But what was she to do? Norman, who she was aware would 'unquod' him immediately, if he were in the way, was down at Hampton, and was not expected to be at his lodgings for two or three days. After some cogitation, Mrs. Richards resolved that there was nothing for it but to go down to Hampton herself, and break the news to his friends. Charley would not have been a bit obliged to her had he known it, but Mrs. Richards acted for the best. There was a train down to Hampton Court that night, and a return train to bring her home again—so off she started.

Mrs. Woodward had on that same afternoon taken down Katie, who was still an invalid;—Norman had gone down with them, and was to remain there for some few days—going up and down every morning and evening. Mrs. Woodward was sitting in the drawing-room; Linda and Katie were with her, the latter lying in state on her sofa as invalid young ladies should do; Captain Cuttwater was at Hampton Court, and Norman was on the water; when a fly from the railway made its way up to the door of the Cottage.

'Mrs. Richards, ma'am,' said the demure parlour-maid, ushering in the lodging-house keeper, who in her church-going best made a very decent appearance.

'Oh, Mrs. Richards, how are you?' said Mrs. Woodward, who knew the woman very well—'pray sit down—are there any news from London?'

'Oh, ma'am, such news—such bad news—Mister Charley—.' Up jumped Katie from her sofa and stood erect upon the floor. She stood there, with her mouth slightly open, with her eyes intently fixed on Mrs. Richards, with her little hands each firmly clenched, drawing her breath with hard, short, palpitating efforts. There she stood, but said nothing.

'Oh, Mrs. Richards—what is it?' said Mrs. Woodward; 'for Heaven's sake what is the matter?'

'Oh, ma'am; he's been took,' said Mrs. Richards.

'Took!' repeated Mrs. Woodward. 'Katie, dear Katie—sit down, my child—sit down.'

'Oh, mamma! oh, mamma!' said she, apparently unable to move, and certainly all but unable to stand.

'Tell us, Mrs. Richards, what is it—what has happened to Mr. Tudor?' and as she spoke Mrs. Woodward got up and passed her arm around her younger daughter's waist—Linda also got up and joined the group.

'Why, ma'am,' said Mrs. Richards, 'he's been took by the bailiffs, and now he's in prison.'

Katie did not faint. She never had fainted, and probably did not know the way; but she clenched her hands still tighter, breathed harder than before, and repeated her appeal to her mother in a voice of agony. 'Oh, mamma! oh, mamma!'

Katie had no very accurate conception of what an arrest for debt meant. She knew that next to death imprisonment was the severest punishment inflicted on erring mortals, and she now heard that Charley was in prison. She did not stop to think whether it was for his life, or for some more limited period. It was enough for her to know, that this terrible misfortune had come upon him, to him who, to her young fancy, was so bright, so good, so clever, so excellent, upon him who had saved her life—upon him whom she so dearly loved.

'Oh, mamma! oh, mamma!' she said, and then in agony she shut her eyes and shuddered violently.

Mrs. Woodward was greatly afflicted. She was indeed sorry to hear such tidings of Charley Tudor; but her grief was now deeper even than that. She could not be longer blind to the sort of feeling which her child evinced for this young man; she could not think that these passionate bursts of overpowering sorrow were the result of mere childish friendship; she could not but see that her Katie's bosom now held a woman's heart, and that that heart was no longer her own.

And then Mrs. Woodward reflected of what nature, of what sort, was this man whom she had allowed to associate with her darling, almost as a brother does with his sister; whom she had warmed in her bosom till he had found an opportunity of inflicting this deadly wound. With terrible bitterness she upbraided herself as she sat down and bade Mrs. Richards go on with her tale. She knew that nothing which could now be said would add to Katie's anguish.

Mrs. Richards' story was soon told. It simply amounted to this— that 'Mister Charley,' as she always called him, had been arrested for debt at the suit of a tailor, and that she had learnt the circumstances from the fact of the prisoner having sent for his brushes.

'And so I thought the best thing was to come and tell Mr. Norman,' said Mrs. Richards, concluding her speech.

Nothing could be done till Norman came in. Linda went out with Mrs. Richards to get some refreshment in the dining-room, and Mrs. Woodward sat with her arm round Katie's neck on the sofa, comforting her with kisses and little caressing touches, but saying nothing. Katie, still unconscious of her passion, gave way to spasmodic utterance of her own grief.

'Oh, mamma!' she said—' what can be done? What can we do? You will do something, mamma, won't you? Poor Charley! Dear Charley! Harry will do something—won't he? Won't Harry go to London, and do something?'

Mrs. Woodward did what she could to quiet her. Something should be done, she said. They must wait till Harry came in, and then settle what was best. Nothing could be done till Harry came in. 'You must be patient, Katie, or else you will make yourself really ill.'

Katie became afraid that she would be sent off to bed on the score of her illness before Harry had come, and thus lose the advantage of hearing what was the step decided on. So she sat silent in the corner of her sofa feigning to be asleep, but pondering in her mind what sort of penalties were the penalties of imprisonment, how dreadful, how endurable, or how unendurable. Would they put chains on him? would they starve him? would they cut off his beautiful brown hair?

Mrs. Woodward sat silent waiting for Harry's return. When first she had watched Katie's extreme misery, and guessed the secret of her child's heart, she had felt something like hard, bitter anger against Charley. But by degrees this feeling softened down. It was by no means natural to her, nor akin to her usual tenderness. After all, the fault hitherto was probably more her own than his.

Mrs. Richards was sent back to town. She was thanked for the trouble she had taken, and told that Mr. Norman would do in the matter all that was necessary to be done. So she took her departure, and Linda returned to the drawing-room.

Unfortunately Captain Cuttwater came in first. They none of them mentioned Charley's misfortune to him. Charley was no favourite with Uncle Bat, and his remarks would not have been of the most cheering tendency.

At last Norman came also. He came, as was his wont, through the drawing-room window, and, throwing himself into a chair, began to tell the girls how much they had lost by not joining him on the river.

'Harry,' said Mrs. Woodward, 'step into the dining-room with me for a moment.'

Harry got up to follow her. Katie and Linda also instantly jumped from their seats to do the same. Mrs. Woodward looked round, and motioned to them to stay with their uncle. Linda obediently, though reluctantly, remained; but Katie's impulse was too strong for her. She gave one imploring look at her mother, a look which Mrs. Woodward well understood, and then taking silence for consent, crept into the dining-room.

'Harry,' said Mrs. Woodward, as soon as the dining-room door was closed, 'Charley has been arrested;' and then she told him how Mrs. Richards had been at the Cottage, and what was the nature of the tidings she had brought.

Norman was not much surprised, nor did he feign to be so. He took the news so coolly that Katie almost hated him. 'Did she say who had arrested him, or what was the amount?' he asked.

Mrs. Woodward replied that she knew no more than what she had already told. Katie stood in the shade with her eyes fixed upon her cousin, but as yet she said nothing. How cruel, how stony- hearted must he be to hear such dreadful tidings and remain thus undisturbed! Had Charley heard that Norman was arrested, he would have been half way to London by this time. So, at least, thought Katie.

'Something can be done for him, Harry, can there not? We must contrive to do something—eh, Harry?' said Mrs. Woodward.

'I fear it is too late to do anything to-night,' said Harry, looking at his watch. 'The last train is gone, and I could not possibly find him out before twelve.'

'And to-morrow is Sunday,' said Mrs. Woodward.

'Oh, Harry, pray do something!' said Katie, 'pray, pray, pray, do! Oh, Harry, think of Charley being in prison! Oh, Harry, he would do anything for you!' and then she burst into tears, and caught hold of Harry's arm and the front of his coat to add force to her entreaty.

'Katie,' said her mother, 'don't be so foolish. Harry will, of course, do whatever is best.'

'But, mamma, he says he will do nothing; why does he not go at once?'

'I will go at once, dear Katie,' said he; 'I will go now directly. I don't know whether we can set him free to-night, or even to-morrow, as to-morrow is Sunday; but it certainly shall be done on Monday, you may be sure of that at any rate. Whatever can be done shall be done;' and, without further talk upon the subject, he took his hat and went his way.

'May God Almighty bless him!' said Mrs. Woodward. 'How infinitely greater are truth and honesty than any talent, however brilliant!' She spoke only to herself and no one even guessed what was the nature of the comparison which she thus made.

As soon as Norman was gone, Katie went to bed: and in the morning she was pronounced to be too unwell to get up. And, indeed, she was far from well. During the night she only slept by short starts, and in her sleep she was restless and uneasy; then, when she woke, she would burst out into fits of tears, and lie sobbing hysterically till she slept again. In the morning, Mrs. Woodward said something about Charley's misconduct, and this threw her into a wretched state of misery, from which nothing would rouse her till her mother promised that the prodigal should not be thrown over and abandoned.

Poor Mrs. Woodward was in a dreadful state of doubt as to what it now behoved her to do. She felt that, however anxious she might be to assist Charley for his own sake, it was her bounden duty to separate him from her child. Whatever merits he might have—and in her eyes he had many—at any rate he had not those which a mother would desire to see in the future husband of her daughter. He was profligate, extravagant, careless, and idle; his prospects in life were in every respect bad; he had no self-respect, no self-reliance, no moral strength. Was it not absolutely necessary that she should put a stop to any love that might have sprung up between such a man as this and her own young bright-eyed darling?

Put a stop to it! Yes, indeed, most expedient; nay, absolutely necessary—if it were only possible. Now, when it was too late, she began to perceive that she had not known of what material her own child was formed. At sixteen, Gertrude and Linda had in reality been little more than children. In manner, Katie had been more childish even than them, and yet—Mrs. Woodward, as she thought of these things, felt her heart faint within her.

