"Lordsake, Phoebe, don't talk so. I can't go without you. And do but think, why, the horses are on board by now, and all the gear. It's my belief a good hiding is all you want, to bring you to your senses; but I han't the heart to give you one, worse luck. Blessed if I know what to say or do."

"I won't go!" cried Phoebe, turning violent all of a sudden. "No, not if I am dragged to the ship by the hair of my head. Forgive me!" And with that word she was a mouse again.

"Eh, but women are kittle cattle to drive," said poor Dick ruefully. And down he sat at a nonplus, and very unhappy.

Phoebe sat opposite, sullen, heart-sick, wretched to the core; but determined not to leave Reginald.

Then came an event that might have been foreseen, yet it took them both by surprise.

A light step was heard, and a graceful, though seedy, figure entered the room with a set speech in his mouth: "Phoebe, you are right. I owe it to your long and faithful affection to make a sacrifice for you. I will go to Africa with you. I will go to the end of the world, sooner than you shall say I care for any woman on earth but you."

Both brother and sister were so unprepared for this, that they could hardly realize it at first.

Phoebe turned her great, inquiring eyes on the speaker, and it was a sight to see amazement, doubt, hope, and happiness animating her features, one after another.

"Is this real?" said she.

"I will sail with you to-morrow, Phoebe; and I will make you a good husband, if you will have me."

"That is spoke like a man," said Dick. "You take him at his word, Phoebe; and if he ill-uses you out there, I'll break every bone in his skin."

"How dare you threaten him?" said Phoebe. "You had best leave the room."

Out went poor Dick, with the tear in his eye at being snubbed so. While he was putting up the shutters, Phoebe was making love to her pseudo penitent. "My dear," said she, "trust yourself to me. You don't know all my love yet; for I have never been your wife, and I would not be your jade; that is the only thing I ever refused you. Trust yourself to me. Why, you never found happiness with others; try it with me. It shall be the best day's work you ever did, going out in the ship with me. You don't know how happy a loving wife can make her husband. I'll pet you out there as man was never petted. And besides, it isn't for life; Dick and me will soon make a fortune out there, and then I'll bring you home, and see you spend it any way you like but one. Oh, how I love you! do you love me a little? I worship the ground you walk on. I adore every hair of your head!" Her noble arm went round his neck in a moment, and the grandeur of her passion electrified him so far that he kissed her affectionately, if not quite so warmly as she did him: and so it was all settled. The maid was discharged that night instead of the morning, and Reginald was to occupy her bed. Phoebe went up-stairs with her heart literally on fire, to prepare his sleeping-room, and so Dick and Reginald had a word.

"I say, Dick, how long will this voyage be?"

"Two months, sir, I am told."

"Please to cast your eyes on this suit of mine. Don't you think it is rather seedy—to go to Africa with? Why, I shall disgrace you on board the ship. I say, Dick, lend me three sovs., just to buy a new suit at the slop-shop."

"Well, brother-in-law," said Dick, "I don't see any harm in that. I'll go and fetch them for you."

What does this sensible Dick do but go up-stairs to Phoebe, and say, "He wants three pounds to buy a suit; am I to lend it him?"

Phoebe was shaking and patting her penitent's pillow. She dropped it on the bed in dismay. "Oh, Dick, not for all the world! Why, if he had three sovereigns, he'd desert me at the water's edge. Oh, God help me, how I love him! God forgive me, how I mistrust him! Good Dick! kind Dick! say we have suits of clothes, and we'll fit him like a prince, as he ought to be, on board ship; but not a shilling of money: and, my dear, don't put the weight on ME. You understand?"

"Ay, mistress, I understand."

"Good Dick!"

"Oh, all right! and then don't you snap this here good, kind Dick's nose off at a word again."

"Never. I get wild if anybody threatens him. Then I'm not myself. Forgive my hasty tongue. You know I love you, dear!"

"Oh, ay! you love me well enough. But seems to me your love is precious like cold veal, and your love for that chap is hot roast beef."

"Ha, ha, ha, ha!"

"Oh, ye can laugh now, can ye?"

"Ha, ha, ha!"

"Well, the more of that music, the better for me."

"Yes, dear; but go and tell him."

Dick went down, and said, "I've got no money to spare, till I get to the Cape; but Phoebe has got a box full of suits, and I made her promise to keep it out. She will dress you like a prince, you may be sure."

"Oh, that is it, is it?" said Reginald dryly.

Dick made no reply.

At nine o'clock they were on board the vessel; at ten she weighed anchor, and a steam-vessel drew her down the river about thirty miles, then cast off, and left her to the south-easterly breeze. Up went sail after sail; she nodded her lofty head, and glided away for Africa.

Phoebe shed a few natural tears at leaving the shores of Old England; but they soon dried. She was demurely happy, watching her prize, and asking herself had she really secured it, and all in a few hours?

They had a prosperous voyage: were married at Cape Town, and went up the country, bag and baggage, looking out for a good bargain in land. Reginald was mounted on an English horse, and allowed to zigzag about, and shoot, and play, while his wife and brother-in-law marched slowly with their cavalcade.

What with air, exercise, wholesome food, and smiles of welcome, and delicious petting, this egotist enjoyed himself finely. He admitted as much. Says he, one evening to his wife, who sat by him for the pleasure of seeing him feed, "It sounds absurd; but I never was so happy in all my life."

At that, the celestial expression of her pastoral face, and the maternal gesture with which she drew her pet's head to her queenly bosom, was a picture for celibacy to gnash the teeth at.



CHAPTER IX.

During this period, the most remarkable things that happened to Dr. and Mrs. Staines were really those which I have related as connecting them with Phoebe Dale and her brother; to which I will now add that Dr. Staines detailed Dick's case in a remarkable paper, entitled "Oedema of the Glottis," and showed how the patient had been brought back from the grave by tracheotomy and artificial respiration. He received a high price for this article.

To tell the truth, he was careful not to admit that it was he who had opened the windpipe; so the credit of the whole operation was given to Mr. Jenkyn; and this gentleman was naturally pleased, and threw a good many consultation fees in Staines's way.

The Lucases, to his great comfort—for he had an instinctive aversion to Miss Lucas—left London for Paris in August, and did not return all the year.

In February he reviewed his year's work and twelve months' residence in the Bijou. The pecuniary result was, outgoings, nine hundred and fifty pounds; income, from fees, two hundred and eighty pounds; writing, ninety pounds.

He showed these figures to Mrs. Staines, and asked her if she could suggest any diminution of expenditure. Could she do with less housekeeping money?

"Oh, impossible! You cannot think how the servants eat; and they won't touch our home-made bread."

"The fools! Why?"

"Oh, because they think it costs us less. Servants seem to me always to hate the people whose bread they eat."

"More likely it is their vanity. Nothing that is not paid for before their eyes seems good enough for them. Well, dear, the bakers will revenge us. But is there any other item we could reduce? Dress?"

"Dress! Why, I spend nothing."

"Forty-five pounds this year."

"Well, I shall want none next year."

"Well, then, Rosa, as there is nothing we can reduce, I must write more, and take more fees, or we shall be in the wrong box. Only eight hundred and sixty pounds left of our little capital; and, mind, we have not another shilling in the world. One comfort, there is no debt. We pay ready money for everything."

Rosa colored a little, but said nothing.

Staines did his part nobly. He read; he wrote; he paced the yard. He wore his old clothes in the house; he took off his new ones when he came in. He was all genius, drudgery, patience.

How Phoebe Dale would have valued him, co-operated with him, and petted him, if she had had the good luck to be his wife!

The season came back, and with it Miss Lucas, towing a brilliant bride, Mrs. Vivian, young, rich, pretty, and gay, with a waist you could span, and athirst for pleasure.

This lady was the first that ever made Rosa downright jealous. She seemed to have everything the female heart could desire; and she was No. 1 with Miss Lucas this year. Now, Rosa was No. 1 last season, and had weakly imagined that was to last forever. But Miss Lucas had always a sort of female flame, and it never lasted two seasons.

Rosa did not care so very much for Miss Lucas before, except as a convenient friend; but now she was mortified to tears at finding Miss Lucas made more fuss with another than with her.

This foolish feeling spurred her to attempt a rivalry with Mrs. Vivian, in the very things where rivalry was hopeless.

Miss Lucas gave both ladies tickets for a flower-show, where all the great folk were to be, princes and princesses, etc.

"But I have nothing to wear," sighed Rosa.

"Then you must get something, and mind it is not pink, please; for we must not clash in colors. You know I'm dark, and pink becomes me. (The selfish young brute was not half so dark as Rosa.) Mine is coming from Worth's, in Paris, on purpose. And this new Madame Cie, of Regent Street, has such a duck of a bonnet, just come from Paris. She wanted to make me one from it; but I told her I would have none but the pattern bonnet—and she knows very well she can't pass a copy off on me. Let me drive you up there, and you can see mine, and order one, if you like it."

"Oh, thank you! let me just run and speak to my husband first."

Staines was writing for the bare life, and a number of German books about him, slaving to make a few pounds—when in comes the buoyant figure and beaming face his soul delighted in.

He laid down his work, to enjoy the sunbeam of love.

"Oh, darling, I've only come in for a minute. We are going to a flower-show on the 13th; everybody will be so beautifully dressed—especially that Mrs. Vivian. I have got ten yards of beautiful blue silk in my wardrobe, but that is not enough to make a whole dress—everything takes so much stuff now. Madame Cie does not care to make up dresses unless she finds the silk, but Miss Lucas says she thinks, to oblige a friend of hers, she would do it for once in a way. You know, dear, it would only take a few yards more, and it would last as a dinner-dress for ever so long."

Then she clasped him round the neck, and leaned her head upon his shoulder, and looked lovingly up in his face. "I know you would like your Rosa to look as well as Mrs. Vivian."

