He clasped his hands together; his head drooped a little; dark shadows seemed to move over his bent face; and the scars of the old wounds deepened to a livid violet hue.

His silence and hesitation seemed to inspire Joanna Grice with sudden confidence and courage. She moved a little away from the wall, and a gleam of triumph lightened over her face, as she reiterated her last answer of her own accord. "Yes! the wretch who ruined the good name of the family was dead—dead, and buried far off, in some grave by herself—not there, in the churchyard with her father and mother—no, thank God, not there!"

He looked up at her instantly, when she said those words, There was some warning influence in his eye, as it rested on her, which sent her cowering back again to her former place against the wall. Mentioning the name for the first time, he asked sternly where Mary was buried. The reply—doled out doggedly and slowly, forced from her word by word—was, that Mary was buried among strangers, as she deserved to be—at a place called Bangbury—far away in the next county, where she died, and where money was sent to bury her.

His manner became less roughly imperative; his eyes softened; his voice saddened in tone, when he spoke again. And yet, the next question that he put to Joanna Grice seemed to pierce her to the quick, to try her to the heart, as no questioning had tried her before. The muscles were writhing on her haggard face, her breath burst from her in quick, fierce pantings, as he asked plainly, whether it was only suspicion, or really the truth, that Mary was with child when she left her home?

No answer was given to him. He repeated the question, and insisted on having one. Was it suspicion, or truth? The reply hissed out at him in one whispered word—Truth.

Was the child born alive?

The answer came again in the same harsh whisper—Yes: born alive.

What became of it?

She never saw it—never asked about it—never knew. While she replied thus, her whispering accents changed, and rose sullenly to hoarse, distinct tones. But it was not till the questioner spoke to her once more that the smothered fury flashed out into flaming rage. Then, even as he raised his head and opened his lips, she staggered, with outstretched arms, up to the table at which she had been reading when he came in; and struck her bony hands on the open Bible; and swore by the Word of Truth in that Book, that she would answer him no more.

He rose calmly; and with something of contempt in his look, approached the table and spoke. But his voice was drowned by hers, bursting from her in screams of fury. No! no! no! Not a word more! How dare he come there, with his shameless face and his threatening eyes, and make her speak of what should never have passed her lips again—never till she went up to render her account at the Judgment Seat! Relations! let him not speak to her of relations. The only kindred she ever cared to own, lay heart-broken under the great stone in the churchyard. Relations! if they all came to life again this very minute, what could she have to do with them, whose only relation was Death? Yes; Death, that was father, mother, brother, sister to her now! Death, that was waiting to take her in God's good time. What! would he stay on in spite of her? stay after she had sworn not to answer him another word?

Yes; he was resolved to stay—and resolved to know more. Had Mary left nothing behind her, on the day when she fled from her home?

Some suddenly-conceived resolution seemed to calm the first fury of Joanna Grice's passion, while he said those words. She stretched out her hand quickly, and griped him by the arm, and looked up in his face with a wicked exultation in her wild eyes.

He was bent on knowing what that ruined wretch left behind her? Well! he should see for himself!

Between the leaves of Joanna Grice's Bible there was a key, which seemed to be used as a marker. She took it out, and led the way, with toilsome step, and hands outstretched for support to the wall on one side and the banisters on the other, up the one flight of stairs which communicated with the bed-room story of the cottage.

He followed close behind her: and was standing by her side, when she opened a door, and pointed into a room, telling him to take what he found there, and then go—she cared not whither, so long as he went from her.

She descended the stairs again, as he entered the room. There was a close, faint, airless smell in it. Cobwebs, pendulous and brown with dirt, hung from the ceiling. The grimy window-panes saddened all the light that poured through them faintly. He looked round him, and saw no furniture anywhere; no sign that the room had ever been lived in, ever entered even, for years and years past. He looked again, more carefully: and detected, in one dim corner, something covered with dust and dirt, which looked like a small box.

He pulled it out towards the window. Dust flew from it in clouds. Loathsome, crawling creatures crept from under it and from off it. He stirred it with his foot still nearer to the faint light, and saw that it was a common deal-box, corded. He looked closer, and through cobwebs, and dead insects, and foul stains of all kinds, spelt out a name that was painted on it: MARY GRICE.

At the sight of that name, and of the pollution which covered it, he paused, silent and thoughtful; and, at the same moment, heard the parlor door below, locked. He stooped hastily, took up the box by the cord round it, and left the room. His hand touched a substance, as he grasped the cord, which did not feel like wood. Examining the box by the clearer light falling on the landing from a window in the roof, he discovered a letter nailed to the cover. There was something written on it; but the paper was dusty, the ink was faded by time, and the characters were hard to decipher. By dint of perseverance, however, he made out from them this inscription: "Justification of my conduct towards my niece: to be read after my death. Joanna Grice."

As he passed the parlor door, he heard her voice, reading. He stopped and listened. The words that reached his ears seemed familiar to them; and yet he knew not, at first, what book they came from. He listened a little longer; his recollections of his boyhood and of home helped him; and he knew that the book from which Joanna Grice was reading aloud to herself was the Bible.

His face darkened, and he went out quickly into the garden; but stopped before he reached the paling, and, turning back to the front window of the parlor, looked in. He saw her sitting with her back to him, with elbows on the table, and hands working feverishly in her tangled grey hair. Her voice was still audible; but the words it pronounced could no longer be distinguished. He waited at the window for a few moments; then left it suddenly, saying to himself: "I wonder the book don't strike her dead!" Those were his only words of farewell. With that thought in his heart, he turned his back on the cottage, and on Joanna Grice.

He went on through the rain, taking the box with him, and looking about for some sheltered place in which he could open it. After walking nearly a mile, he saw an old cattle-shed, a little way off the road—a rotten, deserted place; but it afforded some little shelter, even yet: so he entered it.

There was one dry corner left; dry enough, at least, to suit his purpose. In that he knelt down, and cut the cord round the box—hesitated before he opened it—and began by tearing away the letter outside, from the nail that fastened it to the cover.

It was a long letter, written in a close, crabbed hand. He ran his eye over it impatiently, till his attention was accidentally caught and arrested by two or three lines, more clearly penned than the rest, near the middle of a page. For many years he had been unused to reading any written characters; but he spelt out resolutely the words in the few lines which first struck his eye, and found that they ran thus:—

"I have now only to add, before proceeding to the miserable confession of our family dishonor, that I never afterwards saw, and only once heard of, the man who tempted my niece to commit the deadly sin, which was her ruin in this world, and will be her ruin in the next."

Beyond those words, he made no effort to read further. Thrusting the letter hastily into his pocket, he turned once more to the box.

It was sealed up with strips of tape, but not locked. He forced the lid open, and saw inside a few simple articles of woman's wearing apparel; a little work-box; a lace collar, with the needle and thread still sticking in it; several letters, here tied up in a packet, there scattered carelessly; a gaily-bound album; a quantity of dried ferns and flower leaves that had apparently fallen from between the pages: a piece of canvas with a slipper-pattern worked on it; and a black dress waistcoat with some unfinished embroidery on the collar. It was plain to him, at a first glance, that these things had been thrown into the box anyhow, and had been left just as they were thrown. For a moment or two, he kept his eyes fixed on the sad significance of the confusion displayed before him; then turned away his head, whispering to himself, mournfully and many times, that name of "Mary," which he had already pronounced while in the presence of Joanna Grice. After a little, he mechanically picked out the letters that lay scattered about the box; mechanically eyed the broken seals and the addresses on each; mechanically put them back again unopened, until he came to one which felt as if it had something inside it. This circumstance stimulated him into unfolding the enclosure, and examining what the letter might contain.

Nothing but a piece of paper neatly folded. He undid the folds, and found part of a lock of hair inside, which he wrapped up again the moment he saw it, as if anxious to conceal it from view as soon as possible. The letter he examined more deliberately. It was in a woman's handwriting; was directed to "Miss Mary Grice, Dibbledean:" and was only dated "Bond Street, London. Wednesday." The post-mark, however, showed that it had been written many years ago. It was not very long; so he set himself to the task of making it all out from beginning to end.

This was what he read:—

"MY DEAREST MARY,

"I have just sent you your pretty hair bracelet by the coach, nicely sealed and packed up by the jeweler. I have directed it to you by your own name, as I direct this, remembering what you told me about your father making it a point of honor never to open your letters and parcels; and forbidding that ugly aunt Joanna of yours, ever to do so either. I hope you will receive this and the little packet about the same time.

"I will answer for your thinking the pattern of your bracelet much improved since the new hair has been worked in with the old. How slyly you will run away to your own room, and blush unseen, like the flower in the poem, when you look at it! You may be rather surprised, perhaps, to see some little gold fastenings introduced as additions; but this, the jeweler told me, was a matter of necessity. Your poor dear sister's hair being the only material of the bracelet, when you sent it up to me to be altered, was very different from the hair of that faultless true-love of yours which you also sent to be worked in with it. It was, in fact, hardly half long enough to plait up properly with poor Susan's, from end to end; so the jeweler had to join it with little gold clasps, as you will see. It is very prettily run in along with the old hair though. No country jeweler could have done it half as nicely, so you did well to send it to London after all. I consider myself rather a judge of these things; and I say positively that it is now the prettiest hair bracelet I ever saw.