She was resolved that, cost what it might, Charley must be banished from the Cottage. But at the first word of assumed displeasure that she uttered, Katie fell into such an agony of grief that her soft heart gave way, and she found herself obliged to promise that the sinner should be forgiven. Katie the while was entirely unconscious of the state of her own feelings. Had she thought that she loved him as women love, had any thought of such love and of him together even entered her mind, she could not have talked of him as she now talked. Had he been her brother, she could not have been less guarded in her protestations of affection, or more open in her appeals to her mother that he might be forgiven. Such was her present state; but it was doomed that her eyes should soon be opened, and that she should know her own sorrow.

On the Sunday afternoon, Norman returned to Hampton with the tidings that Charley was once more a free man. The key of gold which he had taken with him had been found potent enough to open all barriers, even those with which the sanctity of Sunday had surrounded the prisoner. Mr. Outerman, and the bailiff, and the messenger, had all been paid their full claims, and Charley, with his combs and brushes, had returned to the more benign custody of Mrs. Richards.

'And why didn't he come down with you?' said Katie to Norman, who had gone up to her bedroom to give her the good tidings.

Norman looked at Mrs. Woodward, but made no reply.

'He would probably prefer remaining in town at present,' said Mrs. Woodward. 'It will be more comfortable for him to do so.'

And then Katie was left alone to meditate why Charley should be more comfortable after his arrest in London than at Hampton; and after a while she thought that she had surmised the truth. 'Poor Charley! perhaps he is ashamed. He need not be ashamed to come at any rate to me.'



CHAPTER XXIX

EASY IS THE SLOPE OF HELL

The electors for the Tillietudlem district burghs, disgusted by the roguery of Mr. M'Buffer, and anxiously on the alert to replace him by a strictly honest man, returned our friend Undy by a glorious majority. He had no less than 312 votes, as opposed to 297, and though threatened with the pains and penalties of a petition, he was not a little elated by his success. A petition with regard to the Tillietudlem burghs was almost as much a matter of course as a contest; at any rate the threat of a petition was so. Undy, however, had lived through this before, and did not fear but that he might do so again. Threatened folks live long; parliamentary petitions are very costly, and Undy's adversaries were, if possible, even in more need of money than himself.

He communicated his good fortune to his friend Alaric in the following letter:—

'Bellenden Arms, Tillietudlem, July, 185-.

'My DEAR DIRECTOR,

'Here I am once more a constituent part of the legislative wisdom of the United Kingdom, thanks to the patriotic discretion of the pot-wallopers, burgage-tenants, and ten-pound freeholders of these loyal towns. The situation is a proud one; I could only wish that it had been less expensive. I am plucked as clean as ever was pigeon; and over and above the loss of every feather I carried, old M'Cleury, my agent here, will have a bill against me that will hardly be settled before the next election. I do not complain, however; a man cannot have luxuries without paying for them; and this special luxury of serving one's country in Parliament is one for which a man has so often to pay, without the subsequent fruition of the thing paid for, that a successful candidate should never grumble, however much he may have been mulcted. They talk of a petition; but, thank God, there are still such things as recognizances; and, moreover, to give M'Cleury his due, I do not think he has left a hole open for them to work at. He is a thorough rascal, but no man does better work.

'I find there is already a slight rise in the West Corks. Keep your eye open. If you find you can realize L4 4s. or even L4, sell, and let the West of Cork and Ballydehob go straight to the devil. We should then be able to do better with our money. But I doubt of such a sale with so large a stock as we hold. I got a letter yesterday from that Cork attorney, and I find that he is quite prepared to give way about the branch. He wants his price, of course; and he must have it. When once we have carried that point, then it will be plain sailing; our only regret then will be that we didn't go further into it. The calls, of course, must be met; I shall be able to do something in October, but shall not have a shilling sooner—unless I sell, which I will not do under 80s.

'I was delighted to hear of your promotion; not that you'll remain in the shop long, but it gives you a better name and a better claim. Old Golightly was buried yesterday, as of course you have heard. Mrs. Val quite agrees with me that your name had better be put in as that of Clem's trustee. She's going to marry that d—— Frenchman. What an unmitigated ass that cousin of yours must be! I can't say I admire her taste; but nevertheless she is welcome for me. It would, however, be most scandalous if we were to allow him to get possession of her money. He would, as a matter of course, make ducks and drakes of it in no time. Speculate probably in some Russian railway, or Polish mine, and lose every shilling. You will of course see it tied up tight in the hands of the trustees, and merely pay him, or if possible her, the interest of it. Now that I am once more in, I hope we shall be able to do something to protect the fortunes of married women.

'You will be quite safe in laying out Clem's money, or a portion of it, in the West Corks. Indeed, I don't know how you could well do better with it. You will find Figgs a mere shadow. I think we can pull through in this manner. If not we must get—to take our joint bill. He would sooner do that than have the works stopped. But then we should have to pay a tremendous price for it.

'So we were well out of the Mary Janes at last. The take last month was next to nothing, and now she's full of water. Manylodes hung on till just the last, and yet got out on his feet after all. That fellow will make a mint of money yet. What a pity that he should be such a rogue! If he were honest, honest enough I mean to be trusted, he might do anything.

'I shall leave this on Wednesday night, take the oaths on Thursday, and will see you in the evening. M'Carthy Desmond will at once move that I be put on the West Cork Committee, in place of Nogo, who won't act. My shares are all at present registered in Val's name. It will be well, however, to have them all transferred to you.

'Yours ever,

'U.S.

'M'Cleury has pledged himself to put me in again without further expense, if I have to stand before the next general election, in consequence of taking place under Government. I earnestly hope his sincerity may be tried.'

During the month of July, Alaric was busy enough. He had to do the work of his new office, to attend to his somewhat critical duties as director of the West Cork Railway, to look after the interests of Miss Golightly, whose marriage was to take place in August, and to watch the Parliamentary career of his friend Undy, with whose pecuniary affairs he was now bound up in a manner which he could not avoid feeling to be very perilous.

July passed by, and was now over, and members were looking to be relieved from their sultry labours, and to be allowed to seek air and exercise on the mountains. The Ballydehob branch line had received the sanction of Parliament through the means which the crafty Undy had so well understood how to use; but from some cause hitherto not sufficiently fathomed, the shares had continued to be depressed in value in spite of that desirable event. It was necessary, however, that calls should be paid up to the amount of L5 a share, and as Undy and Alaric held nearly a thousand shares between them, a large amount of money was required. This, however, was made to be forthcoming from Miss Golightly's fortune.

On the first of August that interesting young lady was married to the man—shall we say of her heart or of her feet? The marriage went off very nicely, but as we have already had one wedding, and as others may perhaps be before us, we cannot spare much time or many pages to describe how Miss Golightly became Madame Jaquetanape. The lady seemed well pleased with everything that was done, and had even in secret but one care in the world. There was to be a dance after she and her Victoire were gone, and she could not join in it!

We, however, are in the position, as regards Clementina, in which needy gentlemen not unfrequently place themselves with reference to rich heiresses. We have more concern with her money than herself. She was married, and M. Jaquetanape became the happy possessor of an income of L800 a year. Everybody conceived him to behave well on the occasion. He acknowledged that he had very little means of his own—about 4,000 francs a year, from rents in Paris. He expressed himself willing to agree to any settlement, thinking, perhaps with wisdom, that he might in this way best make sure of his wife's income, and was quite content when informed that he would receive his quarterly payments from so respectable a source as one of Her Majesty's Commissioners for the regulation of the Civil Service. The Bank of France could not have offered better security.

Thus Alaric obtained full control of Miss Golightly's fortune: for Figgs, his co-trustee, was, as has been said, a shadow. He obtained the full control of L20,000, and out of it he paid the calls due upon the West Cork shares, held both by himself and Undy Scott. But he put a salve upon his conscience, and among his private memoranda, appertaining to that lady's money affairs he made an entry, intelligible to any who might read it, that he had so invested this money on her behalf. The entry was in itself a lie—a foolish, palpable lie—and yet he found in it something to quiet remorse and stupefy his conscience.

Undy Scott had become tyrannical in his logic as soon as he had persuaded Alaric to make use of a portion of Madame Jaquetanape's marriage portion. 'You have taken part of the girl's money,' was Undy's argument; 'you have already converted to your own purposes so much of her fortune; it is absurd for you now to talk of conscience and honesty, of your high duties as a trustee, of the inviolable distinction between meum and tuum. You have already shown that the distinction is not inviolable; let us have no more such nonsense; there are still left L15,000 on which we can trade; open the till, and let us go on swimmingly with the business.'

Alaric was not addressed absolutely in these words; he would not probably have allowed the veil with which he still shrouded his dishonesty to be withdrawn with so rough a hand; but that which was said was in effect the same. In September he left town for a few weeks and went down to Scotland, still with Undy Scott. He had at first much liked this man's society, for Scott was gay, lively, clever, and a good companion at all points. But latterly he had become weary of him. He now put up with him as men in business have to put up with partners whom they may not like; or, perhaps, to speak the truth openly, he bore with him as a rogue bears with his confederate, though he absolutely hates his brother rogue on account of his very roguery. Alaric Tudor was now a rogue; despite his high office, his grand ideas, his exalted ambition; despite his talent, zeal, and well-directed official labours, he was a rogue; a thief, a villain who had stolen the money of the orphan, who had undertaken a trust merely that he might break it; a robber, doubly disgraced by being a robber with an education, a Bill Sykes without any of those excuses which a philanthropist cannot but make for wretches brought up in infamy.