"No one ever looks as well, in my eyes, as my Rosa. There, the dress will add nothing to your beauty; but go and get it, to please yourself; it is very considerate of you to have chosen something of which you have ten yards, already. See, dear, I'm to receive twenty pounds for this article; if research was paid it ought to be a hundred. I shall add it all to your allowance for dresses this year. So no debt, mind; but come to me for everything."

The two ladies drove off to Madame Cie's, a pretty shop lined with dark velvet and lace draperies.

In the back room they were packing a lovely bridal dress, going off the following Saturday to New York.

"What, send from America to London?"

"Oh, dear, yes!" exclaimed Madame Cie. "The American ladies are excellent customers. They buy everything of the best, and the most expensive."

"I have brought a new customer," said Miss Lucas; "and I want you to do a great favor, and that is to match a blue silk, and make her a pretty dress for the flower-show on the 13th."

Madame Cie produced a white muslin polonaise, which she was just going to send home to the Princess ——-, to be worn over mauve.

"Oh, how pretty and simple!" exclaimed Miss Lucas.

"I have some lace exactly like that," said Mrs. Staines.

"Then why don't you have a polonaise? The lace is the only expensive part, the muslin is a mere nothing; and it is such a useful dress, it can be worn over any silk."

It was agreed Madame Cie was to send for the blue silk and the lace, and the dresses were to be tried on on Thursday.

On Thursday, as Rosa went gayly into Madame Cie's back room to have the dresses tried on, Madame Cie said, "You have a beautiful lace shawl, but it wants arranging; in five minutes I could astonish you with what I could do to that shawl."

"Oh, pray do," said Mrs. Staines.

The dressmaker kept her word. By the time the blue dress was tried on, Madame Cie had, with the aid of a few pins, plaits, and a bow of blue ribbon, transformed the half lace shawl into one of the smartest and distingue things imaginable; but when the bill came in at Christmas, for that five minutes' labor and distingue touch, she charged one pound eight.

Madame Cie then told the ladies, in an artfully confidential tone, she had a quantity of black silk coming home, which she had purchased considerably below cost price; and that she should like to make them each a dress—not for her own sake, but theirs—as she knew they would never meet such a bargain again. "You know, Miss Lucas," she continued, "we don't want our money, when we know our customers. Christmas is soon enough for us."

"Christmas is a long time off," thought the young wife, "nearly ten months. I think I'll have a black silk, Madame Cie; but I must not say anything to the doctor about it just yet, or he might think me extravagant."

"No one can ever think a lady extravagant for buying a black silk; it's such a useful dress; lasts forever—almost."

Days, weeks, and months rolled on, and with them an ever-rolling tide of flower-shows, dinners, at-homes, balls, operas, lawn-parties, concerts, and theatres.

Strange that in one house there should be two people who loved each other, yet their lives ran so far apart, except while they were asleep: the man all industry, self-denial, patience; the woman all frivolity, self-indulgence, and amusement; both chained to an oar, only—one in a working boat, the other in a painted galley.

The woman got tired first, and her charming color waned sadly. She came to him for medicine to set her up. "I feel so languid."

"No, no," said he; "no medicine can do the work of wholesome food and rational repose. You lack the season of all natures, sleep. Dine at home three days running, and go to bed at ten."

On this the doctor's wife went to a chemist for advice. He gave her a pink stimulant; and, as stimulants have two effects, viz., first to stimulate, and then to weaken, this did her no lasting good. Dr. Staines cursed the London season, and threatened to migrate to Liverpool.

But there was worse behind.

Returning one day to his dressing-room, just after Rosa had come down-stairs, he caught sight of a red stain in a wash-hand-basin. He examined it; it was arterial blood.

He went to her directly, and expressed his anxiety.

"Oh, it is nothing," said she.

"Nothing! Pray, how often has it occurred?"

"Once or twice. I must take your advice, and be quiet, that is all."

Staines examined the housemaid; she lied instinctively at first, seeing he was alarmed; but, being urged to tell the truth, said she had seen it repeatedly, and had told the cook.

He went down-stairs again, and sat down, looking wretched.

"Oh, dear!" said Rosa. "What is the matter now?"

"Rosa," said he, very gravely, "there are two people a woman is mad to deceive—her husband and her physician. You have deceived both."



CHAPTER X.

I suspect Dr. Staines merely meant to say that she had concealed from him an alarming symptom for several weeks; but she answered in a hurry, to excuse herself, and let the cat out of the bag—excuse my vulgarity.

"It was all that Mrs. Vivian's fault. She laughed at me so for not wearing them; and she has a waist you can span—the wretch!"

"Oh, then, you have been wearing stays clandestinely?"

"Why, you know I have. Oh, what a stupid! I have let it all out."

"How could you do it, when you knew, by experience, it is your death?"

"But it looks so beautiful, a tiny waist."

"It looks as hideous as a Chinese foot, and, to the eye of science, far more disgusting; it is the cause of so many unlovely diseases."

"Just tell me one thing; have you looked at Mrs. Vivian?"

"Minutely. I look at all your friends with great anxiety, knowing no animal more dangerous than a fool. Vivian—a skinny woman, with a pretty face, lovely hair, good teeth, dying eyes"—

"Yes, lovely!"

"A sure proof of a disordered stomach—and a waist pinched in so unnaturally, that I said to myself, 'Where on earth does this idiot put her liver?' Did you ever read of the frog who burst, trying to swell to an ox? Well, here is the rivalry reversed; Mrs. Vivian is a bag of bones in a balloon; she can machine herself into a wasp; but a fine young woman like you, with flesh and muscle, must kill yourself three or four times before you can make your body as meagre, hideous, angular, and unnatural as Vivian's. But all you ladies are mono-maniacs; one might as well talk sense to a gorilla. It brought you to the edge of the grave. I saved you. Yet you could go and—God grant me patience. So I suppose these unprincipled women lent you their stays to deceive your husband?"

"No. But they laughed at me so that—Oh, Christie, I'm a wretch; I kept a pair at the Lucases, and a pair at Madame Cie's, and I put them on now and then."

"But you never appeared here in them?"

"What, before my tyrant? Oh no, I dared not."

"So you took them off before you came home?"

Rosa hung her head, and said "Yes" in a reluctant whisper.

"You spent your daylight dressing. You dressed to go out; dressed again in stays; dressed again without them; and all to deceive your husband, and kill yourself, at the bidding of two shallow, heartless women, who would dance over your grave without a pang of remorse, or sentiment of any kind, since they live, like midges, ONLY TO DANCE IN THE SUN, AND SUCK SOME WORKER'S BLOOD."

"Oh, Christie! I'm so easily led. I am too great a fool to live. Kill me!"

And she kneeled down, and renewed the request, looking up in his face with an expression that might have disarmed Cain ipsum.

He smiled superior. "The question is, are you sorry you have been so thoughtless?"

"Yes, dear. Oh! oh!"

"Will you be very good to make up?"

"Oh, yes. Only tell me how; for it does not come natural to poor me."

"Keep out of those women's way for the rest of the season."

"I will."

"Bring your stays home, and allow me to do what I like with them."

"Of course. Cut them in a million pieces."

"Till you are recovered, you must be my patient, and go nowhere without me."

"That is no punishment, I am sure."

"Punishment! Am I the man to punish you? I only want to save you."

"Well, darling, it won't be the first time."

"No; but I do hope it will be the last."



CHAPTER XI.

"Sublata causa tollitur effectus." The stays being gone, and dissipation moderated, Mrs. Staines bloomed again, and they gave one or two unpretending little dinners at the Bijou. Dr. Staines admitted no false friends to these. They never went beyond eight; five gentlemen, three ladies. By this arrangement the terrible discursiveness of the fair, and man's cruel disposition to work a subject threadbare, were controlled and modified, and a happy balance of conversation established. Lady Cicely Treherne was always invited, and always managed to come; for she said, "They were the most agweeable little paaties in London, and the host and hostess both so intewesting." In the autumn, Staines worked double tides with the pen, and found a vehicle for medical narratives in a weekly magazine that did not profess medicine.

This new vein put him in heart. His fees, towards the end of the year, were less than last year, because there was no hundred-guinea fee; but there was a marked increase in the small fees, and the unflagging pen had actually earned him two hundred pounds, or nearly. So he was in good spirits.

Not so Mrs. Staines; for some time she had been uneasy, fretful, and like a person with a weight on her mind.

One Sunday she said to him, "Oh, dear, I do feel so dull. Nobody to go to church with, nor yet to the Zoo."

"I'll go with you," said Staines.

"You will! To which?"

"To both; in for a penny, in for a pound."

So to church they went; and Staines, whose motto was "Hoc age," minded his book. Rosa had intervals of attention to the words, but found plenty of time to study the costumes.

During the Litany in bustled Clara, the housemaid, with a white jacket on so like her mistress's, that Rosa clutched her own convulsively, to see whether she had not been skinned of it by some devilish sleight-of-hand.

No, it was on her back; but Clara's was identical.

In her excitement, Rosa pinched Staines, and with her nose, that went like a water-wagtail, pointed out the malefactor. Then she whispered, "Look! How dare she? My very jacket! Earrings too, and brooches, and dresses her hair like mine."

"Well, never mind," whispered Staines. "Sunday is her day. We have got all the week to shine. There, don't look at her—'From all evil speaking, lying, and slandering'"—

"I can't keep my eyes off her."

"Attend to the Litany. Do you know, this is really a beautiful composition?"

"I'd rather do the work fifty times over myself."

"Hush! people will hear you."

When they walked home after church, Staines tried to divert her from the consideration of her wrongs; but no—all other topics were too flat by comparison.

She mourned the hard fate of mistresses—unfortunate creatures that could not do without servants.

"Is not that a confession that servants are good, useful creatures, with all their faults? Then as to the mania for dress, why, that is not confined to them. It is the mania of the sex. Are you free from it?"

"No, of course not. But I am a lady, if you please."