"Do you see him as often as ever? He ought to be true and faithful to you, when you show how dearly you love him, by mixing his hair with poor Susan's, whom you were always so fondly attached to. I say he ought; but you are sure to say he will—and I am quite ready, love, to believe that you are the wiser of the two.

"I would write more, but have no time. It is just the regular London season now, and we are worked out of our lives. I envy you dressmakers in the country; and almost wish I was back again at Dibbledean, to be tyrannized over from morning to night by Miss Joanna. I know she is your aunt, my dear; but I can't help saying that I hate her very name!

"Ever your affectionate friend,

"JANE HOLDSWORTH.

"P. S.—The jeweler sent back the hair he did not want; and I, as in duty bound, return it enclosed to you, its lawful owner."

Those scars on Mat's face, which indicated the stir of strong feelings within him more palpably than either his expression or his manner, began to burn redly again while he spelt his way through this letter. He crumpled it up hastily round the enclosure, instead of folding it as it had been folded before; and was about to cast it back sharply into the box, when the sight of the wearing apparel and half-finished work lying inside seemed to stay his hand, and teach it on a sudden to move tenderly. He smoothed out the paper with care, and placed it very gently among the rest of the letters—then looked at the box thoughtfully for a moment or two; took from his pocket the letter that he had first examined, and dropped it in among the others—then suddenly and sharply closed the lid of the box again.

"I can't touch any more of her things," he said to himself; "I can't so much as look at 'em, somehow, without its making me—" he stopped to tie up the box; straining at the cords, as if the mere physical exertion of pulling hard at something were a relief to him at that moment. "I'll open it again and look it over in a day or two, when I'm away from the old place here," he resumed, jerking sharply at the last knot—"when I'm away from the old place, and have got to be my own man again."

He left the shed; regained the road; and stopped, looking up and down, and all round him, indecisively. Where should he go next? To the grave, where he had been told that Mary lay buried? No: not until he had first read all the letters and carefully examined all the objects in the box. Back to London, and to his promised meeting next morning with Zack? Yes: nothing better was left to be done—back to London.

Before nightfall he was journeying again to the great city, and to his meeting with Zack; journeying (though he little thought it) to the place where the clue lay hid—the clue to the Mystery of Mary Grice.



CHAPTER IV. FATE WORKS, WITH ZACK FOR AN INSTRUMENT.

A quarter of an hour's rapid walking from his father's door, took Zack well out of the neighborhood of Baregrove Square, and launched him in vagabond independence loose on the world. He had a silk handkerchief and sevenpence halfpenny in his pockets—his available assets consisted of a handsome gold watch and chain—his only article of baggage was a blackthorn stick—and his anchor of hope was the Pawnbroker.

His first action, now that he had become his own master, was to go direct to the nearest stationer's shop that he could find, and there to write the penitent letter to his mother over which his heart had failed him in the library at Baregrove Square. It was about as awkward, scrambling, and incoherent an epistolary production as ever was composed. But Zack felt easier when he had completed it—easier still when he had actually dropped it into the post-office along with his other letter to Mr. Valentine Blyth.

The next duty that claimed him was the first great duty of civilized humanity—the filling of an empty purse. Most young gentlemen in his station of life would have found the process of pawning a watch in the streets of London, and in broad daylight, rather an embarrassing one. But Zack was born impervious to a sense of respectability. He marched into the first pawnbroker's he came to with as solemn an air of business, and marched out again with as serene an expression of satisfaction, as if he had just been drawing a handsome salary, or just been delivering a heavy deposit into the hands of his banker.

Once provided with pecuniary resources, Zack felt himself at liberty to indulge forthwith in a holiday of his own granting. He opened the festival by a good long ride in a cab, with a bottle of pale ale and a packet of cigars inside, to keep the miserable state of the weather from affecting his spirits. He closed the festival with a visit to the theater, a supper in mixed company, total self-oblivion, a bed at a tavern, and a blinding headache the next morning. Thus much, in brief, for the narrative of his holiday. The proceedings, on his part, which followed that festival, claim attention next; and are of sufficient importance, in the results to which they led, to be mentioned in detail.

The new morning was the beginning of an important day in Zack's life. Much depended on the interviews he was about to seek with his new friend, Mat, in Kirk Street, and with Mr. Blyth, at the turnpike in the Laburnum Road. As he paid his bill at the tavern, his conscience was not altogether easy, when he recalled a certain passage in his letter to his mother, which had assured her that he was on the high road to reformation already. "I'll make a clean breast of it to Blyth, and do exactly what he tells me, when I meet him at the turnpike." Fortifying himself with this good resolution, Zack arrived at Kirk Street, and knocked at the private door of the tobacconist's shop.

Mat, having seen him from the window, called to him to come up, as soon as the door was opened. The moment they shook hands, young Thorpe noticed that his new friend looked altered. His face seemed to have grown downcast and weary—heavy and vacant, since they had last met.

"What's happened to you?" asked Zack. "You have been somewhere in the country, haven't you? What news do you bring back, my dear fellow? Good, I hope?"

"Bad as can be," returned Mat, gruffly. "Don't you say another word to me about it. If you do, we part company again. Talk of something else. Anything you like; and the sooner the better."

Forbidden to discourse any more concerning his friend's affairs, Zack veered about directly, and began to discourse concerning his own. Candor was one of his few virtues: and he now confided to Mat the entire history of his tribulations, without a single reserved point at any part of the narrative, from beginning to end.

Without putting a question, or giving an answer, without displaying the smallest astonishment or the slightest sympathy, Mat stood gravely listening until Zack had quite done. He then went to the corner of the room where the round table was; pulled the upturned lid back upon the pedestal; drew from the breast pocket of his coat a roll of beaver-skin; slowly undid it; displayed upon the table a goodly collection of bank notes; and pointing to them, said to young Thorpe,—"Take what you want."

It was not easy to surprise Zack; but this proceeding so completely astonished him, that he stared at the bank notes in speechless amazement. Mat took his pipe from a nail in the wall, filled the bowl with tobacco, and pointing with the stem towards the table, gruffly repeated,—"Take what you want."

This time, Zack found words in which to express himself, and used them pretty freely to praise his new friend's unexampled generosity, and to decline taking a single farthing. Mat deliberately lit his pipe, in the first place, and then bluntly answered in these terms:—

"Take my advice, young 'un, and keep all that talking for somebody else: it's gibberish to me. Don't bother; and help yourself to what you want. Money's what you want—though you won't own it. That's money. When it's gone, I can go back to California and get more. While it lasts, make it spin. What is there to stare at? I told you I'd be brothers with you, because of what you done for me the other night. Well: I'm being brothers with you now. Get your watch out of pawn, and shake a loose leg at the world. Will you take what you want? And when you have, just tie up the rest, and chuck 'em over here." With those words the man of the black skull-cap sat down on his bearskins, and sulkily surrounded himself with clouds of tobacco smoke.

Finding it impossible to make Mat understand those delicacies and refinements of civilized life which induce one gentleman (always excepting a clergyman at Easter time) to decline accepting money from another gentleman as a gift—perceiving that he was resolved to receive all remonstrances as so many declarations of personal enmity and distrust—and well knowing, moreover, that a little money to go on with would be really a very acceptable accommodation under existing circumstances, Zack consented to take two ten-pound notes as a loan. At this reservation Mat chuckled contemptuously; but young Thorpe enforced it, by tearing a leaf out of his pocket-book, and writing an acknowledgment for the sum he had borrowed. Mat roughly and resolutely refused to receive the document; but Zack tied it up along with the bank-notes, and threw the beaver-skin roll back to its owner, as requested.

"Do you want a bed to sleep in?" asked Mat next. "Say yes or no at once! I won't have no more gibberish. I'm not a gentleman, and I can't shake up along with them as are. It's no use trying it on with me, young 'un. I'm not much better than a cross between a savage and a Christian. I'm a battered, lonesome, scalped old vagabond—that's what I am! But I'm brothers with you for all that. What's mine is yours; and if you tell me it isn't again, me and you are likely to quarrel. Do you want a bed to sleep in? Yes? or No?"

Yes; Zack certainly wanted a bed; but—

"There's one for you," remarked Mat, pointing through the folding-doors into the back room. "I don't want it. I haven't slep' in a bed these twenty years and more, and I can't do it now. I take dog's snoozes in this corner; and I shall take more dog's snoozes out of doors in the day-time, when the sun begins to shine. I haven't been used to much sleep, and I don't want much. Go in and try if the bed's long enough for you."

