be as it was to begin it a reluctant and a painful obedi- 
 ence to your request." 
 
 " I understand. It was a sacrifice of inclination to be- 
 gin the contest it would be now a sacrifice of inclination 
 to withdraw ! " 
 
 " Honestly yes, my lord." 
 
 " I rejoice to hear it, for I ask that sacrifice ; a sacrifice 
 which you will recall hereafter with delight and pride ; a 
 sacrifice sweeter, if I read your nature aright oh, sweeter 
 far, than all which common-place ambition could bestow J 
 And when you learn why I make this demand, you will say, 
 ' This, indeed, is reparation for the words that wounded my 
 affections, and wronged my heart.' " 
 
 "My lord, my lord!" exclaimed Leonard, "the injury 
 is repaired already. You give me back your esteem, when 
 you so well anticipate my answer. Your esteem ! life 
 smiles again. I can return to my more legitimate career 
 without a sigh. I have no need of distraction from thought
 
 io8o MY NOVEL; OK, 
 
 now. You will believe that, whatever my past presximption, 
 I can pray sincerely for your happiness." 
 
 " Poet ! you adorn your career ; you fulfil your mission, 
 even at this moment ; you beautify the world ; you give to 
 the harsh form of Duty the cestus of the Graces," said Har- 
 ley, trying to force a smile to his quivering lips. "But we 
 must hasten back to the prose of existence. I accept your 
 sacrifice. As for the time and mode I must select, in order 
 to insure its result, I will ask you to abide by such instruc- 
 tions as I shall have occasion to convey through your uncle. 
 Till then, no word of your intentions not even to Mr. 
 Dale. Forgive me if I would rather secure Mr. Egerton's 
 election than yours. Let 'that explanation suffice for the 
 present. What think you, by the way, of Audley Egerton ?" 
 
 " I thought when I heard him speak, and when he closed 
 with those touching words implying that he left all of his 
 life not devoted to his country, ' to the charity of his friends ' 
 how proudly, even as his opponent, I could, have clasped 
 his hand ; and if he had wronged me in private life, I should 
 have thought it ingratitude to the country he had so served, 
 to remember the offence." 
 
 Harley turned away abruptly, and joined Mr. Dale. 
 
 " Leave Leonard to go home by himself ; you see that I 
 have healed whatever wounds I inflicted on him." 
 
 PARSON. And, your better nature thus awakened, I trust, 
 my dear lord, that you have altogether abandoned the idea 
 of 
 
 HARLEY. Revenge ? No. And if you do not approve 
 that revenge to-morrow, I will never rest till I have seen 
 you a bishop ! 
 
 MR. DALE (much shocked). My lord, for shame ! 
 
 HARLEY (seriously). My levity is but lip-deep, my dear 
 Mr. Dale. But sometimes the froth on the wave shows the 
 change in the tide. 
 
 The Parson looked at him earnestly, and then seized 
 him by both hands with holy gladness and affection. 
 
 "Return to the park, now," said Harley, smiling, "and 
 tell Violante, if it be not too late to see her, that she was 
 even more eloquent than you." 
 
 Lord L' Estrange bounded forward. 
 
 Mr. Dale walked back through the park to Lansmere 
 House. On the terrace he found Randal, who was still 
 pacing to and fro, sometimes in the starlight, sometimes in 
 the shadow-
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 1081 
 
 Leslie looked up, and seeing Mr. Dale, the close astute- 
 ness of his aspect returned ; and stepping out of the star- 
 light deep into the shadow, he said 
 
 " I was sorry to learn that Mr. Fairfield had been so 
 hurt by Lord L'Estrange's severe allusions. Pity that 
 political differences should interfere with private friend- 
 ships; but I hear that you have been to Mr. Fairfield 
 and doubtless, as the peacemaker. Perhaps you met Lord 
 L'Estrange by the way ? He promised me that he would 
 apologize and retract." 
 
 "Good young man," said the unsuspecting Parson, "he 
 has done so." 
 
 "And Mr. Leonard Fairfield will therefore, I presume, 
 continue the contest ?'* 
 
 "Contest ah, this election ! I suppose so, of course. 
 But I grieve that he should stand against you, who seem to 
 be disposed toward him so kindly." 
 
 " Oh," said Randal, with a benevolent smile, " we have 
 fought before, you know, and I beat him then. I may do so 
 again ! " 
 
 And he walked into the house, arm-in-arm with the Par- 
 son. Mr. Dale sought Violante Leslie retired to his own 
 room, and felt his election was secured. 
 
 Lord L'Estrange had gained the thick of the streets 
 passing groups of roaring enthusiasts Blue and Yellow 
 now met with a cheer now followed by a groan. Just by 
 a public-house that formed the angle of a lane with the High 
 Street, and which was all a-blaze with light, and all alive 
 with clamor, he beheld the graceful Baron leaning against, 
 the threshold, smoking his cigar, too refined to associate its 
 divine vapor with the wreaths of shag within, and chatting 
 agreeably with a knot of females, who were either attracted 
 by the general excitement, or waiting to see husband, 
 brother, father, or son, who were now joining in the chorus 
 of " Blue for ever ! " that rang from tap-room to attic of 
 the illumined hostelry. Levy, seeing Lord L'Estrange, 
 withdrew his cigar from his lips and hastened to join him. 
 " All the Hundred and Fifty are in there," said the Baron, 
 with a backward significant jerk of his thumb toward the 
 inn. " I have seen them all privately, in tens at a time ; 
 and I have been telling the ladies without, that it will be 
 best for the interest of their family to go home, and let us 
 lock up the Hundred and Fifty safe from the Yellows, till 
 we bring them to the poll. But I am afraid," continued 
 4 6
 
 io82 MY NOVEL; OR. 
 
 Levy, " that the rascals are not to be relied upon unless I 
 actually pay them beforehand ; and that would be disreput- 
 able, immoral and, what is more, it would upset the elec- 
 tion. Besides, if they are paid beforehand, query, is it 
 quite sure how they will vote afterward ?" 
 
 "Mr. Avenel, I dare say, can manage them," said Har- 
 ley. " Pray do nothing immoral, and nothing that will up- 
 set the election. I think you might as well go home." 
 
 " Home ! No, pardon me, my lord ; there must be some 
 head to direct the Committee, and keep our captains at 
 their posts upon the doubtful electors. A great deal of mis- 
 chief may be done between this and the morrow ; and I 
 would sit up all night ay, six nights a week for the next 
 three months to prevent any awkward mistake by which 
 Audley Egerton can be returned." 
 
 " His return would really grieve you so much ? " said 
 Harley. 
 
 "You may judge of that by the zeal with which I enter 
 into all your designs." 
 
 Here there was a sudden and wondrously loud shout 
 from another inn a Yellow inn, far down the lane, not so 
 luminous as the Blue hostelry ; on the contrary, looking 
 rather dark and sinister, more like a place of conspirators 
 or felons than honest independent electors, " Avenel for 
 ever ! Avenel and the Yellows ! " 
 
 " Excuse me, my lord, I must go back and watch over 
 my black sheep, if I would have them blue ! " said Levy ; 
 and he retreated toward the threshold. But at that shout 
 of " Avenel for ever ! " as if at a signal, various electors of 
 the redoubted Hundred and Fifty rushed from the Blue 
 hostelry, sweeping past, and hurrying down the lane to the 
 dark little Yellow inn, followed by the female stragglers, as 
 small birds follow an owl. It was not, however, very easy 
 to get into that Yellow inn. Yellow Reformers, eminent 
 for their zeal on behalf of purity of election, were stationed 
 outside the door, and only strained in one candidate for 
 admittance at a time. "After all," thought the Baron, as he 
 passed into the principal room of the Blue tavern, and 
 proposed the national song of " Rule Britannia " " after 
 all, Avenel hates Egerton as much as I do, and both sides 
 work to the same end." And thrumming on the table, he 
 joined, with a fine bass, in the famous line, 
 
 " For Britons never will be slaves ! "
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 1083 
 
 In the interim, Harley had disappeared within the " Lans- 
 mere Arms," which was the headquarters of the Blue 
 Committee. Not, however, mounting to the room in which 
 a few of the more indefatigable were continuing their labors, 
 receiving reports from scouts, giving orders, laying wagers, 
 and very muzzy with British principles and spirits, Harley 
 called aside the landlord, and inquired if the stranger, for 
 whom rooms had been prepared, was yet arrived. An affir- 
 mative answer was given, and Harley followed the host up 
 a private stair, to a part of the house remote from the rooms 
 devoted to the purposes of the election. He remained with 
 this stranger about half an hour, and then walked into the 
 Committee-room, got rid of the more excited, conferred 
 with the more sober, issued a few brief directions to such of 
 the leaders as he felt he could most rely upon, and returned 
 home as rapidly as he had quitted it. 
 
 Dawn was gray in the skies when Harley sought his own 
 chamber. To gain it, he passed by the door of Violante's. 
 His heart suffused with grateful ineffable tenderness, he 
 paused and kissed the threshold. When he stood within 
 his room (the same that he had occupied in his early youth), 
 he felt as if the load of years were lifted from his bosom. 
 The joyous, divine elasticity of spirit, that in the morning 
 of life springs toward the Future as a bird soars into heaven, 
 pervaded his whole sense of being. A Greek poet implies, 
 that the height of bliss is the sudden relief of pain ; there is 
 a nobler bliss still the rapture of the conscience at the 
 sudden release from a guilty thought. By the bedside at 
 which he had knelt in boyhood, Harley paused to kneel 
 once more. The luxury of prayer, interrupted since he 
 had nourished schemes of which ( his passions had blinded 
 him to the sin, but which, nevertheless, he dared not confess 
 to the All-Merciful, was restored to him. And yet, as he 
 bowed his knee, the elation of spirits he had before felt for- 
 sook him. The sense of the danger his soul had escaped 
 the full knowledge of the guilt to which the fiend had 
 tempted came dread before his clearing vision ; he shud- 
 dered in horror of himself. And he who but a few hours 
 before had deemed it so impossible to pardon his fellow- 
 man, now felt as if years of useful and beneficent deeds could 
 alone purify his own repentant soul from the memory of 
 one hateful passion.
 
 1084 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 CHAPTER XXXII. 
 
 BUT while Harley had thus occupied the hours of night 
 with cares for the living, Audley Egerton had been in com- 
 mune with the dead. He had taken from the pile of papers 
 amidst which it had fallen, the record of Nora's silenced 
 heart. With a sad wonder he saw how he had once been 
 loved. What had all which successful ambition had be- 
 stowed on the lonely statesman to compensate for the 
 glorious empire he had lost such realms of lovely fancy ; 
 such worlds of exquisite emotion ; that infinite which lies 
 within the divine sphere that unites spiritual genius with 
 human love ? His own positive and earthly nature attained, 
 for the first time, and as if for its own punishment, the 
 comprehension of that loftier and more ethereal visitant 
 from the heavens, who had once looked with a seraph's 
 smile through the prison-bars of his iron life that celestial 
 refinement of affection, that exuberance of feeling which 
 warms into such varieties of beautiful idea, under the breath 
 of the earth-beautifier, Imagination ; all from which, when 
 it was all his own, he had turned half weary and impatient, 
 and termed the exaggerations of a visionary romance now 
 that the world had lost them evermore, he interpreted aright 
 as truths. Truths they were, although illusions. Even as 
 the philosopher tells us that the splendor of colors which 
 deck the universe is not on the surface whereon we think 
 to behold it, but in our own vision ; yet, take the colors 
 from the universe, and what philosophy can assure us that 
 the universe has sustained no loss? 
 
 But when Audley came to that passage in the fragment 
 which, though but imperfectly, explained the true cause of 
 Nora's flight ; when he saw how Levy, for what purpose 
 he was unable to conjecture, had suggested to his bride the 
 doubts that had offended him asserted the marriage to be a 
 fraud drawn from Audley's own brief resentful letters to 
 Nora, proof of the assertion misled so naturally the young 
 wife's scanty experience of actual life, and maddened one 
 so sensitively pure into the conviction of dishonor his 
 brow darkened, and his hand clenched. He rose and went 
 at once to Levy's room. He found it deserted inquired
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 1085 
 
 learned that Levy was gone forth, and had left word he might 
 not be at home for the night. Fortunate, perhaps, for Aud- 
 ley fortunate for the Baron that they did not then meet. 
 Revenge, in spite of his friend's admonition, might at that 
 hour have been as potent an influence on Egerton as it had 
 been on Harley, and not, as with the latter, to be turned 
 aside. 
 
 Audley came back to his room and finished the tragic 
 record. He traced the tremor of that beloved hand 
 through the last tortures of doubt and despair ; he saw 
 where the hot tears had fallen ; he saw where the hand 
 had paused, the very sentence not concluded ; mentally he 
 accompanied his fated bride in the dismal journey to her 
 maiden home, and beheld her before him as he had last seen, 
 more beautiful even in death than the face of living women 
 had ever since appeared to him ; and as he bent over the last 
 words, the blank that they left on the leaf, stretching pale 
 beyond the quiver of the characters and the blister of the 
 tears pale and blank as the void which departed love leaves 
 behind it he felt his heart suddenly stand still, its course 
 arrested as the record closed. It beat again, but feebly so 
 feebly ! His breath became labor and pain, his sight grew 
 dizzy. But the constitutional firmness and fortitude of the 
 man clung to him in the stubborn mechanism of habit his 
 will yet fought against his disease life rallied as the light 
 flickers up in the waning taper. 
 
 The next morning, when Harley came into his friend's 
 room, Egerton was asleep. But the sleep seemed much dis- 
 turbed ; the breathing was hard and difficult ; the bed- 
 clothes were partially thrown off, as if in the tossing of dis- 
 turbed dreams ; the sinewy strong arm, the broad, athletic 
 breast, were partly bare. Strange that so deadly a disease 
 within should leave the frame such apparent power that, to 
 the ordinary eye, the sleeping sufferer seemed a model of 
 healthful vigor. One hand was thrust with uneasy straining 
 over the pillows it had its hold on the fatal papers ; a por- 
 tion of the leaves was visible ; and where the characters had 
 been blurred by Nora's tears, were the traces, yet moist, of 
 tears perhaps more bitter. 
 
 Harley felt deeply affected ; and while he still stood by 
 the bed, Egerton sighed heavily and woke. He stared round 
 him, as if perplexed and confused till his eyes resting on 
 Harley, he smiled and said 
 
 " So early ! Ah I remember, it is *hc day for our great
 
 io8<5 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 boat-race. We shall have the current against us ; but you 
 and I together when did we ever lose ? 
 
 Audley's mind was wandering ; it had gone back to 
 the old Eton days. But Harley thought that he spoke 
 in metaphorical allusion to the present more important 
 contest. 
 
 " True, my Audley you and I together when did we 
 ever lose ? But will you rise ? I wish you would be at the 
 polling-place to shake hands with your voters as they come 
 up. By four o'clock, you will be released, and the election 
 won." 
 
 " The election ! How ! what ! " said Egerton, recover- 
 ing himself. " I recollect now. Yes I accept this last 
 kindness from you. I always said I would die in harness. 
 Public life I have no other. Ah, I dream again ! Oh, Har- 
 ley ! my son my son ! " 
 
 " You shall see him after four o'clock. You will be proud 
 of each other. But make haste and dress. Shall I ring the 
 bell for your servant ?" 
 
 '* Do," said Egerton, briefly, and sinking back. Harley 
 quitted the room, and joined Randal and some of the more 
 important members of the Blue Committee, who were al- 
 ready hurrying over their breakfast. 
 
 All were anxious and nervous except Harley, who dipped 
 his dry toast into his coffee, according to his ordinary ab- 
 stemious Italian habit, with serene composure. Randal in 
 vain tried for an equal tranquillity. But though sure of his 
 election, there would necessarily follow a scene trying to the 
 nerve of his hypocrisy. He would have to affect profound 
 chagrin in the midst of vile joy ; have to act the part of 
 decorous high-minded sorrow, that by some untoward chance 
 some unaccountable cross-splitting, Randal Leslie's gain 
 should be Audley Egerton's loss. Besides, he was flurried 
 in the expectation of seeingthe Squire, and of appropriating 
 the money which was to secure the dearest object of his am- 
 bition. Breakfast was soon despatched. The Committee- 
 men, bustling for their hats, and looking at their watches, 
 gave the signal for departure ; yet no Squire Hazeldean had 
 made his appearance. Harley, stepping from the window 
 upon the terrace, beckoned to Randal, who took his hat 
 and followed. 
 
 " Mr. Leslie," said Harley, leaning against the balustrade, 
 and carelessly patting Nero's rough honest head, " you re- 
 member that you were good enough to volunteer to me the
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 1087 
 
 explanation of certain circumstances in connection with the 
 Count di Peschiera, which you gave to the Duke di Serrano ; 
 and I replied that my thoughts were at present engaged on 
 the election, but as soon as that was over, I should be very 
 willing to listen to any communications affecting yourself 
 and my old friend the Duke, with which you might be 
 pleased to favor me," 
 
 This address took Randal by surprise, and did not tend 
 to calm his nerves. However, he replied readily : 
 
 " Upon that, as upon any other matter that may influ- 
 ence the judgment you form of me, I shall be but too eager 
 to remove a single doubt that, in your eyes, can rest upon 
 my honor." 
 
 "You speak exceedingly well, Mr. Leslie ; no man can 
 express himself more handsomely ; and I will claim your 
 promise with the less scruple, because the Duke is powerful- 
 ly affected by the reluctance of his daughter to ratify the 
 engagement that binds his honor, in case your own is indis- 
 putably cleared. I may boast of some influence over the 
 young lady, since I assisted to save her from the infamous 
 plot of Peschiera ; and the Duke urges me to receive your 
 explanation, in the belief that, if it satisfy me, as it has sat- 
 isfied him, I may conciliate his child in favor of the addresses 
 of a suitor who would have hazarded his very life against 
 so redoubted a duellist as Peschiera." 
 
 " Lord L'Estrange," replied Randal, bowing,"! shall 
 indeed owe you much if you can remove that reluctance on 
 the part of my betrothed bride, which alone clouds my hap- 
 piness, and which would at once put an end to my suit, did 
 I not ascribe it to an imperfect knowledge of myself, which 
 I shall devote my life to improve into confidence and affec- 
 tion." 
 
 "No man can speak more handsomely," reiterated Har- 
 ley, as if with profound admiration ; and indeed he did eye 
 Randal as we eye some rare curiosity. " I am happy to 
 inform you too," continued L'Estrange, "that if your mar- 
 riage with the Duke di Serrano's daughter take place 
 
 " If ! " echoed Randal. 
 
 "I beg pardon for making an hypothesis of what you 
 claim the right to esteem a certainty I correct my ex- 
 pression : when your marriage with that young lady takes 
 place, you w T ill at least escape the rock on which many 
 young men of ardent affections have split at the onset of 
 the grand voyage. You will form no imprudent connec-
 
 MY NOVEL; OK, 
 
 tion. In a word, I received yesterday a despatch from 
 Vienna, which contains the full pardon and formal restor- 
 ation of Alphonso, Duke di Serrano. And I may add, 
 that the Austrian government (sometimes misunderstood in 
 this country) is bound by the laws it administers, and can 
 in no way dictate to the Duke, once restored, as to the 
 choice of his son-in-law, or as to the heritage that may 
 devolve on his child." 
 