Alas, alas! how is it that in these days such men become rogues? How is it that we see in such frightful instances the impotency of educated men to withstand the allurements of wealth? Men are not now more keen after the pleasures which wealth can buy than were their forefathers. One would rather say that they are less so. The rich labour now, and work with an assiduity that often puts to shame the sweat in which the poor man earns his bread. The rich rogue, or the rogue that would be rich, is always a laborious man. He allows himself but little recreation, for dishonest labour admits of no cessation. His wheel is one which cannot rest without disclosing the nature of the works which move it. It is not for pleasure that men

Put rancours in the vessel of their peace;

nor yet primarily for ambition. Men do not wish to rise by treachery, or to become great through dishonesty. The object, the ultimate object, which a man sets before himself, is generally a good one. But he sets it up in so enviable a point of view, his imagination makes it so richly desirable, by being gazed at it becomes so necessary to existence, that its attainment is imperative. The object is good, but the means of attaining it-the path to the object-ah! there is the slip. Expediency is the dangerous wind by which so many of us have wrecked our little boats.

And we do so more now than ever, because great ships, swimming in deepest waters, have unluckily come safe to haven though wafted there by the same pernicious wind. Every great man, who gains a great end by dishonest means, does more to deteriorate his country and lower the standard of his countrymen than legions of vulgar thieves, or nameless unaspiring rogues. Who has injured us so much in this way as he whose name still stands highest among modern politicians? Who has given so great a blow to political honesty, has done so much to banish from men's minds the idea of a life-ruling principle, as Sir Robert Peel?

It would shock many were we to attribute to him the roguery of the Sadleirs and Camerons, of the Robsons and Redpaths of the present day; but could we analyse causes and effects, we might perhaps do so with no injustice. He has taught us as a great lesson, that a man who has before him a mighty object may dispense with those old-fashioned rules of truth to his neighbours and honesty to his own principles, which should guide us in ordinary life. At what point ordinary life ends, at what crisis objects may be considered great enough to justify the use of a dispensing power, that he has not taught us; that no Sir Robert Peel can teach us; that must unfortunately be left to the judgement of the individual. How prone we are, each of us, to look on our own object as great, how ready to make excuses for receiving such a lesson for our guide; how willing to think that we may be allowed to use this dispensing power ourselves—this experience teaches us in very plain language.

Thrice in his political life did Sir Robert Peel change his political creed, and carry, or assist to carry, with more or less of self-gratulation, the measures of his adversaries. Thrice by doing so he kept to himself that political power which he had fairly forfeited by previous opposition to the requirements of his country. Such an apposition of circumstances is at any rate suspicious. But let us give him credit for the expression of a true belief; of a belief at first that the corn-laws should be maintained, and then of a belief that they should not; let us, with a forced confidence in his personal honesty, declare so much of him; nevertheless, he should surely have felt, had he been politically as well as personally honest, that he was not the man to repeal them.'

But it was necessary, his apologist will say, that the corn-laws should be repealed; he saw the necessity, and yielded to it. It certainly was necessary, very necessary, very unavoidable; absolutely necessary one may say; a fact, which the united efforts of all the Peels of the day could in nowise longer delay, having already delayed it to the utmost extent of their power. It was essential that the corn-laws should be repealed; but by no means essential that this should be done by Sir Robert Peel.

It was a matter of indifference to us Englishmen who did the deed. But to Sir Robert Peel it was a matter of great moment that he should do it. He did it, and posterity will point at him as a politician without policy, as a statesman without a principle, as a worshipper at the altar of expediency, to whom neither vows sworn to friends, nor declarations made to his country, were in any way binding. Had Sir Robert Peel lived, and did the people now resolutely desire that the Church of England should be abandoned, that Lords and Commons should bow the neck, that the Crown should fall, who can believe that Sir Robert Peel would not be ready to carry out their views? Readers, it may be that to you such deeds as those are horrible even to be thought of or expressed; to me I own that they are so. So also to Sir Robert Peel was Catholic Emancipation horrible, so was Reform of Parliament, so was the Corn Law Repeal. They were horrible to him, horrible to be thought of, horrible to be expressed. But the people required these measures, and therefore he carried them, arguing on their behalf with all the astuteness of a practised statesman.

That Sir Robert Peel should be a worshipper of expediency might be matter of small moment to any but his biographer, were it not that we are so prone to copy the example of those whose names are ever in our mouths. It has now become the doctrine of a large class of politicians that political honesty is unnecessary, slow, subversive of a man's interests, and incompatible with quick onward movement. Such a doctrine in politics is to be deplored; but alas! who can confine it to politics? It creeps with gradual, but still with sure and quick motion, into all the doings of our daily life. How shall the man who has taught himself that he may be false in the House of Commons, how shall he be true in the Treasury chambers? or if false there, how true on the Exchange? and if false there, how shall he longer have any truth within him?

And thus Alaric Tudor had become a rogue, and was obliged, as it were in his own defence, to consort with a rogue. He went down to Scotland with Undy, leaving his wife and child at home, not because he could thus best amuse his few leisure days, but because this new work of his, this laborious trade of roguery, allowed him no leisure days. When can villany have either days or hours of leisure?

Among other things to be done in the north, Alaric was to make acquaintance with the constituents of the little borough of Strathbogy, which it was his ambition to represent in the next Parliament. Strathbogy was on the confines of the Gaberlunzie property; and indeed the lord's eldest son, who was the present member, lived almost within the municipal boundary. Ca'stocks Cottage, as his residence was called, was but a humble house for a peer's eldest son; but Mr. Scott was not ashamed to live there, and there for a while he entertained his brother Undy and Alaric Tudor. Mr. Scott intended, when the present session was over, to retire from the labours of parliamentary life. It may be that he thought that he had done enough for his country; it may be that the men of Strathbogy thought that he had not done enough for them; it may be that there was some family understanding between him and his brother. This, however, was clear, that he did not intend to stand again himself, and that he professed himself ready to put forward Alaric Tudor as a worthy successor, and to give him the full benefit and weight of the Gaberlunzie interest.

But not for nothing was Alaric to receive such important assistance.

'There are but 312 electors altogether,' said Undy one morning as they went out shooting, 'and out of these we can command a hundred and twenty. It must be odd if you cannot get enough outsiders to turn them into a majority. Indeed you may look on it as a certain seat. No man in England or Scotland could give you one more certain.'

This was not the first occasion on which Undy had spoken of all that he was doing for his friend, and Alaric therefore, somewhat disgusted with the subject, made no reply.

'I never had things made so easy for me when I wasn't in,' continued Undy; 'nor have I ever found them so easy since. I don't suppose it will cost you above L500, or at most L600, altogether.'

'Well, that will be a comfort,' said Alaric.

'A comfort! why I should say it would. What with the election and petition together, Tillietudlem never cost me less than L2,000. It cost me just as much, too, when I was thrown out.'

'That was a bore for you,' said Alaric.

'Upon my word you take it rather coolly,' said Undy; 'another man would thank a fellow for putting such a nice thing in his way.'

'If the obligation be so deep,' said Alaric, becoming very red in the face, 'I would rather not accept it. It is not too late for you to take the cheaper seat to yourself, if you prefer it; and I will look elsewhere.'

'Oh, of course; perhaps at Tillietudlem; but for Heaven's sake, my dear fellow, don't let us quarrel about it. You are perfectly welcome to whatever assistance we can give you at Strathbogy. I only meant to say that I hope it will be efficacious. And on the score of expense I'll tell you what we'll do—that is, if you think that fair; we'll put the cost of the two elections together, and share and share alike.'

'Considering that the election will not take place for at least more than twelve months, there will be time enough to settle that,' said Alaric.

'Well, that's true, too,' said Undy; and then they went on, and for some time separated on the mountain, complaining, when they met again, of the game being scarce and the dogs wild, as men always do. But as they walked home, Undy, who regretted the loss of good time, again began about money matters.

'How many of those bridge shares will you take?' said he. This was a projected bridge from Poplar to Rotherhithe, which had been got up by some city gentlemen, and as to which Undy Scott was, or pretended to be, very sanguine.

'None,' said Alaric. 'Unless I can get rid of those confounded West Cork and Ballydehobs, I can buy nothing more of anything.'

'Believe me, my dear fellow, the Ballydehobs are no such confounded things at all. If you are ever a rich man it will be through the Ballydehobs. But what you say about the bridge shares is nonsense. You have a large command of capital, and you cannot apply it better.'

Alaric winced, and wished in his heart that Clementina Jaquetanape, nee Golightly, with all her money, was buried deep in the bogs of Ballydehob. Though he was a rogue, he could not yet bear his roguery with comfort to himself. It sat, however, as easy on Undy as though he had been to the manner born.

'I have no capital now at my disposal,' said he; 'and I doubt whether I should be doing right to lay out a ward's money in such a manner.'

A slight smile came over Undy's gay unconcerned features; it was very slight, but nevertheless it was very eloquent and very offensive also. Alaric understood it well; it made him hate the owner of it, but it made him hate himself still more.

'It is as well to be hung for a sheep as for a lamb,' said Undy's smile; 'and, moreover,' continued the smile, 'is it not ridiculous enough for you, Alaric Tudor, rogue as you are, to profess to me, Undy Scott, rogue as I am, any solicitude as to your ward's welfare, seeing that you have already taken to yourself, for your own dishonest purposes, a considerable slice of the fortune that has been trusted to your keeping? You have done this, and yet you talk to me of not having capital at your disposal! You have capital, and you will dispose of that capital for your own purposes, as long as a shilling remains uninvested of your ward's money. We are both rogues. God knows it, and you and I know it; but I am not such a hypocritical rogue as to make mock boasts of my honesty to my brother rogue.'

This was certainly a long speech to have been made by a smile which crossed Mr. Scott's face but for a moment, but every word of it was there expressed, and every word of it was there read. Alaric did not at all like being addressed so uncivilly. It seemed to tend but little to that 'Excelsior' for which his soul panted; but what could he do? how could he help himself? Was it not all true? could he contradict the smile? Alas! it was true; it was useless for him now to attempt even to combat such smiles. 'Excelsior,' indeed! his future course might now probably be called by some very different designation. Easy, very easy, is the slope of hell.