Zack tried to expostulate again, but Mat interrupted him more gruffly than ever.

"I suppose you don't care to sleep next door to such as me," he said. "You wouldn't turn your back on a bit of my blanket, though, if we were out in the lonesome places together. Never mind! You won't cotton to me all at once, I dare say. I cotton to you in spite of that. Damn the bed! Take or leave it, which you like."

Zack the reckless, who was always ready at five minutes' notice to make friends with any living being under the canopy of heaven—Zack the gregarious, who in his days of roaming the country, before he was fettered to an office stool, had "cottoned" to every species of rustic vagabond, from a traveling tinker to a resident poacher—at once declared that he would sleep in the offered bed that very night, by way of showing himself worthy of his host's assistance and regard, if worthy of nothing else. Greatly relieved by this plain declaration, Mat crossed his legs luxuriously on the floor, shook his great shoulders with a heartier chuckle than usual, and made his young friend free of the premises in these hospitable words:—

"There! now the bother's over at last, I suppose," cried Mat. "Pull in the buffalo hide, and bring your legs to an anchor anywhere you like. I'm smoking. Suppose you smoke too.—Hoi! Bring up a clean pipe," cried this rough diamond, in conclusion, turning up a loose corner of the carpet, and roaring through a crack in the floor into the shop below.

The pipe was brought. Zack sat down on the buffalo hide, and began to ask his queer friend about the life he had been leading in the wilds of North and South America. From short replies at first, Mat was gradually beguiled into really relating some of his adventures. Wild, barbarous fragments of narrative they were; mingling together in one darkly-fantastic record, fierce triumphs and deadly dangers; miseries of cold, and hunger, and thirst; glories of hunters' feasts in mighty forests; gold-findings among desolate rocks; gallopings for life from the flames of the blazing prairie; combats with wild beasts and with men wilder still; weeks of awful solitude in primeval wastes; days and nights of perilous orgies among drunken savages; visions of meteors in heaven, of hurricanes on earth, and of icebergs blinding bright, when the sunshine was beautiful over the Polar seas.

Young Thorpe listened in a fever of excitement. Here was the desperate, dangerous, roving life of which he had dreamed! He longed already to engage in it: he could have listened to descriptions of it all day long. But Mat was the last man in the world to err, at any time, on the side of diffuseness in relating the results of his own experience. And he now provokingly stopped, on a sudden, in the middle of an adventure among the wild horses on the Pampas; declaring that he was tired of feeling his own tongue wag, and had got so sick of talking of himself, that he was determined not to open his mouth again—except to put a rump-steak and a pipe in it—for the rest of the day.

Finding it impossible to make him alter this resolution, Zack thought of his engagement with Mr. Blyth, and asked what time it was. Mat, having no watch, conveyed this inquiry into the shop by the same process of roaring through the crack in the ceiling which he had already employed to produce a clean pipe. The answer showed Zack that he had barely time enough left to be punctual to his appointment in the Laburnum Road.

"I must be off to my friend at the turnpike," he said, rising and putting on his hat; "but I shall be back again in an hour or two. I say, have you thought seriously yet about going back to America?" His eyes sparkled eagerly as he put this question.

"There ain't no need to think about it," answered Mat. "I mean to go back; but I haven't settled what day yet. I've got something to do first." His face darkened, and he glanced aside at the box which he had brought from Dibbledean, and which was now covered with one of his bearskins. "Never mind what it is; I've got it to do, and that's enough. Don't you go asking again whether I've brought news from the country, or whether I haven't. Don't you ever do that, and we shall sail along together easy enough. I like you, Zack, when you don't bother me. If you want to go, what are you stopping for? Why don't you clear out at once?"

Young Thorpe departed, laughing. It was a fine clear day, and the bright sky showed signs of a return of the frost. He was in high spirits as he walked along, thinking of Mat's wild adventures. What was the happiest painter's life, after all, compared to such a life as he had just heard described? Zack was hardly in the Laburnum Road before he began to doubt whether he had really made up his mind to be guided entirely by Mr. Blyth's advice, and to devote all his energies for the future to the cultivation of the fine arts.

Near the turnpike stood a tall gentleman, making a sketch in a note-book of some felled timber lying by the road side. This could be no other than Valentine—and Valentine it really was.

Mr. Blyth looked unusually serious, as he shook hands with young Thorpe. "Don't begin to justify yourself, Zack," he said; "I'm not going to blame you now. Let's walk on a little. I have some news to tell you from Baregrove Square."

It appeared from the narrative on which Valentine now entered, that, immediately on the receipt of Zack's letter, he had called on Mr. Thorpe, with the kindly purpose of endeavoring to make peace between father and son. His mission had entirely failed. Mr. Thorpe had grown more and more irritable as the interview proceeded; and had accused his visitor of unwarrantable interference, when Valentine suggested the propriety of holding out some prospect of forgiveness to the runaway son.

This outbreak Mr. Blyth had abstained from noticing, out of consideration for the agitated state of the speaker's feelings. But when the Reverend Mr. Yollop (who had been talking with Mrs. Thorpe up stairs) came into the room soon afterwards, and joined in the conversation, words had been spoken which had obliged Valentine to leave the house. The reiteration of some arguments on the side of mercy which he had already advanced, had caused Mr. Yollop to hint, with extreme politeness and humility, that Mr. Blyth's profession was not of a nature to render him capable of estimating properly the nature and consequences of moral guilt; while Mr. Thorpe had referred almost openly to the scandalous reports which had been spread abroad in certain quarters, years ago, on the subject of Madonna's parentage. These insinuations had roused Valentine instantly. He had denounced them as false in the strongest terms he could employ; and had left the house, resolved never to hold any communication again either with Mr. Yollop or Mr. Thorpe.

About an hour after his return home, a letter marked "Private" had been brought to him from Mrs. Thorpe. The writer referred, with many expressions of sorrow, to what had occurred at the interview of the morning; and earnestly begged Mr. Blyth to take into consideration the state of Mr. Thorpe's health, which was such, that the family doctor (who had just called) had absolutely forbidden him to excite himself in the smallest degree by receiving any visitors, or by taking any active steps towards the recovery of his absent son. If these rules were not strictly complied with for many days to come, the doctor declared that the attack of palpitation of the heart, from which Mr. Thorpe had suffered on the night of Zack's return, might occur again, and might be strengthened into a confirmed malady. As it was, if proper care was taken, nothing of an alarming nature need be apprehended.

Having referred to her husband in these terms, Mrs. Thorpe next reverted to herself. She mentioned the receipt of a letter from Zack; but said it had done little towards calming her anxiety and alarm. Feeling certain that Mr. Blyth would be the first friend her son would go to, she now begged him to use his influence to keep Zack from abandoning himself to any desperate courses, or from leaving the country, which she greatly feared he might be tempted to do. She asked this of Mr. Blyth as a favor to herself, and hinted that if he would only enable her, by granting it, to tell her husband, without entering into details, that their son was under safe guidance for the present, half the anxiety from which she was now suffering would be alleviated. Here the letter ended abruptly; a request for a speedy answer being added in the postscript.

"Now, Zack," said Valentine, after he had related the result of his visit to Baregrove Square, and had faithfully reported the contents of Mrs. Thorpe's letter, "I shall only add that whatever has happened between your father and me, makes no difference in the respect I have always felt for your mother, and in my earnest desire to do her every service in my power. I tell you fairly—as between friends—that I think you have been very much to blame; but I have sufficient confidence and faith in you, to leave everything to be decided by your own sense of honor, and by the affection which I am sure you feel for your mother."

This appeal, and the narrative which had preceded it, had their due effect on Zack. His ardor for a wandering life of excitement and peril, began to cool in the quiet temperature of the good influences that were now at work within him. "It shan't be my fault, Blyth, if I don't deserve your good opinion," he said warmly. "I know I've behaved badly; and I know, too, that I have had some severe provocations. Only tell me what you advise, and I'll do it—I will, upon my honor, for my mother's sake."

"That's right! that's talking like a man!" cried Valentine, clapping him on the shoulder. "In the first place, it would be no use your going back home at once—even if you were willing, which I am afraid you are not. In your father's present state your return to Baregrove Square would do him a great deal of harm, and do you no good. Employed, however, you must be somehow while you're away from home; and what you're fit for—unless it's Art—I'm sure I don't know. You have been talking a great deal about wanting to be a painter; and now is the time to test your resolution. If I get you an order to draw in the British Museum, to fill up your mornings; and if I enter you at some private Academy, to fill up your evenings (mine at home is not half strict enough for you)—will you stick to it?"

"With all my heart," replied Zack, resolutely dismissing his dreams of life in the wilds to the limbo of oblivion. "I ask nothing better, Blyth, than to stick to you and your plan for the future."

