By-and-by we returned; and whom should I then meet on my way home but, positively, my eye-glass acquaintance of Downing Street. Fancy his being out before nine o'clock in the morning! It was an unparalleled occurrence.

"Hullo, Horner!" I sang out, "'morning, old fellow. Compliments of the season!"

"Bai-ey Je-ove! Lorton, how you stawtled me—'do!"

"You don't mean to say," I asked, on getting closer to him, "that you've actually taken to early rising?"

"No, 'pon honah, I asshaw you, my deah fellah, no!" he replied, quite excitedly. "No, I asshaw you, no," he repeated.

"Well, then, what on earth makes you come out at this early unearthly hour?" I said.

"Oh—ah! you see—ah, my deah fellah," he answered, "it was all those confawnded little bahds and the bells kicking up such a raow; that, 'pon honah, I couldn't sleep and so I came out. I asshaw you it was all those bweastwy little bahds and the bells!"

"At all events, I must congratulate you on your reformation," I said.

"Yaas? But it was all those bweastwy little bahds and the bells, you know; and it's only once a ye-ah you know, Lorton," he added.

"So you will never do so again till next time—is that what you mean, Horner?" I asked.

"Yaas! But, bai-ey Je-ove, I say, Lorton, my deah fellah, were the Clydes those ladies in hawf-mawning, eh?" said he, smiling feebly in his usual suave manner. He thought he had got hold of a grand joke at my expense.

However, I was not in the least angry with him. I felt too happy to have lost my temper with any one, especially Horner, whom I generally regarded as a poor creature to be tolerated rather than blamed.

"Did you ever hear, Horner," said I, "how Peabody made his first fortune?"

"No, 'pon honah, I asshaw you, no."

"Well, then, I'll tell you, Horner," said I. "It was by minding his own business, my dear fellow."

"Bai-ey Je-ove!" he ejaculated, adding, after a pause, "Weally, Lorton, you dawn't mean it?"

"I suppose," I continued, "that you are also just as ignorant again how Mr Peabody made his second and greater fortune, eh?"

"Yaas," he drawled out.

"Ah," said I, "he got that by letting other people's business alone!"

"Bai-ey Je-ove!" said Horner, quite staggered at this second blow. "Vewy amusing anecdote, indeed! Thank you, Lorton. Much obwiged, and all that sawt of thing, for the in-fawmation. Yaas, bai-ey Je-ove! And so I'll say good day. Good day, Lorton; good day to you!" and he started off, with a quick step, in the very opposite direction to that which he had been previously going. I went on homeward, with Catch following obediently at my heels.

Which way did we go?

Can you not guess, or must I have to tell you?

How very obtuse some persons are!

Why, by The Terrace, of course. Was it not there that Min lived; and might I not chance to get a glance from her love-speaking, soft grey eyes? Only one glance—and I would be amply repaid!

I passed by her house. Yes, there she was at the window, attending to her flowers and carefully shielding a much-prized little maidenhair fern with a bell glass from the rays of the sun, which beamed as though Phoebus had mistaken the season and thought it a summer day.

She saw me as I sauntered by, recognising me with a little nod and smile and a sudden heightening of colour; and came to the door. Of course I went up the steps and spoke to her. You would have proceeded on your way with a passing bow? Oh, yes!

"Good morning, Mr Lorton," she said. "How very early you are out to be sure! I thought gentlemen were always lazy, but you're an exception to the rule, it seems;" and her soft grey eyes sparkled.

"Well, I don't know that, Miss Clyde," I said. "I suppose I'm just as lazy as the rest. I only came out to give my old doggy a walk and a dip, as I generally do every morning before breakfast. If it were not for him, I do not believe I would get up sooner than anybody else; but he's such a pertinacious fellow that he won't be denied his walk, always rousing me up at eight o'clock 'sharp.' Would you believe it, he brings my boots up to my door, and it is a trick he taught himself!"

"Dear old doggy," she said, stooping down and patting his head. "What a nice sagacious fellow you are! Come here, sir, and give me your paw! Now, shake hands. Doggy, do you like me?" Catch could tell a friend at once; so looking up, he licked her hand, expressing, as intelligently as possible, that he was pleased to make her acquaintance. "How I love dogs!" she ejaculated, rising up again.

"Do you!" said I. "Ah, Miss Clyde! 'Love me, love my dog.'"

"What nonsense, Mr Lorton!" she said, with a warm blush tinting her cheek. "But, I declare you haven't wished me the compliments of the season yet. How very ungallant you are! I will set you an example—a merry Christmas, Mr Lorton!"

"A thousand to you, Miss Clyde; and each happier than the last!" I said.

"Oh dear, dear!" she exclaimed in mimic dismay; "I am sure I would not care about having so many as that! Fancy a thousand Christmases—why, what an old, old woman I should be then!"

"And a very nice old woman, too," said I.

"Merci pour le compliment, Monsieur," she replied, making me an elaborate curtsey and laughing merrily. "And what have you got there?" she asked, pointing to a little bunch of violets that I was extracting from my overcoat pocket, and which I had procured for her when Catch met his friend the gardener's dog.

"I got them for you, Miss Clyde," said I, somewhat bashfully; "and— and—"

"Oh, thank you, Mr Lorton," she said, quite pleased. "I love violets more than any other flower. You could not have given me a nicer present. I was only wishing for some just now. But, I hear mamma coming down stairs; so, as I've not made the tea yet, I must go in— good-bye!"

"Good-bye," I echoed, clasping her tiny hand in mine. "Good-bye, and many good wishes for the day, my darling!" I courageously added the last two words, lowering my voice over them, as she gently closed the door.

She was not offended, if she had heard the term of endearment I used, for she gave me another nice little bow and smile from the window. Still I think she did hear me. I fancied I saw a conscious look in the dancing grey eyes, a blush yet lingering on her damask cheek.

I went home with joy in my heart—joy which fed upon itself and increased each moment. Don't you remember what Herder says? Let but the heart once awake, and wave follows wave of newborn feelings—

"So bald sich das Herz ergiesst, Stromt Welle auf Welle!"

I only know that I was as happy as possible, and astonished everybody by the breakfast I ate.

You fancy, perhaps, that I wasn't really in love, or I wouldn't probably have been hungry? Nonsense! Let me tell you that happy lovers are always hungry, and have great appetites. It is only your poor, miserable, disappointed suitors, who are in a state of suspense, that go about with a hang-dog look and cannot eat. I firmly believe that Shakespeare intended to convey the idea that Valentine was mad, or he would never have put into his mouth such ridiculous words as those, that he could "break his fast, dine, sup, and sleep, upon the very naked name of love!" If that gentleman of Verona had been sane knowing how his passion was reciprocated and that his lady loved him in return, he would have had just as good an appetite as I had that morning; when, joyous as a bird, I was as hungry as a hunter.

As for dog Catch, you should have seen how he galloped into his oatmeal porridge after his walk—how the oatmeal porridge galloped into him would, however, be a more correct form of expression. You should have only seen him, that's all!

Next came church; and, of all occasions when church-going strikes even an uninterested spectator, generally lacking in religious zeal, with feelings of unwonted emotion, commend me to Christmas day. Then, to paraphrase the well-known lines of the poet, those in the habit of being regularly present at worship "went the more;" while those go now "who never went before." People make a practice of visiting church on that day who seldom, if ever, attend a religious service at any other time, taking the year all through. It is like the wedding feast to which the lame, the halt, and the blind were invited. Every one goes then; every class and clan is represented.

Saint Canon's was a sight. Its garland-twined oaken columns, its wreath-hung galleries, its scroll-work in the chancel—where "Unto us a son is born," and the message of glad tidings, which the shepherds of Bethlehem first heard when they "watched their flocks by night," and saw the star in the east, two thousand years ago, shone forth in blazonments of red and purple and gold—all reminded the congregation of the festival they had assembled to commemorate; the day of peace and good- will to all, that had dawned for them once more, as I trust it will dawn again and again for us yet on many more future anniversaries. The place, too, was crammed, contrary to Lady Dasher's fears concerning the spread of unbelief and the degeneracy of the present age. Everybody was there that could go at all, for it was a year in which we had to be specially mindful of mercies vouchsafed to us. Even old Shuffler, who had not been seen inside a place of public worship before within the memory of man, was not an absentee.

I was not thinking of him, however, nor of the display which the decorations made, nor of the congregation—indeed, I hardly attended to the service. All my thoughts were centred on Min.

A madonna-like face, a pair of honest, steadfast, speaking, grey eyes were ever before me; although I could not actually see her, except when we stood up during the service, according to the ordinances of the rubric, as she sat a long way off. Notwithstanding my usual attachment towards them, I felt inclined to quarrel with the high pews that hid her from my sight; and, I'm afraid, despised Bishop Burnet for his innovation. The vicar, they told me afterwards, preached a simple, beautiful sermon, that struck home to the hearts of every one present; but I heard none of it. My sermon was in my heart, and bore for its text one little word of four letters. O Min, Min! you had a good deal to answer for.

"Long was the good man's sermon, Yet it seemed not so to me; For he spoke of Ruth the beautiful, And still I thought of thee.

"Long was the prayer he uttered, Yet it seemed not so to me; For in my heart I prayed with him, And still I thought of thee!"

After service, of course everybody met everybody else, each of their own respective little world, at the church door, exchanging those good wishes and seasonable greetings proper to the day.

There was a grand throng without the porch. Horner was there. It would have been nothing at all without him and his eye-glass. He did not appear to bear me any hard feelings, I was glad to see, for my unkindness of the morning. He nodded affably, and said "'do!" to me, in his usual way, as if he had not met me before.

Min and her mother did not linger as did the other parishioners; so, I had only an opportunity of a passing bow, without that other tender little hand-clasp which I had hoped for. But she looked at me, and that was something.

Lady Dasher, however, stopped for a minute or two; so did her daughters.