 "And does the Duke yet know of his recall ? " exclaimed 
 Randal, his cheek flushed and his eye sparkling. 
 
 "No. I reserve that good news, with other matters, till 
 after the election is over. But Egerton keeps us waiting 
 sadly. Ah, here comes his valet." 
 
 Audley's servant approached. " Mr. Egerton feels him- 
 self rather more poorly than usual, my lord ; he begs you will 
 excuse his going with you into the town at present. He 
 will come later if his presence is absolutely necessary." 
 
 " No. Pray tell him to rest and nurse himself. I should 
 have liked him to witness his own triumph that is all. 
 Say I will represent him at the polling-place. Gentlemen, 
 are you ready ? We will go on." 
 
 The polling-booth was erected in the centre of the mar- 
 ket-place. The voting had already commenced ; and Mr. 
 Avenel and Leonard were already at their posts, in order 
 to salute and thank the voters in their cause who passed 
 before them. Randal and L'Estrange entered the booth 
 amidst loud hurrahs, and to the national air of " See the 
 Conquering Hero comes." The voters defiled in quick 
 succession. Those who voted entirely according to prin- 
 ciple or color which came to much the same thing and 
 were therefore above what is termed " management," flocked 
 in first, voting straightforwardly for both Blues or both 
 Yellows. At the end of the first half-hour, the Yellows 
 were about ten ahead of the Blues. Then sundry split 
 votes began to perplex conjecture as to the result ; and 
 Randal, at the end of the first hour, had fifteen majority 
 over Audley Egerton, two over Dick Avenel Leonard 
 Fairfield heading the poll by five. Randal owed his place 
 in the lists to the voters that Harley's personal efforts had 
 procured for him ; and he was well pleased to see that Lord 
 L'Estrange had not withdrawn from him a single promise 
 so obtained. This augured well for Harley's ready belief 
 in his appointed " explanations." In short, the whole elec- 
 tion seemed going just as he had calculated. But by
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 1089 
 
 twelve o'clock, there were some changes in the relative 
 position of the candidates. Dick Avenel had gradually 
 gained ground passing Randal, passing even Leonard. 
 He stood at the head of the poll by a majority of ten. 
 Randal came next. Audley was twenty behind Randal, 
 and Leonard four behind Audley. 
 
 More than half the constituency had polled, but none of 
 the Committee on either side, nor one of the redoubted 
 corps of a Hundred and Fifty. 
 
 The poll now slackened sensibly. Randal, looking 
 round, and longing for an opportunity to ask Dick whether 
 he really meant to return himself instead of his nephew, 
 saw that Harley had disappeared ; and presently a note was 
 brought to him requesting his presence in the C6mmittee- 
 room. Thither he hastened. 
 
 As he forced his way through the bystanders in the 
 lobby, toward the threshold of the room, Levy caught hold 
 of him and whispered" They begin to fear for Egerton. 
 They want a compromise in order to secure him. They 
 will propose to you to resign, if Avenel will withdraw 
 Leonard. Don't be entrapped. L' Estrange may put the 
 question to you ; but a word in your ear he would be 
 glad enough to. throw over Egerton. Rely upon this, and 
 stand firm." 
 
 Randal made no answer, but, the crowd giving way for 
 him, entered the room. Levy followed. The doors were 
 instantly closed. All the Blue Committee were assembled. 
 They looked heated, anxious, eager. Lord L'Estrange, 
 alone calm and cool, stood at the head of the long table. 
 Despite his composure, Harley's brow was 'thoughtful. 
 " Yes," said he to himself, " I will give this young man the 
 fair occasion to prove gratitude to his benefactor ; and if 
 he here acquit himself, I will spare him at least public ex- 
 posure of his deceit to others. So young, he must have 
 some good in him at least toward the man to whom he 
 owes all." 
 
 " Mr. Leslie," said L'Estrange, aloud, "you see the state 
 of the poll. Our Committee believe that, if you continue 
 to stand, Egerton must be beaten. They fear that, Leonard 
 Fairfield having little chance, the Yellows will not waste 
 their second votes on him, but will transfer them to you, 
 in order to keep out Egerton. If you retire, Egerton will 
 be safe. There is reason to suppose that Leonard would, 
 in that case, also be withdrawn." 
 46*
 
 logo MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 "You can hope and fear nothing more from Egerton," 
 whispered Levy. " He is utterly ruined ; and, if he lose, 
 will sleep in a prison. The bailiffs are waiting for him." 
 
 Randal was still silent, and at that silence an indignant 
 murmur ran through the more influential members of the 
 Committee. For, though Audley was not personally very 
 popular, still a candidate so eminent was necessarily their 
 first object, and they would seem very small to the Yellows 
 if their great man was defeated by the very candidate in- 
 troduced to aid him a youth unknown. Vanity and patri- 
 otism both swelled that murmur. "You see, young sir," 
 cried a rich, blunt master-butcher, "that it was an honorable 
 understanding that Mr. Egerton was to be safe. You had 
 no claim 'on us, except as fighting second to him. And we 
 are all astonished that you don't say at once, ' Save Eger- 
 ton, of course.' Excuse my freedom, sir. No time for 
 palaver." 
 
 " Lord L'Estrange," said Randal, turning mildly from 
 the butcher, " do you, as the first here in rank and influence, 
 and as Mr. Egerton's especial friend, call upon me to sacri- 
 fice my election, and what appear to be the inclinations of 
 the majority of the constituents, in order to obtain what is, 
 after all, a doubtful chance of returning Mr.. Egerton in my 
 room ? " 
 
 "I do not call upon you, Mr. Leslie. It is a matter of 
 feeling or of honor, which a gentleman can very well de- 
 cide for himself." 
 
 " Was any such compact made between your lordship 
 and myself, when you first gave me your interest and can- 
 vassed for me in person ? " 
 
 " Certainly not. Gentlemen, be silent. No such com- 
 pact was mentioned by me." 
 
 " Neither was it by Mr. Egerton. Whatever might be 
 the understanding spoken of by the respected elector who 
 addressed me, I was no party to it. I am persuaded that 
 Mr. Egerton is the last person who would wish to owe his 
 election to a trick upon the electors in the midst of the 
 polling, and to what the world would consider a very un- 
 handsome treatment of myself, upon whom all the toil of 
 the canvass has devolved." 
 
 Again the murmur rose ; but Randal had an air so de- 
 termined, that it quelled resentment, and obtained a con- 
 tinued, though most chilling and half-contemptuous hear- 
 ing.
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 1091 
 
 "Nevertheless," resumed Randal, "I would at once re- 
 tire, were I not under the firm persuasion that I shall con- 
 vince all present, who now seem to condemn me, that I act 
 precisely according to Mr. Egerton's own private inclina- 
 tions. That gentleman, in fact, has never been amongst 
 you has not canvassed in person has taken no trouble, 
 beyond a speech, that was evidently meant to be but a gen- 
 eral defence of his past political career. What does this 
 mean ? Simply that his standing has been merely a form, 
 to comply with the wish of his party, against his own de- 
 sire." 
 
 The Committeemen looked at each other amazed and 
 doubtful. Randal saw he had gained an advantage ; he 
 pursued it with a tact and an ability which showed that, in 
 spite of his mere oratorical deficiencies, he had in him the 
 elements of a dexterous debater. " I will be plain with 
 you, gentlemen. My character, my desire to stand well 
 with you all, oblige me to be so. Mr. Egerton does not 
 wish to come into Parliament at present. His health is 
 much broken ; his private affairs need all his time and at- 
 tention. I am, I may say, as a son to him. He is most 
 anxious for my success ; Lord L'Estrange told me but last 
 night, very truly, ' more anxious for my success than his 
 own.' Nothing could please him more than to think I were 
 serving in Parliament, however humbly, those great inter- 
 ests which neither health nor leisure will, in this momen- 
 tous crisis, allow himself to defend with his wonted energy. 
 Later, indeed, no doubt, he will seek return to an arena in 
 which he is so distinguished, and when the popular excite- 
 ment, which produces the popular injustice of the day, is 
 over, what constituency will not be proud to return such a 
 man ? In support and proof of what I have thus said, I now 
 appeal to Mr. Egerton's own agent a gentleman who, in 
 spite of his vast fortune and the rank he holds in society, 
 has consented to act gratuitously on behalf of that great 
 statesman. I ask you, then, respectfully, Baron Levy is 
 not Mr. Egerton's health much broken, and in need pf 
 rest ? " 
 
 " It is," said Levy. 
 
 " And do not his affairs necessitate his serious and un- 
 divided attention ? " 
 
 "They do, indeed," quoth the Baron. "Gentlemen, I 
 have nothing to urge in behalf of my distinguished friend 
 as against the statement of his adopted son, Mr. Leslie."
 
 1092 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 "Then all I can say," cried the butcher, striking his 
 huge fist on the table, "is, that Mr. Egerton has behaved 
 d d unhandsome to us, and we shall be the laughing- 
 stock of the borough." 
 
 " Softly, softly," said Harley. " There is a knock at the 
 door behind. Excuse me." 
 
 Harley quitted the room, but only for a minute or two. 
 On his return he addressed himself to Randal. 
 
 "Are we then to understand, Mr. Leslie, that your in- 
 tention is not to resign ?" 
 
 " Unless your lordship actually urge me to the contrary, 
 I should say, ' Let the election go on, and all take our 
 chance.' This seems to me the fair, manly, ENGLISH (great 
 emphasis on the last adjective), honorable course." 
 
 " Be it so," replied Harley ; " 'let all take their chance.' 
 Mr. Leslie, we will no longer detain you. Go back to the 
 polling-place one of the candidates should be present ; and 
 you, Baron Levy, be good enough to go also, and return 
 thanks to those who may yet vote for Mr. Egerton." 
 
 Levy bowed, and went out arm-in-arm with Randal. 
 
 " Capital, capital," said the Baron. " You have a won- 
 derful head." 
 
 " I did not like L'Estrange's look, nevertheless. But he 
 can't hurt me now ; the votes he got for me instead of for 
 Egerton have already polled. The Committee, indeed, may 
 refuse to vote for me ; but then there is Avenel's body of 
 reserve. Yes, the election is virtually over. When we get 
 back, Hazeldean will have arrived with the money for the 
 purchase of my ancestral property ; Dr. Riccabocca is 
 already restored to the estates and titles of Serrano ; 
 what do I care farther for Lord L'Estrange ? Still, I do not 
 like his look." 
 
 " Pooh, you have 'done just what he wished. I am for- 
 bidden to say more. Here we are at the booth. A new 
 placard since we left. How are the numbers ? Avenel 
 forty ahead of you ; you thirty above Egerton ; and Leo- 
 nard Fairfield still last on the poll. But where are Avenel 
 and Fairfield ? " 
 
 Both these candidates had disappeared, perhaps gone to 
 their own Committee-room. 
 
 Meanwhile, as soon as the doors had closed on Randal 
 and the Baron, in the midst of the angry hubbub succeed- 
 ing to their departure, Lord L'Estrange sprang upon the 
 table. The action and his look stilled every sound.
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 1093 
 
 " Gentlemen, it is in our hands to return one of our 
 candidates, and to make our own choice between the two. 
 You have heard Mr. Leslie and Baron Levy. To their 
 statement I make but this reply Mr. Egerton is needed by 
 the country ; and whatever his health or his affairs, he is 
 ready to respond to that call. If he has not canvassed if 
 he does not appear before you at this moment, the services 
 of more than twenty years plead for him in his stead. 
 Which, then, of the two candidates do you choose as your 
 member a renowned statesman, or a beardless boy ? 
 Both have ambition and ability ; the one has identified 
 those qualities with the history of a country, and (as it is 
 now alleged to his prejudice) with a devotion that has 
 broken a vigorous frame and injured a princely fortune. 
 The other evinces his ambition by inviting you to prefer 
 him to his benefactor ; and proves his ability by the excuses 
 he makes for ingratitude. Choose between the two an 
 Egerton or a Leslie." 
 
 " Egerton for ever ! " cried all the assembly, as with a 
 single voice, followed by a hiss for Leslie. 
 
 " But," said a grave and prudent Committeeman, " have 
 we really the choice ? Does not that rest with the Yellows ? 
 Is not your lordship too sanguine? " 
 
 " Open that door behind ; a deputation from our oppo- 
 nents waits in the room on the other side of the passage. 
 Admit them." 
 
 The committee were hushed in breathless silence while 
 Harley's order was obeyed. And soon, to their great sur- 
 prise, Leonard Fairfield himself, attended by six of the 
 principal members of the Yellow party, entered the room. 
 
 LORD L'EsxRANGE. You have a proposition to make to 
 us, Mr. Fairfield, on behalf of yourself and Mr. Avenel, and 
 with the approval of your committee ? 
 
 LEONARD (advancing to the table). I have. We are 
 convinced that neither party can carry both its candidates. 
 Mr. Avenel is safe. The only question is, which of the two 
 candidates on your side it best becomes the honor of this 
 constituency to select. My resignation, which I am about 
 to tender, will free sufficient votes to give the triumph either 
 to Mr. Egerton or Mr. Leslie. 
 
 " Egerton for ever ! " cried once more the excited Blues. 
 
 "Yes Egerton for ever!" said Leonard, with a glow 
 upon his cheek. " We may differ from his politics, but 
 who can tell us those of Mr. Leslie ? We may differ from
 
 1094 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 the politician, but who would not feel proud of the senator ? 
 A great and incalculable advantage is bestowed on that 
 constituency which returns to Parliament a distinguished 
 man. His distinction ennobles the place he represents -it 
 sustains public spirit it augments the manly interest in 
 all that affects the nation. Every time his voice hushes the 
 assembled Parliament, it reminds us of our common 
 country ; and even the discussion amongst his constituents 
 which his voice provokes clears their perceptions of the 
 public interest, and enlightens themselves, from the intel- 
 lect which commands their interest, and compels their at- 
 tention. Egerton, then, for ever ! If our party must sub- 
 scribe to the return of one opponent, let all unite to select 
 the worthiest. My Lord L'Estrange, when I quit this room, 
 it will be to announce my resignation, and to solicit those 
 who have promised me their votes to transfer them to Mr. 
 Audley Egerton." 
 
 Amidst the uproarious huzzas which followed this speech, 
 Leonard drew near to Harley ! " My Lord, I have obeyed 
 your wishes, as conveyed to me by my uncle, who is en- 
 gaged at this moment elsewhere in carrying them into 
 effect." 
 
 " Leonard," said Harley, in the same undertone, " you 
 have insured to Audley Egerton what you alone could do 
 the triumph over a perfidious dependant the contin- 
 uance of the sole career in which he has hitherto found the 
 solace or the zest of life. He .must thank you with his own 
 lips. Come to the Park after the close of the poll. There 
 and then shall the explanations yet needful to both be given 
 and received." 
 
 Here Harley bowed to the assembly and raised his 
 voice : " Gentlemen, yesterday, at the nomination of the 
 candidates, I uttered remarks that have justly pained Mr. 
 Fairfield. In your presence I wholly retract and frankly 
 apologize for them. In your presence I entreat his for- 
 giveness, and say, that if he will accord me his friendship, 
 I will place him in my esteem and affection side by side 
 with the statesman he has given to his country." 
 
 Leonard grasped the hand extended to him with both 
 his own, and then, overcome by his emotions, hurried from 
 the room ; while Blues and Yellows exchanged greetings, 
 rejoiced in the compromise that would dispel all party 
 irritation, secure the peace of the borough, and allow quiet 
 men, who had detested each other the day before, and
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 109$ 
 
 vowed reciprocal injuries to trade and custom, the in- 
 dulgence of all amiable and fraternal feelings until the 
 next general election. 
 
 In the meanwhile the polling had gone on slowly as 
 before, but still to the advantage of Randal. " Not two- 
 thirds of the constituency will poll," murmured Levy, 
 looking at his watch. " The thing is decided. Aha, Audley 
 Egerton ! you who once tortured me with the unspeakable 
 jealousy that bequeaths such implacable hate you who 
 scorned my society, and called me ' scoundrel ' disdainful 
 of the very power your folly placed within my hands aha, 
 your time is up ! and the spirit that administered to your 
 own destruction strides within the circle to seize its prey." 
 
 "You shall have my first frank Levy," said Randal, "to 
 enclose your letter to Mr. Thornhill's solicitor. This affair 
 of the election is over ; we must now look to what else 
 rests on our hands." 
 
 " What the devil is that placard ? " cried Levy, turning 
 pale. 
 
 Randal looked, and right up the market-place, followed 
 by an immense throng, moved, high over the heads of all, a 
 Yellow Board that seemed marching through the air comet- 
 like : 
 
 Two o'clock p. in. 
 
 RESIGNATION OF FAIRFIELD ! 
 
 YELLOWS ! 
 
 VOTE FOR 
 
 AVENEL AND EGERTON! 
 
 (Signed) TIMOTHY ALLJACK. 
 
 Yellow Committee Room, 
 
 " What infernal treachery is this ? " cried Randal, livid 
 with honest indignation. 
 
 " Wait a moment ; there is Avenel ! " exclaimed Levy ; 
 and at the head of another procession that emerged from 
 the obscurer lanes of the town, walked, with grave majesty, 
 the surviving Yellow candidate. Dick disappeared for a 
 moment within a grocer's shop in the broadest part of the 
 place, and then culminated, at the height of a balcony on 
 the first story, just above an enormous yellow canister, sig- 
 nificant of the profession and the politics of the householder. 
 No sooner did Dick, hat in hand, appear on this rostrum,
 
 1096 MY NOVEL; OK, 
 
 than the two processions halted below, bands ceased, flags 
 drooped round their staves, crowds rushed within hearing, 
 and even the poll-clerks sprang from the booth. Randal 
 and Levy themselves pressed into the throng. Dick on the 
 balcony was the Deus ex Machind. 
 
 " Freemen and electors ! " said Dick, with his most 
 sonorous accents " finding that the public opinion of this 
 independent and enlightened constituency is so evenly 
 divided, that only one Yellow candidate can be returned, 
 and only one Blue has a chance, it was my intention last 
 night to retire from the contest, and thus put an end to all 
 bickerings and ill-blood (Hold your tongues there, can't 
 you !) I say honestly, I should have preferred the return 
 of my distinguished and talented young nephew honorable 
 relation to my own ; but he would not hear of it ; and 
 talked all our Committee into the erroneous but high- 
 minded notion, that the town would cry shame if the 
 nephew rode into Parliament by breaking the back of the 
 uncle." (Loud cheers from the mob, and partial cries of 
 " We'll have you both ! ") 
 
 "You'll do no such thing, and you know it ; hold your 
 jaw," resumed Dick, with imperious good-humor. " Let 
 me go on, can't you ? time presses. In a word, my 
 nephew resolved to retire, if, at two o'clock this day, there 
 was no chance of returning both of us ; and there is none. 
 Now, then, the next thing for the Yellows who have not 
 yet voted, is to consider how they will give their second 
 votes. If I had been the man to retire, why, for certain 
 reasons, I should have recommended them to split with 
 Leslie a clever chap, and pretty considerable sharp." 
 