"Bravo!" cried Valentine, in his old gay, hearty manner. "The heaviest load of anxiety that has been on my shoulders for some time past is off now. I will write and comfort your mother this very afternoon—"

"Give her my love," interposed Zack. —"Giving her your love; in the belief, of course, that you are going to prove yourself worthy to send such a message," continued Mr. Blyth. "Let us turn, and walk back at once. The sooner I write, the easier and happier I shall be. By the bye, there's another important question starts up now, which your mother seems to have forgotten in the hurry and agitation of writing her letter. What are you going to do about money matters? Have you thought about a place to live in for the present? Can I help you in any way?"

These questions admitted of but one candid form of answer, which the natural frankness of Zack's character led him to adopt without hesitation. He immediately related the whole history of his first meeting with Mat, (formally describing him, on this occasion, as Mr. Mathew Marksman), and of the visit to Kirk Street which had followed it that very morning.

Though in no way remarkable for excess of caution, or for the possession of any extraordinary fund of worldly wisdom, Mr. Blyth frowned and shook his head suspiciously, while he listened to the curious narrative now addressed to him. As soon as it was concluded, he expressed the most decided disapprobation of the careless readiness with which Zack had allowed a perfect stranger to become intimate with him—reminding him that he had met his new acquaintance (of whom, by his own confession, he knew next to nothing) in a very disreputable place—and concluded by earnestly recommending him to break off all connection with so dangerous an associate, at the earliest possible opportunity.

Zack, on his side, was not slow in mustering arguments to defend his conduct. He declared that Mr. Marksman had gone into the Snuggery innocently, and had been grossly insulted before he became the originator of the riot there. As to his family affairs and his real name, he might have good and proper reasons for concealing them; which was the more probable, as his account of himself in other respects was straightforward and unreserved enough. He might be a little eccentric, and might have led an adventurous life; but it was surely not fair to condemn him, on that account only, as a bad character. In conclusion, Zack cited the loan he had received, as a proof that the stranger could not be a swindler, at any rate; and referred to the evident familiarity with localities and customs in California, which he had shown in conversation that afternoon, as affording satisfactory proof in support of his own statement that he had gained his money by gold-digging.

Mr. Blyth, however, still held firmly to his original opinion; and, first offering to advance the money from his own purse, suggested that young Thorpe should relieve himself of the obligation which he had imprudently contracted, by paying back what he had borrowed, that very afternoon.

"Get out of his debt," said Valentine, earnestly—"Get out of his debt, at any rate."

"You don't know him as well as I do," replied Zack. "He wouldn't think twice about knocking me down, if I showed I distrusted him in that way—and let me tell you, Blyth, he's one of the few men alive who could really do it."

"This is no laughing matter, Zack," said Valentine, shaking his head doubtfully.

"I never was more serious in my life," rejoined Zack. "I won't say I should be afraid, but I will say I should be ashamed to pay him his money back on the day when I borrowed it. Why, he even refused to accept my written acknowledgment of the loan! I only succeeded in forcing it on him unawares, by slipping it in among his banknotes; and, if he finds it there, I'll lay you any wager you like, he tears it up, or throws it into the fire."

Mr. Blyth began to look a little puzzled. The stranger's behavior about the money was rather staggering, to say the least of it.

"Let me bring him to your picture-show," pursued Zack. "Judge of him yourself, before you condemn him. Surely I can't say fairer than that? May I bring him to see the pictures? Or will you come back at once with me to Kirk Street, where he lives?"

"I must write to your mother, before I do any thing else; and I have work in hand besides for to-day and tomorrow," said Valentine. "All things considered, you had better bring your friend as you proposed just now. But remember the distinction I always make between my public studio and my private house. I consider the glorious mission of Art to apply to everybody; so I am proud to open my painting room to any honest man who wants to look at my pictures. But the freedom of my other rooms is only for my own friends. I can't have strangers brought up stairs: remember that."

"Of course! I shouldn't think of it, my dear fellow. Only you look at old Rough and Tough, and hear him talk; and I'll answer for the rest."

"Ah, Zack! Zack! I wish you were not so dreadfully careless about whom you get acquainted with. I have often warned you that you will bring yourself or your friends into trouble some day, when you least expect it. Where are you going now?"

"Back to Kirk Street. This is my nearest way; and I promised Mat—"

"Remember what you promised me, and what I am going to promise your mother—"

"I'll remember everything, Blyth. Good bye and thank you. Only wait till we meet on Saturday, and you see my new friend; and you will find it all right."

"I hope I shan't find it all wrong," said Mr. Blyth, forebodingly, as he followed the road to his own house.



CHAPTER V. FATE WORKS, WITH MR. BLYTH FOR AN INSTRUMENT.

The great day of the year in Valentine's house was always the day on which his pictures for the Royal Academy Exhibition were shown in their completed state to friends and admiring spectators, congregated in his own painting room. His visitor represented almost every variety of rank in the social scale; and grew numerous in proportion as they descended from the higher to the lower degrees. Thus, the aristocracy of race was usually impersonated, in his studio, by his one noble patron, the Dowager Countess of Brambledown; the aristocracy of art by two or three Royal Academicians; and the aristocracy of money by eight or ten highly respectable families, who came quite as much to look at the Dowager Countess as to look at the pictures. With these last, the select portion of the company might be said to terminate; and, after them, flowed in promiscuously the obscure majority of the visitors—a heterogeneous congregation of worshippers at the shrine of art, who were some of them of small importance, some of doubtful importance, some of no importance at all; and who included within their numbers, not only a sprinkling of Mr. Blyth's old-established tradesmen, but also his gardener, his wife's old nurse, the brother of his housemaid, and the father of his cook. Some of his respectable friends deplored, on principle, the "leveling tendencies" which induced him thus to admit a mixture of all classes into his painting-room, on the days when he exhibited his pictures. But Valentine was warmly encouraged in taking this course by no less a person than Lady Brambledown herself, whose perverse pleasure it was to exhibit herself to society as an uncompromising Radical, a reviler of the Peerage, a teller of scandalous Royal anecdotes, and a worshipper of the memory of Oliver Cromwell.

On the eventful Saturday which was to display his works to an applauding public of private friends, Mr. Blyth's studio, thanks to Madonna's industry and attention, looked really in perfect order—as neat and clean as a room could be. A semicircle of all the available chairs in the house—drawing-room and bed-room chairs intermingled—ranged itself symmetrically in front of the pictures. That imaginative classical landscape, "The Golden Age," reposed grandly on its own easel; while "Columbus in Sight of the New World"—the largest canvas Mr. Blyth had ever worked on, encased in the most gorgeous frame he had ever ordered for one of his own pictures—was hung on the wall at an easy distance from the ground, having proved too bulky to be safely accommodated by any easel in Valentine's possession.

Except Mr. Blyth's bureau, all the ordinary furniture and general litter of the room had been cleared out of it, or hidden away behind convenient draperies in corners. Backwards and forwards over the open space thus obtained, Mr. Blyth walked expectant, with the elastic skip peculiar to him; looking ecstatically at his pictures, as he passed and repassed them—now singing, now whistling; sometimes referring mysteriously to a small manuscript which he carried in his hand, jauntily tied round with blue ribbon; sometimes following the lines of the composition in "Columbus," by flourishing his right hand before it in the air, with dreamy artistic grace;—always, turn where he would, instinct from top to toe with an excitable activity which defied the very idea of rest—and always hospitably ready to rush to the door and receive the first enthusiastic visitor with open arms, at a moment's notice.

Above stairs, in the invalid room, the scene was of a different kind. Here also the arrival of the expected visitors was an event of importance; but it was awaited in perfect tranquillity and silence. Mrs. Blyth lay in her usual position on the couch-side of the bed, turning over a small portfolio of engravings; and Madonna stood at the front window, where she could command a full view of the garden gate, and of the approach from it to the house. This was always her place on the days when the pictures were shown; for, while occupying this position, she was able, by signs, to indicate the arrival of the different guests to her adopted mother, who lay too far from the window to see them. On all other days of the year, it was Mrs. Blyth who devoted herself to Madonna's service, by interpreting for her advantage the pleasant conversations that she could not hear. On this day, it was Madonna who devoted herself to Mrs. Blyth's service, by identifying for her amusement the visitors whose approach up the garden walk she could not safely leave her bed to see.

No privilege that the girl enjoyed under Valentine's roof was more valued by her than this; for by the exercise of it, she was enabled to make some slight return in kind for the affectionate attention of which she was the constant object. Mrs. Blyth always encouraged her to indicate who the different guests were, as they followed each other, by signs of her own choosing,—these signs being almost invariably suggested by some characteristic peculiarity of the person represented, which her quick observation had detected at a first interview, and which she copied with the quaintest exactness of imitation. The correctness with which her memory preserved these signs, and retained, after long intervals, the recollection of the persons to whom they alluded, was very extraordinary. The name of any mere acquaintance, who came seldom to the house, she constantly forgot, having only perhaps had it interpreted to her once or twice, and not hearing it as others did, whenever it accidentally occurred in conversation. But if the sign by which she herself had once designated that acquaintance—no matter how long ago—happened to be repeated by those about her, it was then always found that the forgotten person was recalled to her recollection immediately.