"Then she is your intellectual inferior, and more excusable. Anyway, it is wise to connive at a thing we can't help."

"What keep her, after this? no, never."

"My dear, pray do not send her away, for she is tidy in the house, and quick, and better than any one we have had this last six months; and you know you have tried a great number."

"To hear you speak, one would think it was my fault that we have so many bad servants."

"I never said it was your fault; but I THINK, dearest, a little more forbearance in trifles"—

"Trifles! trifles—for a mistress and maid to be seen dressed alike in the same church? You take the servants' part against me, that you do."

"You should not say that, even in jest. Come now, do you really think a jacket like yours can make the servant look like you, or detract from your grace and beauty? There is a very simple way; put your jacket by for a future occasion, and wear something else in its stead at church."

"A nice thing, indeed, to give in to these creatures. I won't do it."

"Why won't you, this once?"

"Because I won't—there!"

"That is unanswerable," said he.

Mrs. Staines said that; but when it came to acting, she deferred to her husband's wish; she resigned her intention of sending for Clara and giving her warning. On the contrary, when Clara let her in, and the white jackets rubbed together in the narrow passage, she actually said nothing, but stalked to her own room, and tore her jacket off, and flung it on the floor.

Unfortunately, she was so long dressing for the Zoo, that Clara came in to arrange the room. She picks up the white jacket, takes it in both hands, gives it a flap, and proceeds to hang it up in the wardrobe.

Then the great feminine heart burst its bounds.

"You can leave that alone. I shall not wear that again."

Thereupon ensued an uneven encounter, Clara being one of those of whom the Scripture says, "The poison of asps is under their tongues."

"La, ma'am," said she, "why, 'tain't so very dirty."

"No; but it is too common."

"Oh, because I've got one like it. Ay. Missises can't abide a good-looking servant, nor to see 'em dressed becoming."

"Mistresses do not like servants to forget their place, nor wear what does not become their situation."

"My situation! Why, I can pay my way, go where I will. I don't tremble at the tradesmen's knock, as some do."

"Leave the room! Leave it this moment."

"Leave the room, yes—and I'll leave the house too, and tell all the neighbors what I know about it."

She flounced out and slammed the door; and Rosa sat down, trembling.

Clara rushed to the kitchen, and there told the cook and Andrew Pearman how she had given it to the mistress, and every word she had said to her, with a good many more she had not.

The cook laughed and encouraged her.

But Andrew Pearman was wroth, and said, "You to affront our mistress like that! Why, if I had heard you, I'd have twisted your neck for ye."

"It would take a better man than you to do that. You mind your own business. Stick to your one-horse chay."

"Well, I'm not above my place, for that matter. But you gals must always be aping your betters."

"I have got a proper pride, that is all, and you haven't. You ought to be ashamed of yourself to do two men's work; drive a brougham and wait on a horse, and then come in and wait at table, You are a tea-kettle groom, that is what you are. Why, my brother was coachman to Lord Fitz-James, and gave his lordship notice the first time he had to drive the children. Says he, 'I don't object to the children, my lord, but with her ladyship in the carriage.' It's such servants as you as spoil places. No servant as knows what's due to a servant ought to know you. They'd scorn your 'quaintance, as I do, Mr. Pearman."

"You are a stuck-up hussy, and a soldier's jade," roared Andrew.

"And you are a low tea-kettle groom."

This expression wounded the great equestrian soul to the quick; the rest of Sunday he pondered on it; the next morning he drove the doctor, as usual, but with a heavy heart.

Meantime, the cook made haste and told the baker Pearman had "got it hot" from the housemaid, and she had called him a tea-kettle groom; and in less than half an hour after that it was in every stable in the mews. Why, as Pearman was taking the horse out of the brougham, didn't two little red-headed urchins call out, "Here, come and see the tea-kettle groom!" and at night some mischievous boy chalked on the black door of the stable a large white tea-kettle, and next morning a drunken, idle fellow, with a clay pipe in his mouth, and a dirty pair of corduroy trousers, no coat, but a shirt very open at the chest, showing inflamed skin, the effect of drink, inspected that work of art with blinking eyes and vacillating toes, and said, "This comes of a chap doing too much. A few more like you, and work would be scarce. A fine thing for gentlefolks to make one man fill two places! but it ain't the gentlefolks' fault, it's the man as humors 'em."

Pearman was a peaceable man, and made no reply, but went on with his work; only during the day he told his master that he should be obliged to him if he would fill his situation as soon as convenient.

The master inquired the cause, and the man told him, and said the mews was too hot for him.

The doctor offered him five pounds a year more, knowing he had a treasure; but Pearman said, with sadness and firmness, that he had made up his mind to go, and go he would.

The doctor's heart fairly sank at the prospect of losing the one creature he could depend upon.

Next Sunday evening Clara was out, and fell in with friends, to whom she exaggerated her grievance.

Then they worked her up to fury, after the manner of servants' FRIENDS. She came home, packed her box, brought it down, and then flounced into the room to Doctor and Mrs. Staines, and said, "I shan't sleep another night in this house."

Rosa was about to speak, but Dr. Staines forbade her: he said, "You had better think twice of that. You are a good servant, though for once you have been betrayed into speaking disrespectfully. Why forfeit your character, and three weeks' wages?"

"I don't care for my wages. I won't stay in such a house as this."

"Come, you must not be impertinent."

"I don't mean to, sir," said she, lowering her voice suddenly; then, raising it as suddenly, "There are my keys, ma'am, and you can search my box."

"Mrs. Staines will not search your box; and you will retire at once to your own part of the house."

"I'll go farther than that," said she, and soon after the street door was slammed; the Bijou shook.

At six o'clock next morning, she came for her box. It had been put away for safety. Pearman told her she must wait till the doctor came down. She did not wait, but went at eleven A.M. to a police-magistrate, and took out a summons against Dr. Staines, for detaining a box containing certain articles specified—value under fifteen pounds.

When Dr. Staines heard she had been for her box, but left no address, he sent Pearman to hunt for her. He could not find her. She avoided the house, but sent a woman for her diurnal love letters. Dr. Staines sent the woman back to fetch her. She came, received her box, her letters, and the balance of her wages, which was small, for Staines deducted the three weeks' wages.

Two days afterwards, to his surprise, the summons was served.

Out of respect for a court of justice, however humble, Dr. Staines attended next Monday to meet the summons.

The magistrate was an elderly man, with a face shaped like a hog's, but much richer in color, being purple and pimply; so foul a visage Staines had rarely seen, even in the lowest class of the community.

Clara swore that her box had been opened, and certain things stolen out of it; and that she had been refused the box next morning.

Staines swore that he had never opened the box, and that, if any one else had, it was with her consent, for she had left the keys for that purpose. He bade the magistrate observe that if a servant went away like this, and left no address, she put it out of the master's POWER to send her box after her; and he proved he had some trouble to force the box on her.

The pig-faced beak showed a manifest leaning towards the servant, but there wasn't a leg to stand on; and he did not believe, nor was it credible, that anything had been stolen out of her box.

At this moment, Pearman, sent by Rosa, entered the court with an old gown of Clara's that had been discovered in the scullery, and a scribbling-book of the doctor's, which Clara had appropriated, and written amorous verses in, very superior—in number—to those that have come down to us from Anacreon.

"Hand me those," said the pig-faced beak.

"What are they, Dr. Staines?"

"I really don't know. I must ask my servant."

"Why, more things of mine that have been detained," said Clara.

"Some things that have been found since she left," said Staines.

"Oh! those that hide know where to find."

"Young woman," said Staines, "do not insult those whose bread you have eaten, and who have given you many presents besides your wages. Since you are so ready to accuse people of stealing, permit me to say that this book is mine, and not yours; and yet, you see, it is sent after you because you have written your trash in it."

The purple, pig-faced beak went instantly out of the record, and wasted a deal of time reading Clara's poetry, and trying to be witty. He raised the question whose book this was. The girl swore that it WAS given her by a lady who was now in Rome. Staines swore he bought it of a certain stationer, and happening to have his passbook in his pocket, produced an entry corresponding with the date of the book.

The pig-faced beak said that the doctor's was an improbable story, and that the gown and the book were quite enough to justify the summons. Verdict, one guinea costs.

"What, because two things she never demanded have been found and sent after her? This is monstrous. I shall appeal to your superiors."

"If you are impertinent I'll fine you five pounds."

"Very well, sir. Now hear me: if this is an honest judgment, I pray God I may be dead before the year's out; and, if it isn't, I pray God you may be."

Then the pig-faced beak fired up, and threatened to fine him for blaspheming.

He deigned no reply, but paid the guinea, and Clara swept out of the court, with a train a yard long, and leaning on the arm of a scarlet soldier who avenged Dr. Staines with military promptitude.

Christopher went home raging internally, for hitherto he had never seen so gross a case of injustice.

One of his humble patients followed him, and said, "I wish I had known, sir; you shouldn't have come here to be insulted. Why, no gentleman can ever get justice against a servant girl when HE is sitting. It is notorious, and that makes these hussies so bold. I've seen that jade here with the same story twice afore."

Staines reached home more discomposed than he could have himself believed. The reason was that barefaced injustice in a court of justice shook his whole faith in man. He opened the street door with his latch-key, and found two men standing in the passage. He inquired what they wanted.

"Well, sir," said one of them, civilly enough, "we only want our due."

"For what?"

"For goods delivered at this house, sir. Balance of account." And he handed him a butcher's bill, L88, 11s. 5 1/2d.

"You must be mistaken; we run no bills here. We pay ready money for everything."

"Well, sir," said the butcher, "there have been payments; but the balance has always been gaining; and we have been put off so often, we determined to see the master. Show you the books, sir, and welcome."

"This instant, if you please." He took the butcher's address, who then retired, and the other tradesman, a grocer, told him a similar tale; balance, sixty pounds odd.