 "Hear, hear, hear!" cried the Baron, lustily. 
 
 " But I'm bound to say that my nephew has an opinion 
 of his own as an independent Britisher, let him be twice 
 your nephew, ought to have ; and his opinion goes the 
 other way, and so does that of our Committee." 
 
 " Sold ! " cried the Baron ; and some of the crowd shook 
 their heads, and looked grave especially those suspected 
 of a wish to be bought. 
 
 " Sold ! pretty fellow you, with the nosegay in your 
 button-hole, to talk of selling ! You who wanted to sell 
 your own clients and you know it. [Levy recoiled.] Why, 
 gentlemen, that's Levy, the Jew, who talks of selling ! And 
 if he asperses the character of this constituency, I stand 
 here to defend it ; and there stands the parish pump, with
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 1097 
 
 a handle for the arm of Honesty, and a spout for the lips 
 of Falsehood !" 
 
 At the close of this magniloquent period, borrowed, no 
 doubt, from some great American orator, Baron Levy in- 
 voluntarily retreated toward the shelter of the polling-booth, 
 followed by some frowning Yellows, with very menacing 
 gestures. 
 
 " But the calumniator sneaks away ; leave him to the 
 reproach of his conscience," resumed Dick, with a gener- 
 ous magnanimity. 
 
 " SOLD ! [the word rang through the place like the 
 blast of a trumpet] sold ! No, believe me, not a man who 
 votes for Egerton instead of Fairfield will, so far as I am 
 concerned, be a penny the better [chilling silence] or [with 
 a scarce perceivable wink toward the anxious faces of the 
 Hundred and fifty who filled the background] or a penny 
 the worse. [Loud cheers from the Hundred and fifty, and 
 cries of ' Noble ! '] I don't like the politics of Mr. Egerton. 
 But I am not only a politician I am a MAN ! The argu- 
 ments of our respected Committee persons in business, 
 tender husbands, and devoted fathers have weight with 
 me. I myself am a husband and a father. If a needless 
 contest be prolonged to the last, with all the irritations it 
 engenders, who suffer ? why, the tradesman and the opera- 
 tive. Partially, loss of custom, tyrannical demands for 
 house-rent, notices to quit in a word, the screw ! " 
 
 " Hear, hear ! " and " Give us the Ballot ! " 
 
 " The Ballot with all my heart, if I had it about me ! 
 And if we had the Ballot, I should like to see a man dare to 
 vote Blue. [Loud cheers from the Yellows.] But, as we 
 have not got it, we must think of our families. And I may 
 add, that though Mr. Egerton may come again into office, 
 yet [added Dick, solemnly] I will do my best, as his col- 
 league, to keep him straight ; and your own enlightenment 
 (for the schoolmaster is abroad) will show him that no min- 
 ister can brave public opinion, nor quarrel with his own 
 bread and butter. [Much cheering.] In these times the aris- 
 tocracy must endear themselves to the middle and working 
 class ; and a member in office has much to give away in the 
 Stamps and Excise, in the Customs, the Post Office, and 
 other State departments in this rotten old I mean this 
 magnificent empire by which he can benefit his consti- 
 tuents, and reconcile the prerogatives of aristocracy with
 
 1098 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 the claims of the people ^more especially in this case, the 
 people of the borough of Lansmere. [Hear, hear.] 
 
 " And therefore, sacrificing party inclinations (since it 
 seems that I can in no way promote them) on the altar of 
 General Good Feeling, I cannot oppose the resignation of 
 my nephew honorable relation nor blind my eyes to the 
 advantages that may result to a borough so important to 
 the nation at large, if the electors think fit to choose my 
 Right Honorable broth I mean the Right Honorable Blue 
 candidate as my brother colleague. Not that I presume 
 to dictate, or express a wish one way or the other only, as 
 a Family Man, I say to you, Electors and Freemen, having 
 served your country in returning me, you have nobly won 
 the right to think of the little ones at home." 
 
 Dick put his hand to his heart, bowed gracefully, and 
 retired from the balcony amidst unanimous applause. 
 
 In three minutes more, Dick had resumed his place in 
 the booth in his quality of candidate. A rush of Yellow 
 electors poured in, hot and fast. Up came Emanuel Trout, 
 and, in a firm voice, recorded his vote " Avenel and Eger- 
 ton." Every man of the Hundred and Fifty so polled. To 
 each question, "Whom do you vote for?" "Avenel and 
 Egerton " knelled on the ears of Randal Leslie with "dam- 
 nable iteration." The young man folded his arms across 
 his breast in dogged despair. Levy had to shake hands for 
 Mr. Egerton, with a rapidity that took away his breath. 
 He longed to slink away longed to get at L'Estrange, 
 whom he supposed would be as wroth at this turn in the 
 wheel of fortune as himself. But how, as Egerton's repre- 
 sentative, escape from the continuous gripes of those horny 
 hands ? Besides, there stood the parish pump, right in face 
 of the booth, and some huge truculent-looking Yellows 
 loitered round it, as if ready to pounce on him the instant 
 he quitted his present sanctuary. Suddenly the crowd 
 round the booth receded Lord L'Estrange's carriage drove 
 up to the spot, and Harley, stepping from it, assisted out 
 of the vehicle an old gray-haired paralytic man. The old 
 man stared round him, and nodded smilingly to the mob. 
 " I'm here I'm come ; I'm but a poor creature, but I'm a 
 good Blue to the last ! " 
 
 "Old John Avenel fine old man !" cried many a voice. 
 
 And John Avenel, still leaning on Harley's arm, tottered 
 into the booth, and plumped for "Egerton."
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 1099 
 
 " Shake hands, father," said Dick, bending forward, 
 " though you'll not vote for me." 
 
 " I was a Blue before you were born," answered the old 
 man, tremulously. " But I wish you success all the same, 
 and God bless you, my boy ! " 
 
 Even the poll-clerks were touched ; and when Dick, 
 leaving his place, was seen by the crowd assisting Lord 
 L'Estrange to place poor John again in the carriage that 
 picture of family love in the midst of political difference 
 of the prosperous, wealthy, energetic son, who, as a boy, 
 had played at marbles in the very kennel, and who had 
 risen in life by his own exertions, and was now virtually 
 M.P. for his native town tending on the broken-down, 
 aged father, whom even the interests of a son he was so 
 proud of could not win from the colors which he associated 
 with truth and rectitude had such an effect upon the rud- 
 est of the mob there present, that you might have heard a 
 pin fall till the carriage drove away back to John's hum- 
 ble home ; and then there rose such a tempest of huzzas ! 
 John Avenel's vote for Egerton gave another turn to the 
 vicissitudes of that memorable election. As yet Avenel had 
 been ahead of Audley ; but a plumper in favor of Egerton, 
 from Avenel's own father, set an example and gave an ex- 
 cuse to many a Blue who had not yet voted, and could not 
 prevail on himself to split his vote between Dick and Audley ; 
 and therefore, several leading tradesmen, who, seeing that 
 Egerton was safe, had previously resolved not to vote at 
 all, came up in the last hour, plumped for Egerton, and 
 carried him to the head of the poll ; so that poor John, 
 whose vote, involving that of Mark Fairfield, had secured 
 the first opening in public life to the young ambition of the 
 unknown son-in-law, still contributed to connect with suc- 
 cess and triumph, but also with sorrow, and, it may be, 
 with death, the names of the high-born Egerton and the 
 humble Avenel. 
 
 The great town-clock strikes the hour of four ; the re- 
 turning-officer declares the poll closed ; the formal an- 
 nouncement of the result will be made later. But all the 
 town knows that Audley Egerton and Richard Avenel are 
 the members for Lansmere. And flags stream, and drums 
 beat, and men shake each other by the hand heartily ; and 
 there is talk of the chairing to-morrow ; and the public- 
 houses are crowded ; and there is an indistinct hubbub 
 in street and alley, with sudden bursts of uproarious
 
 M00 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 shouting ; and the clouds to the west look red and lurid 
 round the sun, which has gone down behind the church- 
 tower behind the yew-trees that overshadow the quiet 
 grave of Nora Avenel. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII. 
 
 AMIDST the darkening shadows of twilight, Randal Les- 
 lie walked through Lansmere Park toward the house. He 
 had slunk away before the poll was closed crept through 
 by-lanes, and plunged into the leafless copses of the Earl's 
 stately pasture-grounds. Amidst the bewilderment of his 
 thoughts at a loss to conjecture how this strange mischance 
 had befallen him inclined to ascribe it to Leonard's in- 
 fluence over Avenel but suspecting Harley, and half 
 doubtful of Baron Levy, he sought to ascertain what fault 
 of judgment he himself had committed what wile he had 
 forgotten what thread in his web he had left ragged and 
 incomplete. He could discover none. His ability seemed 
 to him unimpeachable totus, feres, atque rotundus. And then 
 there came across his breast a sharp pang sharper than that 
 of baffled ambition thefeeling that he had been deceived and 
 bubbled, and betrayed. For so vital a necessity to all liv- 
 ing men is TRUTH, that the vilest traitor feels amazed and 
 wronged feels the pillars of the world shaken, when treason 
 recoils on himself. "That Richard Avenel, whom I trusted 
 could so deceive me ! " murmured Randal, and his lip 
 quivered. 
 
 He was still in the midst of the park, when a man with 
 a yellow cockade in his hat, and running fast from the di- 
 rection of the town, overtook him with a letter, on deliver- 
 ing which the messenger, waiting for no answer, hastened 
 back the way he had come. Randal recognized Avenel's 
 hand on the address broke the seal, and read as follows : 
 
 (Private and Confidential.) 
 
 "DEAR LESLIE, Don't be down-hearted you will know 
 to-night or to-morrow why I have had cause to alter my 
 opinion as to the Right Honorable ; and you will see that 
 I could not, as a Family Man, act otherwise than I have
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 1101 
 
 done. Though I have not broken my word to you for you 
 remember that all the help I promised was dependent on 
 my own resignation, and would go for nothing if Leonard 
 resigned instead yet I feel you must think yourself rather 
 bamboozled. But I have been obliged to sacrifice you, from 
 a sense of Family Duty, as you will soon acknowledge. My 
 own nephew is sacrificed also ; and I have sacrificed my own 
 concerns, which require the whole man of me for the next 
 year or two at Screwstown. Se we are all in the same boat, 
 though you may think you are set adrift by yourself. But 
 I don't mean to stay in Parliament. I shall take the Chiltern 
 Hundreds, pretty considerable soon. And if you keep well 
 with the Blues, I'll do my best with the Yellows to let you 
 walk over the course in my stead. For I don't think Leon- 
 ard will want to stand again. And so a word to the wise 
 and you may yet be member for Lansmere. 
 
 "R. A." 
 
 In this letter, Randal, despite all his acuteness, could 
 not detect the honest compunction of the writer. He could 
 at first only look at the worst side of human nature, and 
 fancy that it was a paltry attempt to stifle his just anger 
 and insure his discretion. But, on second thoughts, it 
 struck him that Dick might very naturally be glad to be 
 released to his mill, and get a quid pro quo out of Randal, 
 under the comprehensive title "repayment of expenses." 
 Perhaps Dick was not sorry to wait until Randal's marriage 
 gave him the means to make the repayment. Nay, perhaps 
 Randal had been thrown over for the present, in order to 
 wring from him better terms in a single election. Thus 
 reasoning, he took comfort from his belief in the mercenary 
 motives of another. True, it might be but a short disap- 
 pointment. Before the next Parliament was a month old, 
 he might yet take his seat in it as member for Lansmere. 
 But all would depend on his marriage with the heiress ; he 
 must hasten that. 
 
 Meanwhile it was necessary to knit and gather up all 
 his thought, courage, and presence of mind. How he 
 shrunk from return to Lansmere House from facing Eger- 
 ton, Harley all. But there was no choice. He would 
 have to make it up with the Blues to defend the course he 
 had adopted in the Committee-Room. There, no doubt, 
 was Squire Hazeldean awaiting him with the purchase- 
 money for the lands of Rood there was the Duke di Ser-
 
 M02 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 rano, restored to wealth and honor there was his promised 
 bride, the great heiress, on whom depended all that could 
 raise the needy gentleman into wealth and position. Grad- 
 ually, with the elastic temper that is essential to a systematic 
 schemer, Randal Leslie plucked himself from the pain of 
 brooding over a plot that was defeated, to prepare himself 
 for consummating those that yet seemed so near success. 
 After all, should he fail in regaining Egerton's favor, Eger- 
 ton was of use no more. He might rear his head, and face 
 out what some might call " ingratitude," provided he could 
 but satisfy the Blue Committee. Dull dogs, how could he 
 fail to do that ! He could easily talk over the Machiavellian 
 sage. He should have small difficulty in explaining all to 
 the content of Audley's distant brother, the Squire. Harley 
 alone but Levy had so positively assured him that Harley 
 was not sincerely anxious for Egerton ; and as to the more 
 important explanation relative to Peschiera, surely what 
 had satisfied Violante's father ought to satisfy a man who 
 had no peculiar right to demand explanations at all ; and if 
 these explanations did not satisfy, the onus to disprove them 
 must rest with Harley ; and who or what could contradict 
 Randal's plausible assertions assertions in support of which 
 he himself could summon a witness in Baron Levy ? Thus 
 nerving himself to all that could task his powers, Randal 
 Leslie crossed the threshold of Lansmere House ; and in 
 the hall he found the Baron awaiting him. 
 
 " I can't account," said Levy, " for what has gone so 
 cross in this confounded election. It is L'Estrange that 
 puzzles me ; but I know that he hates Egerton. I know 
 that he will prove that hate by one mode of revenge, if he 
 has lost it in another. But it is well, Randal, that you are 
 secure of Hazeldean's money and the rich heiress's hand ; 
 otherwise " 
 
 " Otherwise, what ? " 
 
 " I should wash my hands of you, man cher / for, in spite 
 of all your cleverness, and all I have tried to do for you, 
 somehow or other I begin to suspect that your talents will 
 never secure your fortune. A carpenter's son beats you in 
 public speaking, and a vulgar mill-owner tricks you in pri- 
 vate negotiation. Decidedly, as yet, Randal Leslie, you are 
 a failure. And, as you so admirably said, ' a man from 
 whom we have nothing to hope or fear, we must blot out 
 of the map of the future.' "
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 
 
 1103 
 
 Randal's answer was cut short by the appearance of the 
 groom of the chambers. 
 
 " My lord is in the saloon, and requests you and Mr. 
 Leslie will do him the honor to join him there." The two 
 gentlemen followed the servant up the broad stairs. 
 
 The saloon formed the centre room of the suite of apart- 
 ments. From its size it was rarely used save on state oc- 
 casions. It had the chilly and formal aspect of rooms re- 
 served for ceremony. 
 
 Riccabocca, Violante, Helen, Mr. Dale, Squire Hazel- 
 dean, and Lord L' Estrange, were grouped together by the 
 cold Florentine marble table, not littered with books and 
 female work, and the endearing signs of habitation, that 
 give a living smile to the face of home ; nothing thereon save 
 a great silver candelabrum, that scarce lighted the spacious 
 room, and brought out the portraits on the walls as a part 
 of the assembly, looking, as portraits do look, with search- 
 ing, curious eyes upon every eye that turns to them. 
 
 But as soon as Randal entered, the Squire detached him- 
 self from the group, and, coming to the defeated candidate, 
 shook hands with him heartily. 
 
 " Cheer up, my boy ; 'tis no shame to be beaten. Lord 
 L'Estrange says you did your best to win, and man can do 
 no more. And I'm glad, Leslie, that we don't meet for 
 our little business till the election is over ; for, after an- 
 noyance, something pleasant is twice as acceptable. I've 
 the money in my pocket. Hush and I say, my dear, dear, 
 dear boy, I cannot find out where Frank is ; but is it really 
 all off with that foreign woman eh ?" 
 
 " Yes, indeed, sir ; I hope so. I'll talk to you about it 
 when we can be alone. We may slip away presently, I 
 trust." 
 
 " I'll tell you a secret scheme of mine and Harry's," said 
 the Squire, in a still low whisper. "We must drive that 
 marchioness, or whatever she is, out of the boy's head, and 
 put a pretty English girl into it instead. That will settle 
 him in life too. And I must try and swallow that bitter 
 pill of the post-obit. Harry makes worse of it than I do, and 
 is so hard on the poor fellow that I've been obliged to take 
 his part. I've no idea of being under petticoat government 
 it is not the way with the Hazeldeans. Well, but to come 
 back to the point whom do you think I mean by the 
 pretty girl ? " 
 
 " Miss Sticktorights ? "
 
 1 104 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 " Zounds, no ! your own little sister, Randal. Sweet 
 pretty face ! Harry liked her from the first, and then you'll 
 be Frank's brother, and your sound head and good heart 
 will keep him right. And as you are going to be married 
 too (you must tell me all about that later), why, we shall 
 have two marriages, perhaps, in the family on the same 
 day." 
 
 Randal's hand grasped the Squire's, and with an emo- 
 tion of human gratitude for we know that, hard to all else, 
 he had natural feelings for his fallen family ; and his neg- 
 lected sister was the one being on earth whom he might 
 almost be said to love. With all his intellectual disdain for 
 honest, simple Frank, he knew no one in the world with 
 whom his young sister could be more secure and happy. 
 Transferred to the roof, and improved by the active kind- 
 ness, of Mrs. Hazeldean blest in the manly affection of 
 one not too refined to censure her own deficiencies of edu- 
 cation what more could he ask for his sister, as he pic- 
 tured her to himself, with her hair hanging over her ears, 
 and her mind running into seed over some trashy novel. 
 But before he could reply, Violante's father came to add his 
 own philosophical consolations to the Squire's downright 
 comfortings. 
 
 " Who could ever count on popular caprice ? The wise 
 of all ages had despised it. In that respect, Horace and 
 Machiavelli were of the same mind," etc., etc. " But," said 
 the Duke, with emphatic kindness, " perhaps your very 
 misfortune here may serve you elsewhere. The female 
 heart is prone to pity, and ever eager to comfort. Besides, 
 if I am recalled to Italy, you will have leisure to come with 
 us, and see the land where, of all others, ambition can be 
 most readily forgotten, even [added the Italian, with a sigh] 
 even by her own sons ! " 
 
 Thus addressed by both Hazeldean and the Duke, Ran- 
 dal recovered his spirits. It was clear that Lord L'Estrange 
 had not conveyed to them any unfavorable impression of 
 his conduct in the Committee-room. While Randal had 
 been thus engaged, Levy had made his way to Harley, 
 who retreated with the Baron into the bay of the great 
 window. 
 