Before they had returned to Ca'stocks Cottage, Undy had succeeded in persuading his friend that the game must be played on—on and on, and out. If a man intends to make a fortune in the share- market he will never do it by being bold one day and timid the next. No turf betting-book can be made up safely except on consistent principles. Half-measures are always ruinous. In matters of speculation one attempt is made safe by another. No man, it is true, can calculate accurately what may be the upshot of a single venture; but a sharp fellow may calculate with a fair average of exactness what will be the aggregate upshot of many ventures. All mercantile fortunes have been made by the knowledge and understanding of this rule. If a man speculates but once and again, now and then, as it were, he must of course be a loser. He will be playing a game which he does not understand, and playing it against men who do understand it. Men who so play always lose. But he who speculates daily puts himself exactly in the reversed position. He plays a game which experience teaches him to play well, and he plays generally against men who have no such advantage. Of course he wins.

All these valuable lessons did Undy Scott teach to Alaric Tudor, and the result was that Alaric agreed to order—for self and partner—a considerable number of shares in the Limehouse Bridge Company. Easy, very easy, is the slope of hell.

And then in the evening, on this evening and other evenings, on all evenings, they talked over the prospects of the West Cork and Ballydehob branch, and of the Limehouse Bridge, which according to Undy's theory is destined to work quite a revolution in the East-end circles of the metropolis. Undy had noble ideas about this bridge. The shares at the present moment were greatly at a discount—so much the better, for they could be bought at a cheaper rate; and they were sure to rise to some very respectable figure as soon as Undy should have played out with reference to them the parliamentary game which he had in view.

And so from morning to morning, and from night to night, they talked over their unholy trade till the price of shares and the sounds of sums of money entered into Alaric's soul. And this, perhaps, is one of the greatest penalties to which men who embark in such trade are doomed, that they can never shake off the remembrance of their calculations; they can never drop the shop; they have no leisure, no ease; they can never throw themselves with loose limbs and vacant mind at large upon the world's green sward, and call children to come and play with them. At the Weights and Measures Alaric's hours of business had been from ten to five. In Undy's office they continued from one noon till the next, incessantly; even in his dreams he was working in the share market.

On his return to town Alaric found a letter from Captain Cuttwater, pressing very urgently for the repayment of his money. It had been lent on the express understanding that it was to be repaid when Parliament broke up. It was now the end of October, and Uncle Bat was becoming uneasy.

Alaric, when he received the letter, crushed it in his hand, and cursed the strictness of the man who had done so much for him. On the next day another slice was taken from the fortune of Madame Jaquetanape; and his money, with the interest, was remitted to Captain Cuttwater.



CHAPTER XXX

MRS. WOODWARD'S REQUEST

We will now go back for a while to Hampton. The author, for one, does so with pleasure. Though those who dwell there be not angels, yet it is better to live with the Woodwards and Harry Norman, with Uncle Bat, or even with the unfortunate Charley, than with such as Alaric and Undy Scott. The man who is ever looking after money is fitting company only for the devils, of whom, indeed, he is already one.

But Charley cannot any longer be called one of the Cottage circle. It was now the end of October, and since the day of his arrest, he had not yet been there. He had not been asked; nor would he go uninvited, as after what had passed at Hampton Court Bridge he surely might have done.

And consequently they were all unhappy. No one was more so than Charley. When the prospect of the happy evening with Norah had been so violently interrupted by his arrest, he had, among his other messages, sent word to the 'Cat and Whistle,' excusing his absence by a statement of the true cause. From that day to this of which we are now speaking he had seen neither Mrs. Davis nor her fair protegee.

Nor were they better contented at the Cottage. Mrs. Woodward was harassed by different feelings and different fears, which together made her very unhappy. Her Katie was still ill; not ill indeed so that she was forced to keep her bed and receive daily visits from pernicious doctors, but, nevertheless, so ill as to make a mother very anxious.

She had never been quite strong, quite herself, from the night of Mrs. Val's dance. The doctor who had attended her declared that her ducking in the river had given her cold: and that this, not having been duly checked, still hung about her. Then she had been taken to a physician in London, who poked her on the back and tapped her on the breast, listened to her lungs through a wooden pipe—such was the account which Katie gave herself when she returned home—and prescribed rum and milk and cod-liver oil, declaring, with an authoritative nod, that there was no organic disease—as yet.

'And what shall we do with her, doctor?' asked Mrs. Woodward.

'Go on with the rum and milk and cod-liver oil, you can't do better.'

'And the cough, doctor?'

'Why, if that doesn't go before the cold weather begins, you may as well take her to Torquay for the winter.'

Oh! consumption, thou scourge of England's beauty! how many mothers, gasping with ill-suppressed fears, have listened to such words as these—have listened and then hoped; listened again and hoped again with fainter hopes; have listened again, and then hoped no more!

But there was much on Mrs. Woodward's mind which she could not bring herself to tell to any doctor, but which still left in her breast an impression that she was perhaps keeping back the true cause of Katie's illness. Charley had not been at Hampton since his arrest, and it was manifest to all that Katie was therefore wretched.

'But why do you not ask him, mamma?' she had urged when her mother suggested that he stayed away because he did not like to show himself after what had occurred. 'What will he think of us? he that saved my life, mamma! Oh, mamma! you promised to forgive him. Do ask him. You know he will come if you ask him.'

Mrs. Woodward could not explain to her—could not explain to any one—why she did not invite him. Norman guessed it all, and Mrs. Woodward saw that he had done so; but still she could not talk to him of Katie's feelings, could not tell him that she feared her child was heart-laden with so sad a love. So Mrs. Woodward had no confidant in her sorrow, no counsel which she could seek to aid her own wavering judgement. It was prudent, she thought, that Katie and Charley should be kept apart. Prudent! was it not even imperative on her to save her child from such a fate? But then, when she saw the rosy cheek grow pale by degrees, as she watched the plump little arms grow gradually thin and wan, as those high spirits fell, and that voice which had ever been so frequent in the house and so clear,—when the sound of it became low and rare, then her heart would misgive her, and she would all but resolve to take the only step which she knew would bring a bright gleam on her child's face, and give a happy tone to her darling's voice.

During the earlier portion of these days, Katie had with eager constancy reiterated her request that Charley should be asked to Hampton; but of a sudden her prayers ceased. She spoke no more of Charley, asked no longer after his coming, ceased even to inquire frequently of his welfare. But yet, when his name was mentioned, she would open wide her bright eyes, would listen with all her ears, and show only too plainly to one who watched her as a mother only can watch, what were the thoughts which filled her heart.

'Linda,' she had said one night, as they sat in their room, preparing themselves for bed, 'Linda, why does not mamma invite Charley to come down to Hampton?'

'Oh! I don't know,' said Linda; who, however, if she did not know, was not far wrong in the guess she made. 'I suppose she thinks he'd be ashamed to show himself after having been in prison.'

'Ashamed! Why should he be ashamed after so long? Didn't you hear Harry say that the same thing often happens to young men? Is he never to come here again? Dear Linda, I know you know; do tell me.'

'Well, I'm sure I do not know, if that's not the reason.'

'Oh! Linda, dear Linda, yes, you do,' said Katie, throwing herself on her knees, resting her arms on her sister's lap, and looking up wistfully into her sister's face. Her long hair was streaming down her back; her white, naked feet peeped out from beneath her bedroom dress, and large tears glistened in her eyes. Who could have resisted the prayers of such a suppliant? Certainly not Linda, the soft-hearted Linda.

'Do tell me,' continued Katie, 'do tell me—I am sure you know; and, Linda, if it is wrong to ask mamma about it, I'll never, never ask her again. I know mamma is unhappy about it. If my asking is wrong, I'll not make her unhappy any more in that way.'

Linda, for a while, did not know what to answer. Her hesitating manner immediately revealed to Katie that there was a secret, and that her sister could tell it if she would.

'Oh! Linda, do tell me, do tell me, dear Linda; you ought to tell me for mamma's sake.'

At last, with much hesitation, Linda told her the whole tale.

'Perhaps mamma thinks that you are too fond of Charley.'

An instant light flashed across Katie's heart—across her heart, and brain, and senses. Not another word was necessary to explain to her the whole mystery, to tell the whole tale, to reveal to her the secret of her own love, of her mother's fears, and of his assumed unwillingness. She got up slowly from her knees, kissed her sister's cheek and neck, smiled at her so sweetly, so sadly, and then sitting on her old seat, began playing with her long hair, and gazing at vacancy.

'It is only what I guess, you know, Katie—you would make me tell you, but I am sure there is nothing in it.'

'Dear Linda,' said she, 'you are so good; I am so much obliged to you.'

After that Katie spoke no further of Charley. But it was evident to them all, that though she said nothing, she had not ceased to think of him. Nor did her cheek again become rosy, nor her arms round, nor her voice happy. She got weaker than ever, and poor Mrs. Woodward was overcome with sorrow.

Nor was this the only cause of grief at Surbiton Cottage. During the last few weeks a bitter estrangement had taken place between the Woodwards and the Tudors, Alaric Tudor, that is, and Gertrude. Two years had now passed since Norman had chosen to quarrel with Alaric, and during all that period the two had never spoken amicably together, though they had met on business very frequently; on all such occasions Alaric had been unperturbed and indifferent, whereas Norman had been gloomy, and had carried a hostile brow and angry eye. At their period of life, two years generally does much to quiet feelings of ill-will and pacify animosity; but Norman's feelings had by no means been quieted, nor his animosity pacified. He had loved Alaric with a close and manly love; now he hated him with a close and, I fear I may say, a manly hatred. Alaric had, as he thought, answered his love by treachery; and there was that in Norman's heart which would not allow him to forgive one who had been a traitor to him. He had that kind of selfishness so common to us, but of which we are so unconscious, which will not allow us to pardon a sin against our own amour propre. Alaric might have been forgiven, though he had taken his friend's money, distanced him in his office, though he had committed against him all offences which one friend can commit against another, all but this. Norman had been proud of his love, and yet ashamed of it—proud of loving such a girl as Gertrude, and ashamed of being known to be in love at all. He had confided his love to Alaric, and Alaric had robbed him of his love, and wounded both his pride and his shame.