"Beautiful weather for Christmas, Lady Dasher," hazarded I. She evidently did not agree with me, for she looked about her mournfully, with a down-drawn visage, just as if we were all attending a funeral, of which she was the chief mourner.

"Really, Mr Lorton, do you think so?" came her answer at length. "Don't you find it very cold?"

"Dear me, ma! why you said last Christmas that it was too warm!" said her daughter Bessie.

"Ah! Mr Lorton," continued her mother, not noticing her remark, "we never have those good, old-fashioned Christmases that we had when my poor dear papa was alive!"

"No, I suppose not," I answered; "people say that it is because of the vast American forests being gradually cut down, admitting freer currents of air all over the world; while others put the change down to the influence of the Gulf Stream. Still, I dare say, it will all come right again at some time or other."

"Ah, Mr Lorton," said Lady Dasher, "I'm afraid it will never come right again. You are too sanguine, like all young people."

"Oh, 'never' is a long day," I said; "we should all be hopeful and merry, I think, at least on this one day in the year."

"I could never be merry again, Mr Lorton," she said, with a prodigious sigh, which seemed to come from the depths of her heart, "since poor dear papa died;" and she then passed on mournfully homewards, with Bessie and Seraphine in her wake. Their cheerful faces, as they nodded back and smiled at Horner and myself, contrasted strongly with their mother's lugubrious visage. I wonder if anybody ever saw her laugh? I've got my doubts about it.

Then came out Miss Pimpernell, her kind old face beaming with smiles as she bowed here and there, and gave a cordial greeting to us young fellows, who still stood around the church porch. She did not forget me, you may be certain. "God bless you, Frank, my boy!" she said, in her affectionate, purring way; dismissing me home with a light heart to eat the traditionary roast turkey and plum-pudding, at peace with all mankind, and in love with all womankind for her sake.

What a happy, happy day it had been!

That night I passed and repassed Min's house a dozen times at least, only that I might see her shadow on the blinds, weaving luxurious castles in Spain the while. I would be a great general, a distinguished orator, a famous statesman, a celebrated author! I would do some grand, heroic action. I desired to be "somebody," something, only great and glorious! And yet, as One above is my judge, I had not one selfish craving, not a single purely-personal thought in connection with these mad wishes. It was but for her sake that I longed for honour and fame and advancement. Only for her, only for her!



CHAPTER SIX.

"ECSTASY!"

"...From thy rose-red lips my name Floweth; and then, as in a swoon, With dinning sound my ears are rife, My tremulous tongue faltereth, I lose my colour, I lose my breath, I drink the cup of a costly death, Brimm'd with delirious draughts of warmest life!"

Some few days after Christmas, little Miss Pimpernell gave a small evening party for the especial delectation of those who had so meritoriously assisted in the decoration of the church.

Of course, it was not at all like the "barty" the celebrated Hans Breitman "giv'd" to his friends for the imbibition of "lager beer" ad libitum; but still, one may feel inclined to exclaim, in the exquisite broken words of that worthy, "Where am dat barty now?" For, time has worked its usual changes; and all of us have long since been divided, separated, scattered, and dispersed to the four winds of heaven, so to speak, to the severance of old ties, and all kindred associations.

I had not had the slightest inkling that the "little affair" was about to "come off" beforehand. I had met Miss Pimpernell out the very morning of the day on which it took place; yet—sly old lady that she was—she hardly gave me a hint of her social intent.

She certainly said that she had a little surprise in store for me; but when I pressed her to learn what that "something" was, she preserved a provoking reticence, declining to enlighten me any further. "No, Frank," she said in her cheery way, "it is of no use your trying to coax me with your 'dear Miss Pimpernell,' or think to flatter me into divulging my news by false compliments paid to my shabby old bonnet! No, you shall hear it all in good time, so don't be impatient. I won't tell you another word now, my boy, there!" she added finally, trotting off on her parochial rounds and leaving me in suspense until the evening, to exercise my imagination regarding her contemplated "surprise."

Then, however, I was let into the secret; and the party was all the more pleasurable from coming quite unexpectedly. I always like doing things on the spur of the moment, without premeditation. If you look out for anything long beforehand, it is apt to pall on the palate when it arrives within your reach. "Unlooked-for blessings" are generally twice as grateful as those which you are led to expect—so, at least, I have found them.

On my return home from a walk in the evening, I found a little note of invitation awaiting me, in which Miss Pimpernell requested me to come round to the vicarage precisely at eight, "dressed all in my best," like the impassioned lover of "Sally in our Alley," as she "expected a few friends." She added in a postscript, underlined with one of her characteristic dashes, that Miss Clyde would be there, if that would be any further inducement for me.

Oh Miss Pimpernell, you machiavellian old lady! I would not have thought you could have practised such great dissimulation. Would Min's presence be any further inducement to me! Wouldn't it? Oh, dear no, certainly not!

In ten minutes' time I was dressed en regle and at the vicarage.

It was quite a nice little party. Not one too many, and not a single discordant element. Old ladies and gentlemen seemed to have been rigidly tabooed, with the exception, naturally, of our host and hostess, the vicar and his sister; for Lady Dasher, owing to some fortunate conjuncture of circumstances, was unable to come: Miss Spight was busy at home, entertaining an elderly relative who had suddenly thrown herself on her hospitality; while Mr Mawley was at Oxford enjoying the season with sundry dogmatic Fellows of his own calibre. Minus these charmers, our gathering was pretty much what it had been down in the old school-room at the decorations. There were the Dasher girls, two young collegians from Cambridge—ex-pupils of the vicar—to entertain Bessie and Seraphine, Lizzie Dangler, Horner with his inseparable eye-glass and faultless toilet, Baby Blake for his entertainment—Miss Pimpernell was a wise caterer—Min, and myself.

Our hostess had so planned that we should all pair off, each lady having her cavalier, as she said, in the good old-fashioned way. She planned very ably, as we had one of the pleasantest evenings imaginable, without any stiffness or formality or being forced to make a toil of enjoyment, in the customary manner of most fashionable reunions: we were not "fashionable," thank goodness. But we had "a good time" of it, as young America says, all the same.

What did we do?

Well, then, there were none of those abominable "round games," which, unless they descend to vulgar romping, are the dreariest attempts at conviviality possible to conceive; none of those dreadful and much-to- be-avoided exactions and remissions of "forfeits," that plunge everybody into embarrassing situations, and destroy, instead of creating, sociability; none of those stock—so-called—"drawing-room entertainments;" in fact, which always result in hopeless boredom. But, we had a little music and part-singing: a little lively, general chit- chat, in which all could join and each take a share: a few anecdotes well told—a complete success, to be brief, in making us all feel perfectly natural and at ease, for we were allowed to do and say exactly what we pleased in moderation.

Each of us was made to feel that his or her absence would have detracted from the happiness of the rest; and that is the true art of treating one's guests—an art which both the vicar and Miss Pimpernell had apparently studied to perfection, although it really proceeded from their natural good-heartedness.

But, amongst our company I had almost forgotten to enumerate the name of Monsieur Parole d'Honneur, one of the nicest of French emigres and a dear friend of the vicar's; one known to most of us, also, for many years.

Perhaps you may chance to remember the noise that the great Barnard extradition case made in the newspapers—and, indeed, all over England too, for that matter—in the year 1859?

You don't? Why, it nearly led to a war between France and Britain! Did you never hear how the fiercely-moustachioed Gallic colonels swaggered about the Boulogne cafes, loud in their denunciations of perfidious Albion, while smoking their endless cigarettes and sipping their poisonous absinthe; and how, but for the staunch fidelity of the ill- fated Emperor Napoleon—since deserted by his quondam ally—and the jaunty pluck of our then gallant premier, brave "old Pam"—whose loss we have had ample reason, oftentimes of late, to deplore—there might have been a sudden rupture of that "entente cordiale" between the two nations, which was cemented in the Crimea, and expired but a couple of years ago under the besieged walls of Paris?

Ah! that was a time when the whilom "Cupid's" boast, "Civis Anglicanus sum," was not an empty claim, as it is in these days of poverty-stricken "retrenchments," and senile forfeitures of all that made England great and grand through five hundred years of history!

But the Barnard case—you must have heard of that, surely? It was just about the period when the wonderful volunteer fever commenced to rage with such intense earnestness over here; and when our "valuable auxiliary forces"—as amateur military critics in the House are so fond of repeating—were first instituted, in the fear of a second invasion of this sacred realm of liberty. We did not then place much reliance on the "streak of silver sea," when in the direct face of danger, as a great "statesman" would have us do now that it no longer confronts us! Ha, at last you recollect, eh? I need not prompt your memory any further.

Bien. It was at this period that Monsieur Parole d'Honneur was advised in high official circles that it would be for the benefit of his health if he quitted French soil for awhile. He had been known to have once been intimately associated with Mazzini, and that gentleman was supposed to be implicated in the Orsini affair—when an attempt was made against Napoleon's life in the Place d'Opera; so, as Parole d'Honneur had likewise been heard to speak rather unguardedly at a political club of patriots to which he belonged, the prefectorial mind "putting that and that together," very reasonably presumed that our friend must have some connection with the bomb conspirators. The consequences were, that Parole d'Honneur was told to quit Paris instantly, and leave France itself within four-and-twenty hours,—although he was innocent of the slightest knowledge concerning the plot.

However, there was no help for it. Prefects are not in the habit of discussing their suspicions with suspected persons; and thus he had to bid adieu to his country in a hurry. He thereupon shook off its dust from his papier-mache-soled boots, coming to England, in the manner of his compatriots, to earn his livelihood as a teacher of languages.

Having the highest recommendations, he easily obtained as much employment as he wanted, and devoted himself to giving conversational lectures to a circle of collegiate establishments lying in different parts of London, which he visited bi-weekly, or so, in turn. Amongst these was one in our suburb; hence, first an acquaintance and then a lasting friendship sprung up between him and the vicar, both taking to each other immensely through their large-hearted philosophy; thus, too, I also got acquainted with one of the brightest, cheeriest, kindest Gauls of many that I have had the happiness of knowing.