He went to the butcher's, sick at heart, inspected the books, and saw that, right or wrong, they were incontrovertible; that debt had been gaining slowly, but surely, almost from the time he confided the accounts to his wife. She had kept faith with him about five weeks, no more.

The grocer's books told a similar tale.

The debtor put his hand to his heart, and stood a moment. The very grocer pitied him, and said, "There's no harry, doctor; a trifle on account, if settlement in full not convenient just now. I see you have been kept in the dark."

"No, no," said Christopher; "I'll pay every shilling." He gave one gulp, and hurried away.

At the fishmonger's, the same story, only for a smaller amount.

A bill of nineteen pounds at the very pastrycook's; a place she had promised him, as her physician, never to enter.

At the draper's, thirty-seven pounds odd.

In short, wherever she had dealt, the same system: partial payments, and ever-growing debt.

Remembering Madame Cie, he drove in a cab to Regent Street, and asked for Mrs. Staines's account.

"Shall I send it, sir?"

"No; I will take it with me."

"Miss Edwards, make out Mrs. Staines's account, if you please."

Miss Edwards was a good while making it out; but it was ready at last. He thrust it into his pocket, without daring to look at it there; but he went into Verrey's, and asked for a cup of coffee, and perused the document.

The principal items were as follows:—

May 4. Re-shaping and repairing elegant lace mantle, 1 8 Chip bonnet, feather, and flowers . . . . 4 4 May 20. Making and trimming blue silk dress—material part found . . . . . . . . . . . 19 19 Five yards rich blue silk to match. . . . 4 2 June 1. Polonaise and jacket trimmed with lace— material part found . . . . . . . . 17 17 June 8. One black silk dress, handsomely trimmed with jet guipure and lace . . . . . . 49 18

A few shreds and fragments of finery, bought at odd times, swelled the bill to L99 11s. 6d.—not to terrify the female mind with three figures.

And let no unsophisticated young lady imagine that the trimmings, which constituted three-fourths of this bill, were worth anything. The word "lace," in Madame Cie's bill, invariably meant machine-made trash, worth tenpence a yard, but charged eighteen shillings a yard for one pennyworth of work in putting it on. Where real lace was used, Madame Cie always LET HER CUSTOMERS KNOW IT. Miss Lucas's bill for this year contained the two following little items:—

Rich gros de cecile polonaise and jacket to match, trimmed with Chantilly lace and valenciennes . . . 68 5 Superb robe de chambre, richly trimmed with skunk fur. 40 0

The customer found the stuff; viz., two shawls. Carolina found the nasty little pole-cats, and got twenty-four shillings for them; Madame Cie found THE REST.

But Christopher Staines had not Miss Lucas's bill to compare his wife's with. He could only compare the latter with their income, and with male notions of common sense and reason.

He went home, and into his studio, and sat down on his hard beech chair; he looked round on his books and his work, and then, for the first time, remembered how long and how patiently he had toiled for every hundred pounds he had made; and he laid the evidences of his wife's profusion and deceit by the side of those signs of painful industry and self-denial, and his soul filled with bitterness. "Deceit! deceit!"

Mrs. Staines heard he was in the house, and came to know about the trial. She came hurriedly in, and caught him with his head on the table, in an attitude of prostration, quite new to him; he raised his head directly he heard her, and revealed a face, pale, stern, and wretched.

"Oh! what is the matter now?" said she.

"The matter is what it has always been, if I could only have seen it. You have deceived me, and disgraced yourself. Look at those bills."

"What bills? Oh!"

"You have had an allowance for housekeeping."

"It wasn't enough."

"It was plenty, if you had kept faith with me, and paid ready money. It was enough for the first five weeks. I am housekeeper now, and I shall allow myself two pounds a week less, and not owe a shilling either."

"Well, all I know is, I couldn't do it: no woman could."

"Then, you should have come to me, and said so; and I would have shown you how. Was I in Egypt, or at the North Pole, that you could not find me, to treat me like a friend? You have ruined us: these debts will sweep away the last shilling of our little capital; but it isn't that, oh, no! it is the miserable deceit."

Rosa's eye caught the sum total of Madame Cie's bill, and she turned pale. "Oh, what a cheat that woman is!"

But she turned paler when Christopher said, "That is the one honest bill; for I gave you leave. It is these that part us: these! these! Look at them, false heart! There, go and pack up your things. We can live here no longer; we are ruined. I must send you back to your father."

"I thought you would, sooner or later," said Mrs. Staines, panting, trembling, but showing a little fight. "He told you I wasn't fit to be a poor man's wife."

"An honest man's wife, you mean: that is what you are not fit for. You will go home to your father, and I shall go into some humble lodging to work for you. I'll contrive to keep you, and find you a hundred a year to spend in dress—the only thing your heart can really love. But I won't have an enemy here in the disguise of a friend; and I won't have a wife about me I must treat like a servant, and watch like a traitor."

The words were harsh, but the agony with which they were spoken distinguished them from vulgar vituperation.

They overpowered poor Rosa; she had been ailing a little some time, and from remorse and terror, coupled with other causes, nature gave way. Her lips turned white, she gasped inarticulately, and, with a little piteous moan, tottered, and swooned dead away.

He was walking wildly about, ready to tear his hair, when she tottered; he saw her just in time to save her, and laid her gently on the floor, and kneeled over her.

Away went anger and every other feeling but love and pity for the poor, weak creature that, with all her faults, was so lovable and so loved.

He applied no remedies at first: he knew they were useless and unnecessary. He laid her head quite low, and opened door and window, and loosened all her dress, sighing deeply all the time at her condition.

While he was thus employed, suddenly a strange cry broke from him: a cry of horror, remorse, joy, tenderness, all combined: a cry compared with which language is inarticulate. His swift and practical eye had made a discovery.

He kneeled over her, with his eyes dilating and his hands clasped, a picture of love and tender remorse.

She stirred.

Then he made haste, and applied his remedies, and brought her slowly back to life; he lifted her up, and carried her in his arms quite away from the bills and things, that, when she came to, she might see nothing to revive her distress. He carried her to the drawing-room, and kneeled down and rocked her in his arms, and pressed her again and again gently to his heart, and cried over her. "O my dove, my dove! the tender creature God gave me to love and cherish, and have I used it harshly? If I had only known! if I had only known!"

While he was thus bemoaning her, and blaming himself, and crying over her like the rain,—he, whom she had never seen shed a tear before in all his troubles,—she was coming to entirely, and her quick ears caught his words, and she opened her lovely eyes on him.

"I forgive you, dear," she said feebly. "BUT I HOPE YOU WILL BE A KINDER FATHER THAN A HUSBAND."

These quiet words, spoken with rare gravity and softness, went through the great heart like a knife.

He gave a sort of shiver, but said not a word.

But that night he made a solemn vow to God that no harsh word from his lips should ever again strike a being so weak, so loving, and so beyond his comprehension. Why look for courage and candor in a creature so timid and shy, she could not even tell her husband THAT until, with her subtle sense, she saw he had discovered it?



CHAPTER XII.

To be a father; to have an image of his darling Rosa, and a fruit of their love to live and work for: this gave the sore heart a heavenly glow, and elasticity to bear. Should this dear object be born to an inheritance of debt, of poverty? Never.

He began to act as if he was even now a father. He entreated Rosa not to trouble or vex herself; he would look into their finances, and set all straight.

He paid all the bills, and put by a quarter's rent and taxes. Then there remained of his little capital just ten pounds.

He went to his printers, and had a thousand order-checks printed. These forms ran thus:—

"Dr. Staines, of 13 Dear Street, Mayfair (blank for date), orders of (blank here for tradesman and goods ordered), for cash. Received same time (blank for tradesman's receipt). Notice: Dr. Staines disowns all orders not printed on this form, and paid for at date of order."

He exhibited these forms, and warned all the tradespeople, before a witness whom he took round for that purpose.

He paid off Pearman on the spot. Pearman had met Clara, dressed like a pauper, her soldier having emptied her box to the very dregs, and he now offered to stay. But it was too late.

Staines told the cook Mrs. Staines was in delicate health, and must not be troubled with anything. She must come to him for all orders.

"Yes, sir," said she. But she no sooner comprehended the check system fully than she gave warning. It put a stop to her wholesale pilfering. Rosa's cooks had made fully a hundred pounds out of her amongst them since she began to keep accounts.

Under the male housekeeper every article was weighed on delivery, and this soon revealed that the butcher and the fishmonger had habitually delivered short weight from the first, besides putting down the same thing twice. The things were sent back that moment, with a printed form, stating the nature and extent of the fraud.

The washerwoman, who had been pilfering wholesale so long as Mrs. Staines and her sloppy-headed maids counted the linen, and then forgot it, was brought up with a run, by triplicate forms, and by Staines counting the things before two witnesses, and compelling the washerwoman to count them as well, and verify or dispute on the spot. The laundress gave warning—a plain confession that stealing had been part of her trade.

He kept the house well for three pounds a week, exclusive of coals, candles, and wine. His wife had had five pounds, and whatever she asked for dinner-parties, yet found it not half enough upon her method.

He kept no coachman. If he visited a patient, a man in the yard drove him at a shilling per hour.

By these means, and by working like a galley slave, he dragged his expenditure down almost to a level with his income.

Rosa was quite content at first, and thought herself lucky to escape reproaches on such easy terms.

But by and by so rigorous a system began to gall her. One day she fancied a Bath bun; sent the new maid to the pastry-cook's. Pastry-cook asked to see the doctor's order. Maid could not show it, and came back bunless.

Rosa came into the study to complain to her husband.

"A Bath bun," said Staines. "Why, they are colored with annotto, to save an egg, and annotto is adulterated with chromates that are poison. Adulteration upon adulteration. I'll make you a real Bath bun." Off coat, and into the kitchen, and made her three, pure, but rather heavy. He brought them her in due course. She declined them languidly. She was off the notion, as they say in Scotland.