 " Well, my lord, do you comprehend this conduct on 
 the part of Richard Avenel ? He secure Egerton's return ! 
 he ! " 
 
 "What so natural, Baron Levy his own brother-in-law?"
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 1105 
 
 The Baron started, and turned very pale. 
 
 " But how did he know that ? I never told him. I 
 meant indeed " 
 
 " Meant, perhaps, to shame Egerton's pride at the last, 
 by publicly declaring his marriage with a shopkeeper's 
 daughter. A very good revenge still left to you ; but re- 
 venge for what ? A word with you, now, Baron, that our 
 acquaintance is about to close for ever. You know why I 
 have cause for resentment against Egerton. I do but sus- 
 pect yours ; will you make it clear to me ?" 
 
 " My lord, my lord," faltered Baron Levy, " I, too, wooed 
 Nora Avenel as my wife ; I, too, had a happier rival in the 
 haughty worldling who did not appreciate his own felicity ; 
 I, too in a word, some women inspire an affection that 
 mingles with the entire being of a man, and is fused with 
 all the currents of his life-blood ; Nora Avenel was one of 
 those women." 
 
 Harley was startled. This burst of emotion from a man 
 so corrupt and cynical arrested even the scorn he felt for 
 the usurer. Levy soon recovered himself. " But our re- 
 venge is not baffled yet. Egerton, if not already in my 
 power, is still in yours. His election may save him from 
 arrest, but the law has other modes of public exposure and 
 effectual ruin." 
 
 " For the knave, yes as I intimated to you in your own 
 house you who boast of your love to Nora Avenel, and 
 know in your heart that you were her destroyer you who 
 witnessed her marriage, and yet dared to tell her that she 
 was dishonored ! " 
 
 " My lord I how could you know I mean, how think 
 that that " faltered Levy, aghast. 
 
 "Nora Avenel has spoken from her grave," replied 
 Harley, solemnly. " Learn that, wherever man commits a 
 crime, Heaven finds a witness ! " 
 
 " It is on me, then," said Levy, wrestling against a 
 superstitious thrill at his heart " on me that you now con- 
 centrate your vengeance ; and I must meet it as I may. 
 But I have fulfilled my part of our compact. I have obeyed 
 you implicitly and " 
 
 " I will fulfil my part of our bond, and leave you un- 
 disturbed in your wealth." 
 
 " I knew I might trust to your lordship's honor," ex- 
 claimed the usurer, in servile glee. 
 
 " And this vile creature nursed the same passions as 
 
 47
 
 no6 MY NOVEL; OK, 
 
 myself ; and but yesterday we were partners in the same 
 purpose, and influenced by the same thought," muttered 
 Harley to himself. "Yes," he said aloud, "I dare not, 
 Baron Levy, constitute myself your judge. Pursue your own 
 path all roads meet at last before the common tribunal. 
 But you are not yet released from our compact ; you must 
 do some good in spite of yourself. Look yonder, where 
 Randal Leslie stands, smiling secure, between the two 
 clangers he has raised up for himself. And as Randal Les- 
 lie himself has invited me to be his judge, and you are aware 
 that he cited yourself this very day as his witness, here I 
 must expose the guilty f6r here the innocent still live, and 
 need defence." 
 
 Harley turned away, and took his place by the table. 
 " I have wished," said he, raising his voice, " to connect 
 with the triumph of my earliest and dearest friend the hap- 
 piness of others in whose welfare I feel an interest. To 
 you, Alphonso, Duke di Serrano, I now give this despatch, 
 received last evening by a special messenger from the 
 
 Prince Von , announcing your restoration to your lands 
 
 and honors." 
 
 The Squire stared with open mouth. " Rickeybockey a 
 duke ? Why, Jemima's a duchess ! Bless me, she is actual- 
 ly crying ! " And his good heart prompted him to run to 
 his cousin and cheer her up a bit. 
 
 Violante glanced at Harley, and flung herself on her 
 father's breast. Randal involuntarily rose, and moved to 
 the Duke's chair. 
 
 "And you, Mr. Randal Leslie," continued Harley, 
 " though you have lost your election, see before you at this 
 moment such prospects of wealth and happiness, that I shall 
 only have to offer you congratulations to which those that 
 greet Mr. Audley Egerton may well appear lukewarm and 
 insipid, provided you prove that you have not forfeited the 
 right to claim that promise which the Duke di Serrano has 
 accorded to the suitor of his daughter's hand. Some doubts 
 resting on my mind, you have volunteered to dispel them. 
 I have the duke's permission to address to you a few ques- 
 tions, and I now avail myself of your offer to reply to 
 them." 
 
 "Now and here, my lord?" said Randal, glancing 
 round the room, as if deprecating the presence of so many 
 witnesses. 
 
 " Now and here. Nor are those present so strange
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 1107 
 
 to your explanations as your question would imply. Mr. 
 Hazeldean, it so happens that much of what I shall say to 
 Mr. Leslie concerns your son." 
 
 Randal's countenance fell. An uneasy tremor now 
 seized him. 
 
 "My son! Frank? Oh then, of course, Randal will 
 speak out. Speak, my boy ! " 
 
 Randal remained silent. The Duke looked at his work- 
 ing face, and drew away his chair. 
 
 " Young man, can you hesitate ?" said he. " A doubt is 
 expressed which involves your honor." 
 
 " 'Sdeath !" cried the Squire, also gazing on Randal's 
 cowering eye and quivering lip " What are you afraid of ? " 
 
 "Afraid !" said Randal, forced into speech, and with a 
 hollow laugh " afraid ? I ? What of ? I was only won- 
 dering what Lord L'Estrange could mean." 
 
 " I will dispel that wonder at once. Mr. Hazeldean, your 
 son displeased you first by his proposals of marriage to the 
 Marchesa di Negra against your consent ; secondly by a 
 post-obit bond granted to Baron Levy. Did you under- 
 stand from Mr. Randal Leslie that he had opposed or 
 favored the said marriage that he had countenanced or 
 blamed the said post-obit? " 
 
 " Why, of course," cried the Squire, " that he had op- 
 posed both the one and the other." 
 
 "Is it so, Mr. Leslie?" 
 
 " My lord I I my affections for Frank, and my es- 
 teem for his respected father I I " He nerved himself, 
 and went on with firm voice : "Of course I did all I could 
 to dissuade Frank from the marriage ; and as to the post' 
 obit, I know nothing about it." 
 
 " So much at present for this matter. I pass on to the 
 graver one, that affects your engagement with the Duke di 
 Serrano's daughter. I understand from you, Duke, that to 
 save your daughter from the snares of Count di Peschiera, 
 and in the belief that Mr. Leslie shared in your dread of the 
 Count's designs, you, while in exile and in poverty, 
 promised to that gentleman your daughter's hand ? When 
 the probabilities of restoration to your principalities seemed 
 well-nigh certain, you confirmed that promise on learning 
 from Mr. Leslie that he had, however ineffectively, strug- 
 gled to preserve your heiress from a perfidious snare. Is 
 it not so ? " 
 
 " Certainly. Had I succeeded to. a throne, I could not
 
 iioS My NOVEL; OR, 
 
 recall the promise that I had given in penury and banish- 
 ment I could not refuse to him who would have sacrificed 
 worldly ambition in wedding a penniless bride, the reward 
 of his own generosity. My daughter subscribes to my 
 views." 
 
 Violante trembled, and her hands were locked together ; 
 but her gaze was fixed on Harley. 
 
 Mr. Dale wiped his eyes, and thought of the poor refugee 
 feeding on minnows, and preserving himself from debt 
 amongst the shades of the Casino. 
 
 " Your answer becomes you, Duke," resumed Harley. 
 "But should it be proved that Mr. Leslie, instead of wooing 
 the Princess for herself, actually calculated on the receipt 
 of money for transferring her to Count Peschiera instead 
 of saving her from the danger you dreaded, actually sug- 
 gested the snare from whic.h she was delivered would you 
 still deem your honor engaged to " 
 
 " Such a villain ! No, surely not ! " exclaimed the Duke. 
 " But this is a groundless hypothesis ! Speak, Randal." 
 
 " Lord L'Estrange cannot insult me by deeming it other- 
 wise than a groundless hypothesis," said Randal, striving to 
 rear his head. 
 
 " I understand then, Mr. Leslie, that you scornfully re- 
 ject such a supposition ?" 
 
 " Scornfully yes. And," continued Randal, advancing 
 a step, "since the supposition has been made, I demand 
 from Lord L'Estrange, as his equal (for all gentlemen are 
 equals where honor is to be defended at the cost of life), 
 either instant retractation or instant proof." 
 
 " That's the first word you have spoken like a man," 
 cried the Squire. " I have stood my ground myself for a 
 less cause. I have had a ball through my right shoulder." 
 
 " Your demand is just," said Harley, unmoved. " I can- 
 not give the retractation I will produce the proof." 
 
 He rose and rang the bell ; the servant entered, re- 
 ceived his whispered order, and retired. There was a pause 
 painful to all. Randal, however, ran over in his fearful 
 mind what evidence could be brought against him and 
 foresaw none. The folding-doors of the saloon were thrown 
 open, and the servant announced 
 
 THE COUNT DI PESCHIERA. 
 
 A bombshell descending through the roof could not have 
 produced a more startling sensation. Erect, bold, with all 
 the imposing effect of his form and bearing, the Count
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 1109 
 
 strode into the centre of the ring ; and, after a slight bend 
 of haughty courtesy, which comprehended all present, 
 reared up his lofty head, and looked round, with calm in 
 his eye and a curve on his lip the self-assured, magnificent, 
 high-bred Daredevil. 
 
 "Duke di Serrano," said the Count in English, turning 
 toward his astounded kinsman, and in a voice that, slow, 
 clear, and firm, seemed to fill the room, " I returned to 
 England on the receipt of a letter from my Lord L'Estrange, 
 and with a view, it is true, of claiming at his hands the sat- 
 isfaction which men of our birth accord to each other, 
 where affront, from what cause soever, has been given or 
 received. Nay, fair kinswoman," and the Count, with a 
 slight but grave smile, bowed to Violante, who had uttered 
 a faint cry " that intention is abandoned. If I have adopt- 
 ed too lightly the old courtly maxim, that ' all stratagems 
 are fair in love,' I am bound also to yield to my Lord L'Es- 
 trange's arguments, that the counter stratagems must be 
 fair also. And, after all, it becomes me better to laugh at 
 my own sorry figure in defeat, than to confess myself 
 gravely mortified by an ingenuity more successful than my 
 own." The Count paused, and his eye lightened with a 
 sinister fire, which ill suited the raillery of his tone, and the 
 polished ease of his bearing. " Ma foi ! " he continued, " it 
 is permitted me to speak thus, since at least I have given 
 proofs of my indifference to danger, and my good fortune 
 when exposed to it. Within the last six years I have had 
 the honor to fight nine duels, and the regret to wound five, 
 and dismiss from the world four, as gallant and worthy gen- 
 tlemen as ever the sun shone upon." 
 
 " Monster ! " faltered the Parson. 
 
 The Squire stared aghast, and mechanically rubbed the 
 shoulder which had been lacerated by Captain Dashmore's 
 bullet. Randal's pale face grew yet more pale, and the eye 
 he had fixed upon the Count's hardy visage quailed and 
 fell. 
 
 " But," resumed the Count, with a graceful wave of the 
 hand, " I have to thank my Lord L'Estrange for reminding 
 me that a man whose courage is above suspicion, is privi- 
 leged not only to apologize if he has injured another, but to 
 accompany apology with atonement. Duke di Serrano, it 
 is for that purpose that I am here. My lord, you have sig- 
 nified your wish to ask me some questions of serious im-
 
 1 1 io MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 port as regards the Duke and his daughter I will answer 
 them without reserve." 
 
 "Monsieur le Comte" said Harley, "availing myself of 
 your courtesy, I presume to inquire who informed you that 
 this young lady was a guest under my father's roof ?" 
 
 " My informant stands yonder Mr. Randal. Leslie. 
 And I call upon Baron Levy to confirm my statement." 
 
 " It is true," said the Baron, slowly, and as if over- 
 mastered by the tone and mien of an imperious chieftain. 
 
 There came a low sound like a hiss from Randal's livid 
 lips. 
 
 " And was Mr. Leslie acquainted with your project for 
 securing the person and hand of your young kinswoman ? " 
 
 "Certainly and Baron Levy knows it." The Baron 
 bowed assent. " Permit me to add for it is due to a lady 
 nearly related to myself that it was, as I have since learned, 
 certain erroneous representations made to her by Mr. Les- 
 lie, which alone induced that lady, after my own arguments 
 had failed, to lend her aid to a project which otherwise she 
 would have condemned as strongly as, Duke di Serrano, I 
 now with unfeigned sincerity do myself condemn it." 
 
 There was about the Count, as he thus spoke, so much 
 of that personal dignity which, whether natural or artificial, 
 imposes for the moment upon human judgment a dignity 
 so supported by the singular advantages of his superb stat- 
 ure, his handsome countenance, his patrician air, that the 
 Duke, moved by his good heart, extended his hand to the 
 perfidious kinsman, and forgot all the Machiavellian wisdom 
 which should have told him how little a man of the Count's 
 hardened profligacy was likely to be influenced by any 
 purer motives, whether to frank confession or to manly re- 
 pentance. The Count took the hand thus extended to him, 
 and bowed his face, perhaps to conceal the smile which 
 would have betrayed his secret soul. Randal still remained 
 mute, and pale as death. His tongue clove to his mouth. 
 He felt that all present were shrinking from his side. At 
 last, with a violent effort, he faltered out, in broken sen- 
 tences 
 
 " A charge so sudden may well may well confound me. 
 But but who can credit it ? Both the law and common 
 sense presuppose some motive for a criminal action ; what 
 could be my motive here ? I myself the suitor for the 
 hand of the Duke's daughter / betray her ! Absurd ab- 
 surd. Duke Duke, I put it to your own knowledge of
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. mi 
 
 mankind who ever goes thus against his own interest 
 and and his own heart ? " 
 
 This appeal, however feebly made, was not without 
 effect on the philosopher. "That is true," aid the Duke, 
 dropping his kinsman's hand ; '" I see no motive," 
 
 " Perhaps," said Harley, " Baron Levy may here en- 
 lighten us. Do you know of any motive of self-interest 
 that could have actuated Mr. Leslie in assisting the Count's 
 schemes ? " 
 
 Levy hesitated. The Count took up the word. "Par- 
 dieu ! " said he, in his clear tone of determination and will 
 " Pardieu ! I can have no doubt thrown on my assertion, 
 least of all by those who know of its truth ; and I call upon 
 you, Baron Levy, to state whether, in case of my marriage 
 with the Duke's daughter, I had not agreed to present my 
 sister with a sum, to which she alleged some ancient claim, 
 and which would have passed through your hands ? " 
 
 "Certainly, that is true," said the Baron. 
 
 "And would Mr. Leslie have benefited by any portion 
 of that sum ? " 
 
 Levy paused again. 
 
 " Speak, sir," said the Count, frowning. 
 
 "The fact is," said the Baron, "that Mr. Leslie was 
 anxious to complete a purchase of certain estates that had 
 once belonged to his family, and that the Count's marriage 
 with the Signorina, and his sister's marriage with Mr. Hazel- 
 dean, would have enabled me to accommodate Mr. Leslie 
 with a loan to effect that purchase." 
 
 "What! what!" exclaimed the Squire, hastily button- 
 ing his breast-pocket with one hand, while he seized Ran- 
 dal's arm with the other " my son's marriage ! You lent 
 yourself to that, too ? Don't look so like a lashed hound ! 
 Speak out like a man, if man you be ! " 
 
 " Lent himself to that, my good sir ! " said the Count. 
 " Do you suppose that the Marchesa di Negra could have 
 condescended to an alliance with a Mr. Hazeldean ? " 
 
 " Condescended ! a Hazeldean of Hazeldean ! " exclaimed 
 the Squire, turning fiercely, and half-choked with indig- 
 nation. 
 
 " Unless," continued the Count, imperturbably, " she had 
 been compelled by circumstances to do that said Mr. Hazel- 
 dean the honor to accept a pecuniary accommodation, 
 which she had no other mode to discharge. And here, sir, 
 the family of Hazeldean, I am bound to say, owe a great
 
 1 1 12 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 debt of gratitude to Mr. Leslie ; for it was he who most 
 forcibly represented to her the necessity for this mesalliance : 
 and it was he, I believe, who suggested to my friend the 
 Baron the mode by which Mr. Hazeldean was best enabled 
 to afford the accommodation my sister deigned to accept." 
 
 "Mode! the post-obit!" ejaculated the Squire, relin- 
 quishing his hold of Randal, to lay his gripe upon Levy. 
 
 The Baron shrugged his shoulders. " Any friend of 
 Mr. Frank Hazeldean's would have recommended the same, 
 as the most economical mode of raising money." 
 
 Parson Dale, who had at first been more shocked than 
 any one present at these gradual revelations of Randal's 
 treachery, now turning his eyes toward the young man, 
 was so seized with commiseration at the sight of Randal's 
 face, that he laid his hand on Harley's arm, and whispered 
 him " Look, look at that countenance ! and one so young ! 
 Spare him, spare him ! " 
 
 " Mr. Leslie," said Harley, in softened tones, "believe 
 me that nothing short of justice to the Duke di Serrano, 
 justice, even to my young friend Mr. Hazeldean, has 
 compelled me to this painful duty. Here let all enquiry 
 terminate." 
 
 " And," said the Count, with exquisite blandness, "since 
 I have been informed by my Lord L' Estrange, that Mr. 
 Leslie has represented as a serious act on his part that 
 personal challenge to myself which I understood was but a 
 pleasant and amicable arrangement in our baffled scheme 
 let me assure Mr. Leslie, that if he be not satisfied with 
 the regret that I now express for the leading share I have 
 taken in these disclosures, I am wholly at Mr. Leslie's ser- 
 vice." 
 
 "Peace, homicide," cried the Parson, shuddering; and 
 he glided to the side of the detected sinner, from whom all 
 else had recoiled in loathing. 
 
 Craft against craft, talent against talent, treason against 
 treason in all this Randal Leslie would have risen supe- 
 rior to Giulio di Peschiera. But what now crushed him, 
 was not the superior intellect it was the sheer brute power 
 of audacity and nerve. Here stood the careless, unblush- 
 ing villain, making light of his guilt, carrying it away from 
 disgust itself, with resolute look and front erect. There 
 stood the abler, subtler, profounder criminal cowering, 
 abject, pitiful ; the power of mere intellectual knowledge 
 shivered into pieces against the brazen metal with which
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. IHJ 
 
 the accident of constitution often arms some ignobler 
 nature. 
 