At the time of which I write, Parole d'Honneur was a very happy emigre, despite his enforced exile in the land of fogs. Indeed, he was an exile no longer in the strict sense of the word, as he had received permission to go back to France whenever he pleased; a permission of which he had already availed himself, having paid a visit, in company with me, to Paris, the previous month, at the time when I had been so miserable and despondent about not meeting Min again. However, he had become so fond of England and things English, from his long enforced residence here, that he avowed his determination of living and dying amongst us—that is, unless his country and "the cause" should have need of his services.

On the evening of Miss Pimpernell's little party, this patriotic gentleman, in the presence of ladies, whom he reverenced with a knight- errant's devotion and homage, was the life of our circle. He carried an aroma of fun and light-heartedness about him that was simply contagious. He sang Beranger's ditties with a verve and elan that brought back bonny Paris and student days to those of us who were acquainted with them. One moment he played exquisite bits from Mozart on his violin, to the accompaniment of the vicar's violoncello, that were most entrancing; the next, scraped away at some provoking tarantella that almost set the whole of us dancing, in defiance of the proprieties generally observed at the vicarage.

We were asking each other riddles and conundrums. Monsieur Parole suddenly bethought him of one. "Ah, ha!" he said, "I heard one good reedel ze ozer day. A leetle mees at one of my academies told it me. Young ladies, why is ze old gentlemans, le diable, zat is—"

"O-oh! Monsieur Parole!" ejaculated Miss Pimpernell.

"Your pardon, Mees Peemple," said Monsieur Parole—he never could give her the additional syllable to her name—"Your pardon, Mees Peemple; but we wiz call hims somesing else. Why is—ah, ha! I have got hims. Why is Lucifers like, when riding sur un souris, on a mouse, like the very same tings? You gives him up? Ah, ha! I t'ought you would never guess him!" he continued, on our professing our ignorance of the solution. "Because he is synonime!—vat you calls sin-on-a-mouse! Ha, ha, ha!" and he burst into a chuckle of his merry laughter.

This reminded Horner of one. "Bai-ey Je-ove!" he said, after a long pause. "I—ah, came akwass a vewy good one the othah day—ah. A blind beggah had a bwoth-ah, and the bwoth-ah died; now, what welation was— ah, the blind beggah to the—ah, dead beggah?"

"His sister, of course," said Bessie Dasher, promptly.

"Weally," said Horner, who usually put on most of his w and r ish airs when in the presence of ladies in evening costume: in the day he sometimes spoke more plainly. "Weally, how clevah you ah! I asshaw you, I didn't gwess it for neawy a week—ah!"

"I can quite believe that!" said Seraphine, wickedly.

"Did you ever hear any of Praed's charades?" I asked Min.

"No," she said. "Do you recollect some?"

"Ah," put in the vicar, "Praed was a clever fellow; and a true poet, too."

"Indeed?" said Min. "I have heard his name, but I've never seen anything that he wrote. Do you recollect any of his charades, Mr Lorton?" she asked again, turning to me.

"I think I remember one," I said, repeating those three spirited verses which are well-known, beginning "Come from my First, ay, come!"

"How beautiful the lines are!" said Min; "but it seems a pity that they should be thrown away on a mere charade."

"That was exactly Praed's way," said the vicar. "I remember well, when I was a young man at college, what a stir his name made, and what great things were predicted of him, that he never lived to realise."

"He died young, did he not?" asked Min.

"Yes," said the vicar, "in his thirty-second year. If he had lived, he would probably have been one of the foremost men in England to-day."

"'Whom the gods love, die young,'" quoted I grandiloquently, like Mawley.

"True," said the vicar. "There is more philosophy in that, than in most of those old Pagan beliefs: there is a glimmering of Christianity about the saying."

"I wonder," said Miss Pimpernell, "whether there is any connection between it and the text, 'Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth'?"

"I can't say, my dear," said the vicar, "if you are right in this instance; but there is often a great similarity between different parts of the Bible and the utterances of profane writers."

"Have you ever noticed, sir," said Min, "how David says in the Psalms that 'all the foundations of the world are out of course;' while Shakespeare makes Hamlet observe that 'the world is out of joint'?"

"Yes," said the vicar, "and there are many other parallels that could be drawn from Shakespeare. He was frequently indebted to the inspired volume for his reflections; whether wittingly or unknowingly, I cannot say."

"I think," said I, "that Douglas Jerrold's celebrated bon mot about Australia must be put down to the same source. He said, if you remember, speaking of the prolific nature of the soil of the new continent, 'Tickle her with a hoe, and she will laugh with a harvest;' and in the Psalms we have the verse, 'The valleys also shall stand so thick with corn, that they shall laugh and sing.'"

"It is debatable," said the vicar, "whether we should ascribe these striking resemblances to unconscious plagiarism or to similarity of thought."

"We will have to agree with Solomon," said I, "that there is nothing new under the sun!"

"True enough, Frank," said the vicar. "From the explorations at Nineveh and at Pompeii, we have already learnt that the ancients well knew of what we in our pride long ascribed to modern inquiry and research."

Miss Pimpernell here calling upon her brother and Monsieur Parole for some more of their concerted music, they sat down to a sonata of Beethoven. The remainder of us broke up into little coteries; Min and I having a long quiet talk, under cover of the deep tones of the vicar's violoncello, in a corner by the piano, where we entrenched ourselves for some time undisturbed.

What did we say?

I'm sure I can't tell you. Probably we talked about the weather and the crops; the prospects of the coming season; the expected new tenor at the opera, who was said to rival Orpheus and put Mario into the shade; or, peradventure, we discussed political economy, grumbling over the high price of meat and the general expenses of housekeeping! But, please put yourself in our place, and you will be able, I have no doubt, to imagine all we could possibly have found to chat about, much better, probably, than I can describe it. I will merely say for your guidance, without entering into details, that it was happiness, rapture to me, to be only beside her—will that enlighten you at all?

Later on, came supper.

After that we had some part-singing of good old glees, like "The Chough and Crow," "Here in cool Grot," and the ever-beautiful "Dawn of Day." We then separated, after the pleasantest of evenings, when it was close on midnight:—Miss Pimpernell's party had been emphatically a social success.

Of course I walked home with Min. I had been so much with her of late, that I somehow or other began to look upon her as my own property; and was jealous of the interference of anyone else. You should have seen how I glared at Horner when he suggested, good-naturedly enough, that Min should go round, by the way that the Dasher girls and the others went, under his escort! How overjoyed I was when she politely declined the offer, saying that, as her mamma was sitting up for her, she must hurry home by the shortest way!

She looked like a little fairy, tripping along beside me through the fresh-looking frozen snow, her dark dress and scarlet petticoat showing out in strong relief against the glittering white of the roadway. The moon was shining brightly, so that it was as light as day; and I could see her face distinctly as she looked up into mine every now and then to answer some remark. Her honest, lustrous, grey eyes sparkled with fun, while a little ripple of silvery laughter came occasionally from the rosebud-parted coral lips! We chatted merrily, exchanging notes touching the enjoyments of the evening.

We gradually approached her door. I was telling her that, instead of mere days, I seemed to have known her for years and could not affect to treat her as a stranger.

She said that she looked upon me almost as an old friend already.

I asked her if she would let me abandon the formal appellation of "Miss Clyde," and call her "Min?"

She said, "Yes."

I asked her then, ere the door opened, on wishing her "good-bye," with a lingering hand-clasp, whether she would not call me by my Christian name, too?

She gently whispered, "Frank"—so softly, so faintly, that the night- wind, sighing by, could not catch the accents and bear the sound to alien ears; but I heard it, and my heart throbbed in a delirious tempest of happiness; I lost my senses almost: my head swam in a whirlwind of tumultuous joy: I was intoxicated with ecstasy!

"Good-night, Frank!" I heard her dear, sweet voice whispering, like strains of music in my heart, as I went homewards. I seemed to feel her warm violet breath still on my cheek. I could fancy I yet gazed into the star-depths of her soul-speaking, deep, grey eyes.

"Good-night, Frank!" The words sang in my ears all night, and I slept in fairyland.



CHAPTER SEVEN.

DOUBT.

"Thro' light and shadow thou dost range, Sudden glances sweet and strange, Delicious spites and darling angers, And airy forms of flitting change."

I had not yet had an opportunity of being introduced to Min's mother.

'Pon my word, you exclaim, this looks very serious!

I beg to differ from you. We had been brought together legitimately enough, down at the church-decoration-gathering in the school-room: we had been regularly introduced by no less a clerical authority than little Miss Pimpernell, the vicar's sister: we had then and there associated under the safest chaperonage—good heavens! would not Miss Spight's jealous green eyes, that were certain to pick out the tiniest blot in her fellow man or woman, and Lady Dasher's stately, albeit melancholy presence, satisfy you? Thus, the "convenances," that horrid Anglo-French pseudonym, of the still more horrible bugbear "society," had no cause to consider themselves neglected and find an excuse for taking umbrage. From this point, our acquaintanceship naturally and gradually ripened. We got intimate: it was our fate, I suppose—what more or less would you have expected?

Besides, although, mind you, I do not consider myself in any way bound to allay your curiosity and satisfy your compunctious scruples, you should remember that all of us young parishioners of Saint Canon's— Horner, Baby Blake, Lizzie Dangler and the rest—had known each other almost from the distant days of childhood; and, consequently, were in the habit of tutoyer-ing one another, using our respective "given" names in familiar conversation. The habit may be a bad one, it is true, but you cannot prevent it sometimes. There is no practice so capable of imitation as that of calling one another by the Christian name. It is just like that of the monkeys all cleaning their teeth along the banks of the Amazon with pieces of stick, because they saw Professor Agassiz setting them an example one fine morning, when engaged on his toilet in company with a tooth-brush. You can't help yourself: you must bow to the custom and follow suit.