Norman lacked the charity which should have been capable of forgiving even this. He now looked at all Alaric's doings through a different glass from that which he had used when Alaric had been dear to him. He saw, or thought that he saw, that his successful rival was false, ambitious, treacherous, and dishonest; he made no excuses for him, gave him no credit for his industry, accorded no admiration to his talent. He never spoke ill of Alaric Tudor, to others; but he fed his own heart with speaking and thinking ill of him to himself.

Of Gertrude he thought very differently. He had taught himself to disconnect her from the treachery of her husband—or rather her memory; for, from the day on which he had learnt that she was engaged to Alaric, he had never seen her. He still loved the remembrance of her. In his solitary walks with Mrs. Woodward he would still speak of her as he might of one in some distant clime, for whose welfare he was deeply interested. He had seen and caressed her baby at Hampton. She was still dear to him. Had Alaric been called to his long account, it would have been his dearest wish to have become at some future tune the husband of his widow.

To all these feelings on Norman's part Alaric was very indifferent; but their existence operated as a drawback on his wife's comfort, and, to a certain degree, on his own. Mrs. Woodward would not banish Norman from the Cottage, even for her daughter's sake, and it came by degrees to be understood that the Tudors, man and wife, should not go there unless they were aware that Norman was absent. Norman, on the other hand, did absent himself when it was understood that Alaric and Gertrude were coming; and thus the Woodwards kept up their intercourse with both.

But this was a bore. Alaric thought it most probable that Norman would marry one of the younger sisters, and he knew that family quarrels are uncomfortable and injudicious. When therefore he became a Civil Service Commissioner, and was thus removed from business intercourse with Norman, he conceived that it would be wise to arrange a reconciliation. He discussed the matter with Gertrude, and she, fully agreeing with him, undertook the task of making the proposal through her mother. This she did with all the kindness and delicacy of a woman. She desired her mother to tell Harry how much she had valued his friendship, how greatly she regretted the loss of it, how anxious her husband was to renew, if possible, their former terms of affection. Mrs. Woodward, by no means sanguine, undertook the commission. She undertook it, and utterly failed; and when Gertrude, in her disappointment, spoke bitterly of Norman's bitterness, both mother and sister, both Mrs. Woodward and Linda, took Norman's part.

'I wish it could be otherwise,' said Mrs. Woodward, 'I wish it for all our sakes; but he is a man not easily to be turned, and I cannot blame him. He has suffered very much.'

Gertrude became very red. Her mother's words contained a reproach against herself, tacit and unintended indeed, but not the less keenly felt.

'I am not aware that Mr. Norman has any cause of just complaint,' she said, 'against any one, unless it be himself. For the sake of charity and old associations we have wished that all ideas of injury should be forgiven and forgotten. If he chooses still to indulge his rancour, he must do so. I had taken him to be a better Christian.'

More words had sprung from these. Mrs. Woodward, who, in truth, loved Norman the better for the continuance of his sorrow, would not give up his part; and so the mother and child parted, and the two sisters parted, not quarrelling indeed, not absolutely with angry words, but in a tone of mind towards each other widely differing from that of former years. Mrs. Woodward had lost none of the love of the parent; but Gertrude had forgotten somewhat of the reverence of the child.

All this had added much to the grief created by Katie's illness.

And then of a sudden Katie became silent, as well as sad and ill —silent and sad, but so soft, so loving in her manner. Her gentle little caresses, the tender love ever lying in her eye, the constant pressure of her thin small hand, would all but break her mother's heart. Katie would sit beside her on the sofa in the drawing-room for hours; a book, taken up as an excuse, would be in her lap, and she would sit there gazing listlessly into the vacant daylight till the evening would come; and then, when the room was shaded and sombre, when the light of the fire merely served to make the objects indistinct, she would lean gently and by degrees upon her mother's bosom, would coax her mother's arm round her neck, and would thus creep as it were into her mother's heart of hearts. And then slow tears would trickle down her cheeks, very slow, one by one, till they would fall as telltales on her mother's hand.

'Katie, my darling Katie,' the mother would say.

'I'm only tired, mamma,' would be her answer. 'Don't move, mamma; pray don't move. I am so comfortable.'

And then at night she would put herself to rest close circled in Linda's arms. She would twist up her little feet, and lie so quiet there, that Linda would remain motionless that she might not disturb her Katie's sleep; but soon warm tears would be running on her bosom, and she would know that Katie was still thinking of her love.

Linda, among all her virtues, had not that of reticence, and her mother had soon learnt from her what had been said that night in their bedroom about Charley. But this violation of confidence, if it was a violation, was hardly necessary to make Mrs. Woodward aware of what was passing in her daughter's bosom. When Katie ceased to ask that Charley might be sent for, when she ceased to plead for his pardon and to praise his virtues, Mrs. Woodward knew well the cause of her silence. It was not that others suspected her love, but that she had learned to suspect it herself. It was not that she was ashamed of loving Charley, but that she felt at once that such love would distress her mother's heart.

As she sat there that night fingering her silken hair, she had asked herself whether in truth this man was master of her heart; she had probed her young bosom, which now, by a sudden growth, became quick with a woman's impulse, and she had owned to herself that she did love him. He was dearer to her, she found, than all in the world beside. Fondly as she loved her sister, sweet to her as were her mother's caresses, their love was not as precious to her as his might be. And then she remembered what he was, what was the manner of his life, what his character; how different he was from Alaric or Harry Norman; she remembered this, and knew that her love was an unhappy passion. Herself she would have sacrificed: prisoner as he had been, debtor as he was, drunkard, penniless, and a spendthrift, she would not have hesitated to take him for her guide through life, and have done what a woman might to guide him in return. But she would not sacrifice her mother. She saw now why Charley was not asked, and silently acquiesced in his banishment.

She was not yet quite seventeen. Not yet seventeen! the reader will say. She was still such a child, and yet arguing to herself about spendthrift debtors and self-sacrifice! All this bombast at sixteen and a half. No, my ungentle reader, not all this bombast at sixteen and a half. The bombast is mine. It is my fault if I cannot put into fitting language the thoughts which God put into her young heart. In her mind's soliloquy, Charley's vices were probably all summed up in the one word, unsteady. Why is he so unsteady? Why does he like these wicked things?' And then as regarded Mrs. Woodward, she did but make a resolve that not even for her love would she add to the unhappiness of that loving, tenderest mother. There was no bombast in Katie, either expressed or unexpressed.

After much consideration on the matter, Mrs. Woodward determined that she should ask Charley down to the Cottage. In the first place, she felt bitterly her apparent ingratitude to him. When last they had been together, the day after Katie's escape at the bridge, when his tale had just been read, she had told him, with the warmth of somewhat more than friendly affection, that henceforth they must be more than common friends. She had promised him her love, she had almost promised him the affection and care of a mother; and now how was she keeping her promise? He had fallen into misfortune, and she had immediately deserted him. Over and over again she said to herself that her first duty was to her own child; but even with this reflection, she could hardly reconcile herself to her neglect of him.

And then, moreover, she felt that it was impossible that all their friendship, all their mutual regard, should die away suddenly without any explanation. An attempt to bring about this would not cure Katie's love. If this were done, would not Katie always think of Charley's wrong?

And, lastly, it was quite clear that Katie had put a check on her own heart. A meeting now might be the reverse of dangerous. It would be well that Katie should use herself to be with him now again; well, at any rate, that she should see him once before their proposed journey to Torquay; for, alas, the journey to Torquay was now insisted on by the London physician—insisted on, although he opined with a nod, somewhat less authoritative than his former nod, that the young lady was touched by no organic disease.

'And then,' said Mrs. Woodward to herself, 'his heart is good, and I will speak openly to him.' And so Charley was again invited to the cottage. After some demurring between him and Norman, he accepted the invitation.

Mrs. Val's dance had taken place in June, and it was now late in October. Four months had intervened, and during that period Charley had seen none of the Woodwards. He had over and over again tried to convince himself that this was his own fault, and that he had no right to accuse Mrs. Woodward of ingratitude. But he was hardly successful. He did feel, in spite of himself, that he had been dropped because of the disgrace attaching to his arrest; that Mrs. Woodward had put him aside as being too bad to associate with her and her daughters; and that it was intended that henceforth they should be strangers.

He still had Katie's purse, and he made a sort of resolve that as long as he kept that in his possession, as long as he had that near his heart, he would not go near Norah Geraghty. This resolution he had kept; but though he did not go to the 'Cat and Whistle,' he frequented other places which were as discreditable, or more so. He paid many very fruitless visits to Mr. M'Ruen; contrived to run up a score with the proprietor of the dancing saloon in Holborn; and was as negligent as ever in the matter of the lock entries.

'It is no use now,' he would say to himself, when some aspirations for higher things came across his heart; 'it is too late now to go back. Those who once cared for me have thrown me over.' And then he would again think of Waterloo Bridge, and the Monument, and of what might be done for threepence or fourpence in a pistol gallery.

