Mrs Clyde had not been a bit put out during the entire interview.

She was now, as she had been all along, as cool and collected, as suave and serene, as possible. In this respect she somewhat resembled Horner, her promising young friend—nothing could put her out—although her mental equilibrium resulted from habit and training; while Horner's, in my opinion, was entirely owing to his natural apathy and inherent dulness of disposition.

Shortly after hostilities had terminated between us, and a truce declared, Mrs Clyde said that she hoped that I would kindly excuse herself and Min, as they had to prepare to go out to make several calls.

Thus politely dismissed, I accordingly took my leave. But, not before the astute lady of the world had contrived to impress me with the consideration that Mrs Clyde moved in a very different circle to that of Mr Lorton; and, that, if I had the assurance and audacity to aspire to the hand of "her daughter," I need not nurse the sweet belief that she would lend a favourable ear to my suit. I must, in that case, be prepared to wage a war a outrance, in which there would be no quarter allowed, on one side at least.

You must not think that I make these remarks with any bitter feelings now in my heart towards Min's mother. I only desire to tell my story truthfully; and, I may say at once that she failed in our after struggle together. I really believe that she meant honestly to do the best she could for her daughter, as "the best" was held by the articles of her social creed; and that she manoeuvred so that her "lines" should "fall in pleasant places." Yet, those good thoughts, and best wishes, and wise plans of worldly people, effect incalculable mischief and misery and unhappiness in life.

Many a sorely-tried heart has been broken by their influence—many a man and woman ruined for life and for eternity, through their means! And, although I mean no harm towards Mrs Clyde now, as I have already stated, however much I may have been opposed to her once—for the battle has been fought lang syne, and the game played out to its end—still, I can never forget that she was my enemy!



CHAPTER TEN.

"A FOOL'S PARADISE."

Gather ye rose-buds while ye may, Old Time is still a-flying; And the same flower that blooms to-day, To-morrow may be dying!

Rost nubila Phoebus; "after clouds, comes sunshine."

I did not allow the coldness of Min's mother to dwell long in my mind.

What, if Mrs Clyde did not appear to like me? Could I alter the obliquity of her mental vision by brooding over it, and worrying myself into a fit of misanthropy? Would it not be better for me to allow matters to run their appointed course, in accordance with the inexorable law of events, and not to anticipate those evils with which the future might be pregnant? The followers of Mahomet are wise men in their generation. They take everything that happens to them with the philosophy of their faith. Kismet! It is their fate, may Allah be praised! they say.

I was perfectly satisfied to accommodate myself to circumstances; and gathered flowers, according to wise old Herrick's advice, to my heart's content. I did not seek to inquire about the future:—why should I?

Time flew by on golden pinions, and I was as happy as the day was long. Winter made way for spring, spring gave place to summer. The halcyon hours sped brighter and brighter for me, from the time of violets—when nature's sweetest nurslings modestly blossomed beneath the hedge-rows.

Then came "the month of roses," as the Persians appropriately style that duodecimal portion of the year. It was a happier time still; for, I loved Min, and I thought that Min loved me.

The very seasons seemed to draw me nearer to her.

In the spring the violets' scented breath recalled her whenever I inhaled their fragrance; while, the nightingale's amorous trills—we had nightingales to visit us in our suburb, closely situated as it was to London—appeared to me to embody the impassioned words that Tennyson puts in the mouth of his love-wooing sea maiden—

"We will kiss sweet kisses, and speak sweet words; O listen, listen, your eyes shall glisten, With pleasure and love and jubilee!"

And, in the early summer, when smiling June came in with her flowery train, making a garden of the whole earth, the twining roses, of crimson and white and red, were all emblematic of my darling. They were love- gages of her own sweet self; for, was she not my rose, my violet, that budded and blossomed in purple and pink alone for me—the idol of my heart, my fancy's queen?

With all these fond imaginings, however, I did not see much of her.

I had very few opportunities for unfettered intercourse. I believe I could number on the fingers of one hand all the special little tete-a- tete conversations that Min and I ever had together. This was not owing to any fault of mine, you may be sure; but was, entirely, the result of "circumstances," over which neither of us had "any control."

"Society" was the cause of it all. Had her mother been never so willing, and the fates never so kindly lent their most propitious aid to my suit, it is quite probable that we might not have had the chance of associating much more together than we did; nor would our interviews have happened oftener, I think.

You see people of the upper and middle-classes have far less facility afforded them, than is common in lower social grades, for intimate acquaintance; and really know very little, in the long run, of those of whom they may become enamoured and subsequently marry, prior to the tying of the nuptial noose.

Laura and Augustus, may, it is true, meet each other out frequently, in the houses of their mutual friends at parties, and at various gatherings of one sort and another; but what means have they of learning anything trustworthy respecting the inner self of their respective enchanter or enchantress?

Do you think they can manage thus to summarise their several points and merits, during the pauses of the Trois Temps, or while nailing "a rover" at croquet, or, mayhap, when promenading at the Botanical?

I doubt it much.

Professor Owen, it is said, will, if you submit to his notice a couple of inches of the bone of any bird, beast, fish, or reptile, at once describe to you the characteristics of the animal to which it belonged; its habits, and everything connected with it; besides telling you when and where it lived and died, and whether it existed at the pre-Adamite period or not—and that, too, without your giving him the least previous information touching the osseous substance about which you asked his opinion.

But, granting that the most gigantic theory might be built up on some slighter practical evidence, I would defy anyone—even that philosophising German who evolved a camel from the depths of his inner moral consciousness—to determine the capabilities of any young lady for the future onerous duties of wife and mother, and mistress of a household, merely from hearing her say what coloured ice she would have after the heated dance; or, from her statements that the evening was "flat" or "nice," the season "dull" or "busy," and the heroine of the last new novel "delightful," while the villain was correspondingly "odious."

He couldn't do it.

The commonplace conversation of every-day society is no criterion for character.

With Jemima, the maid-of-all-work, and Bob, the baker's assistant, her "young man," it is quite a different thing. They have no trammels placed in the way of their free association; and, I would venture to assert, know more of one another in one month of company-keeping than Augustus and Laura will achieve in the course of any number of seasons of fashionable intercourse. A "Sunday out" beats a croquet party hollow, in its opportunities for intimacy—as may readily be believed.

It is, really, curious this ignorance common in middle-class husbands and wives, sons-in-law and daughters-in-law, respecting their several attributes and characteristics before they became connected by marriage, and time makes them better acquainted—very curious, indeed!

An American essayist, writing on this point, says—"When your mother came and told her mother that she was engaged, and your grandmother told your grandfather, how much did they know of the intimate nature of the young gentleman to whom she had pledged her existence? I will not be so hard as to ask how much your respected mamma knew at that time of the intimate nature of your respected papa, though, if we should compare a young girl's man-as-she-thinks-him with a forty-summered matron's man-as-she-finds-him, I have my doubts as to whether the second would be a fac-simile of the first." And yet, young men and women of respectable standing "over the way," are allowed far greater latitude for intercommunication than our own; so much so, that I must say, I would not like our budding misses to go the lengths of the American girl, who receives her own company when she pleases, without any previous permission, and can go abroad to places of public amusement, or, indeed, anywhere she likes, without a chaperon.

Still, there is a medium in all things; and, without verging to the extreme of our Transatlantic cousins, our conventionalities might be so tempered by the introduction of a little genuine human nature, as to admit of a trifling freer intercourse between our youth and young maidenhood of the upper classes.

Goethe, you may remember, makes Werther, whose "sorrows" fascinated a generation in the days of our great grandmothers, fall in love with Charlotte, entirely through seeing her cutting bread and butter—nothing more or less!

A very unromantic situation for fostering the growth of the tender passion, you say?

Ah! but the literary lion of Weimar meant a good deal more in his description than lies on the outer surface. He wished to teach a frivolous school that true affection will ripen better under the genial influences of domestic duties and home surroundings, than the masked world believes.

A girl's chances of marriage, the usual end and aim of feminine existence, are not increased in a direct ratio with the number of her ball dresses!

Let your eligible suitors but see those young ladies who may wish to change their maiden state of single blessedness, at home, where they are engaged living their simple lives out in the ordinary avocations of the family circle; and not only abroad, in the whirligig of society, where they have no opportunities for displaying their real natures.

Enterprising mammas might then find that their daughters would get more readily "off their hands," at a less expense than they now incur by pursuing Coelebs through all the turnings and windings of Vanity Fair.

Besides, they would have the additional assurance, that they would be better mated to those who prefer studying them under the domestic regime, than if they were hawked about to parties and concerts without end, to be angled for by the butterflies of fashion, who can only exist in the atmosphere of a ballroom and would die of nil admirari-ism if out of sight of Coote's baton!