In this instance, there was Miss Pimpernell, always addressing her as "Min," and me as "Frank." The Dasher girls and others soon learnt to do the same. What more likely than that we ourselves should fall into a similar friendly system? It was only reasonable; and a result which even a less alert person than yourself would have looked for. At all events, neither of us meant any harm by it; and I am willing to "take my affidavit" to that effect any day you please to name, in any Court of Justice you may appoint.

Notwithstanding the intimate footing that now existed between Min and myself, the fact of my non-acquaintance with her mother, annoyed me extremely. You need not flatter yourself, however. It was not in the least on account of any conscientious qualms, like yours.

I wished to know her personally from a totally different motive; and yet, in spite of all attempts and stratagems on my part, I never could get a chance of meeting her when I was in the company of some kind friend to act as go-between and soothe the exigencies of introduction; although, when alone I would encounter her frequently. This was very vexing—especially so after a while; and I'll tell you how it was.

As the days flew by, and the new year, born in a moment, grew with giant strides in that hasty growth common to all new years—they have a habit of shooting ahead the first few months of their existence, as if they desired to "force the pace," and make all the "running" they can—my facilities for intercourse with Min became "small by degrees and beautifully less." There you have the cause of my annoyance at once.

I could see her at the window, certainly. I also frequently passed her mother and herself in the street, or on The Terrace, or along the Prebend's Walk, when I was taking an airing abroad with dog Catch at my heels; yet, I don't know how it was, but I invariably chanced to be on the opposite side of the street, or road, or terrace, whenever I thus passed them. I never failed to receive the timid little bow and smile from Min, with a rosy heightening of her complexion the while—to which I had now got so accustomed that, should I have been debarred from their receipt, I would have considered myself very hardly used and felt a morbid inclination to go mad and drown myself. But, Min's bow was hardly sufficient to introduce me to her mother, even if people could be introduced from opposite sides of roads. Thus it was that I remained a stranger to Mrs Clyde, and did not have a chance of meeting her daughter and talking to her, as I might have done if I could but have visited her at home.

I never was able to have a word with her now, never could hear her darling voice repeat my name in those soft accents I loved so well. It was very hard—very hard, indeed! You see, I had ample reasons, beyond the requirements of mere social etiquette, for wishing to know Mrs Clyde.

Our suburb, you must know, was an extremely quiet place—"remote, unfriended, solitary, slow."

Although everybody knew everybody, who happened to be anybody at all, there was not much of current sociability and party giving. We were not sociable. On the contrary, we were a very humdrum lot; rising early and going to town to our business and daily toil—such of us as had any sort of business to attend to—and coming back at a fixed regular hour. We were in the habit of having our respective dinners and teas, and, mayhap, suppers, at certain appointed times and seasons—also duly regulated—and subsequently going to bed, to recruit for the same routine on the morrow, without any excitements, or renovation and destruction of tissue worth speaking of.

A "tea-party" was quite a sensation in the parish of Saint Canon's— equivalent to one of the queen's garden fetes. Beyond school treats and working parties, to which latter only the clergy and Lady Dorcases were admitted, and the anniversary of Christmas, when we sometimes did indulge a little in wholesome but subdued gaiety, we went on from year's beginning to year's end without balls, or dinners, or dances, or any of those resources which fashionable people have for killing time and keeping up acquaintanceship.

We were not "high-toned" people; quite the reverse, in fact, as, I believe, I have previously described. We only "dropped in" of an evening to see friends, and spend a quiet hour or two over bezique and music. On these occasions, a carpet cotillon or quadrille has been sometimes indulged in; but it was the exception and not the rule. We were generally satisfied with much milder pastime; our visits rarely exceeding the interval between tea and "supper" time, when we partook of a friendly, though seedy, abernethy and glass of wine or beer; and then went home virtuously to bed.

Our society being thus constituted, it became a matter almost of impossibility to meet any one particular person frequently, excepting out in the street, unless you had the entree of their house. Hence, I never could chat with Min, as I had done at the decorations; and, naturally, I felt very much aggrieved thereanent.

What made it additionally provoking to me was, that Horner had contrived to get introduced to Mrs Clyde almost as soon as she had settled in the place, before I had returned from Paris; and there was Mr Mawley the curate, too, exercising the privilege of his cloth by continually frequenting her house. He drove me to desperation by going in and out, apparently just as the fancy suited him, as if he were a tame cat about the place.

His conduct was perfectly odious—that is, to any right-thinking person.

Curates and cousins are, I consider, two of the greatest obstacles to an innocent layman's intimacy with the diviner portion of creation; and, in these days of reform and disestablishment, of hereditary and other conservative grievances, something ought to be done to abolish the persons in question, or at least handicap them so that other deserving young men might have a fair chance in the race for beauty's smile and Hymen's chain. They have an enormous advantage, at present, over outside men-folk. Girls like to have a sort of good-natured lap-dog about them, to play with occasionally and run their errands, "do this" and "that" for the asking—like Cornelius the centurion's obedient servant—and make himself generally useful, without looking for any ulterior reward on account of services rendered. You see, cousins and curates are regarded as "harmless"—"detrimentals with the chill off," so to speak. His scrap of relationship throws a glimmer of possession around the one, endowing with inherent right every act of his ministry; while his "cloth" invests the other with a halo of sanctity and Platonic freedom that disarms gossip of the usual clothes-peg whereon it hangs its scandal. "Cousin Tom"—by-the-way, did you ever read Mackworth Praed's lines on the same theme?—is allowed opportunities for, and latitude in, flirtation, which poor Corydon, not a cousin never so remote, may sigh in vain for; and, who would be so despicable as to impute secular motives to the Reverend Hobplush's tender ministrations towards those sweet young "sisters," who dote on his sucking sermons and work him carpet slippers and text-markers without limit? Certainly, not I.

I do not mean to say, however, that curates and cousins have it all their own way always. There's a sweet little cupid who "sits up aloft," like Jack's guardian angel, to watch o'er the loves of poor laymen. Still, it is very galling, to one of an ardent temperament especially, to mark the anxious solicitude with which "Cousin Tom" may hang over the divine creature—whom you can only look upon from afar as some distant star—without attracting any observations anent his "attentions." The confounded airs of possession he gives himself, while you are languishing "out in the cold," in the expressive vernacular, are frightful to contemplate. As for curate Hobplush, he may drop in whenever he pleases, being treated like one of the family circle; while you, miserable creature, can only call at stated intervals, always dreading the horrid possibility of out-staying your welcome, and receiving the metaphorical "cold shoulder"—though love may prompt you to the sacrifice.

Such was my position now.

There was Mr Mawley visiting at Mrs Clyde's house some half-a-dozen times a week, for all I knew to the contrary—and of course I imagined the worst—and having endless chances and opportunities of conversing with my darling, in the morning, at noontide, and at night; while poor, wretched I had to content myself with a passing bow and smile when we chanced to meet abroad, or I should happen to see her dainty figure at the window as I promenaded past her house.

You say I ought to have considered myself lucky to get even that slight modicum of notice?

But I did not so consider myself. I was not by any means contented. Where did you ever find a lover worth his salt who was?

To tell the truth, I was horribly jealous of Mawley. He was not at all a bad-looking fellow; and, with all his dogmatic tone and love of argument, had a wonderfully taking way with ladies. Besides, his connection with the Church gave him a considerable pull over me—girls are so impressionable, as a rule, with regard to nice young curates, that they generally have the pick of the parish! Really, all things considered, I'm very much afraid that I had not that kind Christian feeling and charity in my heart towards Mawley that the vicar had enjoined in his Christmas sermon. I did not regard the curate even with that reverence which his Oxford waistcoat should have inspired. I believe that at that particular time I looked upon him with somewhat of the same feeling with which the homicidal Cain regarded his brother Abel about the sacrificing business.

Then, there was Horner, too, who was generally looked upon as an "eligible" person, having a respectable position of his own in addition to considerable expectations from his rich uncle, as I told you before. I could see that Mrs Clyde encouraged him. He was always going there, and frequently walking out with them also. I saw him, and it made my heart bitter. One evening, I met him in full costume, with an opera- glass slung round his shoulders, just before he reached their door. He told me that Mrs Clyde had asked him to accompany her daughter and herself to Covent Garden and share their box. They would have waited a considerable time, I thought, before they would have been invited to share his! I watched them drive off, and I went home mad. It was getting too grievous for mortal to bear.

The house felt suffocating to me that evening. I could not stop in. I determined to go and call on my old friend Miss Pimpernell, and see what she could do to cheer me up.

"My dear boy," she said, as I entered the parlour, where she sat darning the vicar's socks by the light of a moderator lamp, which stood on a little table close beside her. "My dear boy, what is the matter with you? You look quite haggard, and like a wild man from the woods! Have you had your tea yet? I can ring for some in a moment."

"No, pray don't, thank you," I answered. "Miss Pimpernell," I continued, in a determined voice, "I have had tea enough to-night to last me for a twelvemonth! I can't bear this any longer. You must introduce me to Mrs Clyde. I have never been able as yet to make her acquaintance, and I want to go to her house as Horner does, and that fellow Mawley."

"Hush, my dear boy!" she said, in her soothing way, as if she were stroking me down the back like she stroked her tabby Tom—one of the mousiest and most petted of cats. "You should not speak so of a clergyman, my dear Frank. Think what the vicar would say if he heard you!"

"Oh, never mind Mr Mawley," I said, somewhat petulantly; "I want to know Mrs Clyde."

"Ah! that's what's the matter, is it, Frank? Then why did you not come to old Sally before?"

"Well, Miss Pimpernell," I replied, "I never thought of you until to- night."

"Never thought of me! You are ungallant, Master Frank! But think of me next time, my dear boy, whenever you find yourself in a difficulty; and if Sally Pimpernell can help you out of it, she will, you may depend!"

"Oh, thank you, dear Miss Pimpernell! And when will you introduce me to Mrs Clyde?" I asked, thinking it best to "strike the iron" whilst it was "hot."

"Come round to-morrow afternoon, Frank," she replied. "She is going to be here by appointment, to see me about some charity in which she is interested; and I'll try and manage it for you then."