And then at last came the invitation to Hampton. He was once more to talk to Mrs. Woodward, and associate with Linda—to see Katie once more. When he had last left the house he had almost been as much at home as any one of the family; and now he was to return to it as a perfect stranger. As he travelled down with Norman by the railway, he could not help feeling that the journey was passing over too quickly. He was like a prisoner going to his doom. As he crossed the bridge, and remembered how Katie had looked when she lay struggling in the water, how he had been feted and caressed after pulling her out, he made a bitter contrast between his present position and that which he then enjoyed. Were it not for very shame, he would have found it in his heart to return to London.

And then in a moment they were at the Cottage door. The road had never been so short. Norman, who had not fathomed Charley's feelings, was happy and light-hearted—more so than was usual with him, for he was unaffectedly glad to witness Charley's return to Hampton. He rang sharply at the door, and when it was opened, walked with happy confidence into the drawing-room. Charley was bound to follow him, and there he found himself again in the presence of Mrs. Woodward and her daughters. Katie would fain have absented herself, but Mrs. Woodward knew that the first meeting could take place in no more favourable manner.

Mrs. Woodward bade him welcome with a collected voice, and assured, if not easy manner. She shook hands with him cordially, and said a few words as to her pleasure of seeing him again. Then he next took Linda's hand, and she too made a little speech, more awkwardly than her mother, saying something mal a propos about the very long time he had been away; and then she laughed with a little titter, trying to recover herself. And at last he came to Katie. There was no getting over it. She also stretched out her now thin hand, and Charley, as he touched it, perceived how altered she was. Katie looked up into his face, and tried to speak, but she could not articulate a word. She looked into his face, and then at Mrs. Woodward, as though imploring her mother's aid to tell her how to act or what to say; and then finding her power of utterance impeded by rising sobs, she dropped back again on her seat, and hid her face upon the arm of the sofa.

'Our Katie is not so well as when you last saw her—is she, Charley?' said Mrs. Woodward. 'She is very weak just now; but thank God she has, we believe, no dangerous symptoms about her. You have heard, perhaps, that we are going to Torquay for the winter?'

And so they went on talking. The ice was broken and the worst was over. They did not talk, it is true, as in former days; there was no confidence between them now, and each of them felt that there was none; but they nevertheless fell into a way of unembarrassed conversation, and were all tolerably at their ease.

And then they went to dinner, and Charley was called on to discuss Admiralty matters with Uncle Bat; and then he and Norman sat after dinner a little longer than usual; and then they had a short walk, during which Katie remained at home; but short as it was, it was quite long enough, for it was very dull; and then there was tea; and then more constrained conversation, in which Katie took no part whatever; and then Mrs. Woodward and the girls took their candles, and Charley went over to the inn on the other side of the road. Oh! how different was this from the former evenings at Surbiton Cottage.

Charley had made no plan for any special interview with Katie; had, indeed, not specially thought about it at all; but he could not but feel an intense desire to say one word to her in private, and learn whether all her solicitude for him was over. 'Dear Charley, you will be steady; won't you?' Those had been her last words to him. Nothing could have been sweeter; although they brought before his mind the remembrance of his own unworthy career, they had been inexpressibly sweet, as testifying the interest she felt in him. And was that all over now? Had it all been talked away by Mrs. Woodward's cautious wisdom, because he had lain for one night in a sponging-house?

But the next day came, and as it passed, it appeared to him that no opportunity of speaking one word to her was to be allowed to him.

She did not, however, shun him. She was not up at breakfast, but she sat next to him at lunch, and answered him when he spoke to her.

In the evening they again went out to walk, and then Charley found that Linda and Norman went one way, and that he was alone with Mrs. Woodward. It was manifest to him that this arrangement had been made on purpose, and he felt that he was to undergo some private conversation, the nature of which he dreaded. He dreaded it very much; when he heard it, it made him very wretched; but it was not the less full of womanly affection and regard for him.

'I cannot let you go from us, Charley,' began Mrs. Woodward, 'without telling you how deep a sorrow it has been to me to be so long without seeing you. I know you have thought me very ungrateful.'

'Ungrateful, Mrs. Woodward! 'O no! I have done nothing to make gratitude necessary.'

'Yes, Charley, you have—you have done much, too much. You have saved my child's life.'

'O no, I did not,' said he; 'besides, I hate gratitude. I don't want any one to be grateful to me. Gratitude is almost as offensive as pity. Of course I pulled Kate out of the water when she fell in; and I would have done as much for your favourite cat.' He said this with something of bitterness in his tone; it was not much, for though he felt bitterly he did not intend to show it; but Mrs. Woodward's ear did not fail to catch it.

'Don't be angry with us, Charley; don't make us more unhappy than we already are.'

'Unhappy!' said he, as though he thought that all the unhappiness in the world was at the present moment reserved for his own shoulders.

'Yes, we are not so happy now as we were when you were last with us. Poor Katie is very ill.'

'But you don't think there is any danger, Mrs. Woodward?'

There are many tones in which such a question may be asked—and is asked from day to day—all differing widely from each other, and giving evidence of various shades of feeling in the speaker. Charley involuntarily put his whole heart into it. Mrs. Woodward could not but love him for feeling for her child, though she would have given so much that the two might have been indifferent to each other.

'I do not know,' she said. 'We hope not. But I should not be sent with her to Torquay if she were not very ill. She is very ill, and it is absolutely essential that nothing should be allowed to excite her painfully. I tell you this, Charley, to excuse our apparent unkindness in not having you here sooner.'

Charley walked by her in silence. Why should his coming excite her more than Norman's? What could there be painful to her in seeing him? Did the fact of his having been arrested attach to his visit any peculiar probability of excitement?

'Do not suppose that we have not thought of you,' continued Mrs. Woodward.' We have all done so daily. Nay, I have done so myself all but hourly. Ah, Charley, you will never know how truly I love you.'

Charley's heart was as soft as it was inflammable. He was utterly unable to resist such tenderness as Mrs. Woodward showed to him. He had made a little resolution to be stiff and stern, to ask for no favour and to receive none, not to palliate his own conduct, or to allow Mrs. Woodward to condemn it. He had felt that as the Woodwards had given him up, they had no longer any right to criticize him. To them at least, one and all, to Mrs. Woodward and her daughters, his conduct had been sans reproche. They had no cause to upbraid him on their own account; and they had now abandoned the right to do so on his own. With such assumed sternness he began his walk; but now it had all melted before the warmth of one tender word from a woman's mouth.

'I know I am not worth thinking about,' said he.

'Do not say so; pray do not say so. Do not think that we say so to ourselves. I grieve for your faults. Charley; I know they are grievous and wicked; but I know how much there is of good in you. I know how clever you are, how excellent your heart is, how sweet your disposition. I trust, I trust in God, you may reform, and be the pride of your friends. I trust that I yet may be proud of knowing you——'

'No one will ever be proud of me,' said Charley.

'We shall all be proud of you, if you will resolve to turn away from childish things now that you are no longer a child—your faults are faults which as yet may be so easily relinquished. But, oh, Charley——' and then Mrs. Woodward paused and looked wistfully into his face. She had now come to the point at which she had to make her prayer to him. She had resolved to tell him the cause of her fears, and to trust to his honour to free her from them. Now was the moment for her to speak out; but now that the moment was come, the words were wanting.

She looked wistfully into his face, but he did not even guess what was her meaning. He knew the secret of his own love; but he did not know that Katie also had her secret. He had never dreamt that his faults, among all their ill effects, had paled her cheek, made wan her arm, silenced her voice, and dimmed her eye. When he had heard Katie cough, he had in nowise connected the hated sound with his own arrest. He had thought only of his own love.

'Oh! Charley—I know I can trust you,' said Mrs. Woodward. 'I know you are gentle and good. You will be gentle and good to us, will you not? you will not make us all wretched?'

Charley declared that he would not willingly do anything to cause pain to any of them.

'No—I am sure you will not. And therefore, Charley, you must not see Katie any more.'

At this time they had turned off the road into a shady lane, in which the leaves of autumn were beginning to fall. A path led over a stile away from the lane into the fields, and Mrs. Woodward had turned towards it, as though intending to continue their walk in that direction. But when she had reached the stile, she had sat down upon the steps of it, and Charley had been listening to her, standing by, leaning on the top rail.

'And therefore, Charley, you must not see Katie any more.' So much she said, and then she looked into his face with imploring eyes.

It was impossible that he should answer her at once. He had to realize so much that had hitherto not been expressed between them, before he could fully understand what she meant; and then he was called on to give up so much that he now learnt for the first time was within his reach! Before he could answer her he had to assure himself that Katie loved him; he had to understand that her love for one so abandoned was regarded as fatal; and he had to reply to a mother's prayer that he would remove himself from the reach of a passion which to him was worth all the world beside.

He turned his face away from her, but still stood leaning on the stile, with his arms folded on it. She watched him for a while in silence, and at last she saw big tears drop from his face on to the dust of the path on the farther side. There they came rolling down, large globules of sorrow. Nothing is so painful to a woman as a man in tears, and Mrs. Woodward's heart was wrung to its very core. Why was he not like Alaric or Norman, so that she might make him welcome to her daughter's heart?

She leant towards him and put her hand caressingly on his arm. 'It shall be so, shall it not, Charley?'

'Oh, of course, if you say so.'

'I have your word, then? If I have your word, that will be a perfect bond. I have your word, have I not, Charley?'

'What!—never see her in my life?' said he, turning almost fiercely on Mrs. Woodward.

'That, you know, is more than you can promise,' said she, very gently. 'It is not to the letter of the promise that I would bind you, but to its spirit. You understand well what I mean; you know what I wish, and why I wish it. Say that you will obey my wish, and I will leave the mode of doing it to your own honour. Have I your promise?'

He shook her hand off his arm almost roughly, though unintentionally, and turning sharply round leant with his back against the stile. The traces of tears were still on his cheeks, but he was no longer crying; there was, however, a look on his face of heart-rending sorrow which Mrs. Woodward could hardly endure.