Your man really worth marrying, in the true sense of the word and not speaking of the value of his rent-roll, likes to know something more of his future wife-that-is-to-be, beyond what he is able to pick up from meeting her in society. Think, how many of her most engaging charms he must remain ignorant of; and then, what on earth can he know of her disposition?

The most hot-tempered young lady in the world will manage to control her anger, and tutor herself to smile sweetly, when her awkward, albeit rich, partner tears off her train during his elephantine gambols in the gallop. She may even say, with the most unaffected affectation of perfect candour that "really it doesn't matter at all," laughing at the mishap; but I should just like you to hear what she exclaims when her obnoxious little brother, Master Tommy, playfully dabbles his raspberry- jam'd fingers over her violet silk dress, or converts her new Dolly Varden hat into a temporary entomological museum!

Observation in the family would enable Coelebs to mark these little episodes more closely, judging for himself the temper and tact of the idol of his fancy; while, at the same time, he might discover many admirable little traits of kindness and charity and grace, which can only be seen to advantage when displayed naturally in the home circle.

The moral is obvious.

Depend upon it, if there were a little more of this freedom of intercourse between our girls and young men, we would have a considerably less number of sour, disappointed virgins in our annual census; and, less vice and dissipation on the part of hot-brained youths, who, frequently, only give way to "fast life," through feeling a void in their daily routine of existence that stereotyped fashion is unable to fill. Besides, it would be a perfect godsend to thousands of unhappy bachelors, who sigh for the realities of domesticity amidst the artificiality and rottenness of London society.

Some good-natured Mayfair dame, I believe, introduced the "Kettledrum" for the especial saving of poor young men who did not know what to do with their afternoons in our arid Belgravian desert. But, a little more is wanted besides five-o'clock tea; and, until it is granted, we will continue to have matrimonial infelicity, marriages "of convenience," and, no marriages at all!

Now, I think, I have dilated enough upon the great question matrimonial. I will not apologise for my digression, because I've only said what I have long wished and intended to say about it on the first convenient opportunity. However, as I have at last succeeded in making a clean breast of the matter, I will revert to my original case.

Owing to the fact of our suburb being unfashionable, and our society humdrum, as already explained, I had the pleasure of associating more fully with Min, and seeing more of her domestic character than I might have done if we had been both of "the world," worldly; although, as I have also mentioned, I was not able to adore her at home very often, in consequence of my noticing that her mother did not like me—seeing which, of course I did not push my welcome at her house to too fine a point.

Don't think that Mrs Clyde was inhospitable. Nothing of the sort. She gave me a general invitation, on the contrary, to come in whenever I pleased of an evening "to have a little music;" giving expression at the same time to the sentiment, that she would be "very happy" to see me. But, after that affair connected with Dicky Chips, I learnt caution. I thought it better for me to make my approaches warily. Even to have the gratification of gazing on one's heart's darling, it is not comfortable, for a sensitive person, to accept too often the courtesies of a hostess, by whom you are inwardly conscious that you are not welcomed.

Still, I did see her at home sometimes.

I used to go there, at first only occasionally; and then, when I found Mrs Clyde did not quite eat me up, in spite of her cold manner, I went regularly once a fortnight—always making my visit on the same day and at the same hour of the evening; so, that Min learnt to expect me when the evening came round, and told me that she would have recognised my modest knock at the door, out of a hundred others.

Sometimes she and her mother and myself were all alone; but, more frequently, other casual visitors would drop in, too, like me.

I liked the former evenings the best, however, as I had her all to myself, comparatively speaking.

I could then watch her varying moods more attentively—the tender solicitude and earnest affection she evinced for her mother:—the piquant coquetry with which she treated me.

She had such dear little, characteristic ways about her—ways that were quite peculiar to herself.

I got to know them all.

When she was specially interested in anything that one was saying, she would lean forwards, with a deep, reflective look in her clear grey eyes, in rapt attention, resting her little dimpled chin on her bent hand:—when she disagreed with something you said, she would make such a pretty quaint moue, tossing her head defiantly, and raise her curving eyebrows in astonishment that you should dare to differ from her.

She seldom laughed—I hate to hear girls continually giggling and guffawing at the merest nothings so long as they proceed from male lips!

When Min laughed, her laughter was just like the rippling of silvery music and of the most catching, contagious nature. She generally only smiled, at even the most humorous incidents; and her smile was the sweetest I ever saw in anyone. It lit up her whole face with merriment, giving the grey eyes the most bewitching expression, and bringing into prominent notice a tiny, dear little dimple in her chin, which you might not have previously observed.

Her smile it was that completed my captivation, that first time that I saw her in church and lost my heart in a moment:—her smile was ever and always her greatest charm.

Of course I remember all her little darling ways and coquetries.

Love is a great master of the art of mnemonics, and might be quoted by Mr Stokes as one of the greatest "aids to memory" that is known.

Trifling trivialities, by others passed by unobserved, are graphically jotted down with indelible ink in his cordal note-book—

"For indeed I know Of no more subtle master under heaven, Than is the maiden passion for a maid."

When no other people came in, Min would always, on the evening of my visit, make a rule of turning out her workbox, and arranging its contents over again—"in order," as she told me, although I had thought it the picture of neatness and tidiness in its original state.

She was in the habit on these occasions of restoring to her mother sundry little articles which she confessed to having purloined during the week. I recollect how there used to be a regular little joke at her expense on the subject of kleptomania.

How well I remember that little workbox, and its arrangements! I could tell you, now, every item of its varied contents,—the perfumed sachet, the ugly little pincushion which she had had since dollhood, the little scraps from her favourite poets, which she had copied out and kept in this sacred repository, never revealing them save to sympathising eyes. How angry she was with me once, for not thinking, with her, that Longfellow's "Psalm of Life" was the "nicest" thing ever written:—what a long time it was afterwards before she would again allow me to inspect her secret treasures and pet things, as she had previously permitted me to do!

This all used to go on while her mother was playing; and then, when the workbox was arranged in apple-pie order, Min herself would go to the piano and sing my favourite ballads, I listening to her from the opposite corner of the room, for she hated having her music turned over by any one.

In addition to these rare opportunities of studying my darling and feeding my love for her, I used to see her at church every Sunday.

From her window, also, when dog Catch and I took our walks abroad, I often had a bright smile from "somebody," who happened always to be tending her cherished plants just at the moment when I passed by.

Sometimes, too, I met her at Miss Pimpernell's, or out walking:—thus, in a short time, I learnt to know all her little plans and wishes, and her sentiments about everything.

Her likes and dislikes were my own. It was a strange coincidence, that if Min should express some opinion one day, I found, when we next met, that I seemed to have involuntarily come round to her view; while, if I let fall any casual remark, Min was certain, on some future occasion, to repeat it as if it were her own.

I suppose the coincidence was owing to our mental "rapport," as the French express it.

The only drawback to my happiness, was Mr Mawley, whom I disliked now more than ever.

Although he had all the rest of the week in which to pay his devoirs, having carte blanche from Mrs Clyde to run in and out of her house whenever he so pleased—he took it into his head to drop in regularly on the very evening that I had selected and thought especially mine. I believe he only did it to spite me, being of a most aggravating temperament!

When he was there, too, he was constantly endeavouring to make me appear ridiculous.

As certainly as I said anything, or advanced an opinion, he, as certainly, contradicted me, taking the opposite side of the question. This, of course, made me angry and unamiable. He was so obstinately obtuse, too, that he would not take a hint. He must have seen that his company was not wanted, by me at least, and that I did not desire any conversation with him. I've no doubt of his doing it on purpose!

He prided himself on his eminently practical mind, being incapable of seeing romance even in the works of nature and nature's God; and he was continually cutting jokes at my "sentimentality," as he was pleased to style my more poetical views of life and its surroundings.

Whenever I gave him the chance, he was safe to slide in some of his vulgar bathos after any heroic sentiment or personal opinion I may have uttered. This, naturally, would rouse my temper, never very pacific; and made me so cross, that I was often on the verge of quarrelling with Min on his account!

The worst of it was, also, that he was always so confoundedly cool and collected, that he generally came out of these encounters in the character of an injured martyr or inoffensive person, who had to bear the unprovoked assaults of my bearish brusquerie—making me, as a matter of course, appear in a very unfavourable light.

I remember, one day in particular, when he was so exceedingly irritating to me, that he goaded me on into addressing him quite rudely.

Min was very much distressed at my behaviour, remonstrating with me for it; and this did not of course make me feel more kindly-disposed towards the curate, who had now become my perfect antipathy.