"If I can't have a thing when I want it, I don't care for it at all." Such was the principle she laid down for his future guidance.

He sighed, and went back to his work; she cleared the plate.

One day, when she asked for the carriage, he told her the time was now come for her to leave off carriage exercise. She must walk with him every day, instead.

"But I don't like walking."

"I am sorry for that. But it is necessary to you, and by and by your life may depend on it."

Quietly, but inexorably, he dragged her out walking every day.

In one of these walks she stopped at a shop window, and fell in love with some baby's things. "Oh! I must have that," said she. "I must. I shall die if I don't; you'll see now."

"You shall," said he, "when I can pay for it," and drew her away.

The tears of disappointment stood in her eyes, and his heart yearned over her. But he kept his head.

He changed the dinner hour to six, and used to go out directly afterwards.

She began to complain of his leaving her alone like that.

"Well, but wait a bit," said he; "suppose I am making a little money by it, to buy you something you have set your heart on, poor darling!"

In a very few days after this, he brought her a little box with a slit in it. He shook it, and money rattled; then he unlocked it, and poured out a little pile of silver. "There," said he, "put on your bonnet, and come and buy those things."

She put on her bonnet, and on the way she asked how it came to be all in silver.

"That is a puzzler," said he, "isn't it?"

"And how did you make it, dear? by writing?"

"No."

"By fees from the poor people?"

"What, undersell my brethren! Hang it, no! My dear, I made it honestly, and some day I will tell you how I made it; at present, all I will tell you is this: I saw my darling longing for something she had a right to long for; I saw the tears in her sweet eyes, and—oh, come along, do. I am wretched till I see you with the things in your hand."

They went to the shop; and Staines sat and watched Rosa buying baby-clothes. Oh, it was a pretty sight to see this modest young creature, little more than a child herself, anticipating maternity, but blushing every now and then, and looking askant at her lord and master. How his very bowels yearned over her!

And when they got home, she spread the things on a table, and they sat hand in hand, and looked at them, and she leaned her head on his shoulder, and went quietly to sleep there.

And yet, as time rolled on, she became irritable at times, and impatient, and wanted all manner of things she could not have, and made him unhappy.

Then he was out from six o'clock till one, and she took it into her head to be jealous. So many hours to spend away from her! Now that she wanted all his comfort.

Presently, Ellen, the new maid, got gossiping in the yard, and a groom told her her master had a sweetheart on the sly, he thought; for he drove the brougham out every evening himself; "and," said the man, "he wears a mustache at night."

Ellen ran in, brimful of this, and told the cook; the cook told the washerwoman; the washerwoman told a dozen families, till about two hundred people knew it.

At last it came to Mrs. Staines in a roundabout way, at the very moment when she was complaining to Lady Cicely Treherne of her hard lot. She had been telling her she was nothing more than a lay-figure in the house.

"My husband is housekeeper now, and cook, and all, and makes me delicious dishes, I can tell you; SUCH curries! I couldn't keep the house with five pounds a week, so now he does it with three: and I never get the carriage, because walking is best for me; and he takes it out every night to make money. I don't understand it."

Lady Cicely suggested that perhaps Dr. Staines thought it best for her to be relieved of all worry, and so undertook the housekeeping.

"No, no, no," said Rosa; "I used to pay them all a part of their bills, and then a little more, and so I kept getting deeper; and I was ashamed to tell Christie, so that he calls deceit; and oh, he spoke to me so cruelly once! But he was very sorry afterwards, poor dear! Why are girls brought up so silly? all piano, and no sense; and why are men sillier still to go and marry such silly things? A wife! I am not so much as a servant. Oh, I am finely humiliated, and," with a sudden hearty naivete all her own, "it serves me just right."

While Lady Cicely was puzzling this out, in came a letter. Rosa opened it, read it, and gave a cry like a wounded deer.

"Oh!" she cried, "I am a miserable woman. What will become of me?"

The letter informed her bluntly that her husband drove his brougham out every night to pursue a criminal amour.

While Rosa was wringing her hands in real anguish of heart, Lady Cicely read the letter carefully.

"I don't believe this," said she quietly.

"Not true! Why, who would be so wicked as to stab a poor, inoffensive wretch like me, if it wasn't true?"

"The first ugly woman would, in a minute. Don't you see the witer can't tell you where he goes? Dwives his bwougham out! That is all your infaumant knows."

"Oh, my dear friend, bless you! What have I been complaining to you about? All is light, except to lose his love. What shall I do? I will never tell him. I will never affront him by saying I suspected him."

"Wosa, if you do that, you will always have a serpent gnawing you. No; you must put the letter quietly into his hand, and say, 'Is there any truth in that?'"

"Oh, I could not. I haven't the courage. If I do that, I shall know by his face if there is any truth in it."

"Well, and you must know the twuth. You shall know it. I want to know it too; for if he does not love you twuly, I will nevaa twust myself to anything so deceitful as a man."

Rosa at last consented to follow this advice.

After dinner she put the letter into Christopher's hand, and asked him quietly was there any truth in that: then her hands trembled, and her eyes drank him.

Christopher read it, and frowned; then he looked up, and said, "No, not a word. What scoundrels there are in the world! To go and tell you that, NOW! Why, you little goose! have you been silly enough to believe it?"

"No," said she irresolutely. "But DO you drive the brougham out every night?"

"Except Sunday."

"Where?"

"My dear wife, I never loved you as I love you now; and if it was not for you, I should not drive the brougham out of nights. That is all I shall tell you at present; but some day I'll tell you all about it."

He took such a calm high hand with her about it, that she submitted to leave it there; but from this moment the serpent doubt nibbled her.

It had one curious effect, though. She left off complaining of trifles.

Now it happened one night that Lady Cicely Treherne and a friend were at a concert in Hanover Square. The other lady felt rather faint, and Lady Cicely offered to take her home. The carriages had not yet arrived, and Miss Macnamara said to walk a few steps would do her good: a smart cabman saw them from a distance and drove up, and touching his hat said, "Cab, ladies?"

It seemed a very superior cab, and Miss Macnamara said "Yes" directly.

The cabman bustled down and opened the door; Miss Macnamara got in first, then Lady Cicely; her eye fell on the cabman's face, which was lighted full by a street-lamp, and it was Christopher Staines!

He started and winced; but the woman of the world never moved a muscle.

"Where to?" said Staines, averting his head.

She told him where, and when they got out, said, "I'll send it you by the servant."

A flunkey soon after appeared with half-a-crown, and the amateur coachman drove away. He said to himself, "Come, my mustache is a better disguise than I thought."

Next day, and the day after, he asked Rosa, with affected carelessness, had she heard anything of Lady Cicely.

"No, dear; but I dare say she will call this afternoon: it is her day."

She did call at last, and after a few words with Rosa, became a little restless, and asked if she might consult Dr. Staines.

"Certainly, dear. Come to his studio."

"No; might I see him here?"

"Certainly." She rang the bell, and told the servant to ask Dr. Staines if he would be kind enough to step into the drawing-room.

Dr. Staines came in, and bowed to Lady Cicely, and eyed her a little uncomfortably.

She began, however, in a way that put him quite at his ease. "You remember the advice you gave us about my little cousin Tadcastah."

"Perfectly: his life is very precarious; he is bilious, consumptive, and, if not watched, will be epileptical; and he has a fond, weak mother, who will let him kill himself."

"Exactly: and you wecommended a sea voyage, with a medical attendant to watch his diet, and contwol his habits. Well, she took other advice, and the youth is worse; so now she is fwightened, and a month ago she asked me to pwopose to you to sail about with Tadcastah; and she offered me a thousand pounds a year. I put on my stiff look, and said, 'Countess, with every desiah to oblige you, I must decline to cawwy that offah to a man of genius, learning, and weputation, who has the ball at his feet in London.'"

"Lord forgive you, Lady Cicely."

"Lord bless her for standing up for my Christie."

Lady Cicely continued: "Now, this good lady, you must know, is not exactly one of us: the late earl mawwied into cotton, or wool, or something. So she said, 'Name your price for him.' I shwugged my shoulders, smiled affably, and as affectedly as you like, and changed the subject. But since then things have happened. I am afwaid it is my duty to make you the judge whether you choose to sail about with that little cub—Rosa, I can beat about the bush no longer. Is it a fit thing that a man of genius, at whose feet we ought all to be sitting with reverence, should drive a cab in the public streets? Yes, Rosa Staines, your husband drives his brougham out at night, not to visit any other lady, as that anonymous wretch told you, but to make a few misewable shillings for you."

"Oh, Christie!"

"It is no use, Dr. Staines; I must and will tell her. My dear, he drove ME three nights ago. He had a cabman's badge on his poor arm. If you knew what I suffered in those five minutes! Indeed it seems cruel to speak of it—but I could not keep it from Rosa, and the reason I muster courage to say it before you, sir, it is because I know she has other friends who keep you out of their consultations; and, after all, it is the world that ought to blush, and not you."

Her ladyship's kindly bosom heaved, and she wanted to cry; so she took her handkerchief out of her pocket without the least hurry, and pressed it delicately to her eyes, and did cry quietly, but without any disguise, like a brave lady, who neither cried nor did anything else she was ashamed to be seen at.

As for Rosa, she sat sobbing round Christopher's neck, and kissed him with all her soul.

"Dear me!" said Christopher. "You are both very kind. But, begging your pardon, it is much ado about nothing."

Lady Cicely took no notice of that observation. "So, Rosa dear," said she, "I think you are the person to decide whether he had not better sail about with that little cub, than—oh!"

"I will settle that," said Staines. "I have one beloved creature to provide for. I may have another. I MUST make money. Turning a brougham into a cab, whatever you may think, is an honest way of making it, and I am not the first doctor who has coined his brougham at night. But if there is a good deal of money to be made by sailing with Lord Tadcaster, of course I should prefer that to cab-driving, for I have never made above twelve shillings a night."