'I do understand you,' said he, 'and since you demand it, I will promise;' and then they walked home side by side, without interchanging a single word.

When they reached the house, Mrs. Woodward went to her room, and Charley found himself alone with Katie.

'I hope you find yourself better this evening,' said he.

'Oh, I am quite well,' she answered, with her sweetest, kindest voice; 'I am quite well, only sometimes I am a little weak.'

He walked up to the window as though to pass on to the lawn; but the season was too far advanced for that, and the window was locked. He retraced his steps, therefore, and passing out of the drawing-room into the hall, stood at the open front door till he heard Mrs. Woodward come down. Then he followed her into the room.

'Good-bye,' he said to her suddenly; 'I shall start by the early train to-morrow, and shall not see you.' She pressed his hand, but he in nowise returned the pressure. 'Good-bye, Linda; good- bye, Katie; good night, Captain Cuttwater.' And so he went his way, as Adam did when he was driven out of Paradise.

Early on the following morning, the cook, while engaged in her most matutinal duties, was disturbed by a ring at the front door. She, and she only of the household, was up, and as she had not completed her toilet with much minuteness, she was rather embarrassed when, on opening the door, she saw Mr. Charles Tudor.

'I beg your pardon, cook, for troubling you so early; but I have left something in the drawing-room. I can find it myself;' and, so saying, he hurried into the room, so as to prevent the servant from following him.

Katie had a well-worn, well-known little workbox, which, in years now long past; had been given to her either by Alaric or Harry. Doubtless she had now work-boxes grander both in appearance and size; but, nevertheless, whether from habit or from choice, her custom was, in her daily needlework, to use this old friend. Often and often had Charley played with it many wicked pranks. Once, while Katie had as yet no pretension to be grown up, he had put a snail into it, and had incurred her severe displeasure. He had stuffed it full of acorns, and been rewarded by being pelted with them round the lawn; and had filled it with nuts, for which he had not found it so difficult to obtain pardon. He knew every hole and corner in it! he was intimate with all her little feminine nicknacks—her silver thimble, her scissors, her bit of wax, and the yard-measure, which twisted itself in and out of an ivory cottage—he knew them all, as well as though they were his own; and he knew also where the workbox stood.

He closed the door behind him, and then, with his quickest motion, raised the lid and put within the box, just under the bit of work on which she was employed, a light small paper parcel. It contained the purse which she had worked for him, and had given to him with such sweet affection at the Chiswick flower-show.



CHAPTER XXXI

HOW APOLLO SAVED THE NAVVY

About the middle of November, the Woodwards went to Torquay, and remained there till the following May. Norman went with them to see them properly settled in their new lodgings, and visited them at Christmas, and once again during their stay there. He then went down to fetch them home, and when they all returned, informed Charley, with whom he was still living, that he was engaged to Linda. It was arranged, he said, that they were to be married in August.

On the whole, the journey to Torquay was considered to have been successful. Katie's health had been the only object in going there, and the main consideration while they remained. She returned, if not well, at any rate not worse. She had got through the winter, and her lungs were still pronounced to be free from those dreadful signs of decay, the name of which has broken so many mothers' hearts, and sent dismay into the breasts of so many fathers. During her sojourn at Torquay she had grown much, and, as is often the case with those who grow quickly, she had become weak and thin. People at Torquay are always weak and thin, and Mrs. Woodward had not, therefore, been greatly frightened at this. Her spirits, though by no means such as they had been in former days, had improved, she had occupied herself more than she had done during the last two months at Hampton, and had, at least so Mrs. Woodward fondly flattered herself, ceased to be always thinking of Charley Tudor. It was quite clear that she had firmly made up her mind to some certain line of conduct with reference to him; she never mentioned his name, nor was it mentioned in her hearing by either her mother or sister during their stay at Torquay. When Norman came down, she always found some opportunity of inquiring from him as to Charley's health and welfare; but she did this in a manner which showed that she had succeeded in placing her feelings wonderfully under control.

On that Monday morning, on which Charley had returned to town after his early visit to her workbox, she had not failed to find the purse. Linda was with her when she did so, but she had contrived so to conceal her emotion, that nothing was seen and nothing suspected. She felt at once that it was intended that all intercourse should be broken off between them. She knew instinctively that this was the effect of some precaution on her mother's part, and with a sad bosom and a broken heart, she acquiesced in it. She said nothing, even to herself, of the truth and constancy of her love; she made no mental resolution against any other passion; she did not even think whether or not she might ever be tempted to love another; but she felt a dumb aching numbness about her heart; and, looking round about her, she seemed to feel that all was dark and dismal.

And so they sojourned through the winter at Torquay. The effort which Katie made was undoubtedly salutary to her. She took again to her work and her lessons—studies we should probably now call them—and before she left Torquay, she had again learned how to smile; but not to laugh with that gay ringing silver laughter, ringing, but yet not loud, which to Charley's ear had been as sweet as heavenly music. During this time Uncle Bat remained at Hampton, keeping bachelor's house by himself.

And then while they were at Torquay, Linda and Norman became engaged to each other. Their loves were honest, true, and happy; but not of a nature to give much scope to a novelist of a romantic turn. Linda knew she was not Norman's first love, and requited Norman, of course, by telling him something, not much, of Alaric's falseness to her. Norman made but one ungenerous stipulation. It was this: that in marrying him Linda must give up all acquaintance with her brother-in-law. He would never, he said, be the means of separating two sisters; she and Gertrude might have such intercourse together as their circumstances might render possible; but it was quite out of the question that either he, Harry Norman, or his wife, should ever again associate with Alaric Tudor.

In such matters Linda had always been guided by others; so she sighed and promised, and the engagement was duly ratified by all the parties concerned.

We must now return to Charley. When he got back to town, he felt that he had lost his amulet; his charm had gone from him, and he had nothing now left whereby to save himself from ruin and destruction. He was utterly flung over by the Woodwards; that now was to him an undoubted fact. When Mrs. Woodward told him that he was never again to see Katie, that was, of course, tantamount to turning him out of the Cottage. It might be all very well to talk to him of affection and friendship; but it was manifest that no further signs of either were to be shown to him. He had proved himself to be unworthy, and was no more to be considered as one of the circle which made the drawing-room at Surbiton Cottage its centre. He could not quite explain all this to Norman, as he could not tell him what had passed between him and Mrs. Woodward; but he said enough to make his friend know that he intended to go to Hampton no more.

It would be wrong, perhaps, to describe Charley as being angry with Mrs. Woodward. He knew that she was only doing her duty by her child; he knew that she was actuated by the purest and best of motives; he was not able to say a word against her even to himself; but, nevertheless, he desired to be revenged on her—not by injuring her, not by injuring Katie—but by injuring himself. He would make Mrs. Woodward feel what she had done, by rushing, himself, on his own ruin. He would return to the 'Cat and Whistle'—he would keep his promise and marry Norah Geraghty—he would go utterly to destruction, and then Mrs. Woodward would know and feel what she had done in banishing him from her daughter's presence!

Having arrived at this magnanimous resolution after a fortnight's doubt and misery, he proceeded to put his purpose into execution. It was now some considerable time since he had been at the 'Cat and Whistle;' he had had no further visit from Mrs. Davis, but he had received one or two notes both from her and Norah, to which, as long as he had Katie's purse, he was resolute in not replying; messages also had reached him from the landlady through Dick Scatterall, in the last of which he was reminded that there was a trifle due at the bar, and another trifle for money lent.

One night, having lashed himself up to a fit state of wretched desperation, he found himself at the well-known corner of the street leading out of the Strand. On his journey thither he had been trying to realize to himself what it would be to be the husband of Norah Geraghty; what would be the joy of returning to a small house in some dingy suburb and finding her to receive him. Could he really love her when she would be bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh, the wife of his bosom and the mother of his children? In such a case would he ever be able to forget that he had known Katie Woodward? Would those words of hers ever ring in his ears, then as now—'You will be steady, dear Charley; won't you?'

There are those who boast that a gentleman must always be a gentleman; that a man, let him marry whom he will, raises or degrades his wife to the level of his own condition, and that King Cophetua could share his throne with a beggar-woman without sullying its splendour or diminishing its glory. How a king may fare in such a condition, the author, knowing little of kings, will not pretend to say; nor yet will he offer an opinion whether a lowly match be fatally injurious to a marquess, duke, or earl; but this he will be bold to affirm, that a man from the ordinary ranks of the upper classes, who has had the nurture of a gentleman, prepares for himself a hell on earth in taking a wife from any rank much below his own—a hell on earth, and, alas! too often another hell elsewhere also. He must either leave her or loathe her. She may be endowed with all those moral virtues which should adorn all women, and which, thank God, are common to women in this country; but he will have to endure habits, manners, and ideas, which the close contiguity of married life will force upon his disgusted palate, and which must banish all love. Man by instinct desires in his wife something softer, sweeter, more refined than himself; and though in failing to obtain this, the fault may be all his own, he will not on that account the more easily reconcile himself to the want.

Charley knew that he was preparing such misery for himself. As he went along, determined to commit a moral suicide by allying himself to the barmaid, he constrained himself to look with his mind's eye 'upon this picture and on that.'

He had felt of what nature was the sort of love with which Katie Woodward had inspired his heart; and he felt also what was that other sort of love to which the charms of Norah Geraghty had given birth.

Norah was a fine girl, smart enough in her outward apparel, but apt occasionally to disclose uncomfortable secrets, if from any accident more than her outward apparel might momentarily become visible. When dressed up for a Sunday excursion she had her attractions, and even on ordinary evenings, a young man such as Charley, after imbibing two or three glasses of spirits and water, and smoking two or three cigars, might find her to be what some of her friends would have called 'very good company.' As to her mind, had Charley been asked about it, he would probably have said that he was ignorant whether she had any; but this he did know, that she was sharp and quick, alert in counting change, and gifted with a peculiar power of detecting bad coin by the touch. Such was Norah Geraghty, whom Charley was to marry.