We had been down to the church—Miss Pimpernell, the Dasher girls, Min, and myself,—to hear the organist make trial of a new stop which had been lately added to his instrument. Listening to the small sacred concert that thereupon ensued, we had remained until quite late in the evening; and, on our way home through the churchyard, as we loitered along, looking at the graves, and trying to decipher by the slowly waning light the half illegible inscriptions on the headstones, we came across Mr Mawley.

Min and I were walking in front, talking seriously and reflectively, as befitted the time and place.

We were moralising how—

"Side by side The poor man and the son of pride Lie calm and still."

"I wonder," said Min, "whether it is true that the dust of the departed dead blossoms out again in flowers and trees, replenishing the earth? Just fancy, how many illustrious persons even have died since the beginning of the world! Why, in England alone we could number our heroes by thousands; and it is nice to think that they may still flourish perhaps in these old oak trees above us!"

"Ah," said I, "don't you recollect those lines about England;—

"'Beneath each swinging forest bough, Some arm as stout in death reposes— From wave-washed foot to heaven-kissed brow, Her valour's life-blood runs in roses; Nay, let our brothers of the West Write, smiling, in their florid pages, One half her soil has walked the rest, In poets, heroes, martyrs, sages!'"

"What!" exclaimed Mr Mawley, who had come up close behind us before we perceived him, and at once pushed into the conversation. "'One half our soil has walked the rest,' Lorton? That's a palpable absurdity! We'll take England to be three hundred miles long and two hundred broad, on an average; and, allowing a uniform depth of twelve feet throughout for cultivable soil, that calculation will give us some—let me see, three hundred by two hundred, multiplied by seventeen hundred and sixty to bring it into yards, and then by three to reduce it to feet, when we multiply it again by twelve to get the solidity—that gives us nearly four billions cubic feet of soil, one-half of which would be two billions. Fancy, Lorton, two thousand millions cubic feet of heroes, eh! But, you havn't told us what amount of dust and ashes you would apportion to each separate hero—" he thus proceeded, with his caustic wit, seeing that Bessie Dasher and her sister were both laughing; and even Min was smiling, at his absurdities. "Strange, perhaps Oliver Cromwell is now a mangel wurzel, and poor King Charles the First an apple tree! Depend upon it, Lorton, that is the origin of what is called the King Pippin!"

He made me "as mad as a hatter," with his "chaff" at my favourite quotation.

I was almost boiling over with rage.

I restrained myself, however, at the moment, and answered him in, for me, comparatively mild terms.

"Mr Mawley," said I, "you have no more imagination than a turnip-top! You must possess the taste of a Goth or Vandal, to turn such noble lines into your low ridicule!"

He did not mind my retort a bit, however. He seemed to think it beneath his notice; for, he only said "Thank you, Lorton!" and dropped back behind us again with Bessie Dasher, while Seraphine joined company with little Miss Pimpernell—Min and I being still together in front.

By-and-by our talk was resumed in the same strain from which the curate's interpellation had diverted it. I had just spoken of Gay the fabulist. I told her of his sad history:—how it was shown in the bitter epitaph which he had composed for his own tomb—

"Life's a jest, and all things show it; I thought so once, and now I know it!"

From this we drifted on to Gray's Elegy, through the near similarity of the two poets' names.

"I think," said Min, "that that unadded verse of his which is always left out of the published poem, is nicer than any of the regular ones; for it touches on two of my favourites, the violet and the dear little robin redbreast!"

"You mean, I suppose," said I, "the one commencing—

"'There, scatter'd oft, the earliest of the year—'"

"Yes," said Min, continuing it in her low, sweet voice—

"'By hands unseen, are showers of violets found; The redbreast loves to build and warble there, And little footsteps lightly print the ground.'"

"You like violets, then?" I asked. "I think you told me you did, though, before."

"Yes," she said impulsively, "I love them, I love them, I love them!"

"Ah!" thought I to myself, determining that she should never from henceforth be without an ample supply of violets, if I could help it, "Ah, I wish you would love me!" But, I did not give utterance to the thought, contenting myself with keeping up the conversation respecting the Elegy. "It is generally considered," said I aloud, "that the best verse of Gray's is that in which he says—

"'Some village Hampden, that with dauntless breast, The little tyrant of his fields withstood, Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest, Some Cromwell guiltless of his country's blood!'"

"Hullo, Lorton!" shouted out Mr Mawley again close at my back, when I had believed him to be some distance off. "Hullo, Lorton! Don't you get into heroics, my boy. Does not the 'noble bard' make the Prince of Denmark say, that the dust of Alexander the Great might have served to fill the bung of a cask and that—

"'Imperial Caesar, dead and turn'd to clay, Might stop a hole to keep the wind away!'"

This was too much of a good thing.

I made up my mind to stand his nonsense no longer.

"I wish you would mind your own business," said I, as rudely as possible, "and keep your ridiculous conversation to yourself; I want none of it; I hate to hear fools prating about things they cannot understand."

He got quite red in the face; but he kept his temper admirably.

"When you are cool again, Lorton," he said to me, with an expression of amiability and mingled pity on his face, that made him look to me like Mephistopheles, "you will, I know, be sorry for what you've said; and when you learn good manners I will be glad to speak to you again!" and, he walked back to the church, with the air of a person who had been deeply injured, but who had yet the magnanimity to forgive if he could not forget—wishing adieu to our little party, of whom none but Min had overheard what I had said, with his usual cordiality, as if nothing had happened to disturb him.

"Oh, Frank!" exclaimed Min, when he had got out of sight and we were once more alone, "how could you be so rude and un-courteous—to a clergyman, too! I'm ashamed of you! I am hurt at any friend of mine acting like that!"

"But he was so provoking," I stammered, trying to excuse myself. The tone of Min's voice pained me. It was full of grief and reproach: I knew its every intonation. "He's always worrying me and rubbing against me the wrong way!"

"That does not matter, Frank," she replied in the same grave accents, as coldly as if she was speaking to a stranger—"a gentleman should be a gentleman always. I tell you what,"—she continued, turning away as she spoke—"I will never speak to you again, Frank, until you apologise to Mr Mawley for the language you have used!"

She then left my side, taking Miss Pimpernell's arm and saying something about having a long chat with her.

The end of it was that she had her way.

I had to go back to search for the curate and ask his pardon, like a dog with its tail between its legs.

I was certain he would exult over it, and he did.

He had not the generosity to meet me half-way and accept my apology frankly at once.

He made me humble myself to the full, seizing the opportunity to read me a long homily on Christian forbearance, in which, I fervently believed at the time, he was almost as deficient as myself.

However, I had the consolation of knowing that my apology was not made on his account, but entirely for the sake of my darling Min; although, I confess, I did not like to see her taking such an interest in him as to ask it of me.



CHAPTER ELEVEN.

JEALOUSY.

Whispering tongues can poison truth; And constancy lives in realms above; And life is thorny, and youth is vain; And to be wroth with one we love, Doth work like madness in the brain!

Some weeks after our conversation in the churchyard, I met old Shuffler one day waddling along the Terrace in a state of great excitement.

He told me he was going to an auction, and pressed me to accompany him, that he might have the benefit of my advice and opinion concerning certain objects of "bigotry and virtue," as he styled them, which he designed purchasing—should he be able to get them knocked down cheap.

On asking the reason for such an unwonted outlay on his part, he said that he was about furnishing a new villa for which he had just found a tenant.

"A fresh tenant!" said I with surprise, a newcomer in our suburb being always regarded as a sort of rare bird. "A fresh tenant! Who is he, or she, or whoever it may be?"

"Well, sir," said Shuffler, "it's a secret as yet; but I don't mind telling you, Mr Lorton, as I know you won't let it out—Mr Mawley, the parsun, has took the villa!"

"Mr Mawley!" I exclaimed, with redoubled astonishment. "Why, what on earth does he want a house for?"

"I believe, sir," said Shuffler, blinking his sound eye furiously the while, to give a facetious effect to his words, "he's agoin' to get married. So my missus says at least, sir; and she gen'rally knows wot's agoin' on. Wemmenfolk finds out them things somehow or other!"

"Mawley going to be married!" I repeated. "Nonsense, Shuffler! it is probably some mistake. You and your wife must have let your brains run wool-gathering, and made the story up between you!"

"No, sir," he replied, "it's as true as you are a standin' there. We've no call to tell a lie about the matter, sir," and he drew himself up with native dignity.

"And you have really heard it for a fact, Shuffler?"

"I 'ave so, sir; and I could tell you, too, the party as he is agoin' to join!"

"Can you?" I asked. "Who is the favoured she?"

"Well, sir," said he with a sly wink, screwing up his mouth tightly as if wild horses would not tear the information from him against his will, "that would be tellin'?"

"I know it would," said I, "but as you have already told me so much, I think you might now let me know the lady's name."