 The contrast was striking, and implied that truth so 
 universally felt, yet so little acknowledged in actual life, 
 that men with audacity and force of character can subdue 
 and paralyze those far superior to themselves in ability 
 and intelligence. It was these qualities which made Pes- 
 chiera Randal's master ; nay, the very physical attributes 
 of the Count, his very voice and form, his bold front and 
 unshrinking eye, overpowered the acuter mind of the re- 
 fining schemer, as in a popular assembly some burly Cleon 
 cows into timorous silence every dissentient sage. But 
 Randal turned in sullen impatience from the Parson's 
 whisper, that breathed comfort or urged repentance ; and 
 at length said, with clearer tones than he had yet mus- 
 tered 
 
 " It is not a personal conflict with the Count di Pes- 
 chiera that can vindicate my honor ; and I disdain to de- 
 fend myself against the accusations of a usurer, and of a 
 man who " 
 
 " Monsieur ! " said the Count, drawing himself up. 
 
 "A man who," persisted Randal, though he trembled 
 visibly, " by h.is own confession, was himself guilty of all 
 the schemes in which he would represent me as his accom- 
 plice, and who now, not clearing himself, would yet convict 
 another " 
 
 " Cher petit Monsieur ! " said the Count, with his grand 
 air of disdain, " when men like me make use of men like 
 you, we reward them for a service if rendered, or discard 
 them if the service be not done ; and if I condescend to 
 confess and apologize for any act I have committed, surely 
 Mr. Randal Leslie might do the same without disparage- 
 ment to his dignity. But I should never, sir, have taken 
 the trouble to appear against you, had you not, as I learn, 
 pretended to the hand of the lady whom I had hoped, with 
 less presumption, to call my bride ; and in this, how can I 
 tell that you have not tricked and betrayed me ? Is there 
 anything in our past acquaintance that warrants me to be- 
 lieve that, instead of serving me, you sought but to serve 
 yourself ? Be that as it may, I had but one mode of repair- 
 ing to the head of mv house the wrongs I have done him 
 and that was by saving his daughter from a derogatory alli- 
 ance with an impostor who had abetted my schemes for 
 hire, and who now would filch for himself their fruit. " 
 
 47*
 
 III4 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 " Duke ! " exclaimed Randal. 
 
 The Duke turned his back. Randal extended his hands 
 to the Squire. " Mr Hazeldean what ? you, too, condemn 
 me, and unheard ? " 
 
 " Unheard ! zounds, no ! If you have anything to say, 
 speak truth, and shame the devil." 
 
 "label Frank's marriage! I sanction the post-obit! 
 Oh ! " cried Randal, clinging to a straw, " if Frank himself 
 were but here ! " 
 
 Harley's compassion vanished before this sustained 
 hypocrisy. 
 
 " You wish for the presence of Frank Hazeldean. It 
 is just." Harley opened the door of the inner room, and 
 Frank appeared at the entrance. 
 
 " My son my son ! " cried the Squire, rushing forward, 
 and clasping Frank to his broad fatherly breast. 
 
 This affecting incident gave a sudden change, to the feel- 
 ings of the audience, and for a moment Randal himself 
 was forgotten. The young man seized that moment. Re- 
 prieved, as it were, from the glare of contemptuous accus- 
 ing eyes slowly he crept to the door, slowly and noiselessly 
 as the viper, when it is wounded, drops its crest and glides 
 writhing through the grass. Levy followepl him to the 
 threshold, and whispered in his ear 
 
 " I could not help it you would have done the same by 
 me. You see you have failed in everything ; and when a 
 man fails completely, we both agreed that we must give 
 him up altogether." 
 
 Randal said not a word, and the Baron marked his 
 shadow fall on the broad stairs, stealing down, down, step 
 after step, till it faded from the stones. 
 
 " But he was of some use," muttered Levy. " His 
 treachery and his exposure will gall the childless Egerton. 
 Some little revenge still ! " 
 
 The Count touched the arm of the musing usurer 
 
 "J'ai bien jout mon role, riest-ce pas ? " (I have well 
 played my part, have I not ?) 
 
 " Your part ! Ah ! but, my dear Count, I do not quite 
 understand it." 
 
 " MafoijQ\\ are passably dull. I had just been landed 
 in France, when a letter from L'Estrange reached me. It 
 was couched as an invitation, which I interpreted to the 
 duello. Such invitations I never refuse. I replied. I came 
 hither took my lodgings at an inn. My lord seeks me
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 1115 
 
 last night. I begin in the tone you may suppose. Pardieu ! 
 he is clever, milord! He shows me a letter from the 
 
 Prince Von , Alphonso's recall, my own banishment. 
 
 He places before me, but with admirable suavity, the option 
 of beggary and ruin, or an honorable claim on Alphonso's 
 gratitude. And as for that petit Monsieur, do you think I 
 could quietly contemplate my own tool's enjoyment of all 
 I had lost myself ? Nay, more, if that young Harpagon 
 were Alphonso's son-in-law, could the Duke have a whis- 
 perer at his ear more fatal to my own interests ? To be 
 brief, I saw at a glance my best course. I have adopted it. 
 The difficulty was to extricate myself as became a man ' de 
 sang et de feu. 1 If I have done so, congratulate me. Al- 
 phonso has taken my hand, and I now leave it to him to 
 attend to my fortunes, and clear up my repute." 
 
 " If you are going to London," said Levy, " my carriage, 
 ere this, must be at the door, and I shall be proud to offer 
 you a seat, and converse with you on your prospects. But, 
 peste ! mon cher, your fall has been from a great height, and 
 any other man would have broken his bones." 
 
 " Strength is ever light," said the Count, smiling ; and 
 it does not fall ; it leaps down and rebounds." 
 
 Levy looked at the Count, and blamed himself for hav- 
 ing disparaged Peschiera and overrated Randal. 
 
 While this conference went on, Harley was by Violante's 
 side. 
 
 " I have kept my promise to you," said he, with a kind 
 of tender humility. "Are you still so severe on me ? " 
 
 " Ah ! " answered Violante, gazing on his noble brow, 
 with all a woman's pride in her eloquent, admiring eyes 
 "I have heard from Mr. Dale that you have achieved a con- 
 quest over yourself, which makes me ashamed to think that 
 I presumed to doubt how your heart would speak when a 
 moment of wrath (though of wrath so just) had passed 
 away." 
 
 " No, Violante do not acquit me yet ; witness my 
 revenge (for I have not foregone it), and then let my heart 
 speak, and breathe its prayer that the angel voice, which it 
 now beats to hear, may still be its guardian monitor." 
 
 " What is this ? " cried an amazed voice ; and Harley, 
 turning round, saw that the Duke was by his side ; and, 
 glancing with ludicrous surprise, now to Harley, now to 
 Violante, " Am I to understand that you "
 
 ni6 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 " Have freed you from one suitor for this dear hand, to 
 become, myself, your petitioner ! " 
 
 " Corpo di JBacco ! " cried the sage, almost embracing 
 Harley, " this, indeed, is joyful news. But I must not 
 again make a rash pledge not again force my child's in- 
 clinations. And Violante, you see, is running away." 
 
 The Duke stretched out his arm, and detained his child. 
 He drew her to his breast, and whispered in her ear. 
 Violante blushed crimson, and rested her head on his 
 shoulder. Harley eagerly pressed forward. 
 
 "There," said the Duke, joining Harley's hand with his 
 daughter's I don't think I shall hear much more of the 
 convent ; but anything of this sort I never suspected. If 
 there be a language in the world for which there is no 
 lexicon nor grammar, it is that which a woman thinks in, 
 but never speaks." 
 
 " It is all that is left of the language spoken in Paradise," 
 said Harley. 
 
 " In the dialogue between Eve and the serpent yes," 
 quoth the incorrigible sage. "But who comes here? our 
 friend Leonard." 
 
 Leonard now entered the room ; but Harley could scarce- 
 ly greet him before he was interrupted by the Count. 
 
 " Milord" said Peschiera, beckoning him aside, I have 
 fulfilled my promise, and I will now leave your roof. Baron 
 Levy returns to London, and offers-me a seat in his carnage, 
 which is already, I believe, at your door. The Duke and 
 his daughter will readily forgive me, if I do not ceremon- 
 iously bid them farewell. In our altered positions, it does 
 not become me too intrusively to claim kindred ; it became 
 me only to remove, as I trust I have done, a barrier against 
 the claim. If you approve my conduct, you will state your 
 own opinion to the Duke." With a profound salutation, 
 the Count turned to depart ; nor did Harley attempt to stay 
 him, but attended him down the stairs with polite formality. 
 
 " Remember only, my lord, that I solicit nothing. I may 
 allow myself to accept. Voilatout" He bowed again, with 
 the inimitable grace of the old regime, and stepped into the 
 Baron's travelling-carriage. 
 
 Levy, who had lingered behind, paused to accost 
 L' Estrange. 
 
 "Your lordship will explain to Mr. Egerton how his 
 adopted son deserved his esteem, and repaid his kindness. 
 For the rest, though you have bought up the more pressing
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 1117 
 
 and immediate demands on Mr. Egerton, I fear that even 
 your fortune will not enable you to clear those liabilities, 
 which will leave him, perhaps, a pauper!" 
 
 " Baron Levy," said Harley, abruptly, "if I have forgiven 
 Mr. Egerton, cannot you too forgive ? Me he has wronged 
 you have wronged him and more foully." 
 
 "No, my lord, I cannot forgive him. You he has never 
 humiliated you he has never employed for his wants, and 
 scorned as his companion. You have never known what it 
 is to start in life with one whose fortunes were equal to your 
 own, whose talents were not superior. Look you, Lord 
 L'Estrange in spite of this difference between me and Eger- 
 ton, that he has squandered the wealth that he gained with- 
 out effort, while I have converted the follies of others into 
 my own ample revenues the spendthrift in his penury has 
 the respect and position which millions cannot bestow upon 
 me. You would say that I am a usurer, and he is a states- 
 man. But do you know what I should have been, had I 
 not been born the natural son of a peer ? Can you guess 
 what I should have been, if Nora Avenel had been my wife ? 
 The blot on my birth, and the blight on my youth and the 
 knowledge that he who was rising every year into the rank 
 which entitled him to reject me as a guest at his table he 
 whom the world called the model of a gentleman was a 
 coward and a liar to the friend of his youth ; all this made 
 me look on the world with contempt ; and, despising Audley 
 Egerton, I yet hated him and envied. You, whom he 
 wronged, stretch your hand as before to the great states- 
 man ; from mv touch you would shrink as pollution. My 
 lord, you may forgive him whom you love and pity ; I can- 
 not forgive him whom I scorn and envy. Pardon my pro- 
 lixity. I now quit your house." 
 
 The Baron moved a step then turning back, said with 
 a withering sneer 
 
 " But you will tell Mr. Egerton how I helped to expose 
 the son he adopted ! I thought of the childless man when 
 your lordship imagined I was but in fear of your threats. 
 Ha ! ha! that will sting." 
 
 The Baron gnashed his teeth as, hastily entering the 
 carriage, he drew down the blinds. The post-boys cracked 
 their whips, and the wheels rolled away. 
 
 "Who can judge," thought Harley, "through what 
 modes retribution comes home to the breast ? That man is 
 chastised in his wealth ever gnawed by desire for what his
 
 in8 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 wealth cannot buy ! " He roused himself, cleared his brow, 
 as from a thought that darkened and troubled ; and, enter- 
 ing the saloon, laid his hand upon Leonard's shoulder, and 
 looked, rejoicing, into the poet's mild, honest, lustrous eyes. 
 " Leonard," said he, gently, your hour is come at last." 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV. 
 
 AUDLEY EGERTON was alone in his apartment. A heavy 
 sleep had come over him, shortly after Harley and Randal 
 had left the house in the early morning ; and that sleep con- 
 tinued till late in the day. All the while the town of Lans- 
 mere had been distracted in his cause all the while so 
 many tumultuous passions had run riot in the contest that 
 was to close or re-open, for the statesman's ambition, the 
 Janus gates of political war the object of so many fears 
 and hopes, schemes and counter-schemes, had slumbered 
 quietly as an infant in the cradle. He woke but in time to 
 receive Harley's despatch, announcing the success of his 
 election ; and adding, " Before the night you shall embrace 
 your son. Do not join us below when I return. Keep 
 calm we will come to you." 
 
 In fact, though not aware of the dread nature of Aud- 
 ley's complaint, with its warning symptons, Lord L'Es- 
 trange wished to spare to his friend the scene of Randal's 
 exposure. 
 
 On the receipt of that letter, Egerton rose. At the 
 prospect of seeing his son Nora's son the very memory 
 of his disease vanished. The poor, weary, over-labored 
 heart indeed beat loud, and with many a jerk and spasm. 
 He heeded it not. The victory, that restored him to the 
 sole life for which he had hitherto cared to live, was clean 
 forgotten. Nature claimed her own claimed it in scorn of 
 death, and in oblivion of renown. 
 
 There sat the man, dressed with his habitual precision ; 
 the black coat, buttoned across the broad breast ; his 
 countenance, so mechanically habituated to self-control, 
 still revealing little of emotion, though the sickly flush 
 came and went on the bronzed cheek, and the eye watched 
 the hand of the clock, and the ear hungered for a foot- 
 tread along the corridor. At length the sound was heard
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 1119 
 
 steps many steps. He sprang to his feet he stood 
 on the hearth. Was the hearth to be solitary no more ? 
 Harley entered first. Egerton's eyes rested on him eagerly 
 for a moment, and strained onward across the threshold. 
 Leonard came next Leonard Fairfield, whom he had seen 
 as his opponent ! He began to suspect to conjecture to 
 see the mother's tender eyes in the son's manly face. In- 
 voluntarily he opened his arms ; but, Leonard remaining 
 still, let them fall with a deep sigh, and fancied himself 
 deceived. 
 
 " Friend," said Harley, " I give to you a son proved in 
 adversity, and who has fought his own way to fame. 
 Leonard, in the man to whom I prayed you to sacrifice 
 your own ambition, of whom you have spoken with such 
 worthy praise, whose career of honor you have promoted, 
 and whose life unsatisfied by those honors, you will 
 soothe with your filial love behold the husband of Nora 
 Avenel ! Kneel to your father ! O Audley, embrace your 
 son ! " 
 
 " Here here," exclaimed Egerton, as Leonard bent his 
 knee " here to my heart ! Look at me with those eyes ! 
 kindly, forgivingly ; they are your mother's ! " His proud 
 head sunk on his son's shoulder. 
 
 " But this is not enough," said Harley, leading Helen, 
 and placing her by Leonard's side ; " you must open your 
 heart for more. Take into its folds my sweet ward and 
 daughter. What is a home without the smile of woman ? 
 They have loved each other from children. Audley, yours 
 be the hand to join yours be the lips to bless." 
 
 Leonard started anxiously. " Oh, sir ! oh, my father ! 
 this generous sacrifice may not be ; for he he who has 
 saved me for this surpassing joy he too loves her ! " 
 
 " Nay, Leonard," said Harley, smiling, " I am not so 
 neglectful of myself. Another home woos you, Audley. 
 He whom you long so vainly sought to reconcile to life, 
 exchanging mournful dreams for happy duties he, too, 
 presents you to his bride. Love her for my sake for your 
 own. She it is, not I, who presides over this hallowed re- 
 union. But for her, I should have been a blinded, vindic- 
 tive, guilty, repentant man ; and " Violante's soft hand 
 
 was on his lips. 
 
 " Thus," said the Parson, with mild solemnity, " man 
 finds that the Savior's precepts, ' Let not the sun go down 
 upon thy wrath,' and ' Love one another,' are clues that
 
 1 120 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 conduct us through the labyrinth of human life, when the 
 schemes of fraud and hate snap asunder, and leave us lost 
 amidst the maze." 
 
 Egerton reared his head, as if to answer ; and all pre- 
 sent were struck and appalled by the sudden change that 
 had come over his countenance. There was a film upon 
 the eye a shadow on the aspect ; the words failed his lips 
 he sunk on the seat beside him. The left hand rested 
 droopingly upon the piles of public papers and official 
 documents, and the fingers played with them, as the bed- 
 ridden sufferer plays with the coverlid he will soon exchange 
 for the winding-sheet. But his right hand seemed to feel, 
 as through the dark, for the recovered son ; and having 
 touched what it sought, feebly drew Leonard near and 
 nearer. Alas ! that blissful PRIVATE LIFE that close centre 
 round the core of being in the individual man so long 
 missed and pined for slipped from him, as it were, the 
 moment it reappeared ; hurried away, as the circle on the 
 ocean, which is scarce seen ere it vanishes amidst infinity. 
 Suddenly both hands were still ; the head fell back. Joy 
 had burst asunder the last ligaments, so fretted away in 
 unrevealing sorrow. Afar, their sound borne into that 
 room, the joy-bells were pealing triumph ; mobs roaring 
 out huzzas ; the weak cry of John Avenel might be blent in 
 those shouts, as the drunken zealots reeled by his cottage- 
 door, and startled the screaming ravens that wheeled round 
 the hollow oak. The boom which is sent from the waves 
 on the surface of life, while the deeps are so noiseless in 
 their march, was wafted on the wintry air into the chamber 
 of the statesman it honored, and over the grass sighing low 
 upon Nora's grave. But there was one in the chamber, as 
 in the grave, for whom the boom on the wave had no 
 sound, and the march of the deep had no tide. Amidst 
 promises of home, and union, and peace, and fame, Death 
 strode into the household ring, and seating itself, calm and 
 still, looked life-like ; warm hearts throbbing round it ; 
 lofty hopes fluttering upward ; Love kneeling at its feet ; 
 Religion, with lifted finger, standing by its side.
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 1121 
 
 FINAL CHAPTER. 
 
 SCENE. The Hall in the Old Tower of CAPTAIN ROLAND DE 
 
 CAXTON. 
 
 " BUT you have not done ?" said Augustine Caxton. 
 
 PISISTRATUS. What remains to do ? 
 
 MR. CAXTON. What! why the Final Chapter! the 
 last news you can give us of those whom you have intro- 
 duced to our liking or dislike. 
 
 PISISTRATUS. Surely it is more dramatic to close the 
 work with a scene that completes the main designs of the 
 plot, and leave it to the prophetic imagination of all whose 
 flattering curiosity is still not wholly satisfied, to trace the 
 streams of each several existence, when they branch off 
 again from the lake in which their waters converge, and by 
 which the sibyl has confirmed and made clear the decree, 
 that " Conduct is Fate." 
 
 MR. CAXTON. More dramatic, I grant ; but you have 
 not written the drama. A novelist should be a comfortable, 
 garrulous, communicative, gossiping fortune-teller ; not a 
 grim, laconical, oracular sibyl. I like a novel that adopts 
 all the old-fashioned customs prescribed to its art by the 
 rules of the Masters, more especially a novel which you style 
 " My Novel, "par emphasis. 
 
 CAPTAIN ROLAND. A most vague and impracticable 
 title, " My Novel." It must really be changed before the 
 work goes in due form to the public. 
 