And then that other portrait was limned with equal accuracy before his eyes. Katie, with all her juvenile spirit, was delightfully feminine; every motion of hers was easy, and every form into which she could twist her young limbs was graceful. She had all the nice ideas and ways which a girl acquires when she grows from childhood to woman's stature, under the eye of a mother who is a lady. Katie could be untidy on occasions; but her very untidiness was inviting. All her belongings were nice; she had no hidden secrets, the chance revealing of which would disgrace her. She might come in from her island palaces in a guise which would call down some would-be-censorious exclamation from her mother; but all others but her mother would declare that Katie in such moments was more lovely than ever. And Katie's beauty pleased more than the eye—it came home to the mind and heart of those who saw her. It spoke at once to the intelligence, and required, for its full appreciation, an exercise of the mental faculties, as well as animal senses. If the owner of that outward form were bad or vile, one would be inclined to say that Nature must have lied when she endowed her with so fair an index. Such was Katie Woodward, whom Charley was not to marry.

As he turned down Norfolk Street, he thought of all this, as the gambler, sitting with his razor before him with which he intends to cut his throat, may be supposed to think of the stakes which he has failed to win, and the fortune he has failed to make. Norah Geraghty was Charley's razor, and he plunged boldly into the 'Cat and Whistle,' determined to draw it at once across his weasand, and sever himself for ever from all that is valuable in the world.

It was now about eleven o'clock, at which hour the 'Cat and Whistle' generally does its most stirring trade. This Charley knew; but he also knew that the little back parlour, even if there should be an inmate in it at the time of his going in, would soon be made private for his purposes.

When he went in, Mrs. Davis was standing behind the counter, dressed in a cap of wonderful grandeur, and a red tabinet gown, which rustled among the pots and jars, sticking out from her to a tremendous width, inflated by its own magnificence and a substratum of crinoline. Charley had never before seen her arrayed in such royal robes. Her accustomed maid was waiting as usual on the guests, and another girl also was assisting; but Norah did not appear to Charley's first impatient glance.

He at once saw that something wonderful was going on. The front parlour was quite full, and the ministering angel was going in and out quickly, with more generous supplies of the gifts of Bacchus than were usual at the 'Cat and Whistle.' Gin and water was the ordinary tipple in the front parlour; and any one of its denizens inclined to cut a dash above his neighbours generally did so with a bottom of brandy. But now Mrs. Davis was mixing port-wine negus as fast as her hands could make it.

And then there were standing round the counter four or five customers, faces well known to Charley, all of whom seemed to be dressed with a splendour second only to that of the landlady. One man had on an almost new brown frock coat with a black velvet collar, and white trousers. Two had blue swallow-tailed coats with brass buttons; and a fourth, a dashing young lawyer's clerk from Clement's Inn, was absolutely stirring a mixture, which he called a mint julep, with a yellow kid glove dangling out of his hand.

They all stood back when Charley entered; they had been accustomed to make way for him in former days, and though he had latterly ceased to rule at the 'Cat and Whistle' as he once did, they were too generous to trample on fallen greatness. He gave his hand to Mrs. Davis across the counter, and asked her in the most unconcerned voice which he could assume what was in the wind. She tittered and laughed, told him he had come too late for the fun, and then retreated into the little back parlour, whither he followed her. She was at any rate in a good humour, and seemed quite inclined to forgive his rather uncivil treatment of her notes and messages.

In the back parlour Charley found more people drinking, and among them three ladies of Mrs. Davis's acquaintance. They were all very fine in their apparel, and very comfortable as to their immediate employment, for each had before her a glass of hot tipple. One of them, a florid-faced dame about fifty, Charley had seen before, and knew to be the wife of a pork butcher and sausage maker in the neighbourhood. Directly he entered the room, Mrs. Davis formally introduced him to them all. 'A very particular friend of mine, Mrs. Allchops; and of Norah's too, I can assure you,' said Mrs. Davis.

'Ah, Mr. Tudor, and how be you? A sight of you is good for sore eyes,' said she of the sausages, rising with some difficulty from her chair, and grasping Charley's hand with all the pleasant cordiality of old friendship.

'The gen'leman seems to be a little too late for the fair,' said a severe lodging-house keeper from Cecil Street.

'Them as wills not, when they may, When they wills they shall have nay,'

said a sarcastic rival barmaid from a neighbouring public, to whom all Norah's wrongs and all Mr. Tudor's false promises were fully known.

Charley was not the fellow to allow himself to be put down, even by feminine raillery; so he plucked up his spirit, sad as he was at heart, and replied to them all en masse.

'Well, ladies, what's in the wind now? You seem to be very cosy here, all of you; suppose you allow me to join you.'

'With a 'eart and a 'alf,' said Mrs. Allchops, squeezing her corpulence up to the end of the horsehair sofa, so as to make room for him between herself and the poetic barmaid. 'I'd sooner have a gentleman next to me nor a lady hany day of the week; so come and sit down, my birdie.'

But Charley, as he was about to accept the invitation of his friend Mrs. Allchops, caught Mrs. Davis's eye, and followed her out of the room into the passage. 'Step up to the landing, Mr. Tudor,' said she; and Charley stepped up. 'Come in here, Mr. Tudor—you won't mind my bedroom for once.' And Charley followed her in, not minding her bedroom.

'Of course you know what has happened, Mr. Tudor?' said she.

'Devil a bit,' said Charley.

'Laws, now—don't you indeed? Well, that is odd.'

'How the deuce should I know? Where's Norah?'

'Why—she's at Gravesend.'

'At Gravesend—you don't mean to say she's——'

'I just do then; she's just gone and got herself spliced to Peppermint this morning. They had the banns said these last three Sundays; and this morning they was at St. Martin's at eight o'clock, and has been here junketing ever since, and now they're away to Gravesend.'

'Gravesend!' said Charley, struck by the suddenness of his rescue, as the gambler would have been had some stranger seized the razor at the moment when it was lifted to his throat.

'Yes, Gravesend,' said Mrs. Davis; 'and they'll come up home to his own house by the first boat to-morrow.'

'So Norah's married!' said Charley, with a slight access of sentimental softness in his voice.

'She's been and done it now, Mr. Tudor, and no mistake; and it's better so, ain't it? Why, Lord love you, she'd never have done for you, you know; and she's the very article for such a man as Peppermint.'

There was something good-natured in this, and so Charley felt it. As long as Mrs. Davis could do anything to assist her cousin's views, by endeavouring to seduce or persuade her favourite lover into a marriage, she left no stone unturned, working on her cousin's behalf. But now, now that all those hopes were over, now that Norah had consented to sacrifice love to prudence, why should Mrs. Davis quarrel with an old friend any longer?—why should not things be made pleasant to him as to the others?

'And now, Mr. Tudor, come down, and drink a glass to their healths, and wish 'em both well, and don't mind what them women says to you. You're well out of a mess; and now it's all over, I'm glad it is as it is.'

Charley went down and took his glass and drank 'prosperity to the bride and bridegroom.' The sarcastic rival barmaid said little snappish things to him, offered him a bit of green ribbon, and told him that if he 'minded hisself,' somebody might, perhaps, take him yet. But Charley was proof against this.

He sat there about half an hour, and then went his way, shaking hands with all the ladies and bowing to the gentlemen. On the following day, as soon as he left his office, he called at the 'Cat and Whistle,' and paid his little bill there, and said his last farewell to Mrs. Davis. He never visited the house again. Now that Norah was gone the attractions were not powerful. Reader, you and I will at the same time say our farewells to Mrs. Davis, to Mr. Peppermint also, and to his bride. If thou art an elegant reader, unaccustomed to the contamination of pipes and glasses, I owe thee an apology in that thou hast been caused to linger a while among things so unsavoury. But if thou art one who of thine own will hast taken thine ease in thine inn, hast enjoyed the freedom of a sanded parlour, hast known 'that ginger is hot in the mouth,' and made thyself light-hearted with a yard of clay, then thou wilt confess there are worse establishments than the 'Cat and Whistle,' less generous landladies than Mrs. Davis.

When all this happened the Woodwards had not been long at Torquay. Mr. Peppermint was made a happy man before Christmas; and therefore Charley was left to drift before the wind without the ballast of any lady's love to keep him in sailing trim. Poor fellow! he had had wealth on one side, beauty and love on another, and on the third all those useful qualities which Miss Geraghty has been described as possessing. He had been thus surrounded by feminine attractions, and had lost them all. Two of those, from whom he had to choose, had married others, and he was banished from the presence of the third. Under such circumstances what could he do but drift about the gulfs and straits of the London ocean without compass or rudder, and bruise his timbers against all the sunken rocks that might come in his way?

And then Norman told him of his coming marriage, and Charley was more sad than ever. And thus matters went on with him till the period at which our story will be resumed at the return of the Woodwards to Hampton.

In the meantime another winter and another spring had passed over Alaric's head, and now the full tide of the London season found him still rising, and receiving every day more of the world's homage. Sir Gregory Hardlines had had every reason to praise his own judgement in selecting Mr. Tudor for the vacant seat among the Magi.

From that moment all had gone smooth with Sir Gregory; there was no one to interfere with his hobby, or run counter to his opinion. Alaric was all that was conciliatory and amiable in a colleague. He was not submissive and cringing; and had he been so, Sir Gregory, to do him justice, would have been disgusted; but neither was he self-opinionated nor obstinate like Mr. Jobbles. He insisted on introducing no crotchets of his own, and allowed Sir Gregory all the credit of the Commission.