"Mr Lorton," he answered, "you know I would do anything for you I honestly could, for you 'ave been a friend to me many a time, specially when I got into that row with the tax collector, when you be'aved 'andsome. But to speak to the rights of the matter, I can't say I know the lady's name wot the parsun is agoin' to marry: I only has my suspicions like."

"Well, and whom do you think to be the one?" said I.

"She don't live far from here!" he said in a stage whisper, dropping his voice, and looking round cautiously, as he pointed along the row of houses composing "the Terrace," where our most fashionable parishioners resided—our Belgravia, so to speak.

"You don't mean one of the Miss Dashers?" I said, thinking of Bessie.

"Lord, no!" he replied, "it ain't one of 'my lady's' young ladies!"

"Then who is it?" I said, getting quite impatient at his tergiversation.

"Oh! she comed here later than them!" he answered, still beating about the bush; "she comed here later than them," he repeated, nodding his head knowingly.

A sudden fear shot through me. "Is it?—no, it cannot be—is it Miss Clyde?" I asked.

"Ah!" he grunted, oracularly. "You knows best about that, sir!"

"Well, don't you dare, Shuffler," I savagely retorted, "to couple that lady's name with Mr Mawley's!" I was literally boiling over with fury at the very suspicion:—it was the realisation of my worst fears!

"You've no cause to get angry, Mr Lorton," said he. "I didn't name no names, sir; tho' you might be further out, as far as that goes! I didn't know as you was interested in the lady, or I shouldn't 'a mentioned it."

"You're quite wrong—quite wrong altogether, Shuffler. Why, the thing's absurd!" I said.

"Well, you know you axed me, sir; and what could I say?" he said apologetically.

"That may be," I said, less hotly. "But you had better not couple people's names together in that way. Why, it's actionable!" I added, knowing the house-agent's mortal dread of anything connected with the law.

"But you won't spread it no further, Mr Lorton?" he said, anxiously, the sound eye looking at me with a beseeching expression.

"I won't, Shuffler," I answered; "take care that you don't!"

"I'll take my davy, sir, as how it shan't cross my lips again," he replied in a convincing tone.

"Very well, Shuffler," I replied, turning away from him. "Only keep to that, and it will be best for you. Good day!"

"Good day, sir; and you won't come to the auction along o' me?"

"No," said I. "I can't spare the time to-day. I'll try and come to- morrow, if that will do as well."

I did not wish to be angry with him; for, after all, I had brought the bitter information he conveyed entirely upon myself. He was only repeating what was, probably, already the gossip of the whole suburb. Besides, he really had mentioned no names:—the allusion to Min, had been as much my suggestion as his; so, I tried to be affable with him before we parted. "I'll try and come to-morrow, Shuffler, if that will do as well, to look at the things you want me," I said, more cordially than I had previously spoken to him.

"All right, sir," he replied, all beaming once more, with the eye as jovial as ever. "That'll suit me jest as well, sir; and I'm very much obleeged, too, I'm sure."

He, thereupon and then, waddled off on his mission of beating down opposition brokers; while I paced along sadly, thinking about the news I had just heard.

I was going to call on Lady Dasher, who would be able to confirm it, or settle that it was a mere idle report; consequently, I would not have to remain long in suspense.

I would soon know the truth, one way or the other.

Prior, however, to my reaching this haven of rumour, I met little Miss Pimpernell. She was trotting along, with a basket on her arm, according to her usual wont when district visiting.

"Hi! Frank," she exclaimed, on seeing me. "What is the matter with you now? Why, my dear boy, you've got a face as long as my arm, and look the picture of misery!"

"Oh, I've just heard something that surprised me," I said. "I've been told that Mr Mawley is going to get married."

"Well, that's news to me," she said. "I haven't heard it before. But what if he is going to be married—are you so sorry on his account, or for the lady?" she continued, in a bantering tone—she always liked a bit of a joke—"I never thought you took such an interest in Mr Mawley!"

"I'm sure I don't know," I said. "It has surprised me, that's all."

"So it has me, Frank," said she. "Who told you?"

"I don't know whether I ought to tell, Miss Pimpernell," I replied, hesitatingly. "It was disclosed to me in confidence, and—"

"No matter, no matter, my clear boy," said the old lady briskly. "Then you ought not to tell me. But, at the same time, Frank, I don't believe a word of it! If Mr Mawley had been meditating anything of the sort, I would have been his first confidante! I don't think there's a word of truth in it, Frank, no matter who your informant was. I daresay the rumour has got about just because he has taken a house, which he can very well afford, having got tired of living in lodgings; and small blame to him, say I! He's no more going to get married than I am, Frank; and I do not believe that likely, do you?"

She laughed cheerily, tapping me on the cheek with her glove.

She was always petting and caressing me; and, I believe, considered me a sort of big baby exclusively her own property.

"But his taking a house looks suspicious," I said, willing to be more convinced.

"Not a bit of it," said Miss Pimpernell, sturdily. "Why, if Monsieur Parole d'Honneur took a house, would that be any reason for his getting married? Ah, I know, Frank, who has put all this nonsense in your head! It is that gossiping old Shuffler. I'll give him a lecture when I next catch him," and she shook her fist comically in the air, to the intense wonderment of Miss Spight, who was crossing the road.

"But, mind, I didn't tell you so, Miss Pimpernell. Don't tell him that I repeated what he said?"

"Stuff and nonsense," she said. "Why, he'll tell everybody he meets the news in confidence, just the same as he did you. I'll give him a good wigging, I tell you! Mr Mawley is not going to be married in a hurry; and if he is, not to the young person you think, Master Frank."

"I did not mention anybody, Miss Pimpernell," I said, in confusion; for, her keen black eyes seemed to penetrate into my very heart, and search out my secret fears.

She looked very sagacious.

"Ah! Frank, you did not say anything; but your looks betrayed you. So that's the reason why the report of the curate's marriage affected you so, is it? But you needn't blush, my dear boy! You need not blush! I will not tell tales out of school; so you may set your mind at rest. It is not, however, as you think, Frank. Cheer up; and good-bye, my dear boy. I must be trotting off now, or my poor blind woman will think I'm never coming to read to her."

And off she went, leaving me much happier than old Shuffler had done.

Confound him! What did he mean, with his cock-and-a-bull story?

On reaching Lady Dasher's house, however, the house-agent's rumour was, to my great distress, confirmed; and, that in the most authoritative manner.

It must be true then, in spite of Miss Pimpernell's denial!

My lady was in one of her most morbid and melancholy moods, too, which did not help to mend matters.

I praised her fuchsias on entering; but even this homage to her favourite hobby failed to rouse her.

She had heard that Mrs Clyde had some of the most beautiful pelargonia; and what were her paltry flowers in comparison?

Alas! she was poor, and could only afford a few miserable fuchsias to decorate her drawing-room—or rather the better to exhibit its poverty!

If her poor, dear papa had been alive, things of course would have been very different; and she could have had petunias, or orchids, or any of the rarest hot-house flowers she pleased; but, now, she was poor, although proud, and could not afford them like that rich parvenue.

How, good things always seemed given to those who are above their need!

There was Mrs Clyde getting her only daughter engaged to be married also, she heard; while no suitor came forward for her two poor orphan girls!

Such was the staple of her conversation—enlivening, at any rate.

"Oh, ma!" exclaimed Bessie Dasher at this juncture; "you should not say so to Mr Lorton! He'll think you wish him to propose at once!" and both she and her sister burst out laughing at the idea.

"So I would," said I, jokingly, notwithstanding that I felt as melancholy and little inclined for raillery as their mother, whose words seemed to clinch what old Shuffler had said. "So I would, too, if there weren't a pair of you, and bigamy contrary to law. 'How happy could I be with either, were t'other dear charmer away.' But," I continued, turning to Lady Dasher, with an assumption of easy indifference which I found it hard to counterfeit under the searching glances of the two wild Irish girls, her daughters, "is it really true what you said just now about Mrs Clyde's daughter, Lady Dasher?"

"Yes, Mr Lorton," she replied, "to the best of my belief it is; for, I have heard, on the most unimpeachable authority, that she is engaged to Mr Mawley. He is always going there, you know."

"But that is no proof, ma," said Bessie Dasher, who, as I have hinted before, was suspected of a slight tenderness towards the curate. "Mr Mawley is always coming here, too!"

"True, my dear," said her mother; "still there are comings and comings. You may depend he only goes there so often for a purpose! Indeed, I asked Mrs Clyde whether there was not something in it only yesterday, and she smiled and said nothing; and, if that isn't proof," she concluded, triumphantly, "I don't know what is!"