"I'll be here, Miss Pimpernell, without fail," I said. "I can never be sufficiently obliged to you, if you do it."

"All right, my boy," she said. "I'm sure I shall be very glad to help you in such a trifling matter. But I do not want any of your soft speeches, Frank! Keep them for somebody else who will appreciate them better;" and she laughed her cheery, merry laugh, wishing me good-night and sending me home much easier in my mind and happier than I had been for many days past.

On the following afternoon I was introduced, as my old friend had promised; and you may be certain that I tried to make myself as agreeable as I could be to Min's mother. I think I succeeded, too; for, when I took my leave early, in order to allow Miss Pimpernell and her visitor an opportunity of discussing the best way of relieving the parish poor, Mrs Clyde gave me an invitation.

"Mr Lorton," said she, "I should be glad if you would come round and see us on Wednesday evening—I think you know our address? My daughter is going to have a few friends in for a little music; and we shall both be happy if you will join us. Miss Pimpernell tells me you are very musical."

"With great pleasure," I answered, in society's stock phraseology. With the "greatest" pleasure, I might have said, as I could almost have jumped for joy. Just fancy! all that I had longed for was accorded in a moment. My good fairy must undoubtedly have been hovering about the vicarage premises that day; and I strongly suspect my good fairy in this instance, as was the case also in many other circumstances of my life, being none other than my very unfairylike old friend, little Miss Pimpernell, the vicar's kind-hearted sister.

Did I not look forward to Wednesday evening? Did I not, when the time for me to dress at last came round after an excruciatingly long interval, bestow the most elaborate and unheard-of pains on my toilet, almost rivalling Horner's generally unimpeachable "get up"? Did I not proceed in the utmost joy and gladness towards the habitation of my darling?

I should rather think I did!

And yet, when I crossed the threshold of Miss Clyde's house, I was seized with a sudden vague impression of uneasiness. I felt a, to me, singular sensation of nervousness, shyness, "mauvais honte"—just as if a cold key had been put down my back—for which I was at a loss to account. Those who know me say that bashfulness is one of the least of my virtues; and, I do not think that I am constitutionally timid—so why this feeling? Was it not a foreboding of evil? I believe it was, for everything went wrong with me that night, instead of my having a surfeit of pleasure, as I had sanguinely expected.

"Hope told a flattering tale." My good fairy deceived me. My unpropitious star was again in the ascendant.

In fact, my bad genius reigned supreme, in spite of such counteracting influences as my being at last admitted to Min's home and permitted to watch her gliding movements about the room, hear her liquid voice, catch the bright looks from her glancing grey eyes, speak to her, smile with her, adore her.

Yes, in spite of all this, my bad influence reigned supreme; and, I'm afraid, something wrong must have been done at my baptism to disgust my better genii.

In the first place, I arrived too soon, which was a calamity in itself. There is always pardon for one who goes late to an evening party—nay, it often enhances his reputation. Absolution may even be extended to the calculating individual who ravenously times his arrival by the supper hour; but, for a simple-minded person, unaccustomed to the usages of polite society, to believe in the invariability of fixed appointments and, taking an invitation au pied de la lettre, make his appearance a full hour before any other guest would dare to "turn up," from the fear of being thought unfashionable, is simply monstrous! His behaviour is perfectly inexcusable; and, as a punishment, he should in future be compelled for a certain time to dine at our Saxon forefathers' early hour, and go to bed at the sound of the curfew bell instituted by their Norman conquerors—that is how I would teach him manners!

I committed this grievous fault on the present occasion. I had been so anxious to get there in good time and not miss a minute of Min's charming company, that, like our friend Paddy who ate his breakfast over night in order to save time in the morning, I overdid it, arriving there too early. I saw this at once from Mrs Clyde's face when I was announced, the unhappy premier of all the coming guests.

Perhaps it was only my fancy, as I'm extremely sensitive on such points, for she received me courteously enough, pressing the welcoming cup of coffee and hospitable muffin in an adjoining ante-room on my notice; but, I thought I could perceive, below the veneer of social civility, a sort of "how-tiresome-of-you-to-come-before-anybody-else" look in her eyes, which made me extremely small in my own estimation.

It was a horrible interval waiting for the other guests to come and support me. I made a vow there and then that I would never again present myself wherever I might be invited out until a full hour beyond the specified time—and I've generally kept it, too!

Min did not treat me cavalierly, however, notwithstanding that I had arrived in advance of expectation. She was all kindness and grace, endeavouring to make the "mauvais quart d'heure" of my solitary guesthood pass away as little uncomfortably to me as possible.

She asked me to come and see her flowers in the bay window of the drawing-room, which she had fitted up as a tiny conservatory; while her mother sat down to the piano and played dreamy music in a desultory fashion. I like dreamy music, although it always makes me melancholy— indeed, all music affects me the same way, in spite of my not being by any means what you would call a sad person. On the contrary, I am supposed to be one of the most light-hearted fellows imaginable, and, certainly, laugh more than I ever cry. However, mirth and sadness are closer allies than people generally suspect. All emotion proceeds, more or less, from hysteria.

While Mrs Clyde was playing, Min and I got talking. She thanked me for coming early; and upbraided the absent guests for thinking it fashionable to come later than bidden.

We discussed the rival merits of a scarlet japonica and a double fuchsia, giving the palm of merit to the former, though the latter had some wondrous lobes; and I was also asked my opinion whether her favourite maidenhair fern would survive a sudden and unaccountable blight which had fallen upon it a few days before.

She then showed me the identical violets I had given her that Christmas morning, now so long passed by: she had tipped the stalks with sealing wax and preserved them in cotton wool, so that they looked as fresh as when first gathered.

"There!" she said, with an air of triumph. "There, Mr Lorton! I have kept them ever since."

"Mr Lorton!" I repeated, "who is he? I don't know him."

"Well, 'Frank,' then—will that please you better, you tiresome thing?"

"You know you promised," I said, apologetically.

"Did I?" she asked, with charming naivete.

"Why, have you forgotten that night already?" I said, in a melancholy tone.

"Don't be so lugubrious," she said. "You have to amuse me. You mustn't remember all my promises."

"Are they so unsubstantial?" I asked.

"No, they're not, sir!" she said, stamping her foot in affected anger. "But what do you say to my keeping your violets so long, Frank?"

"What do I say?" I repeated after her, looking my delight into her eyes; when, a frantic chord, struck deep down in the bass by Mrs Clyde, marking the finish of some piece of Wagner's, recalled us both to every- day life.

As nobody else had yet arrived, Min challenged me to a game of chess.

I allowed her to win the first game easily.

She pouted, saying that she supposed I thought it below my dignity to put forth my best energies in playing against a lady!

Thereupon, I did exert myself; but, she was just as provokingly dissatisfied.

I took her queen. She protested it was unfair.

I offered to restore it to her; she would not have it at any price;—she wished me to play the game, she said, just as if I were playing with a man.

I checkmated her. She got up in a pet, saying that chess was a nasty, stupid, tiresome thing, and that she would not play it any longer.

O, the contrariness of feminine nature!

Other people now began to drop in; and it was my turn to get put out.

I heard it was Min's birthday, which I had not known before. I saw that they remembered it; while, I, had not brought her even a paltry flower!

Everybody was wishing her "many happy returns of the day." I had not done so; neither had I any opportunity of atoning for my neglect, as she was too busy receiving the new comers; but, indeed, I would have been too proud to excuse myself after witnessing Mr Mawley's "effusion."

He seemed to me to be guilty of unpardonable effrontery in holding Min's hand such an unconscionably long time in his, when presenting a miserable shop-bouquet; and, as for the lackadaisical airs of that insufferable donkey, Horner—I can find no words adequate wherewith to express what I thought; he was positively sickening!

I did not have another chance of speaking to Min either; that is, unless I chose to bawl what I had to say across a crowded room; and, I need hardly say, I did not exactly care about that!

She appeared to me to be very inconsistent, too.

She seemed really much more interested in Mawley's conversation than I thought any reasonable person could be; while he was grinning and carrying on at a rate, which, if I had been Mrs Clyde, I would not have allowed for a moment.

O, the equilibriant temperament of the "superior" sex!

Min teased me yet further.

She sang every song that Mawley and Horner asked her for, playing the accompaniments for the latter when he favoured the company with his idea of ballad vocalisation.

Horner thought he possessed a fine tenor voice: I didn't think so, especially on this evening!

But, no matter what these two asked her to do, she did. If I, however, requested any particular song, she said she did not believe she could manage it; her voice could not compass it; she had lent it out; or, she hadn't got it!

Was it not enough to provoke one? Wouldn't you have been affected by it?

In addition to Horner and Mawley, there was also an odious cousin of hers, called "Jack," or "Tom," or "Ned," or some other abominably familiar abbreviation, who hung over the piano stool, and said "Min, do this," and "Min, do that," in a way that drove me to frenzy.

I hate cousins! I don't see the necessity for them. I'm sure people can get along very well without their existence. I would do away with them to-morrow by act of Parliament, if I only had the power.

When everybody else who had a voice at all had exercised their vocal powers, Mrs Clyde at last asked me to sing.

Instead of declining, as I would have done at any other time, on account of her slight, I bowed my acquiescence and went to the piano.

To tell you the truth, I was glad of the opportunity afforded me for carrying out a petty piece of revenge against Min, of which I had suddenly bethought me.

I had composed a little song, you must know, that I believed highly applicable to her at the moment, although when I had written it she was no more in my mind than Adam or Eve, or both!

I sang it, looking into her face the while, as she stood by the instrument; and these were the words. I gave them expression enough, you may be sure.

"My lady's eyes are soft and blue, deep-changing as the iris hue; But, eyes deceive Hearts 'worn on sleeve,' And make us oft their power rue!

"Her little mouth—a 'sunny south'—wafts perfumed kisses to the wind; But, winds blow cold, And kiss of old, A trait'rous symbol was, I find!