 MR. SQUILLS. Certainly the present title cannot be even 
 pronounced by many without inflicting a shock upon their 
 nervous system. Do you think, for instance, that my friend, 
 Lady Priscilla Graves who is a great novel reader, indeed, 
 but holds all female writers, unfeminine deserters to the 
 standard of Man could ever come out with, " Pray, sir, 
 have you had time to look at MY Novel ? " She would 
 rather die first. And yet to be silent altogether on the 
 latest acquisition to the circulating-libraries, would bring 
 on a functional derangement of her ladyship's organs of 
 speech. Or how could pretty Miss Dulcet all sentiment, 
 it is true, but all bashful timidity appal Captain Smirk
 
 1 122 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 from proposing, with, " Did you not think the Parson's ser- 
 mon a little too dry in MY Novel ?" It will require a face 
 of brass, or at least a long course of citrate of iron, before 
 a respectable lady or unassuming young gentleman, with a 
 proper dread of being taken for scribblers, could electrify a 
 socialcircle with, "The reviewers don't do justice to the ex- 
 cellent things in MY Novel." 
 
 CAPTAIN ROLAND. Awful consequences, indeed, may 
 arise from the mistakes such a title' gives rise to. Counsel- 
 lor Digwell, for instance a lawyer of literary tastes, but 
 whose career at the bar was long delayed by an unjust sus- 
 picion amongst the attorneys that he had written a " Phil- 
 osophical Essay " imagine such a man excusing himself for 
 being late at a dinner of big-wigs, with, " I could not get 
 away from MY Novel." It would be his professional ruin ! 
 I am not fond of lawyers in general, but still I would not be 
 a party to taking the bread out of the mouth of those with 
 a family ; and Digwell has children the tenth an innocent 
 baby in arms. 
 
 MR. CAXTON. As to Digwell in particular, and lawyers 
 in general, they are too accustomed to circumlocution, to 
 expose themselves to the danger your kind heart appre- 
 hends ; but I allow that a shy scholar like myself, or a grave 
 college tutor, might be a little put to the blush if he were 
 to blurt forth inadvertently with " Don't waste your time 
 over trash like MY Novel." And that thought presents to 
 us another and more pleasing view of this critical question. 
 The title you condemn places the work under universal 
 protection. Lives there a man or a woman so dead to self- 
 love as to say, "What contemptible stuff is MY Novel ?" 
 Would he or she not rather be impelled by that strong im- 
 pulse of an honorable and virtuous heart, which moves us 
 to stand as well as we can with our friends, to say, ''Allow 
 that there is really a good thing now and then in MY 
 Novel." Moreover, as a novel aspires to embrace most of 
 the interests or the passions that agitate mankind to gen- 
 eralize, as it were, the details, of life that come home to us 
 all so, in reality, the title denotes that, if it be such as the 
 author may not unworthily call his Novel, it must also be 
 such as the reader, whoever he be, may appropriate in part 
 to himself, representing his own ideas expressing his own 
 experience reflecting, if not in full, at least in profile, his 
 own personal identity. Thus, when we glance at the look- 
 ing-glass in another man's room, our likeness for the mo-
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 1123 
 
 ment appropriates the mirror ; and according to the humor 
 in which we are, or the state of our spirits and health, we 
 say to ourselves, "Bilious and yellow! I might as well 
 take care of my diet ! " Or, " Well, I've half a mind to 
 propose to dear Jane ; I'm not such an ill-looking dog as I 
 thought for ! " Still, whatever result from that glance at 
 the mirror, we never doubt that 'tis our likeness we see ; 
 and each says to the phantom reflection, " Thou art my- 
 self," though the mere article of furniture that gives the 
 reflection belongs to another. It is my likeness if it be his 
 glass. And a narrative that is true to the Varieties of Life 
 is Every Man's Novel, no matter from what shores, by 
 what rivers, by what bays, in what pits, were extracted the 
 sands and the silex, the pearl-ash, the nitre and quick- 
 silver, which form its materials ; no matter who the crafts- 
 man who fashioned its form ; no matter who the vender 
 that sold, or the customer who bought ; still if, I but recog- 
 nized some trait of myself, 'tis my likeness that makes it 
 "MY Novel." 
 
 MR. SQUILLS (puzzled, and therefore admiring). Subtle, 
 sir very subtle. Fine organ of Comparison in Mr. Caxton's 
 head, and much called into play this evening. 
 
 MR. CAXTON (benignly). Finally, the author, by this 
 most admirable and much-signifying title, dispenses with all 
 necessity of preface. He need insinuate no merits he need 
 extenuate no faults ; for, by calling his works thus curtly 
 "My Novel," he doth delicately imply that it is no use 
 wasting talk about faults or merits. 
 
 PISISTRATUS (amazed). How is that, sir ? 
 
 MR. CAXTON. What so clear ? You imply that, though 
 a better novel may be written by others, you do not expect 
 to write a novel to which, taken as a novel, you would more 
 decisively and unblushingly prefix that voucher of personal 
 authorship and identity conveyed in the mono-syllable 
 " My." And if you have written your best, let it be ever so 
 bad, what can any man of candor and integrity require more 
 from you ? Perhaps you will say that, if you had lived two 
 thousand years ago, you might have called it The Novel, or 
 the Golden Novel, as Lucius calls his story "The Ass ;" and 
 Apuleius, to distinguish his own more elaborate Ass from 
 all Asses preceding it, called his tale " The Golden Ass." 
 But living in the present day, such a designation implying 
 a merit in general, not the partial and limited merit corre- 
 sponding only with your individual abilities would be pre-
 
 1 124 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 sumptuous and offensive. True I here anticipate the 
 observation I see Squills is about to make 
 
 SQUILLS. I, sir ? 
 
 MR. CAXTON. You would say that, as Scarron called 
 his work of fiction "The Comic Novel," so Pisistratus might 
 have called his "The Serious Novel," or "The Tragic 
 Novel." But, Squills, that title would not have been in- 
 viting nor appropriate, and would have been exposed to 
 comparison with Scarron, who, being dead, is inimitable. 
 Wherefore to put the question on the irrefragable basis of 
 mathematics wherefore, as A B, " My Novel," is not equal to 
 B C, " The Golden Novel," nor to D E, " The Serious or 
 Tragic Novel," it follows, that A B, " My Novel," is equal to 
 P C, "Pisistratus Caxton," and P C, "'Pisistratus Caxton," 
 must therefore be just equal, neither more nor less, to A B, 
 " My Novel," which was to be demonstrated. [My father 
 looked round triumphantly, and observing that Squills was 
 dumb-founded, and the rest of his audience posed, he 
 added mildly] 
 
 " And so now, non quieta tnovere, proceed with the Final 
 Chapter, and tell us first what became of that youthful 
 Giles Overreach, who was himself his own Marrall ? " 
 
 "Ay!" said the Captain, "what became of Randal 
 Leslie ? Did he repent and reform ? " 
 
 " Nay," quoth my father, with a mournful shake of the 
 head, "you can regulate the warm tide of wild passion 
 you can light into virtue the dark errors of ignorance ; but 
 where the force of the brain does but clog the free action of 
 the heart where you have to deal, not with ignorance mis- 
 led, but intelligence corrupted small hope of reform ; for 
 reform here will need reorganization. I have somewhere 
 read (perhaps in Hebrew tradition) that of the 'two orders 
 of fallen spirits the Angels of Love, and the Angels of 
 Knowledge the first missed the stars they had lost, and 
 wandered back through the darkness, one by one into 
 heaven ; but the last, lighted on by their own lurid splen- 
 dors, said, ' Wherever we go, there is heaven ! ' And deeper 
 and lower descending, lost their shape and their nature, 
 till, deformed and obscene, the bottomless pit closed around 
 them." 
 
 MR. SQUILLS. I should not have thought, Mr. Caxton, 
 that a book-man like you would be thus severe upon 
 Knowledge. 
 
 MR. CAXTON (in wrath). Severe upon knowledge !
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 1125 
 
 O Squills Squills Squills ! Knowledge perverted is 
 knowledge no longer. Vinegar, which, exposed to the sun, 
 breeds small serpents, or at best slimy eels, not comestible, 
 once was wine. If i say to my grand-children, " Don't 
 drink that sour stuff, which the sun itself fills with reptiles ; " 
 does that prove me a foe to sound sherry ? Squills, if you 
 had but received a scholastic education, you would know 
 the wise maxim that saith, "All things the worst are cor- 
 ruptions from things originally designed as the best." 
 Has not freedom bred anarchy, and religion fanaticism ? 
 And if I blame Marat calling for blood, or Dominic rack- 
 ing a heretic, am I severe on the religion that canonized 
 Francis de Sales, or the freedom that immortalized Thrasy- 
 bulus ? 
 
 Mr. Squills, dreading a catalogue of all the saints in the 
 calendar, and an epitome of ancient history, exclaimed 
 eagerly, "Enough, sir I am convinced ! " 
 
 MR. CAXTON. Moreover, I have thought it a natural 
 stroke of art in Pisistratus, to keep Randal Leslie, in his 
 progress toward the rot of the intellect unwholesomely 
 refined, free from all the salutary influences that deter 
 ambition from settling into egotism. Neither in his slo- 
 venly home, nor from his classic tutor at his preparatory 
 school, does he seem to have learned any truths, religious 
 or mortal that might give sap to fresh shoots, when the first 
 rank growth was cut down by the knife ; and I especially 
 noted, as illustrative of Egerton, no less than of Randal, 
 that though the statesman's occasional hints of advice to his 
 protege are worldly-wise in their way, and suggestive of 
 honor as befitting the creed of a gentleman, they are not 
 such as much influence a shrewd reasoner like Randal, 
 whom the example of the playground at Eton had not 
 served to correct of the arid self-seeking which looked to 
 knowledge for no object but power. A man tempted by 
 passions like Audley, or seduced into fraud by a cold subtle 
 spirit like Leslie, will find poor defence in the elegant pre- 
 cept, " Remember to act as a gentleman." Such moral 
 embroidery adds a beautiful scarf to one's armor ; but it is 
 
 not the armor itself ! Ten oclock as I live Push on, 
 
 Pisistratus ! and finish the chapter. 
 
 MRS. CAXTON (benevolently). Don't hurry. Begin with 
 that odious Randal Leslie, to oblige your father ; but there 
 are others whom Blanche and I care much more to hear 
 about.
 
 1 1 2 6 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 Pisistratus, since there is no help for it, produces a 
 supplementary manuscript, which proves that, whatever his 
 doubt as to the artistic effect of a Final Chapter, he had 
 foreseen that his audience would not be contented without 
 
 Randal Leslie, late at noon the day after he quitted 
 Lansmere Park, arrived on foot at his father's house. He 
 had walked all the way, and through the solitudes of the 
 winter night ; but he was not sensible of fatigue till the 
 dismal home closed round him, with its air of hopeless ig- 
 noble poverty ; and then he sunk upon the floor, feeling 
 himself a ruin amidst the ruins. He made no disclosure of 
 what had passed to his relations. Miserable man, there 
 was not one to whom he could confide, or from whom he 
 might hear the truths that connect repentance with consola- 
 tion ! After some weeks passed in sullen and almost 
 unbroken silence, he left as abruptly as he had appeared, 
 and returned to London. The sudden death of a man like 
 Egerton had, even in those excited times, created intense, 
 though brief sensation. The particulars of the election, 
 that had been given in detail in the provincial papers, were 
 copied into the London journals ; among those details, 
 Randal Leslie's conduct in the committee-room, with many 
 an indignant comment on selfishness and ingratitude. The 
 political world of all parties formed one of those judgments 
 on the great man's poor dependent, which fix a stain upon 
 the character, and place a barrier in the career of ambitious 
 youth. The important personages who had once noticed 
 Randal for Audley's sake, and who, on their subsequent and 
 not long-deferred restoration to power, could have made 
 his fortune, passed him in the streets without a nod. He 
 did not venture to remind Avenel of the promise to aid him 
 in another election for Lansmere, nor dream of filling up 
 the vacancy which Egerton's death had created. He was 
 too shrewd not to see that all hope of that borough was 
 over ; he would have been hooted in the streets and pelted 
 from the hustings. Forlorn in the vast metropolis as Leon- 
 ard had once been, in his turn he loitered on the bridge, 
 and gazed on the remorseless river. He had neither money 
 nor connections nothing save talents and knowledge to 
 force his way back into the lofty world in which all had 
 smiled on him before ; and talents and knowledge, that had
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 1127 
 
 been exerted to injure a benefactor, made him but the more 
 despised. But even now, Fortune, that had bestowed on 
 the pauper heir of Rood advantages so numerous and so 
 dazzling, out of which he had cheated himself, gave him a 
 chance, at least of present independence, by which, with 
 patient toil, he might have won, if not to the highest places, 
 at least to a position in which he could have forced the 
 world to listen to his explanations, and perhaps receive his 
 excuses : the ^"5,000 that Audley designed for him, and 
 which in a private memorandum the statesman had entreated 
 Harley to see safely rescued from the fangs of the law, were 
 made over to Randal by Lord L'Estrange's solicitor ; but 
 this sum seemed to him so small after the loss of such gor- 
 geous hopes, and the up-hill path seemed so slow after such 
 short cuts to power, that Randal looked upon the unex- 
 pected bequest simply as an apology for adopting no pro- 
 fession. Stung to the quick by the contrast between his 
 past and his present place in the English world, he hastened 
 abroad. There, whether in distraction from thought, or 
 from the curiosity of a restless intellect to explore the 
 worth of things yet untried, Randal Leslie, who had hitherto 
 been so dead to the ordinary amusements of youth, plunged 
 into the society of damaged gamesters and third-rate roue's. 
 In this companionship his very talents gradually degener- 
 ated, and their exercise upon low intrigues and miserable 
 projects but abased his social character, till, sinking step 
 after step as his funds decayed, he finally vanished out of 
 the sphere in which even profligates still retain the habits, 
 and cling to the caste, of gentlemen. His father died ; the 
 neglected property of Rood devolved on Randal, but out of 
 its scanty proceeds he had to pay the portions of his brother 
 and sister, and his mother's jointure ; the surplus left was 
 scarcely visible in the executor's account. The hope of re- 
 storing the home and fortunes of his forefathers had long 
 ceased. What were the ruined hall and its bleak wastes, 
 without that hope which had once dignified the wreck and 
 the desert ? He wrote from St. Petersburg, ordering the 
 sale of the property. No one great proprietor was a candi- 
 date for the unpromising investment ; it was sold in lots 
 among small freeholders and retired traders. A builder 
 bought the Hall for its materials. Hall, lands, and name 
 were blotted out of the map and the history of the country. 
 The widow, Oliver, and Juliet removed to a provincial 
 town in another shire. Juliet married an ensign in a
 
 1128 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 marching regiment, and died of neglect after childbirth. 
 Mrs. Leslie did not long survive her. Oliver added to his 
 little fortune by marriage with the daughter of a retail 
 tradesman, who had amassed a few thousand pounds. He 
 set up a brewery, and contrived to live without debt ; though 
 a large family, and his own constitutional inertness, ex- 
 tracted from his business small profits and no savings. 
 Nothing of Randal had been heard of for years after the 
 sale of Rood, except that he had taken up his residence 
 either in Australia or the United States ; it was not known 
 which, but presumed to be the latter. Still Oliver had 
 been brought up with so high a veneration of his brother's 
 talents, that he cherished the sanguine belief that Randal 
 would some day appear, wealthy and potent, like the uncle 
 in a comedy ; lift up the sunken family, and rear into 
 graceful ladies and accomplished gentlemen the clumsy lit- 
 tle boys and the vulgar little girls, who now crowded round 
 Oliver's dinner-table, with appetites altogether dispropor- 
 tioned to the size of the joints. 
 
 One winter day, when from the said dinner-table wife 
 and children had retired, and Oliver sat sipping his half- 
 pint of bad port, and looking over unsatisfactory accounts, 
 a thin terrier, lying on the threadbare rug by the niggard 
 fire, sprang up and barked fiercely. Oliver lifted his dull 
 blue eyes, and saw opposite to him, at the window, a human 
 face. The face was pressed close to the panes, and was 
 obscured by the haze which the breath of its lips drew forth 
 from the frosty rime that had gathered on the glass. 
 
 Oliver, alarmed and indignant, supposing this intrusive 
 spectator of his privacy to be some bold and lawless tramper, 
 stepped out of the room, opened the front door, and bade 
 the stranger go about his business; while the terrier still 
 more inhospitably yelped and snapped at the stranger's 
 heels. Then a hoarse voice said, " Don't you know me, Oli- 
 ver ? I am your brother Randal ! Call away your dog, 
 and let me in." Oliver stared aghast he could not believe 
 his slow senses he could not recognize his brother in the 
 gaunt grim apparition before him. But at length he came 
 forward, gazed into Randal's face, and, grasping his hand 
 in amazed silence, led him into the little parlor. Not a 
 trace of the well-bred refinement which had once charac- 
 terized Randal's air and person was visible. His dress be- 
 spoke the last stage of that terrible decay which is signifi- 
 cantly called the " shabby genteel." His mien was that of
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 1129 
 
 the skulking, timorous, famished vagabond. As he took off 
 his greasy tattered hat, he exhibited, though still young in 
 years, the signs of premature old age. His hair, once so 
 fine and silken, was of a harsh iron-gray, bald in ragged 
 patches ; his forehead and visage were ploughed into fur- 
 rows ; intelligence was still in the aspect, but an intelligence 
 that instinctivly set you on your guard sinister gloomy 
 menacing. 
 
 Randal stopped short all questioning. He seized the 
 small modicum of wine on the table, and drained it at a 
 draught. " Pooh," said he, " have you nothing that warms 
 a man better than this ?" Oliver, who felt as if under the 
 influence of a frightful dream, went to a cupboard and 
 took out a bottle of brandy three-parts full. Randal 
 snatched at it eagerly, and put his lips to the mouth of the 
 bottle. "Ah," said he, after a short pause, "this comforts ; 
 now give me food." Oliver hastened himself to serve his 
 brother; in fact, he felt ashamed that even the slip-shod 
 maid-servant should see his visitor. When he returned 
 with such provisions as he could extract from the larder, 
 Randal was seated by the fire, spreading over the embers 
 emaciated bony hands like the talons of a vulture. 
 
 He devoured the cold meat set before him with terrible 
 voracity, and nearly finished the spirits left in the bottle ; 
 but the last had no effect in dispersing his gloom. Oliver 
 stared at him in fear the terrier continued to utter a low 
 suspicious growl. 
 
 " You would know my history ? " at length said Randal, 
 bluntly. " It is short. I have tried for fortune and failed 
 I am without a penny and without a hope. You seem 
 poor I suppose you cannot much help me. Let me at 
 least stay with you for a time I know not where else to 
 look for bread and for shelter." 
 