Bessie remained silent, but her sister said impulsively, "I don't believe it, ma—not what you say, but about Minnie Clyde's engagement. Mr Mawley's going there proves nothing, as Bessie said; and, as for Mrs Clyde, I believe she would smile in that graceful way of hers—I hate fine people!—and say nothing if you told her that her house was on fire! The curate is always gadding about, and Minnie is a pretty girl; so, of course, he likes to go there and see her; but, I know, that she does not care twopence for him."

"Ah, you may say so, my dear; but I know better. She would jump to have him. All girls like handsome young clergymen, as I know to my cost. Ah, Mr Lorton," went on Lady Dasher, with a sad expressive shake of her head, "marriage is a sad lottery, a sad lottery! I once thought of marrying into the church, too, when my poor dear papa was alive. Perhaps it would have been a happier lot for me if I had done so! He was such a dear, nice clergyman, and looked so well in his canonicals— such a truly evangelical minister! I could listen to his sermons for hours without feeling the slightest fatigue!"

"Thank goodness, then, he wasn't our papa!" exclaimed the saucy Seraphine. "I'm certain that I wouldn't have been able to listen to his sermons so long!"

"Ah, my dear," groaned her mother at her levity, "always frivolous, Seraphine! I'm afraid you will never marry a pious, holy man, as I would wish!"

"Not if I know it, ma!" she retorted, so heartily that both her sister Bessie and I—in spite of my anxiety about Min—could not but join in her catching laughter. "No," continued the pert and impetuous young lady, "when I enter the holy estate of matrimony I shall choose a gay soldier laddie. None of your solemn-faced parsons for me! If they were all like our good old vicar, whom I would take to-morrow if he asked me, it would be quite a different thing; but they are not. They are all too steady and starch and stiff now-a-days. They look as if butter would not melt in their mouths!"

"Ah, my dear!" said her mother, "you will not think so by-and-by. 'Beggars mustn't be choosers.' You have got nothing but your face for your fortune, you know, although it would have been very different if my poor dear papa had been alive!"

"What, my face, ma?" said her dutiful daughter, "I'm sure I hope not! Really, I'm very well satisfied with it;" and, getting up and going to the mirror, she set about altering the riband in her hair, humming the while the old ballad—

"'My face is my fortune, kind sir,' she said, 'Kind sir,' she said, 'sir,' she said; 'My face is my fortune, kind sir,' she said."

I did not like to press any more inquiries with reference to Mr Mawley's rumoured engagement, thinking they would look too pointed, disclosing my interest in the affair,—however much I was transported with the feelings of mingled jealousy, doubt, and uncertainty, that were preying on my heart; consequently, I now took my leave, all the suspicions and fears, which Shuffler's news had given rise to, more rife than ever:—the renewed hope that Miss Pimpernell's cheery address had inspired me with, completely dispelled.

I'm afraid my anxiety was only too apparent; for, Seraphine Dasher whispered to me as I went out, "I don't believe a word of it, there! It is only one of those absurd 'true stories' that ma is always getting hold of."

But I wouldn't be comforted.

It was only likely enough. Mawley was constantly going there, as Lady Dasher had said, and Mrs Clyde encouraged him, there could be no doubt; there must be something in it, or these reports would never have got about. "There is never any smoke without fire."

Besides, Min herself did not dislike the curate as I did.

I could see that plainly for myself the night of that birthday party at her house. His insinuating address and treacherous advances had probably succeeded at last in entrapping her affections.

False, cruel girl that she was, how could she encourage me as she had done, to nurse delusive hopes which, as she must have known, would only end in disappointment! What had been probably sport to her was death to me!

And yet, I could not believe it of her.

My pure angel-natured Min, with her darling madonna-like face and honest, trustful grey eyes, to act like this?

No. It could not be. It was impossible.

Still, the very next day I saw her walking out alone with the curate.

It must be true, then, I thought; and I ground my teeth in anguish.

I determined to avoid her, never passing her house as I had been previously accustomed to; and, only bowing coldly when I met her in the street.

At last she spoke to me one day, as I was coming out of the vicarage.

She was just going to knock at the door; so I encountered her face to face on the step, without a chance of escape.

She held out her hand to me.

I took it mechanically, and then let it drop; raising my hat at the same time, without saying a word.

She addressed me with heightened colour and a wistful look in the deep, grey eyes.

"Why are you so angry with me, Frank?" she asked in her sweet, low voice, which had a slight tremble in it as she spoke. "What have I done to offend you? You never stop and speak to me now, never call at our house, and always pass me by with a cold frigid bow! Have I done anything to offend you, Frank?" she entreated again. "If so, tell me; and I will beg your pardon, for it must have been unintentional on my part?"

I was foolish, and proud, and conceited. I thought that I would not allow myself to be deceived twice.

I was bitter and rude. I made a mockery of all the friendly overtures which she made so lovingly with all the coy bashfulness of her maiden heart.

I could have strangled myself afterwards, when I thought it all over!

"I'm not aware, Miss Clyde," said I, as stiffly as you please—just as if she were a stranger to me, and not the dear Min whom I knew and loved so well—"I am not aware that there is any necessity for your asking my forgiveness:—if you cannot suggest to yourself the reason for my altered manner, words on my part would be useless indeed!"

I spoke thus harshly to her, and coldly, when my heart was almost breaking the while.

"And is that all you have got to say to me, Frank?" she said, still in the same dear, tender, entreating voice, and with glistening eyes.

My sternness was nearly melted; but I continued to hold out and stand upon my dignity.

"I have nothing more to add, Miss Clyde," I said, with another Grandisonian bow.

"Then, Mr Lorton," she said, her grey eyes flashing, and her whole dear little self roused into a fiery, impulsive little Min—she looked glorious in her pique!—"then, Mr Lorton, I will not seek to detain you further—let me pass, sir!" she added passionately, as, relenting of my behaviour, I tried to stop her and explain my conduct—"Let me pass, sir! I do not wish to hear another word from you!"

And she walked, as stately as a little queen, into the hall of the vicarage, tossing up her sweet little dimpled chin proudly; while, I?— went back disconsolately home, my heart torn with conflicting emotions.

Was I right, or wrong?

Perhaps the rumour of her engagement had not the slightest foundation, in fact.

However, it was too late now to think about that!

All was over.

We were parted for ever!



CHAPTER TWELVE.

ON THE RIVER.

We left behind the painted buoy That tosses at the harbour mouth; And madly danced our heart with joy, As fast we fleeted to the south. How fresh was every sight and sound On open main, on winding shore! We knew the merry world was round, And we might sail for evermore.

"Frank, what do you mean by behaving so unkindly to Minnie Clyde?" was the opening salutation of little Miss Pimpernell to me, the same evening, when I called round again at the vicarage, like Telemachus, in search of consolation.

I was so utterly miserable and disheartened at the conviction that everything was over between Min and myself—at the sudden collapse of all my eager hopes and ardent longings—that I felt I must speak to somebody and unbosom myself; or else I should go out of my senses.

"I behave unkindly to Miss Clyde!" I exclaimed, in astonishment at her thus addressing me, before I could get out a word as to why I had come to see her—"I—I—I—don't know what you mean, Miss Pimpernell?"

"You know, or ought to know very well, Frank, without my telling you," she rejoined; and there was a grave tone in her voice, for which I could not account.

However, the dear old lady did not leave me long in doubt.

She was never in the habit of "beating about the bush;" but always spoke out straight, plump and plain, to the point.

"Really, my boy," she continued, "I think there is no excuse for your acting so strangely to the poor little girl, after all your attentions and long intimacy!"

"But, Miss Pimpernell," I commenced; however, she quickly interrupted me.

"'But me no buts,' Frank Lorton," she said, with more determination and severity than she had ever used to me since I had known her. "I'm quite angry with you. You have disappointed all my expectations, when I thought I knew your character so well, too! Learn, that there is no one I despise so much as a male flirt. Oh, Frank! I did not think you had a grain of such little-mindedness in you! I believed you to be straightforward, and earnest, and true. I'm sadly disappointed in you, my boy; sadly disappointed!" and she shook her head reproachfully.

It was very hard being attacked in this way, when I had come for consolation!

I had thought myself to be the injured party, whose wounds would have been bound up, and oil and wine inpoured by the good Samaritan to whom I had always looked as my staunchest ally; yet, here she was, upbraiding me as a heartless deceiver, a role which I had never played in my life!

I did not know what to make of it.

What was she driving at?

"I assure you, Miss Pimpernell," I said with all the earnestness which the circumstances really warranted, "that I have not behaved in any way, to my knowledge, of which you might be ashamed for my sake. I came in this evening to ask your sympathy; and, here, you accuse me like this, without waiting to hear a word I have to say! Miss Pimpernell, you are unjust to me. I will go."

And I made as if to leave the room in a huff.