"For pearly teeth and rosebud lips, whose honied wealth the zephyr sips, But bait the lair Where fickle fair, Like Scylla, wreck men's stately ships—

"And witching eyes and plaintive sighs, and looks of love and tender words— Love's tricking arts - Are poison'd darts, More awesome far than pendant swords!"

"Thank you," said Mrs Clyde; "it is very pretty. Your own, I suppose?"

"Yes," I said. I did not feel disposed to be more communicative.

"What do you call it?" asked Min, carelessly.

"'Per Contra,'" I answered. "Don't you think it a suitable title?"

"Yes, I understand" she said. "Thank you, Mr Lorton!"

She spoke, with marked emphasis.

A little time afterwards, when I was sitting moodily in a corner, with a book before me which I was supposed to be looking at, but whose bare title escapes my recollection, Min came to my side; and, she began overhauling some volumes of music that were piled up in a heap on the floor.

"Mr Lorton," she said, hesitatingly.

That "Mr Lorton" set my teeth on edge.

I made no reply.

"Frank!"

"Yes," I said, testily.

I felt very angry with her for her attentions to Horner and Mawley, and, as I thought, neglect of me; so, I wished to let her know it.

"Frank," she repeated, "didn't you mean that song at me?"

"Yes, I did," I replied, very grumpily.

"Foolish fellow!" she said; "what a very bad opinion you must have of me, although I did not know my eyes were blue before! You said the other night they were grey," and she smiled bewitchingly. But, I wouldn't be coaxed into good humour.

"Ce m'est egal," I answered coldly, "whatever they are."

"You are very cross!" she said pettishly; "I will go and talk to Mr Mawley, until you get into a better mood, sir, and are more amiable."

"I'm sure," said I, loftily, "that I would not be the means of depriving you of his valuable and entertaining society."

Min laughed provokingly. "At all events," she said, "he is not cross with me about nothing; and some people might learn better manners from him, Mr Lorton!"

"Pray do not let me detain you from such a charming companion, Miss Clyde," I said, with distant politeness.

"Even poor Mr Horner can be agreeable and amusing, and you won't even try to be. I will go to him," she continued, still striving to get me to be more sociable; but I was obstinate and ill-tempered.

An angel would not have pacified me. How could I have been so rude to her?

I was a brute.

"Ah," I exclaimed, "his conversation is truly intellectual!"

She was quite vexed now.

"You are very unkind," she said. "You speak ill-naturedly of everybody, and are cross with me on my birthday! I won't speak to you, Frank, again this evening; there, see if I do!" and she turned away from me with a tremble in her voice, and an indignant look in the, now, flashing, grey eyes.

She kept her promise.

Much as I tried, when my ill-temper had subsided, to get speech with her, I was not allowed a word. Even when leaving the house, I only received a bow. She would not shake hands, to show that I was forgiven.

I had stopped to the very last in order to sit out Horner. He would not budge first, and I would not budge first; so now we started off together, our homeward routes being identical.

You may imagine that I felt very amicably disposed towards him. I was ripe for a quarrel, or at least a separation; and Horner soon gave me an opening.

He began to praise Min's looks and voice, and the manner in which she had sung the songs he had asked her for, including the one he had given her that evening.

Really, the cool impudence of Horner was something astounding! What right had he to criticise her? He spoke just as if she belonged to him, I assure you!

This was too much, after what I had already gone through.

"Which way are you going?" I asked him suddenly.

"Gaw-ing?" he said, in a surprised tone. "Why, stwaight on, of cawse— stwaight on!"

"Then, I'm going round here!" I said, wheeling off abruptly at a right angle from the road we had been pursuing, and going out of my way in order to get rid of him.

Flesh and blood could no longer stand his unmeaning, yet gibing platitudes.

"Bai-ey Je-ove!" he exclaimed. "But, stawp, my deah fellah. Lorton, I asshaw you I only meant to say—ah—that Miss Clyde sang my songs most divinely—ah—and that she's—ah—a vewy nice gahl—ah!"

Confound him!

What business had he to say or think anything of the sort?

I could faintly hear his voice exclaim "Bai-ey Je-ove!" in the distance, after some seconds' interval, during which we had become widely separated.

I was as thoroughly out of temper as I could possibly be.

I was angry with everybody in the world, Min not excepted, and with the world itself; but, at myself, more than all.



CHAPTER EIGHT.

ONLY ABOUT A LITTLE BIRD.

Oh! let them ne'er, with artificial note, To please a tyrant, strain their little bill; But sing what heaven inspires, and wander where they will!

I was ten times angrier with myself when I got home.

What a fool I had been—what an idiot—to have thrown away my chances as I had done! I had wished for "the roc's egg" to complete my happiness; and I had obtained it with a vengeance.

My roc's egg had been the "open sesame" to Mrs Clyde's castle. I had sighed for it, striven for it, gained it at last; and, a fine mess I had made of it, all things considered!

What must she think me?

An ill-bred, untutored, unlicked cub, most probably!

I did not let myself off easily, I promise you. My conscience gave it to me well, and I could find no satisfactory terms in which I could express my opinion of my own surly behaviour.

I think if some people only knew the bitter pangs that social culprits afterwards experience within themselves for their slips and slidings by the way, they would be less harsh in their judgments and unsparing in their condemnation than they usually are. Sending him to Coventry is a poor punishment in comparison with the offender's own remorse. He finds the "labor et opus redintegrare gradum" hard enough, without that Rhadamanthus, "society," making the ascent slippery for him!

As I recalled the incidents of the evening, I could not help allowing to my conscience that Mr Mawley the curate, whom I disliked, had shown himself a gentleman, where I had only acted like a snob; while Horner, a man whom I, in my conceit, had looked down upon and affected to despise as an empty-headed fop and nonentity, was a prince beside me!

They had but played their respective social parts, and accepted the gifts that the gods provided; while I—dunder-headed dolt that I was— had conducted myself worse than a budding school-boy who had but just donned swallow-tails, and made his first entry into society!

Jealousy had been the cause of it all, of course; but, although I have always held, and will continue to believe, that the presence of that "green-eyed monster," as the passion is euphuistically termed, is inseparable from all cases of real, thorough, heart-felt, engrossing love—still, jealousy is no excuse for ill-manners. "Noblesse oblige" always. There is no half-way medium; no middle course to take.

Then, fancy my being such a brute as to quarrel with Min, merely because she could not avoid being courteous to her guests! The fact of their being personally obnoxious to me, did not affect the scale one way or the other; she could not help that. I doubt whether she even knew it.

I was unable to forgive myself, and wondered if she would excuse my conduct, and speak to me again; although, I really deserved social extinction.

But, I surely could not belie her angel nature, I thought? When she came to know all I had suffered that evening, and the miserable self- upbraidings I had since endured, she would pity me, and forgive me, forgetting all that had occurred "as a dream when one awaketh?" I was sure she would; and I gained renewed courage from the impression.

I now bethought me how I should next present myself before her. In accordance with the usages of conventionality, it would be right for me to make an early call at Mrs Clyde's, in recognition of her late assembly; and, unless I should chance to meet Min out alone, I would have no chance of making my apology before then, while, even on that occasion, the presence of her mother might prevent my speaking to her as openly as I wished. What should I do?

I determined, under the circumstances, and from the fact of our being such old friends—she had said so herself, had she not?—that I would make her a little peace-offering, in the shape of a present of some sort or other.

This did not occur to me with the idea of propitiating her as an offended goddess, sacrifices being out of date in the existing era— except those to Moloch! No, such a thought never occurred to me for a moment.

Min was not the class of girl whose pardon or good-will could be purchased, as is frequently the case, perhaps, with others of her sex!

What suggested the scheme to me was, my not having made her any birthday gift, as her other friends, without exception, had done. It is "never too late to mend;" so, why should I not take her a little present now, to show her that she lived in my heart and had not been intentionally forgotten? If she accepted my offering, good. I should then be certain that she extenuated my gaucherie at her party, whether I got speech with her or no. Yes, that would be the proper course for me to pursue. Would you not have thought so in a like contingency?

The present being decided on, what should I get for her? Flowers, photographs, books, music, and all those delicate nothings, which people generally tender as souvenirs for other people's acceptance, she had in abundance.

None of these would do at all. I wanted her to have some special, out- of-the-way something from me, which would always call the giver before her mind whenever she saw it. You may think my wish a selfish one, perhaps, but we generally like to be remembered by those we love. I think so, at least; and, I do not believe I am a very exceptional individual.

What should my gift be? It would not be proper for me to offer, nor was it likely that her mother would allow her to accept, anything very valuable, or of intrinsic worth: such as a watch, which I first thought of. Besides, she had a watch already—one that kept time, unlike most ladies' "time-keepers"—and a particularly pretty one it was, too; so, that was out of the question at once. Jewellery would be just as inadmissible. What on earth should my present consist of?

Why, a bird, of course! How stupid I was growing, to be sure! I really had become quite dull. A bird would be the very thing of all others to suit her, so I need not worry my brains any longer. She had plenty of flowers in her bay window conservatory, besides a tiny crystal fountain, that leaped and sparkled to the astounding altitude of some eighteen inches, and which, on festive occasions, ran Florida-water or Eau-de- Cologne. In addition to these, she required, to my mind, a bird to complete the effect of the whole. A bird she, accordingly, should have.

I had often heard her say that she loved birds dearly. Not wild songsters, however, who sing best in their native freedom of the skies, like the spotted-breasted, circle-carolling lark, the thicket-haunting blackbird, and the sweet-throated thrush.—It would have afforded her no pleasure to prison up one of these in a cage. But, a little fledgling that had never known what it was to roam at its own sweet will, and who, when offered the liberty of the air, would hardly care to "take advantage of the situation;" that would be the bird which she would like to have, I was certain.

I knew just such an one. I had him, in fact. He was "Dicky Chips:"— the funniest, quaintest, most intelligent, and most amusing little bullfinch you ever clapped eyes on.