 Oliver burst into tears, and cordially bade his brother 
 welcome. Randal remained some weeks at Oliver's house, 
 never stirring out of the doors, and not seeming to notice, 
 though he did not scruple to use, the new habiliments 
 which Oliver procured ready-made, and placed, without re- 
 mark, in his room. But his presence soon became intoler- 
 able to the mistress of the house, and oppressive even to its 
 master. Randal, who had once been so abstemious that he 
 had even regarded the most moderate use of wine as incom- 
 patible with clear judgment and vigilant observation, had 
 contracted the habit of drinking spiiits at all hours of the 
 48
 
 1 130 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 day ; but though they sometimes intoxicated him into stu- 
 por, they never unlocked his heart nor enlivened his sullen 
 mood. If he observed less acutely than of old, he could 
 still conceal just as closely. Mrs. Oliver Leslie, at first 
 rather awed and taciturn, grew cold and repelling, then 
 pert and sarcastic, at last undisguisedly and vulgarly rude. 
 Randal made no retort ; but his sneer was so galling that 
 the wife flew at once to her husband, and declared that 
 either she or his brother must leave the house. Oliver tried 
 to pacify and compromise, with partial success ; and, a few 
 days afterward, he came to Randal and said, timidly, " You 
 see, my wife brought me nearly all I possess, and you don't 
 condescend to make friends with her. Your residence here 
 must be as painful to you as to me. But I wish to see you 
 provided for ; and I could offer you something only it 
 seems, at first glance, so beneath 
 
 "Beneath what?" interrupted Randal, witheringly. 
 " What I was or what I am ? Speak out ! " 
 
 " To be sure you are a scholar ; and I've heard you say 
 fine things about knowledge, and so forth ; and you'll have 
 plenty of books at your disposal, no doubt ; and you are 
 still young, and may rise and " 
 
 " Hell and torments ! Be quick say the worst or the 
 best ! " cried Randal, fiercely. 
 
 " Well then," said poor Oliver, still trying to soften the 
 intended proposal, "you must know that our poor sister's 
 husband was nephew to Dr. Felpem, who keeps a very 
 respectable school. He is not learned himself, and attends 
 chiefly to arithmetic and book-keeping, and such matters 
 but he wants an usher to teach the classics ; for some of 
 the boys go to college. And I have written to him, just to 
 sound I did not mention your name till I knew if you 
 would like it ; but he will take my recommendation. Board 
 lodging fifty pounds a year ; in short, the place is yours 
 if you like it." 
 
 Randal shivered from head to foot, and was long before 
 he answered. " Well, be it so ; I have come to that. Ha, 
 ha ! yes, knowledge is power ! " He paused a few moments. 
 " So, the old Hall is razed to the ground, and you are a 
 tradesman in a small country town, and my sister is dead, 
 and I henceforth am John Smith ! You say that you did 
 not mention my name to the schoolmaster still keep it 
 concealed ; forget that I once was a Leslie. Our tie of 
 brotherhood ceases when I go from your hearth. Write,
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 1131 
 
 then, to your head-master, who attends to arithmetic, and 
 secure the rank of his usher in Latin and Greek for John 
 Smith!" 
 
 Not many days afterward, the protige of Audley Eger- 
 ton entered on his duties as usher in one of those large 
 cheap schools, which comprise a sprinkling of the sons of 
 gentry and clergymen designed for the learned professions, 
 with a far larger proportion of the sons of traders, intended, 
 some for the counting-house, some for the shop and the 
 till. There, to this day, under the name of John Smith, 
 lives Randal Leslie. 
 
 It is probably not pride alone that induces him to per- 
 sist in that change of name, and makes him regard as 
 perpetual the abandonment of the one that he took from 
 his forefathers, and with which he had once identified his 
 vaulting ambition ; for shortly after he had quitted his 
 brother's house, Oliver read in the weekly newspaper, to 
 which he bounded his lore of the times in which he lived, 
 an extract from an American journal, wherein certain men- 
 tion was made of an English adventurer who, amongst other 
 aliases, had assumed the name of Leslie that extract 
 caused Oliver to start, turn pale, look round, and thrust 
 the paper into the fire. From that time he never attempted 
 to violate the condition Randal had imposed on him never 
 sought to renew their intercourse, nor to claim a brother. 
 Doubtless, if the adventurer thus signalized was the man 
 Oliver suspected, whatever might be imputed to Randal's 
 charge that could have paled a brother's cheek, it was none 
 of the more violent crimes to which law is inexorable, but 
 rather (in that progress made by ingratitude and duplicity, 
 with Need and Necessity urging them on), some act of dis- 
 honesty which" may just escape from the law, to sink, with- 
 out redemption, the name. However this be, there is 
 nothing in Randal's present course of life which forebodes 
 any deeper fall. He has known what it is to want bread, 
 and his former restlessness subsides into cynic apathy. 
 
 He lodges in the town near the school, and thus the 
 debasing habit of unsocial besotment is not brought under 
 the eyes of his superior. The dram is his sole luxury if it 
 be suspected, it is thought to be his sole vice. He goes 
 through the ordinary routine of tuition with average credit ; 
 his spirit of intrigue occasionally shows itself in attempts 
 to conciliate the favor of the boys whose fathers are wealthy 
 who are born to higher rank than the rest ; and he lays
 
 1 1 32 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 complicated schemes to he asked home for the holidays. 
 But when the schemes succeed, and the invitation comes, 
 he recoils and shrinks back he does not dare to show him- 
 self on the borders of the brighter world he once hoped to 
 sway ; he fears that he may be discovered to be a Leslie ! 
 On such days, when his taskwork is over, he shuts himself 
 up in his room, locks the door, and drugs himself into in- 
 sensibility. 
 
 Once he found a well-worn volume running the round 
 of delighted school-boys took it up, and recognized Leon- 
 ard's earliest popular work, which had, many years before, 
 seduced himself into pleasant thoughts and gentle emo- 
 tions. He carried the book to his own lodgings read it 
 again ; and when he returned it to its young owner, some 
 of the leaves were stained with tears. Alas ! perhaps but 
 the maudlin tears of broken nerves, not of the awakened 
 soul for the leaves smelt strongly of whiskey. Yet, after 
 that re-perusal, Randal Leslie turned suddenly to deeper 
 studies than his habitual drudgeries required. He revived 
 and increased his early scholarship ; he chalked the outline 
 of a work of great erudition, in which the subtlety of his 
 intellect found field in learned and acute criticism. But he 
 has never proceeded far in this work. After each irregular 
 and spasmodic effort, the pen drops from his hand, and he 
 mutters, " But to what end ? I can never now raise a name. 
 Why give reputation to John Smith ? " 
 
 Thus he drags on his life ; and perhaps, when he dies, 
 the fragments of his learned work may be discovered in the 
 desk of the usher, and serve as hints to some crafty student, 
 who may filch ideas and repute from the dead Leslie, as 
 Leslie had filched them from the living Burley. 
 
 While what may be called poetical juStice has thus 
 evolved itself from the schemes in which Randal Leslie had 
 wasted rare intellect in baffling his own fortunes, no out- 
 ward signs of adversity evince the punishment of Provi- 
 dence on the head of the more powerful offender, Baron 
 Levy. No fall in the Funds has shaken the sumptuous 
 fabric, built from the ruined houses of other men. Baron 
 Levy is still Baron Levy the millionaire ; but I doubt if at 
 heart he be not more acutely miserable than Randal Leslie, 
 the usher. For Levy is a man who has admitted the fiercer 
 passions into his philosophy of life ; he has not the pale 
 blood and torpid heart which allow the scotched adder to 
 doze away its sense of pain. Just as old age began to creep
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 1133 
 
 upon the fashionable usurer he fell in love with a young 
 opera-dancer, whose light heels had turned the lighter 
 heads of half the Elegants of Paris and London. The craft 
 of the dancer was proof against all lesser bribes than that 
 of marriage ; and Levy married her. From that moment 
 ihis house, Louis Quinze, was more crowded than ever by the 
 I high-born dandies whose society he had long so eagerly 
 courted. That society became his curse. The Baroness 
 was an accomplished * coquette ; and Levy (with whom, as 
 we have seen, jealousy was the predominant passion) was 
 stretched on an eternal rack. His low estimate of human 
 nature his disbelief in the possibility of virtue added 
 strength to the agony of his suspicions, and provoked the 
 very dangers he dreaded. His sole self-torturing task was 
 that of the spy upon his own hearth. His banquets were 
 haunted by a spectre ; the attributes of his wealth were as 
 the goad and the scourge of Nemesis. His gay cynic smile 
 changed into a sullen scowl his hair blanched into white 
 his eyes were hollow with one consuming care. Sud- 
 denly he left his costly house; left London ; abjured all the 
 society which it had been the joy of his wealth to pur- 
 chase ; buried himself and his wife in a remote corner of 
 the provinces ; and there he still lives. He seeks in vain 
 to occupy his days with rural pursuits ; he to whom the 
 excitements of a metropolis, with all its corruption and its 
 vices, were the sole sources of the turbid stream that he 
 called "pleasure." There, too, the fiend of jealousy still 
 pursues him ; he prowls round his demesnes with the hag- 
 gard eye and furtive step of a thief ; he guards his wife as 
 a prisoner, for she threatens every day to escape. The life 
 of a man who had opened the prison to so many is the life 
 of a jailer. His wife abhors him, and does not conceal it ; 
 and still slavishly he dotes on her. Accustomed to the 
 freest liberty-^-demanding applause and admiration as her 
 rights wholly uneducated, vulgar in mind, coarse in lan- 
 guage, violent in temper the beautiful Fury he has 
 brought to his home, makes that home a hell. Thus, what 
 might seem to the superficial most enviable^ is to their 
 possessor most hateful. He dares not ask a soul to see 
 how he spends his gold he has shrunk into a mean and 
 niggardly expenditure, and complains of reverse and pov- 
 erty, in order to excuse himself to his wife for debarring 
 her the enjoyments which she anticipated from the Money- 
 Bags she had married. A vague consciousness of retribu-
 
 H34 MY NOV2L; OR, 
 
 tion has awakened remorse, to add to his other stings. And 
 the remorse coming from superstition, not religion (sent 
 from below, not descending from above), brings with it 
 none of the consolations of a genuine repentance. He 
 never seeks to atone never dreams of some redeeming 
 good action. His riches flow around him, spreading wider 
 and wider out of his own reach. 
 
 The Count di Peschiera was not deceived in the calcu- 
 lations which had induced him to affect repentance, and 
 establish a claim upon his kinsman. He received from the 
 generosity of the Duke di Serrano an annuity not dispro- 
 portionate to his rank, and no order from his court forbade 
 his return to Vienna. But, in the very summer that fol- 
 lowed his visit to Lansmere, his career came to an abrupt 
 close. At Baden-Baden he paid court to a wealthy and ac- 
 complished Polish widow ; and his fine person and terrible 
 repute awed away all rivals save a young Frenchman, as 
 daring as himself, and much more in love. A challenge 
 was given and accepted. Peschiera appeared on the fatal 
 ground with his customary sang-froid, humming an opera 
 air, and looked so diabolically gay that his opponent's 
 nerves were affected in spite of his courage, and, the French- 
 man's trigger going off before he had even taken aim, to 
 his own ineffable astonishment, he shot the Count through 
 the heart, dead. 
 
 Beatrice di Negra lived for some years after her broth- 
 er's death in strict seclusion, lodging within a convent, 
 though she did not take the veil, as she at first proposed. 
 In fact, the more she saw of the sisterhood, the more she 
 found that human regrets and human passions (save in some 
 rarely gifted natures) find their way through the barred 
 gates and over the lofty walls. Finally, she took up her 
 abode in Rome, where she is esteemed for a life not only 
 marked by strict propriety, but active benevolence. She 
 cannot be prevailed on to accept from the Duke more than 
 a fourth of the annuity that had been bestowed on her 
 brother ; but she has few wants, save those of charity ; and 
 when charity is really active, it can do so much with so lit- 
 tle gold ! She is not known in the gayer circles of the city ; 
 but she gathers around her a small society composed chief- 
 ly of artists and scholars, and is never so happy as when 
 she can aid some child of genius more especially if his 
 country be England. 
 
 The Squire and his wife still flourish at Hazeldean, where
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 1135 
 
 Captain Barnabas Higginbotham has taken up his perma- 
 nent abode. The Captain is a confirmed hypochondriac, 
 but he brightens up now and then when he hears of any 
 illness in the family of Mr. Sharpe Currie, and, at such 
 times, is heard to murmur, " If those seven sickly children 
 should go off, I might still have very great EXPECTATIONS." 
 For the which he had been roundly scolded by the Squire, 
 and gravely preached at by the Parson. Upon both, how- 
 ever, he takes his revenge in a fair and gentlemanlike way, 
 three times a week, at the whist-table, the Parson no longer 
 having the Captain as his constant partner, since a fifth 
 now generally cuts in at the table in the person of that old 
 enemy and neighbor, Mr. Sticktorights. The Parson, thus 
 fighting his own battles unallied to the Captain, observes 
 with melancholy surprise that there is a long run of luck 
 against him, and that he does not win so much as he used 
 to do. Fortunately that is the sole trouble except Mrs. 
 Dale's "little tempers," to which he is accustomed that 
 ever disturbs the serene tenor of the Parson's life. We 
 must now explain how Mr. Sticktorights came to cut in at 
 the Hazeldean whist-table. Frank has settled at the Casino 
 with a wife who suits him exactly, and that wife was Miss 
 Sticktorights. It was two years before Frank recovered 
 the disappointment with which the loss of Beatrice sad- 
 dened his spirits, but sobered his habits and awoke his re- 
 flection. An affection, however misplaced and ill-requited, 
 if honestly conceived and deeply felt, rarely fails to advance 
 the self-education of man. Frank became steady and seri- 
 ous ; and, on a visit to Hazeldean, met at a country ball 
 Miss Sticktorights, and the two young persons were instant- 
 ly attracted toward each other, perhaps by the very feud 
 that had so long existed between their houses. The mar- 
 riage settlements were nearly abandoned, at the last mo- 
 ment, by a discussion between the parents as to the Right 
 of Way. But the dispute was happily appeased by Mr. 
 Dale's suggestion, that as both properties would be united 
 in the children of the proposed marriage, all cause for liti- 
 gation would naturally cease, since no man would go to law 
 with himself. Mr. Sticktorights and Mr. Hazeldean, how- 
 ever, agreed in the precaution of inserting a clause in the 
 settlements (though all the lawyers declared that it could 
 not be of any legal avail), by which it was declared, that if, 
 in default of heritable issue by the said marriage, the Stick- 
 torights estates devolved on some distant scion o*. the Stick-
 
 1 1 36 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 torights family, the right of way from the wood across the 
 waste land would still remain in the same state of delect- 
 able dispute in which it then stood. There seems, however, 
 little chance of a lawsuit thus providentially bequeathed to 
 the misery of distant generations since two sons and two 
 i daughters are already playing at hide-and-seek on the ter- 
 race where Jackeyrno once watered the orange-trees, and 
 in the belvidere where Riccabocca had studied his Machia- 
 velli. 
 
 Jackeymo, though his master has assessed the long 
 arrears of his wages at a sum which would enable him to 
 have orange-groves and servants of his own, still clings to his 
 former duties, and practises his constitutional parsimony. 
 His only apparent deviation into profusion consists in the 
 erection of a chapel to his sainted namesake, to whom he 
 burns many a votive taper ; the tapers are especially tall, 
 and their sconces are wreathed with garlands whenever a 
 letter with a foreign post-mark brings good news of the 
 absent Violante and her English lord. 
 
 Riccabocca was long before he reconciled himself to the 
 pomp of his principalities and his title of Duke. Jemima 
 accommodated herself much more readily to greatness, but 
 she retained all her native Hazeldean simplicity at heart, 
 and is adored by the villagers around her, especially by the 
 youth of both sexes, whom she is always ready to marry and 
 to portion ; convinced, long ere this, of the redeemable 
 qualities of the male sex by her reverence for the Duke, 
 who continues to satirize women and wedlock, and deem 
 himself thanks to his profound experience of the one, and 
 his philosophical endurance of the other the only happy 
 husband in the world. Longer still was it before the sage, 
 who had been so wisely anxious to rid himself of the charge 
 of a daughter, could wean his thoughts from the re- 
 ,membrance of her tender voice and loving eyes. Not, 
 indeed, till he seriously betook himself to the task of 
 educating the son with whom, according to his scientific 
 prognostics, Jemima presented him shortly after his return 
 to his native land. The sage began betimes with his 
 Italian proverbs, full of hard-hearted worldly wisdom, and 
 the boy was scarce out of the hornbook before he was 
 introduced to Machiavelli. But somehow or other the 
 simple goodness of the philosopher's actual life, with his 
 high-wrought patrician sentiments of integrity and honor, 
 So counteract the theoretical lessons, that the heir of
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 1137 
 
 Serrano is little likely to be made more wise by the 
 proverbs, or more wicked by the Machiavelli, than those 
 studies have practically made the progenitor, whose opin- 
 ions his countrymen still shame with the title of " Alphonso 
 the Good." 
 
 The Duke long cherished a strong curiosity to know 
 what had become of Randal. He never traced the adven- 
 turer to his closing scene. But once (years before Randal 
 had crept into his present shelter), in a visit of inspection to 
 the hospital at Genoa, the Duke, with his peculiar shrewd- 
 ness of observation in all matters except those which con- 
 cerned himself, was remarking to the officer in attendance, 
 " that for one dull honest man, whom fortune drove to the 
 hospital or the jail, he had found, on investigation of their 
 antecedents, three sharp-witted knaves who had thereto 
 reduced themselves " when his eye fell upon a man asleep 
 in one of the sick-wards, and recognizing the face, not then 
 so changed as Oliver had seen it, he walked straight up, 
 and gazed upon Randal Leslie. 
 
 " An Englishman," said the official. ** He was brought 
 hither insensible, from a severe wound on the head, inflicted, 
 as we discovered, by a well-known eheiialier (f Industrie, who 
 declared that the Englishman had outwitted and cheated 
 him. That was not very likely, for a few crowns were all 
 we could find on the Englishman's person, and he had been 
 obliged to leave his lodgings for debt. He is recovering 
 but there is fever still." 
 
 The Duke gazed silently on the sleeper, who was toss- 
 ing restlessly on his pallet, and muttering to himself ; then 
 he placed his purse in the official's hand. " Give this to 
 the Englishman," said he; "but conceal my name. It is 
 true it is true the proverb is very true " resumed the 
 Duke, descending the stairs Pih pelli di volpi ehe di asini 
 vanno in pellicciaria." (More hides of foxes than of asses 
 find their way to the tanner's.) 
 
 Dr. Morgan continues to prescribe globules for grief, 
 and to administer infinitesimally to a mind diseased. Prac- 
 tising what he prescribes, he swallows a globule of " caustic " 
 whenever the sight of a distressed fellow-creature moves 
 him to compassion a constitutional tendency which, he is 
 at last convinced, admits of no radical cure. For the rest, 
 his range of patients has notably expanded ; and under 
 his sage care his patients unquestionably live as long as 
 Providence pleases. No allopathist can say more. 
 48*
 
 1 138 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 The death of poor John Burley found due place in the 
 obituary of "literary men." Admirers, unknown before, 
 came forward and subscribed for a handsome monument to 
 his memory in Kensal Green. They would have subscribed 
 for the relief of his widow and children, if he had left any. 
 Writers in magazines thrived for some months on collec- 
 tions of his humorous sayings, anecdotes of his eccentricities, 
 and specimens of the eloquence that had lightened through 
 the tobacco-reek of tavern and club-room. Leonard ul- 
 timately made a selection from his scattered writings, which 
 found place in standard libraries, though their subjects were 
 either of too fugitive an interest, or treated in too capricious 
 a manner, to do more than indicate the value of the ore 
 had it been purified from its dross and subjected to the art 
 of the mint. These specimens could not maintain their 
 circulation as the coined money of Thought, but they were 
 hoarded by collectors as rare curiosities. Alas, poor Burley ! 
 