"Stop, Frank," said the dear little old lady, rising to her feet, and speaking to me again with something of her old cordial manner—"You speak candidly; and I've always known you to tell the truth, so I won't doubt you now. Perhaps things have only got into a muddle after all. Let me see if I cannot get to the bottom of it, and set them straight for you! You will not deny, I suppose, Frank, that up to a short time since you've been in the habit of paying a good deal of attention to Minnie Clyde?"

"Miss Clyde is nothing to me now!" I said grandly: I did not deceive her, however, nor turn her from her purpose.

"Wait a minute, my boy, and hear me out. You won't deny that you have been what you call 'spoony,' in your abominable slang, eh, Frank?" she repeated, with a knowing glance from her beady black eyes.

"Pay her attention, Miss Pimpernell," I said impetuously. "Good heavens! Why, at one time I would have died for her, and let my body be cut into little pieces, if it would only have done her any good!"

"Softly, Frank," responded the old lady. "I don't think that would have done her any good, or you either, for that matter! But, why have you changed towards her, Frank? I never thought you so false and fickle, my boy. She came in here to see me to-day, looking very excited and unhappy; and when she had sat down—there, in that very chair you are now sitting in," continued Miss Pimpernell, emphasising her words by pointing to the corner I occupied, "and I asked her soothingly what distressed her, she burst into tears, and sobbed as if her little heart would break. I declare, my boy," said the warm-hearted little body, with a husky cough, "I almost cried myself in company. However, I got it all out of her afterwards. It seems to me, Frank, that you have behaved very unkindly to her. She thought she had offended you in some way of which she declared that she was perfectly ignorant: she had asked you, she said, but you would not tell her—treating her as if she were a perfect stranger. She's a sensitive girl, Frank, and you have hurt her feelings to the quick! Now, what is the reason of this—do you care for her still?"

"Care for her! Miss Pimpernell," I said. "Why I love her—although I did not intend telling you yet."

"As if I didn't know all about that already," said the old lady, laughing cheerily. "Oh, you lovers, you lovers! You are just for all the world like a herd of wild ostriches, that stick their heads in the bush, and fancy that they are completely concealed from observation! All of you imagine, that, because you do not take people into your confidence, they are as blind as you are! Can't they see all that is going on well enough; don't your very looks, much less your actions, betray you? Why, Frank, I knew all about your case weeks ago, my boy!— without any information from you or anybody else! Besides, you know, I ought to have some little experience in such matters by this time; for, every boy and girl in the parish has made me their confidante for years and years past!" and she laughed again.

Miss Pimpernell was once more her cheery old self, quite restored to her normal condition of good humour.

No one, I believe, ever saw her "put out" for more than five minutes consecutively at the outside; and very seldom for so long, at that.

"Ah!" I ejaculated with a deep sigh, "I wish I had told you before. Now, it is too late!"

"Too late!" she rejoined, briskly. "Too late! Nonsense; it's 'never too late to mend.'"

"It is in some cases," I said, as mournfully as Lady Dasher could have spoken; "and this is one of them!"

It was all over, I thought, so, why talk about it any more? What was done couldn't be helped!

"Rubbish!" replied Miss Pimpernell; "you've had a tiff with her, and think you have parted for ever! You see, I know all about it without your telling me. You lovers are ever quarrelling and making up again; though, how you manage it, I can't think. But, Frank, there must always be two to make a quarrel, and Minnie Clyde does not seem to have been one to yours. Tell me why you have altered so towards her; and, let us see whether old Sally cannot mend matters for you."

She looked at me so kindly that I made a clean breast of all my troubles.

"Well, Frank!" she exclaimed, when I had got to the end of my story, "you are a big stupid, in spite of all your cleverness! You are not a bit sharper than the rest of your sex:—a woman has twice the insight of any of you lords of creation! Did I not tell you, not to believe that absurd story about Mr Mawley long ago—that it was only a silly tale of Shuffler's, and not worth a moment's credence? But, you wouldn't believe me; and, here you have been knocking your head against a wall just on account of that cock-and-a-bull-story, and nothing else! Ah, you lovers will never learn common sense! If it wasn't for us old ladies, you would get into such fine scrapes that you would never get out of them, I can tell you!"

"And you are sure it is not true, Miss Pimpernell?" I asked, imploringly.

"Certainly, Frank. Where are your eyes? You are as blind as a mole, my boy."

"O, Miss Pimpernell!" I exclaimed, in remorse at my hasty conduct, "what shall I do to make my peace once more with her? She will never speak to me again, I know, unless you intercede for me, and tell her how the misunderstanding arose."

"You have been very foolish, Frank," said my kind old friend; "but I will try what I can do for you. You ought to have known that she did not care for Mr Mawley—not in the way you mean; and, as for marrying him, why, the curate himself does not dream of such a thing. I cannot imagine how you could have been so blind!"

"But you will help me, Miss Pimpernell, won't you?" I entreated.

"Well, my boy, I will tell Minnie what you have just told me about your delusion, and say that you are very sorry for having treated her so badly."

"And tell her," I interposed, "that she's dearer to me than ever."

"I will do nothing of the sort," hastily replied the old lady. "I am not going to give Miss Spight another chance of calling me 'a wretched old match-maker,' as she did once! No, Master Frank, you must do all your love-making yourself, my boy. I did not tell you that Minnie cares for you, you know; and, I can't say whether she does, or no. She's only very unhappy at your considering her no longer in the light of a friend, and has said nothing to lead me to imagine anything more than that. She would not have spoken to me at all about it, I'm confident, if she had not happened to have seen you only a moment before, and had her sensitive little heart wounded by your coldness! Why don't you tell her yourself, Frank, what you wish me to say for you?"

"So I would, Miss Pimpernell, at once," I replied, "if I only had an opportunity; but I never get a chance of seeing her alone."

"Why don't you make one, Frank?" said she. "For a young fellow of the day, you are wonderfully bashful and shy, not to be able to tell the girl of your heart that you love her! I declare, if I had only done what they wanted me, I would have proposed for half of the wives of the present married men of my acquaintance! When I was a girl, gentlemen seemed to have twice the ardour about them that they have now! You are all, now-a-days, like a pack of boarding-school misses, and have to be as tenderly coaxed on into proposing, as if you were the wooed and not the wooers. You don't understand what ladies like," continued the old lady, who, like most elderly maidens, had a strong spice of the romantic in her composition; "they prefer having their affections taken by assault instead of all this shilly-shallying and faint-heartedness. If I had had my choice, when I thought, as girls will think, of such things, I would have liked my lover to carry me off like those gallant knights did in the good old days that we read of!"

"And had him prosecuted for abduction," said I, laughing at her enthusiasm.

"Well, well, Frank," she said, laughing too, "I don't mean to advise you to go to that extent; yet, you might easily find an opportunity to speak to Minnie Clyde, if you only set your wits to work. There's the school treat on Thursday, won't that do for you?"

"Really," I replied, "I never thought of that, Miss Pimpernell; indeed I had made up my mind not to go; and—"

"Why shouldn't you?" said the energetic little old lady, interrupting me. "What better chance could you have, I should like to know—a nice long day in the country, a picnic excursion, a pleasant party, with lots of openings for private conversation? Dear me, Frank, you are not half a lover! If I were a handsome young fellow like you, I would soon cut you out, my boy! Only be bold and speak out to her. Girls like boldness. I wouldn't have given twopence for a bashful man when I was young."

"So I will, Miss Pimpernell," said I, carried away by her energy and enthusiasm; "I will go to the school treat—that is, if you will only kindly see Miss Clyde for me"—I was rather diffident of letting Miss Pimpernell know of the friendly footing we had been on, regarding Christian nomenclature—"beforehand, and get her to forgive me. You will, won't you, dear Miss Pimpernell?"

"None of your soft-sawder, Master Frank," replied the old lady; "I will do what I can to make your peace, as I promised; but, as to anything further, you must be a man, and speak up for yourself."

"I will, you may rely," I said, determined to bring matters to an issue ere the week should close.

Before Thursday came, however, I knew that Miss Pimpernell had kept her word in interceding for me, and that Min had quite forgiven me.

She was "friends with me once more," I was assured; for, when I passed her window the next evening, in fear and trembling lest she should still be hostile and not recognise me, she bowed and smiled to me in her own old sweet way, as she used to do before my fit of jealousy and our consequent estrangement.

Oh! how ardently I looked forwards to the approaching school treat. I was then resolved to learn whether she loved me or no. "Faint heart never won fair lady," as Miss Pimpernell had told me; I would deserve her reproach no longer.

Thursday arrived at length, and with it the school treat.