From eleven till three had been notified in the invitation cards as the time during which the pictures would be on view. It was now long past ten. Madonna still stood patiently by the window, going on with a new purse which she was knitting for Valentine; and looking out attentively now and then towards the road. Mrs. Blyth, humming a tune to herself, slowly turned over the engravings in her portfolio, and became so thoroughly absorbed in looking at them, that she forgot altogether how time was passing, and was quite astonished to hear Madonna suddenly clap her hands at the window, as a signal that the first punctual visitor had passed the garden-gate.

Mrs. Blyth raised her eyes from the prints directly, and smiled as she saw the girl puckering up her fresh, rosy face into a childish imitation of old age, bending her light figure gravely in a succession of formal bows, and kissing her hand several times with extreme suavity and deliberation. These signs were meant to indicate Mrs. Blyth's father, the poor engraver, whose old-fashioned habit it was to pay homage to all his friends among the ladies, by saluting them from afar off with tremulous bows and gallant kissings of the hand.

"Ah!" thought Mrs. Blyth, nodding, to show that she understood the signs—"Ah! there's father. I felt sure he would be the first; and I know exactly what he will do when he gets in. He will admire the pictures more than anybody, and have a better opinion to give of them than anybody else has; but before he can mention a word of it to Valentine, there will be dozens of people in the painting-room, and then he will get taken suddenly nervous, and come up here to me."

While Mrs. Blyth was thinking about her father, Madonna signalized the advent of two more visitors. First, she raised her hand sharply, and began pulling at an imaginary whisker on her own smooth cheek—then stood bolt upright, and folded her arms majestically over her bosom. Mrs. Blyth immediately recognized the originals of these two pantomime portrait-sketches. The one represented Mr. Hemlock, the small critic of a small newspaper, who was principally remarkable for never letting his whiskers alone for five minutes together. The other portrayed Mr. Bullivant, the aspiring fair-haired sculptor, who wrote poetry, and studied dignity in his attitudes so unremittingly, that he could not even stop to look in at a shop-window, without standing before it as if he was his own statue.

In a minute or two more, Mrs. Blyth heard a prodigious grating of wheels, and trampling of horses, and banging of carriage-steps violently let down. Madonna immediately took a seat on the nearest chair, rolled the skirt of her dress up into her lap, tucked both her hands inside it, then drew one out, and imitated the action of snuff-taking—looking up merrily at Mrs. Blyth, as much as to say, "You can't mistake that, I think?"—Impossible! old Lady Brambledown, with her muff and snuff-box, to the very life.

Close on the Dowager Countess followed a visitor of low degree. Madonna—looking as if she was a little afraid of the boldness of her own imitation—began chewing an imaginary quid of tobacco; then pretended to pull it suddenly out of his month, and throw it away behind her. It was all over in a moment; but it represented to perfection Mangles, the gardener; who, though an inveterate chewer of tobacco, always threw away his quid whenever he confronted his betters, as a duty that he owed to his own respectability.

Another carriage. Madonna put on a suppositions pair of spectacles, pretended to pull them off, rub them bright, and put them on again; then, retiring a little from the window, spread out her dress into the widest dimensions that it could be made to assume. The new arrivals thus portrayed, were the doctor, whose spectacles were never clean enough to please him; and the doctor's wife, an emaciated fine lady, who deceitfully suggested the presence of vanished charms, by wearing a balloon under her gown—which benevolent rumor pronounced to be only a crinoline petticoat.

Here there was a brief pause in the procession of visitors. Mrs. Blyth beckoned to Madonna, and began talking on her fingers.

"No signs of Zack yet—are there, love?"

The girl looked anxiously towards the window, and shook her head.

"If he ventures up here, when he does come, we must not be so kind to him as usual. He has been behaving very badly, and we must see if we can't make him ashamed of himself."

Madonna's color rose directly. She looked amazed, sorry, perplexed, and incredulous by turns. Zack behaving badly?—she would never believe it!

"I mean to make him ashamed of himself, if he ventures near me!" pursued Mrs. Blyth.

"And I shall try if I can't console him afterwards," thought Madonna, turning away her head for fear her face should betray her.

Another ring at the bell! "There he is, perhaps," continued Mrs. Blyth, nodding in the direction of the window, as she signed those words.

Madonna ran to look: then turned round, and with a comic air of disappointment, hooked her thumbs in the arm-holes of an imaginary waistcoat. Only Mr. Gimble, the picture-dealer, who always criticized works of art with his hands in that position.

Just then, a soft knock sounded at Mrs. Blyth's door; and her father entered, sniffing with a certain perpetual cold of his which nothing could cure—bowing, kissing his hand, and frightened up-stairs by the company, just as his daughter had predicted.

"Oh, Lavvie! the Dowager Countess is downstairs, and her ladyship likes the pictures," exclaimed the old man, snuffling and smiling infirmly in a flutter of nervous glee.

"Come and sit down by me, father, and see Madonna doing the visitors. It's funnier than any play that ever was acted."

"And her ladyship likes the pictures," repeated the engraver, his poor old watery eyes sparkling with pleasure as he told his little morsel of good news over again, and sat down by the bedside of his favorite child.

The rings at the bell began to multiply at compound interest. Madonna was hardly still at the window for a moment, so many were the visitors whose approach up the garden walk it was now necessary for her to signalize. Down-stairs, all the vacant seats left in the painting room were filling rapidly; and the ranks of standers in the back places were getting two-deep already.

There was Lady Brambledown (whose calls at the studio always lasted the whole morning), sitting in the center, or place of honor, taking snuff fiercely, talking liberal sentiments in a cracked voice, and apparently feeling extreme pleasure in making the respectable middle classes stare at her in reverent amazement. Also, two Royal Academicians—a saturnine Academician, swaddled in a voluminous cloak; and a benevolent Academician, with a slovenly umbrella, and a perpetual smile. Also, the doctor and his wife, who admired the massive frame of "Columbus," but said not a word about the picture itself. Also, Mr. Bullivant, the sculptor, and Mr. Hemlock, the journalist, exchanging solemnly that critical small talk, in which such words as "sensuous," "aesthetic," "objective," and "subjective," occupy prominent places, and out of which no man ever has succeeded, or ever will succeed, in extricating an idea. Also, Mr. Gimble, fluently laudatory, with the whole alphabet of Art-Jargon at his fingers' ends, and without the slightest comprehension of the subject to embarrass him in his flow of language. Also, certain respectable families who tried vainly to understand the pictures, opposed by other respectable families who never tried at all, but confined themselves exclusively to the Dowager Countess. Also, the obscure general visitors, who more than made up in enthusiasm what they wanted in distinction. And, finally, the absolute democracy, or downright low-life party among the spectators—represented for the time being by Mr. Blyth's gardener, and Mr. Blyth's cook's father—who, standing together modestly outside the door, agreed, in awe-struck whispers, that the "Golden Age" was a Tasty Thing, and "Columbus in sight of the New World," a Beautiful Piece.

All Valentine's restlessness before the Visitors arrived was as nothing compared with his rapturous activity, now that they were fairly assembled. Not once had he stood still, or ceased talking since the first spectator entered the room. And not once, probably, would he have permitted either his legs or his tongue to take the slightest repose until the last guest had departed from the Studio, but for Lady Brambledown, who accidentally hit on the only available means of fixing his attention to one thing, and keeping him comparatively quiet in one place.

"I say, Blyth," cried her ladyship (she never prefixed the word "Mister" to the names of any of her male friends)—"I say, Blyth, I can't for the life of me understand your picture of Columbus. You talked some time ago about explaining it in detail. When are you going to begin?"

"Directly, my dear madam, directly: I was only waiting till the room got well filled," answered Valentine, taking up the long wand which he used to steady his hand while he was painting, and producing the manuscript tied round with blue ribbon. "The fact is—I don't know whether you mind it?—I have just thrown together a few thoughts on art, as a sort of introduction to—to Columbus, in short. They are written down on this paper—the thoughts are. Would anybody be kind enough to read them, while I point out what they mean on the picture? I only ask, because it seems egotistical to be reading my opinions about my own works.—Will anybody be kind enough?" repeated Mr. Blyth, walking all along the semicircle of chairs, and politely offering his manuscript to anybody who would take it.

Not a hand was held out. Bashfulness is frequently infectious; and it proved to be so on this particular occasion.

"Nonsense, Blyth!" exclaimed Lady Brambledown. "Read it yourself. Egotistical? Stuff! Everybody's egotistical. I hate modest men; they're all rascals. Read it and assert your own importance. You have a better right to do so than most of your neighbors, for you belong to the aristocracy of talent—the only aristocracy, in my opinion, that is worth a straw." Here her ladyship took a pinch of snuff, and looked at the middle-class families, as much as to say:—"There! what do you think of that from a Member of your darling Peerage?"