I resolved that Dicky Chips should be Min's property from henceforth.

Whenever she watched him going through his varied pantomimic role, and heard his well-turned, whistling notes—he had a rare ear for music—she would think of him who gave him to her, although he might then be far away. I decided the point at once before going to bed. Dicky Chips should, like Caliban, have a new master, or rather mistress; and be a new man, or rather bird, to adopt Mr Toots' peculiar ellipto- synthetical style of speaking. Where do you think I got hold of him? Do you know a travelling naturalist who goes about London during the summer months—and all over the country, too, for that matter, as I've met him north of Tweed, and down also at the Land's End, in Cornwall?

He has birds for sale, and he sells them only at that period.

Where he hides himself when winter, dark and drear, approaches, I'm sure I cannot tell; but I've never seen him then perambulating the streets. He may possibly, at that season, join company with Jamrack—that curiosity of the animal world; or, he may hibernate in the Seven Dials, as most feather-fanciers do; or, he may retire to his private mansion in Belgrave Square; or, again, he may, peradventure, go abroad "to increase his store," in the fashion of Norval's father, the "frugal swain" who fattened his flocks on the Grampian Hills—though, I prefer South Down mutton, myself!

The bird-seller may do either and all of these things in the winter months; but, I only know his summer habitude:—then he is always to be observed going about the streets with birds for sale.

Do I mean the gentleman who wheels about a costermonger's table-cart, whereon he makes a number of unfortunate canaries pull about tiny carriages, with yokes, shaped like those of the Roman chariots, and fire cannons, and appear as if they liked it; while a decrepit white mouse runs up a cane flag-staff, supporting himself finally, and very uncomfortably, on the top?

No; I do not mean anything of the sort. The person I refer to is quite a different character.

He is generally to be seen driving in a large, full-bodied gipsy waggon, or covered-in break, with open sides and a tarpaulin roof, in which he has, carefully stowed away, tiers upon tiers of cages, that contain almost every description of English and foreign birds; not excluding, also, sundry small pet animals—monkeys, squirrels, and toy dogs, to wit.

He invariably accommodates two horribly-ugly, black-faced pugs, underneath the driving seat of his vehicle; and you may generally hear his approach, when distant more than a mile, through the chirping, and squeaking, and squalling, of his motley cargo.

Canaries are there by the hundred, packed up separately in those square little wooden boxes, each fitted with a small, red, goblet-shaped pitcher and seed-rack, in which they are imported from Germany; parrots, macaws, cockatoos, and lories; larks, thrushes, blackbirds; starlings, magpies, and such like—down to the common hedge-sparrow and poor little Jenny wren.

There, now! I have pointed out the distinguishing characteristics of the itinerant bird-fancier; and, should you never have seen him before, you will be able at once to recognise him in case of your possibly encountering him in the future.

Well, one day, meeting this gentleman "drumming around" our suburb, I had the curiosity to stop and inspect his live freight. In doing so I lighted upon Dicky Chips, as I subsequently christened him: a sturdy little bullfinch, who looked somewhat out of place, and lonesome, amongst his screaming companions from foreign lands. I purchased him for a trifle, and have never since regretted the bargain, for, he was a dear, bright little fellow; so tractable, too, and intelligent, that I was able to educate him to a pitch of excellence, which, I believe, no bullfinch in England ever reached, before or since.

When invited properly, he would dance a hornpipe, whistling his own music in sharp staccato notes, as from a piccolo. He could likewise "present arms" with a little straw musket which I had provided for him; besides feigning to be dead, and allowing you to take him up by the legs, his head hanging down, apparently lifeless, the while, without stirring—although he would sometimes, if you kept him too long in this position, open one of his beady black eyes, and seem to give you a sly wink, as if to say, "A joke is a joke, certainly; but you may, perhaps, carry it too far!" I could not enumerate half his accomplishments in this line; and, as for whistling operatic tunes—the most difficult ones, with unlimited roulades, were his especial choice—"Bai-ey Je- ove!" as Horner would say, you should only have heard him.

As I allowed him to go in and out of his cage at pleasure, he roamed the garden according to his own sweet will, whenever and wherever he pleased, without reservation; and he, I may add, seldom abused the privilege. Some time after I had given him to Min, he actually found his way back one morning to our house again. I shall never forget the circumstance: you should have witnessed his delight at seeing the old place and his old friends again! He flirted, he danced, he rolled in paroxysms of joy on the little table by the window, whereon he had been accustomed to go through his performances:—he chirped, he whistled; in fact, he behaved just like a mad bird.

But he did not desert his mistress, mind you. I think he even got fonder of her than he had even been of me. Still, often after discovering that he could thus vary the monotony of his existence by paying a visit to his old domicile—which only lay a short distance from his new quarters—he would come round; and, after spending an hour or two with me, when he would conscientiously insist on going through the entire round of his accomplishments without any invitation on my part, as if to show that he yet retained his early instructions well in mind, he would return to Min's house, and the no less warm affection that awaited him there.

This was the little present that I intended for a birthday gift to my darling: one that I valued beyond gold. The very next afternoon I carried him round to her in my coat-pocket—he having a tiny cage that just fitted into it comfortably "to a t."

Fortunately, I found Min alone in the drawing-room, when I was ushered in. She was sitting on the sofa reading, and, although she rose up on my entrance, she only bowed, looking distant, and somewhat embarrassed.

This did not look well for my chances of forgiveness, and for getting her to accept Dicky Chips, did it?

I went up to her impulsively.

"Min!" I exclaimed, "can you, will you, excuse and forgive me for acting so rudely last night? I cannot forgive myself; and I shall be miserable till you pardon me!"

She looked down gravely a minute.

"What made you so naughty, sir?" she asked at length, looking up again with a dancing light in the clear grey eyes, and a smile on her pretty little mouth.

"I thought that you did not want me, Min; and I wished myself away, when I saw you speaking to every one else that came, as if you did not care to speak to me. I was very unhappy, and—"

"Oh, Frank!" she said; "unhappy!"

"Yes," I said, "I was never more so in my life. I believed you preferred speaking to Mr Mawley and Horner, to talking to me, and I thought it very unkind of you."

"Well, do not think so again, sir," she said, with such a pretty affectation of sternness, and laughing one of her light, silvery laughs.

"And you did not wish me away?" I asked, anxiously.

"Of course not," she answered. "Why should I have done so? You would not have been invited, sir, if your noble presence had not been wished for, Master Frank."

"And you didn't care so much for Mawley after all?" I continued, rendered bolder by her changed manner.

"You must not ask too many questions, sir!" she said. "This just shows how very unreasonable you were! How could I have neglected everybody else to speak to you, only, all the evening; what would they have thought, sir? what would mamma have said? Besides, you were not very entertaining, Master Frank; you were very cross, sir; you know you were!"

"But you forgive me now, Min, don't you?" I implored.

"Yes," she said, "if you promise never to be cross with me again."

"What, cross with you?" I exclaimed.

"You were, though, last night," she said, with a little toss of her well-shaped head.

I thought the time had now arrived for making my little peace-offering; and yet, I felt as shy and nervous about it as did poor "Young John," the gaoler's son of the Marshalsea, when he went to call on Little Dorrit's father in the grand Bond Street hotel, and drew his humble present of a bundle of cigars from his coat-pocket.

"Min," I said, "you have heard me speak of a clever little bird I had— Dicky Chips?"

"Oh, yes," she said. "You mean the nice little fellow you taught to do so many funny things? Nothing has happened to him, I hope, Frank? I should be so very sorry," she added, sympathisingly, "for I know you are very fond of him."

"No," said I hesitatingly; "nothing has happened to him, exactly; that is, Min, I have brought him over for you; and, unless you accept him, I shall think you are still angry with me, and have not forgiven me."

I thereupon pulled the little chap, cage and all, out of my pocket, and presented him to her.

"Oh, Frank!" she exclaimed, in her sweet, earnest accents, with a ring of emotion in them. "He's such a little pet of yours; and you have had him so long! I would not take him from you for the world!"

"Then," said I, just as earnestly, "you have not forgiven me. Oh, Min! when you promised to do so!" And I took up my hat as if to go away.

We argued the point; but, the end of the matter was, that Dicky Chips was made over to his new mistress, with all his goods, chattels, and appurtenances. A happy bird he might consider himself henceforth, I knew. He would be idolised—a very nice situation, indeed, for a bullfinch!

By-and-by I got closer to Min, as we were standing up, talking together and making Dicky go through a few of his tricks on the drawing-room table.

"Min," said I, softly, bending over her and looking down into her honest, truth-telling grey eyes—"my darling!"

But, at that precise moment, the door opened; and, in walked Mrs Clyde.



CHAPTER NINE.

BREAKERS AHEAD!

Oh, I see thee, old and formal, fitted to thy petty part, With a little hoard of maxims preaching down a daughter's heart. "They were dangerous guides the feelings—she herself was not exempt— Truly she herself had suffer'd"—perish in thy self-contempt!

Mrs Clyde's appearance coming so suddenly upon the scene, acted as an application of the cold douche to all the loving ardour with which I was addressing Min. It completely spoiled the tableau; checking my eager impetuosity in a moment, and causing me to remain, tongue-tied, in a state of almost hopeless embarrassment.

Picture the unexpected presentment of the statue of "The Commander" before Don Giovanni, and his horror at hearing words proceed from marble lips! You will, then, be able to form some faint idea of my feelings, when my pleasant position was thus interrupted by Min's mother. I was altogether "nonplussed," to use a vulgar but expressive word.

Had she not come in so opportunely—or inopportunely, as you may think—I don't know what I might not have said.

You see, I was close to my darling, bending down over her and looking into her beautiful face. I was fathoming the depths of her soul- lighted, lustrous grey eyes; and, contiguity is sometimes apt in such circumstances, I am told, to hurry one into the rashness of desperation, bringing matters to a crisis. However, Mrs Clyde's entrance stopped all this. I was brought up all at once, "with a round turn," like a horse in full gallop pulled back on his haunches; or, "all standing," as a boat with her head to the wind—whichever simile you may best prefer.