This summer "outing" had been an institution of annual celebration by our vicar long before it became a habit of London clergymen to send columns of appeals to the benevolent in the daily papers to assist the poor children of their respective congregations towards having "a day's pleasuring in the country."

Our vicar, however, was not one of those who thus "passed round the hat" to strange laity! No, he made his institution entirely a self- supporting one; and his school-children had the additional pleasure of knowing, that, they assisted in paying for their treat themselves, earning it in advance, with no thanks to "charity," or strangers, all the same.

For some two months beforehand, the little ones used to deposit a weekly penny for this special purpose; and, when their contributions were thought to nearly amount to a shilling each, the fund was held sufficient to carry out the long-looked-for treat—although, of course, the vicar and other kindly-disposed persons would largely help to make the affair go off with the eclat and dignity suited to the occasion, all of which resulted in its being turned into a general picnic for the parish.

The anniversary of the fete this year, was celebrated with even grander effect than any former ones had been, imposing and satisfactory though they were held at the time to be. Richmond Park was the scene of our festivities; and, not only had the vicar caused to be provided a couple of roomy four-horse omnibuses, the leading one of which sported a band, to accommodate the rank and file of the juveniles under the escort of such of their mothers as could spare the time to accompany them; but, those children who had particularly distinguished themselves during the year for good conduct, were permitted to go in the gondola, in which we oldsters proceeded, to the same destination by water. It was arranged that the "'buses" should meet us at Richmond, where both descriptions of conveyances were to disgorge their motley contents; and, the several and hitherto-severed parties, joining issue, would set about making as pleasant a day of it as could be effected under the circumstances.

A "gondola" seems at first sight an anachronism on the Thames; still, on mature reflection, there does not appear to be any reason why we should not indulge in this respect equally as well as the inhabitants of much- idealised dirty Venice.

Whether you agree with me or not, however, I can tell you that there are gondolas to be seen on our great watery highway—heavy barges, with bluff bows and fictitious awnings and problematical cushions, that may be had on hire for the asking, at most of the principal boating places along the banks from Chelsea to Chiswick.

On first starting, one missed the many romantic associations with which the name of our floating vehicle was generally connected; yet, suggestive fancy could readily supply their place with kindred ideas culled from our more prosaic surroundings. We had, it is true, no crimson-sashed, ragged, ballet-costumed gondolier to "ply the measured oar;" because, in the first instance, we did not row up at all. We were a trifle too wise in our generation to pull up the river in a lumbering barge under a broiling sun, and fancy we were amusing ourselves! No, we had a horse and a tow-rope; and, went on our way gaily without exertion!

Just you volunteer, for once, to row an excursion party up to Richmond:—you'll enjoy it, I promise you! It is regular treadmill work; see, if you won't afterwards think our plan the best, and adopt it, too, or I'm no prophet, that's all!

Our gondolier "was not;" but the mounted jockey who bestrode our towing horse was; and, in lieu of waking the echoes with choice extracts from Tasso in the liquid Venesian or harsh, gritty Tuscan dialect, he occasionally beguiled his monotonous jog-trot with a plaintive ballad, in which he rehearsed the charms of a certain "Pretty little Sarah;" or else, "made the welkin ring"—though what a "welkin" is, I have never yet been able to discover—with repeated injunctions to his somewhat lazy steed to "gee whup" and "gee wo!"

We had no "Bridge of Sighs," to pursue the parallel, where the roving eye might detect "a palace and a prison on either hand;" but, in its stead, we could gaze at the festooned chains of Hammersmith Suspension Bridge in all its simple beauty, and see the Soapworks and the Mall on the hither and further shore. Our course led, not through serpentine canals and past Doges' palaces, gaudy with the lavish adornments of tricky Byzantine architecture; nor could we expect to see "lions" as historical as those which ornament the facade of Saint Mark's. However, as we glided up against the tide, in slow but steady progress, by willowy banks and osiered eyots, our boat yawning in and out and requiring a stiff weather helm to keep her course, we often caught glimpses of ivy-wreathed churches, charming villa residences and gothic summer-houses, peeping out from amidst the river-lining trees—with a verdant meadow here and there to break the view, its smoothly-mown surface sweeping down to the water's edge; while, we knew, also, that the stream which bore us on its bosom flowed over stakes and hurdles that our indigo-dyed ancestors, the ancient Britons, had planted in its bed, long before Caesar's conquering legions crossed the channel, or Venice possessed "a local habitation and a name."

You may say, probably, that all this is a regular rigmarole of nonsense; but, what else would you have?

It was a nice, beautiful, hot summer day, as our gondola glided on Richmondwards.

We were a merry party, all in all, passing the time with genial and general conversation—and, occasionally, graver talk—as the mood suited us. The cheerful voices of the children, who were packed as tightly as herrings in a barrel in the bows of our craft, and their happy laughter, chimed in with the wash of the tide as it swept by the sides of our gallant barque, hurrying down to meet the flood at Gravesend. The larks were singing madly in the blue sky overhead. Each and all completed the harmony of the scene, affording us enjoyment in turn.

Disgusted apparently with our merriment and frivolity, Miss Spight, shortly after we started, introduced a polemical discussion.

"My dear sir," said she to the vicar, our captain and coxswain in chief, who stately sat in the sternsheets of the gondola, "don't you think Romanism is getting very rife in the parish? They are building a new nunnery, I hear, in the main road; and they are going to set about a chapel, too, I'm told."

"That won't hurt us," said the vicar, sententiously. He disliked sectarian disputes excessively, and always avoided them if he could.

"But, don't you think," persisted Miss Spight, "that we ought to prevent this in some way?"

"I was going to speak to you on the very point to-day, sir," said Mr Mawley, before the vicar could answer. "Had we not better have a course of controversial lectures, each giving one in turn?"

"No, Mawley," replied the vicar, "since I have had the living, I have never yet permitted sectarian disputations to have a place in my pulpit; and, never will I do so as long as I live! We were instructed to preach the Gospel by our Saviour, not to wage war against this or that creed; and the Gospel is one of peace and love. Don't you remember how Saint John, when he was upwards of fourscore years, continually taught this by his constant text, 'Little children, love one another?' Let us allow men to judge us by our works. The labour of Protestantism will not be accomplished by the pharisaical mode of priding ourselves on our faith, and damning that of every one else! Our mission is to preach the Gospel pure and simple. Too much time, too much money, too much of true religion is wasted, in our common custom of trying to proselytise others! We should look at home first, Mawley."

"Still, sir," said the curate, "it is surely our mission to convert the heathen?"

"I do not argue against that," said the vicar. "God forbid that I should! But what I say is, that we are too apt, in seeking for foreign fields, to neglect the duty that lies nearer to us at home."

"It is a noble work, converting the heathen, though," said Miss Spight.

"That's just what I mean," responded our pastor. "All young minds are impressed with this romantic view of religion. It appears much nobler to go abroad as a missionary to the burning deserts of Africa, and to run the risk of being eaten up by cannibals, to working in this benighted land of ours, which needs conversion just as much as the negroes and Hindoos! But, there's no romance about visiting dirty alleys in London!"

"There are the Scripture readers and district visitors, are there not?" said Mr Mawley.

"True," replied the vicar, "and I would be the last to disparage their earnest efforts. What I meant was, that, while we give hundreds of pounds to foreign missions, pence are grudged for home work! There's the Society for the Conversion of the Jews, for instance, to which I have sometimes to give up my pulpit. Now, I dare say, it is a very meritorious society, but how many Jews does it gain over really to Christianity in return for the large sums that its travelling secretaries collect every year?"

"These travelling secretaries," said I, "are what the Saturday Review would call 'spiritual bagmen,' or 'commercial travellers in the missionary line.'"

"And not very far out, either," said the vicar, smiling. "They are paid a salary, at all events, if they do not get a commission, to beg as much money as they can for the society to which they belong; and they do their work well, too! They succeed in carrying off an amount of money from poor parishes, which if laid out in the places where it is garnered, instead of being devoted to alien expenditure, would do far more good, and better advance the work of the Gospel than the conversion of a few renegade Jews, whose reclamation is, in the majority of cases, but a farce!"

"But, my dear sir!"—exclaimed Mr Mawley, completely shocked at this overturning of all his prejudices.