Thus encouraged, Valentine took his station (wand in hand) beneath "Columbus," and unrolled the manuscript.

"What a very peculiar man Mr. Blyth is!" whispered one of the lady visitors to an acquaintance behind her.

"And what a very unusual mixture of people he seems to have asked!" rejoined the other, looking towards the doorway, where the democracy loomed diffident in Sunday clothes.

"The pictures which I have the honor to exhibit," began Valentine from the manuscript, "have been painted on a principle—"

"I beg your pardon, Blyth," interrupted Lady Brambledown, whose sharp ears had caught the remark made on Valentine and his "mixture of people," and whose liberal principles were thereby instantly stimulated into publicly asserting themselves. "I beg your pardon; but where's my old ally, the gardener, who was here last time?—Out at the door is he? What does he mean by not coming in? Here, gardener! come behind my chair."

The gardener approached, internally writhing under the honor of public notice, and covered with confusion in consequence of the noise his boots made on the floor.

"How do you do? and how are your family? What did you stop out at the door for? You're one of Mr. Blyth's guests, and have as much right inside as any of the rest of us. Stand there, and listen, and look about you, and inform your mind. This is an age of progress, gardener; your class is coming uppermost, and time it did too. Go on, Blyth." And again the Dowager Countess took a pinch of snuff, looking contemptuously at the lady who had spoken of the "mixture of people."

"I take the liberty," continued Valentine, resuming the manuscript, "of dividing all art into two great classes, the landscape subjects, and the figure subjects; and I venture to describe these classes, in their highest development, under the respective titles of Art Pastoral and Art Mystic. The 'Golden Age' is an attempt to exemplify Art Pastoral. 'Columbus in Sight of the New World' is an effort to express myself in Art Mystic. In 'The Golden Age' "—(everybody looked at Columbus immediately)—"In the 'Golden Age,'" continued Mr. Blyth, waving his wand persuasively towards the right picture, "you have, in the foreground-bushes, the middle-distance trees, the horizon mountains, and the superincumbent sky, what I would fain hope is a tolerably faithful transcript of mere nature. But in the group of buildings to the right" (here the wand touched the architectural city, with its acres of steps and forests of pillars), "in the dancing nymphs, and the musing philosopher" (Mr. Blyth rapped the philosopher familiarly on the head with the padded end of his wand), "you have the Ideal—the elevating poetical view of ordinary objects, like cities, happy female peasants, and thoughtful spectators. Thus nature is exalted; and thus Art Pastoral—no!—thus Art Pastoral exalts—no! I beg your pardon—thus Art Pastoral and Nature exalt each other, and—I beg your pardon again!—in short, exalt each other—"

Here Valentine broke down at the end of a paragraph; and the gardener made an abortive effort to get back to the doorway.

"Capital, Blyth!" cried Lady Brambledown. "Liberal, comprehensive, progressive, profound. Gardener, don't fidget!"

"The true philosophy of art—the true philosophy of art, my lady," added Mr. Gimble, the picture-dealer.

"Crude?" said Mr. Hemlock, the critic, appealing confidentially to Mr. Bullivant, the sculptor.

"What?" inquired that gentleman.

"Blyth's principles of criticism," answered Mr. Hemlock.

"Oh, yes! extremely so," said Mr. Bullivant.

"Having glanced at Art Pastoral, as attempted in the 'Golden Age,'" pursued Valentine, turning over a leaf, "I will now, with your permission, proceed to Art Mystic and 'Columbus.' Art Mystic, I would briefly endeavor to define, as aiming at the illustration of fact on the highest imaginative principles. It takes a scene, for instance, from history, and represents that scene as exactly and naturally as possible. And here the ordinary thinker might be apt to say, Art Mystic has done enough." ("So it has," muttered Mr. Hemlock.) "On the contrary, Art Mystic has only begun. Besides the representation of the scene itself, the spirit of the age"—("Ah! quite right," said Lady Brambledown; "yes, yes, the spirit of the age.")—"the spirit of the age which produced that scene, must also be indicated, mystically, by the introduction of those angelic or infernal winged forms—those cherubs and airy female geniuses—those demons and dragons of darkness—which so many illustrious painters have long since taught us to recognize as impersonating to the eye the good and evil influences, Virtue and Vice, Glory and Shame, Success and Failure, Past and Future, Heaven and Earth—all on the same canvas." Here Mr. Blyth stopped again: this passage had cost him some trouble, and he was proud of having got smoothly to the end of it.

"Glorious!" cried enthusiastic Mr. Gimble.

"Turgid," muttered critical Mr. Hemlock.

"Very," assented compliant Mr. Bullivant.

"Go on—get to the picture—don't stop so often," said Lady Brambledown. "Bless my soul, how the man does fidget!" This was not directed at Valentine (who, however, richly deserved it), but at the unhappy gardener, who had made a second attempt to escape to the sheltering obscurity of the doorway, and had been betrayed by his boots.

"To exemplify what has just been remarked, by the picture at my side," proceeded Mr. Blyth. "The moment sought to be represented is sunrise on the 12th of October, 1492, when the great Columbus first saw land clearly at the end of his voyage. Observe, now, in the upper portions of the composition, how the spirit of the age is mystically developed before the spectator. Of the two winged female figures hovering in the morning clouds, immediately over Columbus and his ship, the first is the Spirit of Discovery, holding the orb of the world in her left hand, and pointing with a laurel crown (typical of Columbus's fame) towards the newly-discovered Continent. The other figure symbolizes the Spirit of Royal Patronage, impersonated by Queen Isabella, Columbus's warm friend and patron, who offered her jewels to pay his expenses, and who, throughout his perilous voyage, was with him in spirit, as here represented. The tawny figure with feathered head, floating hair, and wildly-extended pinions, soaring upward from the western horizon, represents the Genius of America advancing to meet her great discoverer; while the shadowy countenances, looming dimly through the morning mist behind her, are portrait-types of Washington and Franklin, who would never have flourished in America, if that continent had not been discovered, and who are here, therefore, associated prophetically with the first voyagers from the Old World to the New."

Pausing once more, Mr. Blyth used his explanatory wand freely on the Spirit of Discovery, the Spirit of Royal Patronage, and the Genius of America—not forgetting an indicative knock a-piece for the embryo physiognomies of Washington and Franklin. Everybody's eyes followed the progress of the wand vacantly; but nobody spoke, except Mr. Hemlock, who frowned and whispered—"Bosh!" to Mr. Bullivant; who smiled, and whispered—"Quite so," to Mr. Hemlock.

"Let me now ask your attention," resumed Valentine, "to the same mystic style of treatment, as carried from the sky into the sea. Writhing defeated behind Columbus's ship, in the depths of the transparent Atlantic, you have shadowy types of the difficulties and enemies that the dauntless navigator had to contend with. Crushed headlong into the waters, sinks first the Spirit of Superstition, delineated by monastic robes—the council of monks having set itself against Columbus from the very first. Behind the Spirit of Superstition, and impersonated by a fillet of purple grapes around her head, descends the Genius of Portugal—the Portuguese having repulsed Columbus, and having treacherously sent out frigates to stop his discovery, by taking him prisoner. The scaly forms entwined around these two, represent Envy, Hatred, Malice, Ignorance, and Crime generally; and thus the mystic element is, so to speak, led through the sea out of the picture."

(Another pause. Nobody said a word, but everybody was relieved by the final departure of the mystic element.)

"All that now remains to be noticed," continued Mr. Blyth, "is the central portion of the composition, which is occupied by Columbus and his ships, and which represents the scene as it may actually be supposed to have occurred. Here we get to Reality, and to that sort of correctly-imitative art which is simple enough to explain itself. As a proof of this, let me point attention to the rig of the ships, the actions of the sailors, and, more than all, to Columbus himself. Weeks of the most laborious consultation of authorities of which the artist is capable, have been expended over the impersonation of that one figure,—expended, I would say, in obtaining that faithful representation of individual character, which it is my earnest desire to combine with the higher or mystic element. One instance of this fidelity to Nature I may perhaps be permitted to point out in the person of Columbus, in conclusion. Pray observe him, standing rapturously on the high stern of his vessel—and oblige me, at the same time, by minutely inspecting his outstretched arms. First, however, let me remind you that this great man went to sea at the age of fourteen, and cast himself freely into all the hardships of nautical life; next, let me beg you to enter into my train of thought, and consider these hardships as naturally comprising, among other things, industrious haulings at ropes and manful tuggings at long oars; and, finally, let me now direct your attention to the manner in which the muscular system of the famous navigator is developed about the arms in anatomical harmony with this idea. Follow the wand closely, and observe, bursting, as it were, through his sleeves, the characteristic vigor of Columbus's Biceps Flexor Cubiti—"

"Mercy on us! what's that?" cried Lady Brambledown. "Anything improper?"