"Oh, as to that, she shall give you fifteen hundred a year."

"Then I jump at it."

"What! and leave ME?"

"Yes, love: leave you—for your good; and only for a time. Lady Cicely, it is a noble offer. My darling Rosa will have every comfort—ay, every luxury, till I come home, and then we will start afresh with a good balance, and with more experience than we did at first."

Lady Cicely gazed on him with wonder. She said, "Oh! what stout hearts men have! No, no; don't let him go. See; he is acting. His great heart is torn with agony. I will have no hand in parting man and wife—no, not for a day." And she hurried away in rare agitation.

Rosa fell on her knees, and asked Christopher's pardon for having been jealous; and that day she was a flood of divine tenderness. She repaid him richly for driving the cab. But she was unnaturally cool about Lady Cicely; and the exquisite reason soon came out. "Oh yes! She is very good; very kind; but it is not for me now! No! you shall not sail about with her cub of a cousin, and leave me at such a time."

Christopher groaned.

"Christie, you shall not see that lady again. She came here to part us. SHE IS IN LOVE WITH YOU. I was blind not to see it before."

Next day, as Lady Cicely sat alone in the morning-room thinking over this very scene, a footman brought in a card and a note. "Dr. Staines begs particularly to see Lady Cicely Treherne."

The lady's pale cheek colored; she stood irresolute a single moment. "I will see Dr. Staines," said she.

Dr. Staines came in, looking pale and worn; he had not slept a wink since she saw him last.

She looked at him full, and divined this at a glance. She motioned him to a seat, and sat down herself, with her white hand pressing her forehead, and her head turned a little away from him.



CHAPTER XIII.

He told her he had come to thank her for her great kindness, and to accept the offer.

She sighed. "I hoped it was to decline it. Think of the misery of separation, both to you and her."

"It will be misery. But we are not happy as it is, and she cannot bear poverty. Nor is it fair she should, when I can give her every comfort by just playing the man for a year or two." He then told Lady Cicely there were more reasons than he chose to mention: go he must, and would; and he implored her not to let the affair drop. In short, he was sad but resolved, and she found she must go on with it, or break faith with him. She took her desk, and wrote a letter concluding the bargain for him. She stipulated for half the year's fee in advance. She read Dr. Staines the letter.

"You ARE a friend!" said he. "I should never have ventured on that; it will be a godsend to my poor Rosa. You will be kind to her when I am gone?"

"I will."

"So will Uncle Philip, I think. I will see him before I go, and shake hands. He has been a good friend to me; but he was too hard upon HER; and I could not stand that."

Then he thanked and blessed her again, with the tears in his eyes, and left her more disturbed and tearful than she had ever been since she grew to woman. "O cruel poverty!" she thought, "that such a man should be torn from his home, and thank me for doing it—all for a little money—and here are we poor commonplace creatures rolling in it."

Staines hurried home, and told his wife. She clung to him convulsively, and wept bitterly; but she made no direct attempt to shake his resolution; she saw, by his iron look, that she could only afflict, not turn him.

Next day came Lady Cicely to see her. Lady Cicely was very uneasy in her mind, and wanted to know whether Rosa was reconciled to the separation.

Rosa received her with a forced politeness and an icy coldness that petrified her. She could not stay long in face of such a reception. At parting, she said, sadly, "You look on me as an enemy."

"What else can you expect, when you part my husband and me?" said Rosa, with quiet sternness.

"I meant well," said Lady Cicely sorrowfully; "but I wish I had never interfered."

"So do I," and she began to cry.

Lady Cicely made no answer. She went quietly away, hanging her head sadly.

Rosa was unjust, but she was not rude nor vulgar; and Lady Cicely's temper was so well governed that it never blinded her heart. She withdrew, but without the least idea of quarrelling with her afflicted friend, or abandoning her. She went quietly home, and wrote to Lady ——, to say that she should be glad to receive Dr. Staines's advance as soon as convenient, since Mrs. Staines would have to make fresh arrangements, and the money might be useful.

The money was forthcoming directly. Lady Cicely brought it to Dear Street, and handed it to Dr. Staines. His eyes sparkled at the sight of it.

"Give my love to Rosa," said she softly, and cut her visit very short.

Staines took the money to Rosa, and said, "See what our best friend has brought us. You shall have four hundred, and I hope, after the bitter lessons you have had, you will be able to do with that for some months. The two hundred I shall keep as a reserve fund for you to draw on."

"No, no!" said Rosa. "I shall go and live with my father, and never spend a penny. O Christie, if you knew how I hate myself for the folly that is parting us! Oh, why don't they teach girls sense and money, instead of music and the globes?"

But Christopher opened a banking account for her, and gave her a check-book, and entreated her to pay everything by check, and run no bills whatever; and she promised. He also advertised the Bijou, and put a bill in the window: "The lease of this house, and the furniture, to be sold."

Rosa cried bitterly at sight of it, thinking how high in hope they were, when they had their first dinner there, and also when she went to her first sale to buy the furniture cheap.

And now everything moved with terrible rapidity. The Amphitrite was to sail from Plymouth in five days; and, meantime, there was so much to be done, that the days seemed to gallop away.

Dr. Staines forgot nothing. He made his will in duplicate, leaving all to his wife; he left one copy at Doctors' Commons and another with his lawyer; inventoried all his furniture and effects in duplicate, too; wrote to Uncle Philip, and then called on him to seek a reconciliation. Unfortunately, Dr. Philip was in Scotland. At last this sad pair went down to Plymouth together, there to meet Lord Tadcaster and go on board H.M.S. Amphitrite, lying out at anchor, under orders for the Australian Station.

They met at the inn, as appointed; and sent word of their arrival on board the frigate, asking to remain on shore till the last minute.

Dr. Staines presented his patient to Rosa; and after a little while drew him apart and questioned him professionally. He then asked for a private room. Here he and Rosa really took leave; for what could the poor things say to each other on a crowded quay? He begged her forgiveness, on his knees, for having once spoken harshly to her, and she told him, with passionate sobs, he had never spoken harshly to her; her folly it was had parted them.

Poor wretches! they clung together with a thousand vows of love and constancy. They were to pray for each other at the same hours: to think of some kind word or loving act, at other stated hours; and so they tried to fight with their suffering minds against the cruel separation; and if either should die, the other was to live wedded to memory, and never listen to love from other lips; but no! God was pitiful; He would let them meet again ere long, to part no more. They rocked in each other's arms; they cried over each other—it was pitiful.

At last the cruel summons came; they shuddered, as if it was their death-blow. Christopher, with a face of agony, was yet himself, and would have parted then: and so best. But Rosa could not. She would see the last of him, and became almost wild and violent when he opposed it.

Then he let her come with him to Milbay Steps; but into the boat he would not let her step.

The ship's boat lay at the steps, manned by six sailors, all seated, with their oars tossed in two vertical rows. A smart middy in charge conducted them, and Dr. Staines and Lord Tadcaster got in, leaving Rosa, in charge of her maid, on the quay.

"Shove off"—"Down"—"Give way."

Each order was executed so swiftly and surely that, in as many seconds, the boat was clear, the oars struck the water with a loud splash, and the husband was shot away like an arrow, and the wife's despairing cry rang on the stony quay, as many a poor woman's cry had rung before.

In half a minute the boat shot under the stern of the frigate.

They were received on the quarter-deck by Captain Hamilton: he introduced them to the officers—a torture to poor Staines, to have his mind taken for a single instant from his wife—the first lieutenant came aft, and reported, "Ready for making sail, sir."

Staines seized the excuse, rushed to the other side of the vessel, leaned over the taffrail, as if he would fly ashore, and stretched out his hands to his beloved Rosa; and she stretched out her hands to him. They were so near, he could read the expression of her face. It was wild and troubled, as one who did not yet realize the terrible situation, but would not be long first.

"HANDS MAKE SAIL—AWAY, ALOFT—UP ANCHOR"—rang in Christopher's ear, as if in a dream. All his soul and senses were bent on that desolate young creature. How young and amazed her lovely face! Yet this bewildered child was about to become a mother. Even a stranger's heart might have yearned with pity for her: how much more her miserable husband's!

The capstan was manned, and worked to a merry tune that struck chill to the bereaved; yards were braced for casting, anchor hove, catted, and fished, sail was spread with amazing swiftness, the ship's head dipped, and slowly and gracefully paid off towards the breakwater, and she stood out to sea under swiftly-swelling canvas and a light north-westerly breeze.

Staines only felt the motion: his body was in the ship, his soul with his Rosa. He gazed, he strained his eyes to see her eyes, as the ship glided from England and her. While he was thus gazing and trembling all over, up came to him a smart second lieutenant, with a brilliant voice that struck him like a sword. "Captain's orders to show you berths; please choose for Lord Tadcaster and yourself."

The man's wild answer made the young officer stare. "Oh, sir! not now—try and do my duty when I have quite lost her—my poor wife—a child—a mother—there—sir—on the steps—there!—there!"

Now this officer always went to sea singing "Oh be joyful." But a strong man's agony, who can make light of it? It was a revelation to him; but he took it quickly. The first thing he did, being a man of action, was to dash into his cabin, and come back with a short, powerful double glass. "There!" said he roughly, but kindly, and shoved it into Staines's hand. He took it, stared at it stupidly, then used it, without a word of thanks, so wrapped was he in his anguish.

This glass prolonged the misery of that bitter hour. When Rosa could no longer tell her husband from another, she felt he was really gone, and she threw her hands aloft, and clasped them above her head, with the wild abandon of a woman who could never again be a child; and Staines saw it, and a sharp sigh burst from him, and he saw her maid and others gather round her. He saw the poor young thing led away, with her head all down, as he had never seen her before, and supported to the inn; and then he saw her no more.