A shower-bath is a very excellent thing in its way, when taken at the proper time and under certain conditions; but those two requirements must be carefully considered beforehand, for the human frame is a fabric of very delicate organisation. Any violent change, or hasty interference with the regular and legitimate working of its functions, may throw the whole machine out of gear, just as the sudden quickening of an engine's motions will, probably, cause it to break down or turn it off the line; while, on the other hand, a wholesome tonic, or fillip, judiciously administered when occasion seems to demand it, like our shower-bath, may often better enable it to discharge its duties and go all the more smoothly and easily—as a tiny touch of the oil-can will affect the movements of man's mammoth mechanical contrivances, that are so typical of himself.

There are some people, I am aware, who object to the institution in toto, arguing that it hurts the system with its unexpected shock, doing more harm than good. There are others who believe in nothing but shocks, and similar methods of treatment out of the common run; and these "go in" for shower-baths, "a discretion"—though, without discretion, would, perhaps, be a truer description. You may not be informed, also, that the "institution" is frequently used in lunatic asylums and penal establishments as an instrument of torture and correction, being known to operate most efficaciously on obstreperous and hardened criminals, when all other means of coercion have failed.

As it is with the shower-bath physically considered, so it is in regard to the moral douche, to bring my apparent digression to a pointed application. Properly taken, it nerves up the cerebral tissues; experienced unawares, at right angles to previous paths of thought and preparation, it reduces the patient to a temporary state of mental coma and bewilderment—as exemplified in my case on the present unhappy occasion.

I never felt so completely "flabbergasted," as sailors say, in my life, as when Min's mother came into the room that afternoon, just at the moment when I was meditating a master-stroke against the fortress of my darling's heart.

I trembled in my boots.

I wished the earth to open and swallow me up!

Mrs Clyde was a thorough woman of the world. Judging her out of her own circle of limited diameter, you would imagine her to be cool, unimpassioned, cold-blooded, narrow-minded; but, she could be, at the same time, bigoted enough in regard to all that concerned herself, her social surroundings and her belongings—an advocate, as warm as Demosthenes, as logical as Cicero:—a partisan amongst partisans. Warm and impulsive, where fervour and a display of seemingly-generous enthusiasm would effect the object she had in view, that of compassing her ends, she could also be as frigid as an icicle, when it likewise so suited her purpose. "Respectability" and "position" were her gods:—the "world"—her world!—her microcosm.

Where persons and things agreed with these, being sympathetic to their rules and regulations, they naturally belonged to "the house beautiful" of her creed, for they must be good:—where they ran counter to such standards of merit, which were upheld by laws as unvarying and unchangeable as those of the Medes and Persians, and administered by a judge as stern as Draco—they were, they must be evil; and were, therefore, cast out into the outer darkness that existed beyond her sacred Lares and Penates.

Good Heavens! how can pigmy people, atoms in the vast eternity of time, thus narrow the great universe in which they are permitted to exist; dwarfing it down, to the limit of their jaundiced vision, by the application of their miserable measuring tape of "fashionable" feet and "class" inches! How can they abase grand humanity to the level of their social organon, affecting to control it with their arbitrary absolutisms, their mammon deification, their mimic infallibility! What creeping, crawling, wretched insects we all are, taken collectively; and, of all of us, the blindest, the most insignificant, and most grub- like, are, so-called men and women "of the world!"

Cold, heartless, in a general sense, and worldly as Mrs Clyde was, I could easily have excused it in her and tried to like her, for, was she not the mother of my darling, whom with all her faults she loved very dearly—her affection being judiciously tempered by those considerations paramount in the clique to which she belonged? But, Mrs Clyde did not like me. She spurned every effort I essayed to make her my friend.

I saw this the first evening I passed in her house; and the impression I then received never wore off.

Just as you can tell at sight whether certain persons attract or repel you, through some unknown, nameless influence that you are unable to fathom; so, in like degree, can you decide—that is, if you possess a naturally sensitive mind—whether they are drawn towards yourself or remain antipathetical. I know that I can tell without asking them, if people whom I see for the first time are likely to fancy me or not; and, at all events, I had some inward monition which warned me that Mrs Clyde, contrary to my earnest wish that she should regard me in a friendly light, was not one of those amiable beings who would "cotton to me," as the inhabitants of New England express the sentiment in their pointed vernacular.

Perhaps you think me a very egotistical person, thus to dwell upon my own ideas and feelings?

You must recollect, however, that I'm telling you this story myself, a story in which I am both actively and intimately interested; and how, unless I speak of my own self, are you going to learn anything about me? I have nobody to describe me, so I must be what you call "egotistical."

Yes, Mrs Clyde did not like me.

I do not mean to say, remember, that she was impolite, or grim, or wanting in courtesy.

The reverse was the case, as she was one of the smoothest, suavest persons you ever met.

But, there is an exquisitely refined way in which a woman of the world can make you understand that your presence is "de trop" and your society distasteful, without saying a single word that might be construed into an offence against good breeding.

Mrs Clyde was a thorough mistress of this art.

Her searching eye could appraise at a glance a man's mental calibre or a lady's toilette. It seemed to pierce you through and through, exploring your inmost thoughts, and enlightening her as to what her course of procedure should be in regard to you, before she had spoken a word, or you either.

So I believed at any rate; for, to tell the honest truth, I was horribly afraid of Min's mother. I always felt on tenter hooks in her presence, from the very first date of our acquaintanceship.

On coming into the room where Min and I were regarding Dicky Chip's performances with loving eyes, and I completely "translated" by various combinating influences, Mrs Clyde appeared to take in the situation in an instant—"an eyewink," as a minute portion of time is happily rendered in the Teutonic tongue. Certainly, she grasped everything at a glance—even the contingency that might have possibly occurred, for, my embarrassment was not lost upon her. I saw an anxious expression hover across her face for a second, to be quickly replaced by her ordinary society look of calm, studied suavity.

"Oh!" she exclaimed, in well-feigned astonishment at my presence—"Mr Lorton, how d'ye do!"

"How do you do, Mrs Clyde?" said I, straightening myself up, and then bending in feeble attempt at a bow.

She said nothing further for the moment, thinking it best to leave the burden of the conversation on me, so as to better promote my ease of manner and general welfare, in a "company" light. She was dexterous in fence, was Mrs Clyde.

"Ah!" said I at length after an uncomfortable pause, "that was a delightful evening we had last night!" It was a polite falsehood; but then, one must say something when in "society" be it never so senseless and silly!

"I am glad you enjoyed yourself," she answered, although she knew well enough that I had done no such thing.

"Oh, mamma!" said Min, coming to the rescue, "see what a dear little bird Mr Lorton has brought me! It is really so clever that it can almost do anything. Dicky, dicky, cheep!" she chirped to my young representative, who sat in the centre of the table, perched on a photographic album and with his head cocked on one side. He was staring very inquisitively at Mrs Clyde. He evidently regarded her as an enemy; for, the feathers on his crest got ruffled.

"Indeed!" said her mother, in freezing accents—down to the temperature of the best Wenham Lake ice!—"I'm sure Mr Lorton is very good! Still, you know, Minnie," she continued, "that I do not like you receiving presents in this way."

"But it is only a little bird, Mrs Clyde!" I said, at last nerved up to the speaking-point. I thought she would have told me then and there to take it back; and I awaited, in fear and trembling, what she would say next.

"And he's such a little darling, mamma!" interposed Min impulsively.

Mrs Clyde could not help smiling.

"That may be quite true, my dear," she said; "but, as you know, and as Mr Lorton is probably also aware—although he is very young to have as yet mixed much in the world"—cut number two!—"it is not quite correct for young ladies to receive presents, however trifling, from gentlemen who are, comparatively, strangers to them, and to whom they have been but barely introduced!"—cut three!

"Oh, mamma!" said Min, in an agony of maidenly shame. She coloured up to the eyes—at the dread of having done something she ought not to have done.

Her exclamation armed me to the teeth. I would have stood up in defence of my darling against a hundred mammas, all cased in society's best satire-proof steel. I determined to "carry the war into Egypt," and opened fire accordingly.

"Pardon me, Mrs Clyde," said I, quite as frigidly as herself—"but the fault, if error there be on either side, lies on my shoulders. I am sure I meant no harm. I only brought the little bird as a remembrance of your daughter's birthday, having forgotten to present it yesterday, when her other friends made their offerings."

My speech, however, produced no impression; she quickly parried my weak thrust, returning me tierce en carte.

"But they were all old friends, Mr Lorton:—that made it quite a different thing," she said, very coldly, although with the sweetest expression. I daresay Jael smiled very pleasantly when she drove that nail into Sisera's temple!

I thought I perceived a slight loophole for attack. "I believe," said I, "that both Mr Horner and Mr Mawley were only introduced to Miss Clyde a short time previously to myself."

Bless you, I was a child in her practised hands! Fancy my making such a blunder as to show her where the shoe pinched me!

"I think, Mr Lorton," she replied, "that I am the best judge as to whom I consider my daughter's friends. Mr Mawley is a clergyman of the parish, and Mr Horner the nephew of a gentleman whom I have known for years!"—Ah! she did know about Horner's expectations, then; I thought she did!—"But," she continued, in a slightly less frigid tone, probably on account of seeing Min's agitation, and from the belief that she had put me down sufficiently—"But, Mr Lorton, I do not wish to appear unkind; and, as you never thought of all this, most likely, my daughter may keep the bird you kindly brought her, if she likes."

"Oh, thank you, mamma," said Min, caressing Dicky Chips, who thereupon burst into a paean of melody, in which the opening bars of the "Silver Trumpets" march and "Green grow the Rushes, O" were mixed up harmoniously, in splendid confusion. Knowing little bullfinch that he was! He succeeded, as peradventure he intended, in at once turning the conversation into a fresh channel, where Min's constraint and my embarrassment were soon dispelled.