"The Biceps Flexor Cubiti, your ladyship," began the Doctor, delighted to pour professional information into the mind of a Dowager Countess, "may be literally interpreted as the Two-Headed Bender of the Elbow, and is a muscle situated on, what we term, the Os—"

"Follow the wand, my dear madam, pray follow the wand! This is the Biceps," interrupted Valentine, tapping till the canvas quivered again on the upper part of Columbus's arms, which obtruded their muscular condition through a pair of tight-fitting chamoy leather sleeves. "The Biceps, Lady Brambledown, is a tremendously strong muscle—"

"Which arises in the human body, your Ladyship," interposed the Doctor, "by two heads—"

"Which is used," continued Valentine, cutting him short—"I beg your pardon, Doctor, but this is important—which is used—"

"I beg yours," rejoined the Doctor, testily. "The origin of the muscle, or place where it arises, is the first thing to be described. The use comes afterwards. It is an axiom of anatomical science—"

"But, my dear sir!" cried Valentine—

"No," said the Doctor, peremptorily, "you must really excuse me. This is a professional point. If I allow erroneous explanations of the muscular system to pass unchecked in my presence—"

"I don't want to make any!" cried Mr. Blyth, gesticulating violently in the direction of Columbus. "I only want to—"

"To describe the use of a muscle before you describe the place of its origin in the human body," persisted the Doctor. "No, my dear sir! I can't sanction it. No, indeed! I really can NOT sanction it!"

"Will you let me say two words?" asked Valentine.

"Two hundred thousand, my good sir, on any other subject," assented the Doctor, with a sarcastic smile; "but on this subject—"

"On art?" shouted Mr. Blyth, with a tap on Columbus, which struck a sound from the canvas like a thump on a muffled drum. "On art, Doctor? I only want to say that, as Columbus's early life must have exercised him considerably in hauling ropes and pulling oars, I have shown the large development of his Biceps muscle (which is principally used in those actions) through his sleeves, as a good characteristic point to insist on in his physical formation.—That's all! As to the origin—"

"The origin of the Biceps Flexor Cubiti, your Ladyship," resumed the pertinacious Doctor; "is by two heads. The first begins, if I may so express myself, tendinous, from the glenoid cavity of the scapula—"

"That man is a pedantic jackass," whispered Mr. Hemlock to his friend.

"And yet he hasn't a bad head for a bust!" rejoined Mr. Bullivant.

"Pray, Mr. Blyth," pleaded the polite and ever-admiring Mr. Gimble—"pray let me beg you, in the name of the company to proceed with your most interesting and suggestive explanations and views on art!"

"Indeed, Mr. Gimble," said Valentine, a little crest-fallen under the anatomical castigation inflicted on him by the Doctor, "I am very much delighted and gratified by your approval; but I have nothing more to read. I thought that point about Columbus a good point to leave off with, and considered that I might safely allow the rest of the picture to explain itself to the intelligent spectator."

Hearing this, some of the spectators, evidently distrusting their own intelligence, rose to take leave—new visitors making their appearance, however, to fill the vacant chairs and receive Mr. Blyth's hearty welcome. Meanwhile, through all the bustle of departing and arriving friends, and through all the fast-strengthening hum of general talk, the voice of the unyielding doctor still murmured solemnly of "capsular ligaments," "adjacent tendons," and "corracoid processes" to Lady Brambledown, who listened to him with satirical curiosity, as a species of polite medical buffoon whom it rather amused her to become acquainted with.

Among the next applicants for admission at the painting-room door were two whom Valentine had expected to see at a much earlier period of the day—Mr. Matthew Marksman and Zack.

"How late you are!" he said, as he shook hands with young Thorpe.

"I wish I could have come earlier, my dear fellow," answered Zack, rather importantly; "but I had some business to do" (he had been recovering his watch from the pawnbroker); "and my friend here had some business to do also" (Mr. Marksman had been toasting red herrings for an early dinner); "and so somehow we couldn't get here before. Mat, let me introduce you. This is my old friend, Mr. Blyth, whom I told you of."

Valentine had barely time to take the hand of the new guest before his attention was claimed by fresh visitors. Young Thorpe did the honors of the painting-room in the artist's absence. "Lots of people, as I told you. My friend's a great genius," whispered Zack, wondering, as he spoke, whether the scene of civilized life now displayed before Mr. Marksman would at all tend to upset his barbarian self-possession.

No: not in the least. There stood Mat, just as grave, cool, and quietly observant of things about him as ever. Neither the pictures, nor the company, nor the staring of many eyes that wondered at his black skull-cap and scarred swarthy face, were capable of disturbing the Olympian serenity of this Jupiter of the back-woods.

"There!" cried Zack, pointing triumphantly across the room to "Columbus." "Cudgel your brains, old boy, and guess what that is a picture of, without coming to me to help you."

Mat attentively surveyed the figure of Columbus, the rig of his ship, and the wings of the typical female spirits, hovering overhead in the morning clouds—thought a little—then gravely and deliberately answered:—

"Peter Wilkins taking a voyage along with his flying wives."

Zack pulled out his handkerchief, and stifled his laughter as well as he could, out of consideration for Mat, who, however, took not the smallest notice of him, but added, still staring intently at the picture.

"Peter Wilkins was the only book I had, when I was a lad aboard ship. I used to read it over and over again, at odds and ends of spare time, till I pretty nigh got it by heart. That was many a year ago; and a good lot of what I knowed then I don't know now. But, mind ye, it's my belief that Peter Wilkins was something of a sailor."

"Well?" whispered Zack, humoring him, "suppose he was, what of that?"

"Do you think a man as was anything of a sailor would ever be fool enough to put to sea in such a craft as that?" asked Mr. Marksman, pointing scornfully to Columbus's ship.

"Hush! old Rough and Tough: the picture hasn't anything to do with Peter Wilkins," said Zack. "Keep quiet, and wait here a minute for me. There are some friends of mine at the other end of the room that I must go and speak to. And, I say, if Blyth comes up to you and asks you about the picture, say it's Columbus, and remarkably like him."

Left by himself, Mat looked about for better standing-room than he then happened to occupy; and seeing a vacant space left between the door-post and Mr. Blyth's bureau, retreated to it. Putting his hands in his pockets, he leaned comfortably against the wall, and began to examine the room and everything in it at his leisure. It was not long, however, before he was disturbed. One of his neighbors, seeing that his back was against a large paper sketch nailed on the wall behind him, told him bluntly that he was doing mischief there, and made him change his position. He moved accordingly to the door-post; but even here he was not left in repose. A fresh relay of visitors arrived, and obliged him to make way for them to pass into the room—which he did by politely rolling himself round the door-post into the passage.

As he disappeared in this way, Mr. Blyth bustled up to the place where Mat had been standing, and received his guests there, with great cordiality, but also with some appearance of flurry and perplexity of mind. The fact was, that Lady Brambledown had just remembered that she had not examined Valentine's works yet, through one of those artistic tubes which effectively concentrate the rays of light on a picture, when applied to the eye. Knowing, by former experience, that the studio was furnished with one of these little instruments, her ladyship now intimated her ardent desire to use it instantly on "Columbus." Valentine promised to get it, with his usual ready politeness; but he had not the slightest idea where it actually was, for all that. Among the litter of small things that had been cleared out of the way, when the painting-room was put in order, there were several which he vaguely remembered having huddled together for safety in the bottom of his bureau. The tube might possibly have been among them; so in this place he determined to look for it—being quite ignorant, if the search turned out unsuccessful, where he ought to look next.

After begging the new visitors to walk in, he opened the bureau, which was large and old-fashioned, with a little bright key hanging by a chain that he unhooked from his watch-guard; and began searching inside amid infinite confusion—all his attention concentrated in the effort to discover the lost tube. It was not to be found in the bottom of the bureau. He next looked, after a little preliminary hesitation, into a long narrow drawer opening beneath some pigeon-hole recesses at the back.

The tube was not there, either; and he shut the drawer to again, carefully and gently—for inside it was the Hair Bracelet that had belonged to Madonna's mother, lying on the white handkerchief, which had also been taken from the dead woman's pocket. Just as he closed the drawer, he heard footsteps at his right hand, and turned in that direction rather suspiciously—locking down the lid of the bureau as he looked round. It was only the civil Mr. Gimble, wanting to know what Mr. Blyth was searching for, and whether he could help him. Valentine mentioned the loss of the tube; and Mr. Gimble immediately volunteered to make one of pasteboard. "Ten thousand thanks," said Mr. Blyth, hooking the key to his watch-guard again, as he returned to Lady Brambledown with his friend. "Ten thousand thanks; but the worst of it is, I don't know where to find the pasteboard."