"Hear me out," continued the vicar; "you must not misunderstand me. I'm not opposed to the principles of missions; but, to their being promoted to the disregard of all other considerations. Saint Paul says that we should do good to all, and especially to such as are 'of the household of faith.' Our missionary societies never seem to consider this. The endless number of charity sermons that we have to preach for their aid, not only extracts too much of what should be spent for the benefit of our own special communities, but militates against our getting contributions to other works of greater utility. Our congregations become so deadened by these repeated onslaughts on their benevolence, that they button up their pockets and respond in only a half-hearted way when we claim their assistance for our own poor and parish. Let us, I say, look at home first, and reclaim the lost, the fallen, the destitute in our streets; let us convert our own 'heathen,'—our murderers, our drunkards, our wife-beaters, our thieves, our adulterers; and, then, let us talk of converting Hindoos and regenerating the Jews! Our duty, Mawley, as I hold my commission, is to preach Christ's gospel in all its truth and simplicity and love. We do not want to run down this or that creed, however reprehensible we may think it. Let us be judged by our deeds, and acts, and words. Let us show forth our way of salvation, as we have learnt it: another authority, greater than us, will tell the world in his own good time which is the faith!"

A short pause ensued, after the vicar had thus spoken; none of us cared, for the moment, to pass on to the empty nothings of every-day talk.

Seraphine Dasher was the first to break the silence.

Seeing that Miss Spight had turned to address Monsieur Parole d'Honneur, who sat by her side, the good-natured Frenchman having accompanied us, to "assist at the fete" of his friend, "the good vicaire," as he said, the wicked little seraph created a diversion.

"Gracious, Miss Spight," she exclaimed, "how you are flirting!"

The indignation of the austere virgin, and the warmth with which she repelled this accusation, caused us all so much amusement, that in another moment or two we were in the full swing again of our ordinary chatter.

As we passed under Barnes railway bridge, where the tide was rushing through the arches with all the pent-up waters of the reach beyond, Min, who had been hitherto apparently distrait, like myself, not having spoken, observed, that, the sight of a river flowing along always made her feel reflective and sad.

"It recalls to my mind," said she, "those lines of Longfellow's, from the Coplas de Manrique.

"'Our lives are rivers, gliding free, To that unfathom'd boundless sea, The silent grave! Thither all earthly pomp and boast Roll, to be swallowed up and lost In one dark wave.'"

"I prefer," said I, "Tennyson's Brook. Our laureate's description of a moving river is not so sombre as that of the American poet; and, besides, has more life and action about it."

"How many different poets have sung the praises of the Thames," said Miss Pimpernell. "I suppose more poetry,—good, bad, and indifferent— has been written about it, than for all the other rivers of the world combined."

"You are right, my dear," said the vicar; "more, by a good deal! The Jordan has been distinguished in Holy Writ especially; Horner has celebrated the Xanthus and Simois, and Horace the tawny Tiber; the rivers of Spain have been painted by Calderon, Lope de Vega and Aldana; the Rhine and its legends sang of by Uhland and Goethe and Schiller—not to speak of the fabled Nile, as it was in the days of Sesostris, when Herodotus wrote of it; and the Danube, the Po, and the Arno,—all rivers of the old world, that have been described by a thousand poets. But, above all these, the Thames has furnished a more frequent theme, and for great poets, too! Every aspirant for the immortal bays has tried his 'prentice hand on it, from Chaucer, in excelsis, down to the poet Close at the foot of the Parnassian ladder!

"We were talking of the Thames," continued the vicar, pouring out a flood of archaeological reminiscences—"The great reason why it is so suggestive, beyond the great practical fact that it is the silent highway of the fleets of nations, is, that it is also indissolubly bound up, as well, with by-gone memories of people that have lived and died, to the glory and disgrace of history—of places whose bare names we cherish and love! Every step, almost, along its banks is sacred to some noble name. 'Stat magno nominis umbra' should be its motto. Strawberry Hill reminds you of witty, keen-sighted Horace Walpole, and his gossiping chit-chat concerning wrangling princes, feeble-minded ministers, and all the other imbecilities of the last century. Twickenham brings back to one, bitter-tongued Pope, his distorted body and waspish mind. Richmond Hill recalls the Earl of Chatham in his enforced retirement, his gout, and the memorable theatrical speech he made on the floor of the House of Lords, at the time of our greatest national triumph and exertion, that closed his public life. Further up the stream, we come to old Windsor Castle, to be reminded of bluff Bluebeard, bigamous, wicked, king Hal; higher still, we are at Oxford, the nursery of our Church, the 'alma mater' of our learning. Lower down, at Whitehall stairs, we are face to face again with Roundheads, and regicides, and gunpowder plots; lower still, and we are at the Tower, with its cruel tyrannies and beheadings of traitors and patriots; and then, we find ourselves amidst a sea of masts which bear the English flag to the uttermost parts of the earth. No wonder our river has been so poetical:—it has deserved it! But, really, if all the poems that have been written in its honour could be collected in one volume, what a prodigious tome it would be!—what a medley of versification it would present!"

"Sure you've forgotten the Shannon entirely," observed Lady Dasher in her plaintive way.

She was certainly waking up from her normal melancholic condition; for, before this, she had been seen to smile—a phenomenon never noticed in her before by her oldest acquaintance.

"You have quite forgotten the Shannon! My poor dear papa, when he was alive, used to say that it was the finest river in the world. I remember he had a favourite song about it—I don't know if I quite recollect it now, but, I'll try."

"Do, Lady Dasher, do," said Mr Mawley, who, having been paying great attention to Bessie the while, wished, I suppose, to ingratiate himself with her mother.

"I must put on the brogue, you know," said she, looking round with an affectation of shyness, which was most incongruous on her melancholy visage; it was just like a death's head trying to grin, I thought to myself;—and then, she commenced, in a thin, quavering voice, the lay of the departed earl, her "poor dear papa."

"'O! Limerick is be-yewtifool, as iveryba-ady knows, And round about the city walls the reever Shannon flows; But 'tis not the reever, nor the feesh, that preys upon my mind, Nor, with the town of Limerick have I any fault to find!'"

"Ah! Very nice indeed! Thank you, Lady Dasher, thank you!" said the vicar, when she had got thus far, and succeeded in arresting the progress of her ladyship's melody; otherwise, she might have gone on the live-long summer day with the halting ditty, for it consisted, as she subsequently told us, of no less than five-and-forty verses, all in the same pleasant strain!

"I don't think," said I, to change the conversation, "that poetry is nearly as highly regarded in the present day, as it was some forty years back or so—if one may judge by the biographies of literary men of that time."

"But, it sells more readily," said Mr Mawley; "not only do fresh debutantes appear, but new editions of the old poets come out daily."

"That may be," said I. "But they are not nearly so highly appreciated. I suppose it is because poetry is not so much a rarity now. We have so many mediocre poets, that our taste is more exigent. I dare say, if a very bright, particular star should arise, we would honour him; but we have no bright particular star; and, thus, we learn to read poetry without reflection. Forty years ago, people used to talk over the last production of the muse, and canvas its merits in coffee-rooms all over the town; now, we only dash through it, as we would take up the last new novel, or the evening paper, thinking no more about it!"

"When I was younger," said Miss Spight—she didn't say when she was "young," mark you—"no young gentlewoman's education would have been thought complete without a course of the best poets, such as Milton's Paradise Lost."

"Which nine out of ten of the people who speak about it now, never read," said I—and, Miss Spight did not reply.

"What queer people poets are, generally speaking," said Mr Mawley.

"Do you think so?" said I.

"Yes, I do," he replied. "I would divide poets into three great classes, which I would call respectively the enthusiastic school, the water-cart school, and the horse-going-round-in-the-mill school."

"O-oh, Mr Mawley!" exclaimed Bessie Dasher, in the unmeaning manner common to young ladies, in lieu of saying anything, when they have got nothing to say: the exclamation expressing either astonishment, horror, alarm, or rebuke, as the case may require.

"Instance, instance! Name, name!" said I, keeping the curate up to the mark.

"Well, I will give you Horner, and Dante, Goethe, Byron, and, perhaps, Tennyson, from which to take your choice amongst those whom I call the enthusiastic school; Mrs Hemans, and others of her tearful race, in the second; and, in the third order, the majority of those who have spoilt good ink and paper, from Dryden down to Martin F Tupper."

"What, no exceptions; not even my favourite Longfellow?" asked Min.

"No," said Mr Mawley, "not one—although Longfellow belongs more by rights to the water-cart line. The fact is," continued he, fairly started on his hobby, "that Pegasus, the charger of Mount Parnassus, is a most eccentric animal, who can be made to metamorphose himself so completely according to the skill and ability or weakness of his rider, that even Apollo would not recognise him sometimes! When backed by an intrepid spirit, like the grand heroic poets, Pegasus is the stately war-horse eager for the fray, and sniffing the battle from afar; or else, controlled by the nervous reins of genius like that of Shelley and Coleridge, he appears as the high-mettled racer, pure-blooded and finely-trained, who may win some great race, but is unfit for any ordinary work; or, again, when ridden by a Wordsworth, he plods along wearily, with lack-lustre eyes, dragging a heavy load, such as The Excursion, behind him!"