His heart seemed to go out of his bosom in search of her, and leave nothing but a stone behind: he hung over the taffrail like a dead thing. A steady foot-fall slapped his ear. He raised his white face and filmy eyes, and saw Lieutenant Fitzroy marching to and fro like a sentinel, keeping everybody away from the mourner, with the steady, resolute, business-like face of a man in whom sentiment is confined to action; its phrases and its flourishes being literally terra incognita to the honest fellow.

Staines staggered towards him, holding out both hands, and gasped out, "God bless you. Hide me somewhere—must not be seen SO—got duty to do—Patient—can't do it yet—one hour to draw my breath—oh, my God, my God!—one hour, sir. Then do my duty, if I die—as you would."

Fitzroy tore him down into his own cabin, shut him in and ran to the first lieutenant, with a tear in his eye. "Can I have a sentry, sir?"

"Sentry! What for?"

"The doctor—awfully cut up at leaving his wife: got him in my cabin. Wants to have his cry to himself."

"Fancy a fellow crying at going to sea!"

"It is not that, sir; it is leaving his wife."

"Well, is he the only man on board that has got a wife?"

"Why, no, sir. It is odd, now I think of it. Perhaps he has only got that ONE."

"Curious creatures, landsmen," said the first lieutenant. "However, you can stick a marine there."

"And I say, show the YOUNGSTER the berths, and let him choose, as the doctor's aground."

"Yes, sir."

So Fitzoy planted his marine, and then went after Lord Tadcaster: he had drawn up alongside his cousin, Captain Hamilton. The captain, being an admirer of Lady Cicely, was mighty civil to his little lordship, and talked to him more than was his wont on the quarterdeck; for though he had a good flow of conversation, and dispensed with ceremony in his cabin, he was apt to be rather short on deck. However, he told little Tadcaster he was fortunate; they had a good start, and, if the wind held, might hope to be clear of the Channel in twenty-four hours. "You will see Eddystone lighthouse about four bells," said he.

"Shall we go out of sight of land altogether?" inquired his lordship.

"Of course we shall, and the sooner the better." He then explained to the novice that the only danger to a good ship was from the land.

While Tadcaster was digesting this paradox, Captain Hamilton proceeded to descant on the beauties of blue water and its fine medicinal qualities, which, he said, were particularly suited to young gentlemen with bilious stomachs, but presently, catching sight of Lieutenant Fitzroy standing apart, but with the manner of a lieutenant not there by accident, he stopped, and said, civilly but smartly, "Well, sir?"

Fitzroy came forward directly, saluted, and said he had orders from the first lieutenant to show Lord Tadcaster the berths. His lordship must be good enough to choose, because the doctor—couldn't.

"Why not?"

"Brought to, sir—for the present—by—well, by grief."

"Brought to by grief! Who the deuce is grief? No riddles on the quarter-deck, if you please, sir."

"Oh no, sir. I assure you he is awfully cut up; and he is having his cry out in my cabin."

"Having his cry out! why, what for?"

"Leaving his wife, sir."

"Oh, is that all?"

"Well, I don't wonder," cried little Tadcaster warmly. "She is, oh, so beautiful!" and a sudden blush o'erspread his pasty cheeks. "Why on earth didn't we bring her along with us here?" said he, suddenly opening his eyes with astonishment at the childish omission.

"Why, indeed?" said the captain comically, and dived below, attended by the well-disciplined laughter of Lieutenant Fitzroy, who was too good an officer not to be amused at his captain's jokes. Having acquitted himself of that duty—and it is a very difficult one sometimes—he took Lord Tadcaster to the main-deck, and showed him two comfortable sleeping-berths that had been screened off for him and Dr. Staines; one of these was fitted with a standing bed-place, the other had a cot swung in it. Fitzroy offered him the choice, but hinted that he himself preferred a cot.

"No, thank you," says my lord mighty dryly.

"All right," said Fitzroy cheerfully. "Take the other, then, my lord."

His little lordship cocked his eye like a jackdaw, and looked almost as cunning. "You see," said he, "I have been reading up for this voyage."

"Oh, indeed! Logarithms?"

"Of course not."

"What then?"

"Why, 'Peter Simple'—to be sure."

"Ah, ha!" said Fitzroy, with a chuckle that showed plainly he had some delicious reminiscences of youthful study in the same quarter.

The little lord chuckled too, and put one finger on Fitzroy's shoulder, and pointed at the cot with another. "Tumble out the other side, you know—slippery hitches—cords cut—down you come flop in the middle of the night."

Fitzroy's eye flashed merriment: but only for a moment. His countenance fell the next. "Lord bless you," said he sorrowfully, "all that game is over now. Her Majesty's ship!—it is a church afloat. The service is going to the devil, as the old fogies say."

"Ain't you sorry?" says the little lord, cocking his eye again like the bird hereinbefore mentioned.

"Of course I am."

"Then I'll take the standing bed."

"All right. I say, you don't mind the doctor coming down with a run, eh?"

"He is not ill: I am. He is paid to take care of me: I am not paid to take care of him," said the young lord sententiously.

"I understand," replied Fitzroy, dryly. "Well, every one for himself, and Providence for us all—as the elephant said when he danced among the chickens."

Here my lord was summoned to dine with the captain. Staines was not there; but he had not forgotten his duty; in the midst of his grief he had written a note to the captain, hoping that a bereaved husband might not seem to desert his post if he hid for a few hours the sorrow he felt himself unable to control. Meantime he would be grateful if Captain Hamilton would give orders that Lord Tadcaster should eat no pastry, and drink only six ounces of claret, otherwise he should feel that he was indeed betraying his trust.

The captain was pleased and touched with this letter. It recalled to him how his mother sobbed when she launched her little middy, swelling with his first cocked hat and dirk.

There was champagne at dinner, and little Tadcaster began to pour out a tumbler. "Hold on!" said Captain Hamilton; "you are not to drink that;" and he quietly removed the tumbler. "Bring him six ounces of claret."

While they were weighing the claret with scientific precision, Tadcaster remonstrated; and, being told it was the doctor's order, he squeaked out, "Confound him! why did not he stay with his wife? She is beautiful." Nor did he give it up without a struggle. "Here's hospitality!" said he. "Six ounces!"

Receiving no reply, he inquired of the third lieutenant, which was generally considered the greatest authority in a ship—the captain, or the doctor.

The third lieutenant answered not, but turned his head away, and, by violent exertion, succeeded in not splitting.

"I'll answer that," said Hamilton politely. "The captain is the highest in his department, and the doctor in his: now Doctor Staines is strictly within his department, and will be supported by me and my officers. You are bilious, and epileptical, and all the rest of it, and you are to be cured by diet and blue water."

Tadcaster was inclined to snivel: however, he subdued that weakness with a visible effort, and, in due course, returned to the charge. "How would you look," quavered he, "if there was to be a mutiny in this ship of yours, and I was to head it?'

"Well, I should look SHARP—hang all the ringleaders at the yardarm, clap the rest under hatches, and steer for the nearest prison."

"Oh!" said Tadcaster, and digested this scheme a bit. At last he perked up again, and made his final hit. "Well, I shouldn't care, for one, if you didn't flog us."

"In that case," said Captain Hamilton, "I'd flog you—and stop your six ounces."

"Then curse the sea; that is all I say."

"Why, you have not seen it; you have only seen the British Channel." It was Mr. Fitzroy who contributed this last observation.

After dinner all but the captain went on deck, and saw the Eddystone lighthouse ahead and to leeward. They passed it. Fitzroy told his lordship its story, and that of its unfortunate predecessors. Soon after this Lord Tadcaster turned in.

Presently the captain observed a change in the thermometer, which brought him on deck. He scanned the water and the sky, and as these experienced commanders have a subtle insight into the weather, especially in familiar latitudes, he remarked to the first lieutenant that it looked rather unsettled; and, as a matter of prudence, ordered a reef in the topsails, and the royal yards to be sent down: ship to be steered W. by S. This done, he turned in, but told them to call him if there was any change in the weather.

During the night the wind gradually headed; and at four bells in the middle watch a heavy squall came up from the south-west.

This brought the captain on deck again: he found the officer of the watch at his post, and at work. Sail was shortened, and the ship made snug for heavy weather.

At four A.M. it was blowing hard, and, being too near the French coast, they wore the ship.

Now, this operation was bad for little Tadcaster. While the vessel was on the starboard tack, the side kept him snug; but, when they wore her, of course he had no leeboard to keep him in. The ship gave a lee-lurch, and shot him clean out of his bunk into the middle of the cabin.

He shrieked and shrieked, with terror and pain, till the captain and Staines, who were his nearest neighbors, came to him, and they gave him a little brandy, and got him to bed again. Here he suffered nothing but violent seasickness for some hours. As for Staines, he had been swinging heavily in his cot; but such was his mental distress that he would have welcomed seasickness, or any reasonable bodily suffering. He was in that state when the sting of a wasp is a touch of comfort.

Worn out with sickness, Tadcaster would not move. Invited to breakfast, he swore faintly, and insisted on dying in peace. At last exhaustion gave him a sort of sleep, in spite of the motion, which was violent, for it was now blowing great guns, a heavy sea on, and the great waves dirty in color and crested with raging foam.

They had to wear ship again, always a ticklish manoeuvre in weather like this.

A tremendous sea struck her quarter, stove in the very port abreast of which the little lord was lying, and washed him clean out of bed into the lee scuppers, and set all swimming around him.

Didn't he yell, and wash about the cabin, and grab at all the chairs and tables and things that drifted about, nimble as eels, avoiding his grasp!

In rushed the captain, and in staggered Staines. They stopped his "voyage autour de sa chambre," and dragged him into the after saloon.

He clung to them by turns, and begged, with many tears, to be put on the nearest land; a rock would do.

"Much obliged," said the captain; "now is the very time to give rocks a wide berth."

"A dead whale, then—a lighthouse—anything but a beast of a ship."

They pacified him with a little brandy, and for the next twenty-four hours he scarcely opened his mouth, except for a purpose it is needless to dwell on. We can trust to our terrestrial readers' personal reminiscences of lee-lurches, weather-rolls, and their faithful concomitant.