If, instead of turning to the right hand to speak to Mr. Gimble, Valentine had turned to the left, he would have seen that, just as he opened the bureau and began to search in it, Mr. Marksman finding the way into the painting-room clear once more, had rolled himself quietly round the door-post again; and had then, just as quietly, bent forward a little, so as to look sideways into the bureau with those observant eyes of his which nothing could escape, and which had been trained by his old Indian experience to be always unscrupulously at work, watching something. Little did Mr. Blyth think, as he walked away, talking with Mr. Gimble, and carefully hooking his key on to its swivel again, that Zack's strange friend had seen as much of the inside of the bureau as he had seen of it himself.

"He shut up his big box uncommon sharp, when that smilin' little chap come near him," thought Mat. "And yet there didn't seem nothing in it that strangers mightn't see. There wasn't no money there—at least none that I set eyes on. Well! it's not my business. Let's have another look at the picter."

In the affairs of art, as in other matters, important discoveries are sometimes made, and great events occasionally accomplished, by very ignoble agencies. Mat's deplorable ignorance of Painting in general, and grossly illiterate misunderstanding of the subject represented by Columbus in particular, seemed to mark him out as the last man in the world who could possibly be associated with Art Mystic in the character of guardian genius. Yet such was the proud position which he was now selected by Fate to occupy. In plain words, Mr. Blyth's greatest historical work had been for some little time in imminent danger of destruction by falling; and Mat's "look at the picter," was the all-important look which enabled him to be the first person in the room who perceived that it was in peril.

The eye with which Mr. Marksman now regarded the picture was certainly the eye of a barbarian; but the eye with which he afterwards examined the supports by which it was suspended, was the eye of a sailor, and of a good practical carpenter to boot. He saw directly, that one of the two iron clamps to which the frame-lines of "Columbus" were attached, had been carelessly driven into a part of the wall that was not strong enough to hold it against the downward stress of the heavy frame. Little warning driblets of loosened plaster had been trickling down rapidly behind the canvas; but nobody heard them fall in the general buzz of talking; and nobody noticed the thin, fine crack above the iron clamp, which was now lengthening stealthily minute by minute.

"Just let me by, will you?" said Mat quietly to some of his neighbors. "I want to stop those flying women and the man in the crank ship from coming down by the long run."

Dozens of alarmed ladies and gentlemen started up from their chairs. Mat pushed through them unceremoniously; and was indebted to his want of politeness for being in time to save the picture. With a grating crack, and an accompanying descent of a perfect slab of plaster, the loose clamp came clean out of the wall, just as Mat seized the unsupported end and side of the frame in his sturdy hands, and so prevented the picture from taking the fatal swing downwards, which would have infallibly torn it from the remaining fastening, and precipitated it on the chairs beneath.

A prodigious confusion and clamoring of tongues ensued; Mr. Blyth being louder, wilder, and more utterly useless in the present emergency than any of his neighbors. Mat, cool as ever, kept his hold of the picture; and, taking no notice of the confused advice and cumbersome help offered to him, called to Zack to fetch a ladder, or, failing that, to "get a hoist" on some chairs, and cut the rope from the clamp that remained firm. Wooden steps, as young Thorpe knew, were usually kept in the painting-room. Where had they been removed to now? Mr. Blyth's memory was lost altogether in his excitement. Zack made a speculative dash at the flowing draperies which concealed the lumber in one corner, and dragged out the steps in triumph.

"All right; take your time, young 'un: there's a knife in my left-hand breeches' pocket," said Mat. "Now then, cut away at that bit of rope's-end, and hold on tight at top, while I lower away at bottom. Steady! Take it easy, and—there you are!" With which words, the guardian genius left Art-Mystic resting safely on the floor, and began to shake his coattails free of the plaster that had dropped on them.

"My dear sir! you have saved the finest picture I ever painted," cried Valentine, warmly seizing him by both hands. "I can't find words to express my gratitude and admiration—"

"Don't worry yourself about that," answered Mat; "I don't suppose I should understand you if you could find 'em. If you want the picter put up again, I'll do it. And if you want the carpenter's muddle head punched, who put it up before, I shouldn't much mind doing that either," added Mat, looking at the hole from which the clamp had been torn with an expression of the profoundest workmanlike disgust.

A new commotion in the room—near the door this time—prevented Mr. Blyth from giving an immediate answer to the two friendly propositions just submitted to him.

At the first alarm of danger, all the ladies—headed by the Dowager Countess, in whom the instinct of self-preservation was largely developed—had got as far away as they could from the falling picture, before they ventured to look round at the process by which it was at last safely landed on the floor. Just as this had been accomplished, Lady Brambledown—who stood nearest to the doorway—caught sight of Madonna in the passage that led to it. Mrs. Blyth had heard the noise and confusion downstairs, and finding that her bell was not answered by the servants, and that it was next to impossible to overcome her father's nervous horror of confronting the company alone, had sent Madonna down-stairs with him, to assist in finding out what had happened in the studio.

While descending the stairs with her companion, the girl had anticipated that they might easily discover whether anything was amiss, without going further than the passage, by merely peeping through the studio door. But all chance of escaping the ordeal of the painting-room was lost the moment Lady Brambledown set eyes on her. The Dowager Countess was one of Madonna's warmest admirers; and now expressed that admiration by pouncing on her with immense affection and enthusiasm from the painting-room door-way. Other people, to whom the deaf and dumb girl was a much more interesting sight than "Columbus," or the "Golden Age," crowded round her; all trying together, with great amiability and small intelligence, to explain what had happened by signs which no human being could possibly understand. Fortunately for Madonna, Zack (who ever since he had cut the picture down had been assailed by an incessant fire of questions about his strange friend, from dozens of inquisitive gentlemen) happened to look towards her, over the ladies' heads, and came directly to explain the danger from which "Columbus" had escaped. She tried hard to get away, and bear the intelligence to Mrs. Blyth; but Lady Brambledown, feeling amiably unwilling to resign her too soon, pitched on the poor engraver standing tremulous in the passage, as being quite clever enough to carry a message up-stairs, and sent him off to take the latest news from the studio to his daughter immediately.

Thus it was that when Mr. Blyth left Zack's friend to see what was going on near the door, he found Madonna in the painting-room, surrounded by sympathizing and admiring ladies. The first words of explanation by which Lady Brambledown answered his mute look of inquiry, reminded him of the anxiety and alarm that his wife must have suffered; and he ran up-stairs directly, promising to be back again in a minute or two.

Mat carelessly followed Valentine to the group at the doorway—carelessly looked over some ladies' bonnets—and saw Madonna, offering her slate to the Dowager Countess at that moment.

The sweet feminine gentleness and youthful softness of the girl's face, looked inexpressibly lovely, as she now stood shy and confused under the eager eyes that were all gazing on her. Her dress, too, had never more powerfully aided the natural attractions of her face and figure by its own loveable charms of simplicity and modesty, than now, when the plain grey merino gown, and neat little black silk apron which she always wore, were contrasted with the fashionable frippery of fine colors shining all around her. Was the rough Mr. Marksman himself lured at first sight into acknowledging her influence? If he was, his face and manner showed it very strangely.

Almost at the instant when his eyes fell on her, that clay-cold change which had altered the color of his swarthy cheeks in the hosier's shop at Dibbledean, passed over them again. The first amazed look that he cast on her, slowly darkened, while his eyes rested on her face, into a fixed, heavy, vacant stare of superstitious awe. He never moved, he hardly seemed to breathe, until the head of a person before him accidentally intercepted his view. Then he stepped back a few paces; looked about him bewildered, as if he had forgotten where he was; and turned quickly towards the door, as if resolved to leave the room immediately.

But there was some inexplicable influence at work in his heart that drew him back, in spite of his own will. He retraced his steps to the group round Madonna—looked at her once more—and, from that moment, never lost sight of her till she went up stairs again. Whichever way her face turned, he followed the direction, outside the circle, so as to be always in front of it. When Valentine re-appeared in the studio, and Madonna besought him by a look, to set her free from general admiration, and send her back to Mrs. Blyth, Mat was watching her over the painter's shoulder. And when young Thorpe, who had devoted himself to helping her in communicating with the visitors, nodded to her as she left the room, his friend from the backwoods was close behind him.



CHAPTER VI. THE FINDING OF THE CLUE.

Mr. Blyth's visitors, now that their common center of attraction had disappeared, either dispersed again in the painting-room, or approached the door to take their departure. Zack, turning round sharply after Madonna had left the studio, encountered his queer companion, who had not stirred an inch while other people were all moving about him.

"In the name of wonder, what has come to you now? Are you ill? Have you hurt yourself with that picture?" asked Zack, startled by the incomprehensible change which he beheld in his friend's face and manner.

"Come out," said Mat. Young Thorpe looked at him in amazement; even the sound of his voice had altered!

"What's wrong?" asked Zack. No answer. They went quickly along the passage and down to the garden gate, in silence. As soon as they had got into one of the lonely bye-roads of the new suburb, Mat stopped short; and, turning full on his companion, said: "Who is she?" The sudden eagerness with which he spoke, so strangely at variance with his usual deliberation of tone and manner, made those three common words almost startling to hear.