 The Pompleys sustained a pecuniary loss by the crash 
 of a railway company, in which the Colonel had been in- 
 duced to take several shares by one of his wife's most 
 boasted " connections," whose estate the said railway pro- 
 posed to traverse, on paying ^400 an acre, in that golden 
 age when railway companies respected the rights of pro- 
 perty. The Colonel was no longer able, in his own coun- 
 try, to make both ends meet at Christmas. He is now 
 straining hard to achieve that feat in Boulogne, and has in 
 the process grown so red in the face, that those who meet 
 him in his morning walk on the pier, bargaining for fish, 
 shake their heads and say, " Old Pompley will go off in a 
 fit of apoplexy ; a great loss to society ; genteel people the 
 Pompleys ! and very highly ' connected.' " 
 
 The vacancy created in the borough of Lansmere by 
 Audley Egerton's death, was filled up by our old acquaint- 
 ance Haveril Dashmore, who had unsuccessfully contested 
 that seat on Egerton's first election. The naval officer was 
 now an admiral, and perfectly reconciled to the Constitu- 
 tion, with all its alloy of aristocracy. 
 
 Dick Avenel did not retire from Parliament so soon as 
 he had anticipated. He was not able to persuade Leonard, 
 whose brief fever of political ambition was now quenched 
 in the calm fountain of the Muse, to supply his place in 
 the senate, and he felt that the house of Avenel needed one 
 representative. He contrived, however, to devote, for the 
 first year or two, much more of his time to his interests at
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 1139 
 
 Screwstown than to the affairs of his country, and succeeded 
 in baffling the over-competition to which he had been sub- 
 jected, by taking the competitor into partnership. Having 
 thus secured a monopoly at Screwstown, Dick, of course, 
 returned with great ardor to his former enlightened opin- 
 ions in favor of free-trade. He remained some years in 
 Parliament ; and though far too shrewd to venture out of 
 his depth as an orator, distinguished himself so much by 
 his exposure of " humbug " on an important committee, 
 that he acquired a very high reputation as a man of busi- 
 ness, and gradually became so in request amongst all mem- 
 bers who moved for " Select Committees," that he rose 
 into consequence ; and Mrs. Avenel, courted for his sake, 
 more than her own, obtained the wish of her heart, and 
 was received as acknowledged habitue'e into the circles of 
 fashion. Amidst these circles, however, Dick found that 
 his home entirely vanished ; and when he came home from 
 the House of Commons, tired to death, at two in the morn- 
 ing, disgusted at always hearing that Mrs. Avenel was not 
 yet returned from some fine lady's ball, he formed a sudden 
 resolution of cutting Parliament, Fashion, and London al- 
 together ; withdrew his capital, now very large, from his 
 business ; bought the remaining estates of Squire Thorn- 
 hill ; and his chief object of ambition is in endeavoring to 
 coax or bully out of their holdings all the small freeholders 
 round, who had subdivided amongst them, into poles and 
 furlongs, the fated inheritance of Randal Leslie. An excel- 
 lent justice of the peace, though more severe than your 
 old family proprietors generally are ; a spirited landlord, 
 as to encouraging and making, at a proper percentage, all 
 permanent improvements on the soil, but formidable to meet 
 if the rent be not paid to the day, or the least breach of 
 covenant be heedlessly incurred on a farm that he could let 
 for more money ; employing a great many hands in pro- 
 ductive labor, but exacting rigorously from all the utmost 
 degree of work at the smallest rate of wages which compe- 
 tition and the poor-rate permit ; the young and robust in 
 his neighborhood never stinted in work, and the aged and 
 infirm, as lumber worn out, stowed away in the workhouse ; 
 Richard Avenel holds himself an example to the old race 
 of landlords ; and, taken together, is no very bad specimen 
 of the rural civilizers whom the application of spirit and 
 capital raise up in the new. 
 
 From the wrecks of Egerton's fortune, Harley, with the
 
 1 140 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 aid of his father's experience in business, could not succeed 
 in saving, for the statesman's sole child and heir, more than 
 a few thousand pounds ; and but for the bonds and bills 
 which, when meditating revenge, he had bought from Levy, 
 and afterward thrown into the fire paying dear for that 
 detestable whistle even this surplus would not have been 
 forthcoming. 
 
 Harley privately paid out of his own fortune the ^5,000 
 Egerton had bequeathed to Leslie ; perhaps not sorry, now 
 that the stern duty of exposing the false wiles of the 
 schemer was fulfilled, to afford some compensation even to 
 the victim who had so richly deserved his fate ; and pleased, 
 though mournfully, to comply with the solemn request of 
 the friend whose offence was forgotten in the remorseful 
 memory of his own projects of revenge. 
 
 Leonard's birth and identity were easily proved, and no 
 one appeared to dispute them. The balance due to him as 
 his father's heir, together with the sum Avenel ultimately 
 paid to him for the patent of his invention, and the dowry 
 which Harley insisted upon bestowing on Helen, amounted 
 to that happy competence which escapes alike the anxieties 
 of poverty and (what to one of contemplative tastes and 
 retired habits are often more irksome to bear) the show and 
 responsibilities of wealth. His father's death made a deep 
 impression upon Leonard's mind ; but the discovery that he 
 owed his birth to a statesman of so great a repute, and occupy- 
 ing a position in society so conspicuous, contributed not to 
 confirm, but to still, the ambition which had fora short time 
 diverted him from his more serene aspirations. He had no 
 longer to win a rank which might equal Helen's. He had 
 no longer a parent, whose affections might be best won 
 through pride. The memories of his earlier peasant-life, 
 and his love for retirement in which habit confirmed the 
 constitutional tendency made him shrink from what a 
 more wordly nature would have considered the enviable 
 advantages of a name that secured the entrance into the 
 loftiest sphere of our social world. He wanted not that 
 name to assist his own path to a rank far more durable than 
 that which kings can confer. And still he retained in the 
 works he had published, and still he proposed to bestow on 
 the works more ambitious that he had, in leisure and com- 
 petence, the facilities to design with care, and complete 
 with patience, the name he had himself invented, and 
 linked with the memory of the low-born mother. There-
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 1141 
 
 fore, though there was some wonder, in drawing-rooms and 
 clubs, at the news of Egerton's first unacknowledged mar- 
 riage, and some curiosity expressed as to what the son of 
 that marriage might do and great men were prepared to 
 welcome, and fine ladies to invite and bring out, the heir 
 to the statesman's grave repute yet wonder and curiosity 
 soon died away ; the repute soon passed out of date, and 
 its heir was soon forgotten. Politicians who fall shoit of 
 the highest renown are like actors ; no applause is so vivid 
 while they are on the stage no oblivion so complete when 
 the curtain falls on the last farewell. 
 
 Leonard saw a fair tomb rise above Nora's grave, and 
 on the tomb was engraved the word WIFE, which vindicated 
 her beloved memory. He felt the warm embrace of Nora's 
 mother, no longer ashamed to own her grandchild ; and 
 even old John was made sensible that a secret weight of 
 sorrow was taken from his wife's stern silent heart. Lean- 
 ing on Leonard's arm, the old man gazed wistfully on 
 Nora's tomb, and muttering " Egerton ! Egerton ! ' Leo- 
 nora, the first wife of the Right Honorable Audley Eger- 
 ton ! ' Ha ! I voted for him. She married the right color. 
 Is that the date ? Is it so long since she died ? Well, well ! 
 I miss her sadly. But wife says we shall both now see her 
 soon ; and wife once thought we should never see her 
 again never ; but I always knew better. Thank you, sir. 
 I am a poor creature, but these tears don't pain me quite 
 otherwise. I don't know why, but I'm very happy. 
 Where's my old woman ? She does not mind how much I 
 talk about Nora now. Oh, there she is ! Thank you, sir, 
 humbly ! but I'd rather lean on my old woman I'm more 
 used to it ; and wife, when shall we go to Nora ? " 
 
 Leonard had brought Mrs. Fairfield to see her parents, 
 and Mrs. Avenel welcomed her with unlooked-for kindness. 
 The name inscribed upon Nora's tomb softened the mother's 
 heart to her surviving daughter. As poor John had said 
 "She could now talk about Nora;" and in that talk, she 
 and the child she had so long neglected discovered how 
 much they had in common. So when, shortly after his mar- 
 riage with Helen, Leonard went abroad, Jane Fairfield re- 
 mained with the old couple. After their death, which was 
 within a day of each other, she refused, perhaps from pride, 
 to take 'up her residence with Leonard, but she settled 
 near the home which he subsequently found in England. 
 Leonard remained abroad for some years. A quiet observer
 
 1 142 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 of the various manners and intellectual development of liv- 
 ing races a rapt and musing student of the monuments 
 that revive the dead his experience of mankind grew 
 large in silence, and his perceptions of the Sublime and 
 Beautiful brightened into tranquil art under their native 
 skies. 
 
 On his return to England he purchased a small house 
 amidst the most beautiful scenes of Devonshire, and there 
 patiently commenced a work in which he designed to be- 
 queath to his country his noblest thoughts in their fairest 
 forms. Some men best develop their ideas by constant ex- 
 ercise ; their thoughts spring from their brain ready-armed 
 and seek, like the fabled goddess, to take constant part in 
 the wars of men. And such are, perhaps, on the whole, the 
 most vigorous and lofty writers ; but Leonard did not be- 
 long to this class. Sweetness and serenity were the main 
 characteristics of his genius ; and these were deepened by 
 his profound sense of his domestic happiness. To wander 
 alone with Helen by the banks of the murmurous river to 
 gaze with her on the deep still sea to feel that his thoughts, 
 even when most silent, were comprehended by the intuition 
 of love, and reflected on that translucent sympathy so 
 yearned for and so rarely found by poets these were the 
 Sabbaths of his soul, necessary to fit him for its labors for 
 the Writer has this advantage over other men, that his re- 
 pose is not indolence. His duties, rightly fulfilled, are dis- 
 charged to earth and men in other capacities than those of 
 action. If he is not seen among those who act, he is all 
 the while maturing some noiseless influence, which will 
 guide or illumine, civilize or elevate, the restless men whose 
 noblest actions are but the obedient agencies of the 
 thoughts of writers. Call not, then, the Poet whom we 
 place amidst the Varieties of Life, the sybarite of literary 
 ease, if returning on Summer eves, Helen's light footstep 
 by his musing side, he greets him sequestered home, with 
 its trellised flowers smiling out from amidst the lonely cliffs 
 in which it is embedded ; while lovers still, though wedded 
 long, they turn to each other, with such deep joy in their 
 speaking eyes, grateful that the world with its various dis- 
 tractions and noisy conflicts, lies so far from their actual ex- 
 istence only united to them by the happy link that the 
 writer weaves invisibly with the hearts that he moves and 
 the souls that he inspires. No ! Character and circum- 
 stances alike unfitted Leonard for the strife of the thronged
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 1143 
 
 Jiterary democracy ; they led toward the development of 
 the gentler and purer portions of his nature to the gradual 
 suppression of the more combative and turbulent. The in- 
 fluence of the happy light under which his genius so silently 
 and calmly grew, was seen in the exquisite harmony of its 
 colors, rather than the gorgeous diversities of their glow. 
 His contemplation, intent upon objects of peaceful beauty, 
 and undisturbed by rude anxieties and vehement passions, 
 suggested only kindred reproductions to the creative fac- 
 ulty by which it was vivified ; so that the whole man was 
 not only a poet, but, as it were, a poem a living idyl, call- 
 ing into pastoral music every reed that sighed and trembled 
 along the stream of life. And Helen was so suited to a na- 
 ture of this kind, she so guarded the ideal existence in which 
 it breathes ! All the little cares and troubles of the com- 
 mon practical life she appropriated so quietly to herself 
 the stronger of the two, as should be a poet's wife, in the 
 necessary household virtues of prudence and forethought. 
 Thus, if the man's genius made the home a temple, the 
 woman's wisdom gave to the temple the security of the 
 fortress. They have only one child a girl ; they call her 
 Nora. She has the father's soul-lit eyes, and the mother's 
 warm human smile. She assists Helen in the morning's 
 noiseless domestic duties ; she sits in the evening at Leo- 
 nard's feet, while he reads or writes. In each light grief of 
 childhood she steals to the mother's knee ; but in each 
 young impulse of delight, or each brighter flash of progres- 
 sive reason, she springs to the father's breast. Sweet Helen, 
 thou hast taught her this, taking to thyself the shadows 
 even of thine infant's life, and leaving to thy partner's eyes 
 only its rosy light ! 
 
 But not here shall this picture of Helen close. Even 
 the Ideal can only complete its purpose by connection with 
 the Real. Even in solitude the writer must depend upon 
 Mankind. 
 
 Leonard, at last, has completed the work, which has 
 been the joy and the labor of so many years the work 
 which he regards as the flower of all his spiritual being, 
 and to which he has committed all the hopes that unite the 
 creature of to-day with the generations of the future. The 
 work has gone through the press, each line lingered over 
 with the elaborate patience of the artist, loath to part with 
 the thought he has sculptured into form, while an improv- 
 ing touch can be imparted by the chisel. He has accepted
 
 1 146 MY NOVEL; OR, 
 
 laughed at ambition in the whim of his delightful humors, 
 and the expectations formed from his diplomatic triumph 
 died away. But then came one of those political crises, in 
 which men ordinarily indifferent to politics rouse themselves 
 to the recollection, that the experiment of legislation is not 
 made upon dead matter, but on the living form of a noble 
 country. And in both Houses of Parliament the strength 
 of party is put forth. 
 
 It is a lovely day in spring, and Harley is seated by the 
 window of his old room at Knightsbridge now glancing to 
 the lively green of the budding trees now idling with 
 Nero, who, though in canine old age, enjoys the sun like 
 his master now repeating to himself, as he turns over the 
 leaves of his favorite Horace, some of those lines that make 
 the shortness of life the excuse for seizing its pleasures and 
 eluding its fatigues, which form the staple morality of the 
 polished epicurean and Violante (into what glorious beauty 
 her maiden bloom has matured !) comes softly into the 
 room, seats herself on a low stool beside him, leaning her 
 face on her hands, and looking up at him through her dark, 
 clear, spiritual eyes ; and as she continues to speak, gradu- 
 ally a change comes over Harley's aspect gradually the 
 brow grows thoughtful, and the lips lose their playful 
 smile. There is no hateful assumption of the would-be 
 " superior woman " no formal remonstrance, no lecture, 
 no homily which grates upon masculine pride, but the high 
 theme and the eloquent words elevate unconsciously of 
 themselves, and the Horace is laid aside a Parliamentary 
 Blue Book has been v by some marvel or other, conjured 
 there in its stead and Violante now moves away as softly 
 as she entered. Harley's hand detains her. 
 
 " Not so. Share the task, or I quit it. Here is an ex- 
 tract I condemn you to copy. Do you think I would go 
 through this labor if you were not to halve the success ? 
 halve the labor as well ! " 
 
 And Violante, overjoyed, kisses away the implied re- 
 buke, and sits down to work, so demure and so proud, by 
 his side. I do not know if Harley made much way in the 
 Blue Book that morning ; but a little time after he spoke 
 in the Lords, and surpassed all that the most sanguine had 
 hoped from his talents. The sweetness of fame and the 
 consciousness of utility once fully tasted, Harley's consum- 
 mation of his proper destinies was secure. A year later,
 
 VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 1147 
 
 and his voice was one of the influences of England. His 
 boyish love of glory revived ; no longer vague and dreamy, 
 but ennobled into patriotism, and strengthened by purpose. 
 One night, after a signal triumph, he returned home with 
 his father, who had witnessed it, and Violante who, all 
 lovely, all brilliant though she was, never went forth in her 
 lord's absence, to lower, among fops and flatterers, the dig- 
 nity of the name she so aspired to raise sprang to meet 
 him. Harley's eldest son a boy yet in the nursery had 
 been kept up later than usual ; perhaps Violante had an- 
 ticipated her husband's triumph, and wished her son to 
 share it. The old Earl beckoned the child to him, and lay- 
 ing his hand on the infant's curly locks, said with unusual 
 seriousness 
 
 " My boy, you may see troubled times in England be- 
 fore these hairs are as gray as mine ; and your stake in Eng- 
 land's honor and peace will be great. Heed this hint from 
 an old man who had no talents to make a noise in the world, 
 but who yet has been of some use in his generation. 
 Neither sounding titles, nor wide lands, nor fine abilities, 
 will give you real joy, unless you hold yourself responsible 
 for all to your God and to your country ; and when you are 
 tempted to believe that the gifts you may inherit from both 
 entail no duties, or that duties are at war with true pleasure, 
 remember how I placed you in your father's arms, and said, 
 ' Let him be as proud of you some day, as I at this hour am 
 of him.' " 
 
 The boy clung to his father's breast, and said manfully, 
 "I will try!" Harley bent his fair smooth brow over the 
 young earnest face, and said softly, "Your mother speaks 
 in you ! " 
 
 Then the old Countess, who had remained silent and 
 listening on her elbow-chair, rose and kissed the Earl's hand 
 reverently. Perhaps in that kiss there was the repentant 
 consciousness how far the active goodness she had often 
 secretly undervalued had exceeded, in its fruits, her own 
 cold unproductive powers of will and mind. Then passing 
 on to Harley, her brow grew elate, and the pride returned 
 to her eye. 
 
 "At last," she said, laying on his shoulder that light firm 
 hand, from which he no longer shrunk " at last, O my 
 noble son, you have fulfilled all the promise of your youth ! " 
 
 " If so," answered Harley, " it is because I have found
 
 n 4 8 MY NOVEL. 
 
 what I then sought in vain." He drew his arm around 
 Violante, and added, with half tender half solemn smile 
 " Blessed is the woman who exalts ! " 
 
 So, symbolled forth in these twin and fair flowers which 
 Eve saved for Earth out of Paradise, each with the virtue 
 to heal or to strengthen, stored under the leaves that give 
 sweets to the air ; here, soothing the heart when the world 
 brings the trouble here, recruiting the soul which our sloth 
 or our senses enervate, leave we woman, at least, in the place 
 Heaven assigns to her amidst the multiform " Varieties of 
 Life." 
 
 Farewell to thee, gentle Reader and go forth to the 
 world, O MY NOVEL ! 
 
 THE END.
 
 DATE DUE 
 
 GAYLORD
 
 A 000 881 283 6