At last they wriggled out of the Channel, and soon after that the wind abated, and next day veered round to the northward, and the ship sailed almost on an even keel. The motion became as heavenly as it had been diabolical, and the passengers came on deck.

Staines had suffered one whole day from sea-sickness, but never complained. I believe it did his mind more good than harm.

As for Tadcaster, he continued to suffer, at intervals, for two days more, but on the fifth day out he appeared with a little pink tinge on his cheek and a wolfish appetite. Dr. Staines controlled his diet severely, as to quality, and, when they had been at sea just eleven days, the physician's heavy heart was not a little lightened by the marvellous change in him. The unthinking, who believe in the drug system, should have seen what a physician can do with air and food, when circumstances enable him to ENFORCE the diet he enjoins. Money will sometimes buy even health, if you AVOID DRUGS ENTIRELY, and go another road.

Little Tadcaster went on board, pasty, dim-eyed, and very subject to fits, because his stomach was constantly overloaded with indigestible trash, and the blood in his brain-vessels was always either galloping or creeping, under the first or second effect of stimulants administered, at first, by thoughtless physicians. Behold him now—bronzed, pinky, bright-eyed, elastic; and only one fit in twelve days.

The quarter-deck was hailed from the "look-out" with a cry that is sometimes terrible, but in this latitude and weather welcome and exciting. "Land, ho!"

"Where away?" cried the officer of the watch.

"A point on the lee-bow, sir."

It was the island of Madeira: they dropped anchor in Funchal Roads, furled sails, squared yards, and fired a salute of twenty-one guns for the Portuguese flag.

They went ashore, and found a good hotel, and were no longer dosed, as in former days, with oil, onions, garlic, eggs. But the wine queer, and no madeira to be got.

Staines wrote home to his wife: he told her how deeply he had felt the bereavement; but did not dwell on that; his object being to cheer her. He told her it promised to be a rapid and wonderful cure, and one that might very well give him a fresh start in London. They need not be parted a whole year, he thought. He sent her a very long letter, and also such extracts from his sea journal as he thought might please her. After dinner they inspected the town, and what struck them most was to find the streets paved with flag-stones, and most of the carts drawn by bullocks on sledges. A man every now and then would run forward and drop a greasy cloth in front of the sledge, to lubricate the way.

Next day, after breakfast, they ordered horses; these on inspection, proved to be of excellent breed, either from Australia or America—very rough shod, for the stony roads. Started for the Grand Canal—peeped down that mighty chasm, which has the appearance of an immense mass having been blown out of the centre of the mountain.

They lunched under the great dragon tree near its brink, then rode back admiring the bold mountain scenery. Next morning at dawn, rode on horses up the hill to the convent. Admired the beautiful gardens on the way. Remained a short time; then came down in hand-sleighs—little baskets slung on sledges, guided by two natives; these sledges run down the hill with surprising rapidity, and the men guide them round corners by sticking out a foot to port or starboard.

Embarked at 11.30 A.M.

At 1.30, the men having dined, the ship was got under way for the Cape of Good Hope, and all sail made for a southerly course, to get into the north-east trades.

The weather was now balmy and delightful, and so genial that everybody lived on deck, and could hardly be got to turn in to their cabins, even for sleep.

Dr. Staines became a favorite with the officers. There is a great deal of science on board a modern ship of war, and, of course, on some points Staines, a Cambridge wrangler, and a man of many sciences and books, was an oracle. On others he was quite behind, but a ready and quick pupil. He made up to the navigating officer, and learned, with his help, to take observations. In return he was always at any youngster's service in a trigonometrical problem; and he amused the midshipmen and young lieutenants with analytical tests; some of these were applicable to certain liquids dispensed by the paymaster. Under one of them the port wine assumed some very droll colors and appearances not proper to grape-juice.

One lovely night that the ship clove the dark sea into a blaze of phosphorescence, and her wake streamed like a comet's tail, a waggish middy got a bucketful hoisted on deck, and asked the doctor to analyze that. He did not much like it, but yielded to the general request; and by dividing it into smaller vessels, and dropping in various chemicals, made rainbows and silvery flames and what not. But he declined to repeat the experiment: "No, no; once is philosophy; twice is cruelty. I've slain more than Samson already."

As for Tadcaster, science had no charms for him; but fiction had; and he got it galore; for he cruised about the forecastle, and there the quartermasters and old seamen spun him yarns that held him breathless.

But one day my lord had a fit on the quarter-deck, and a bad one; and Staines found him smelling strong of rum. He represented this to Captain Hamilton. The captain caused strict inquiries to be made, and it came out that my lord had gone among the men, with money in both pockets, and bought a little of one man's grog, and a little of another, and had been sipping the furtive but transient joys of solitary intoxication.

Captain Hamilton talked to him seriously; told him it was suicide.

"Never mind, old boy," said the young monkey; "a short life and a merry one."

Then Hamilton represented that it was very ungentleman-like to go and tempt poor Jack with his money, to offend discipline, and get flogged. "How will you feel, Tadcaster, when you see their backs bleeding under the cat?"

"Oh, d—n it all, George, don't do that," says the young gentleman, all in a hurry.

Then the commander saw he had touched the right chord. So he played on it, till he got Lord Tadcaster to pledge his honor not to do it again.

The little fellow gave the pledge, but relieved his mind as follows: "But it is a cursed tyrannical hole, this tiresome old ship. You can't do what you like in it."

"Well, but no more you can in the grave: and that is the agreeable residence you were hurrying to but for this tiresome old ship."

"Lord! no more you can," said Tadcaster, with sudden candor. "I FORGOT THAT."

The airs were very light; the ship hardly moved. It was beginning to get dull, when one day a sail was sighted on the weather-bow, standing to the eastward: on nearing her, she was seen, by the cut of her sails, to be a man-of-war, evidently homeward bound: so Captain Hamilton ordered the main-royal to be lowered (to render signal more visible) and the "demand" hoisted. No notice being taken of this, a gun was fired to draw her attention to the signal. This had the desired effect; down went her main-royal, up went her "number." On referring to the signal book, she proved to be the Vindictive from the Pacific Station.

This being ascertained, Captain Hamilton, being that captain's senior, signalled "Close and prepare to receive letters." In obedience to this she bore up, ran down, and rounded to; the sail in the Amphitrite was also shortened, the maintopsail laid to the mast, and a boat lowered. The captain having finished his despatches, they, with the letter-bags, were handed into the boat, which shoved off, pulled to the lee side of the Vindictive, and left the despatches, with Captain Hamilton's compliments. On its return, both ships made sail on their respective course, exchanging "bon voyage" by signal, and soon the upper sails of the homeward-bounder were seen dipping below the horizon: longing eyes followed her on board the Amphitrite.

How many hurried missives had been written and despatched in that half-hour. But as for Staines, he was a man of forethought, and had a volume ready for his dear wife.

Lord Tadcaster wrote to Lady Cicely Treherne. His epistle, though brief, contained a plum or two.

He wrote: "What with sailing, and fishing, and eating nothing but roast meat, I'm quite another man."

This amused her ladyship a little, but not so much as the postscript, which was indeed the neatest thing in its way she had met with, and she had some experience, too.

"P.S.—I say, Cicely, I think I should like to marry you. Would you mind?"

Let us defy time and space to give you Lady Cicely's reply: "I should enjoy it of all things, Taddy. But, alas! I am too young."

N.B.—She was twenty-seven, and Tad sixteen. To be sure, Tad was four feet eleven, and she was only five feet six and a half.

To return to my narrative (with apologies), this meeting of the vessels caused a very agreeable excitement that day; but a greater was in store. In the afternoon, Tadcaster, Staines, and the principal officers of the ship, being at dinner in the captain's cabin, in came the officer of the watch, and reported a large spar on the weather-bow.

"Well, close it, if you can; and let me know if it looks worth picking up."

He then explained to Lord Tadcaster that, on a cruise, he never liked to pass a spar, or anything that might possibly reveal the fate of some vessel or other.

In the middle of his discourse the officer came in again, but not in the same cool business way: he ran in excitedly, and said, "Captain, the signalman reports it ALIVE!"

"Alive?—a spar! What do you mean? Something alive ON it, eh?"

"No, sir; alive itself."

"How can that be? Hail him again. Ask him what it is."

The officer went out, and hailed the signalman at the mast-head. "What is it?"

"Sea-sarpint, I think."

This hail reached the captain's ears faintly. However, he waited quietly till the officer came in and reported it; then he burst out, "Absurd! there is no such creature in the universe. What do you say, Dr. Staines?—It is in your department."

"The universe in my department, captain?"

"Haw! haw! haw!" went Fitzroy and two more.

"No, you rogue, the serpent."

Dr. Staines, thus appealed to, asked the captain if he had ever seen small snakes out at sea.

"Why, of course. Sailed through a mile of them once, in the archipelago."

"Sure they were snakes?"

"Quite sure; and the biggest was not eight feet long."

"Very well, captain; then sea-serpents exist, and it becomes a mere question of size. Now which produces the larger animals in every kind,—land or sea? The grown elephant weighs, I believe, about five tons. The very smallest of the whale tribe weighs ten; and they go as high as forty tons. There are smaller fish than the whale, that are four times as heavy as the elephant. Why doubt, then, that the sea can breed a snake to eclipse the boa-constrictor? Even if the creature had never been seen, I should, by mere reasoning from analogy, expect the sea to produce a serpent excelling the boa-constrictor, as the lobster excels a crayfish of our rivers: see how large things grow at sea! the salmon born in our rivers weighs in six months a quarter of a pound, or less; it goes out to sea, and comes back in one year weighing seven pounds. So far from doubting the large sea-serpents, I believe they exist by the million. The only thing that puzzles me is, why they should ever show a nose above water; they must be very numerous, I think."